"Sure an' it's our own byes comin' back to us," an Irish woman remarked, as she delightedly observed the unmistakably Gaelic countenances of a considerable proportion of the crew. Indeed the natives of Queenstown seemed to regard these American blue-jackets almost as their own. The welcome provided by these people was not of a formal kind; they gathered spontaneously to cheer and to admire. In that part of Ireland there was probably not a family that did not have relatives or associations in the United States, and there was scarcely a home that did not possess some memento of America. The beautiful Queenstown Roman Catholic Cathedral, which stood out so conspicuously, had been built very largely with American dollars, and the prosperity of many a local family had the same trans-Atlantic origin. It was hardly surprising, therefore, that when our sailors landed for a few hours' liberty many hands were stretched out to welcome them. Their friends took them arm in arm, marched them to their homes, and entertained them with food and drink, all the time plying them with questions about friends and relatives in America. Most of these young Americans with Irish ancestry had never seen Ireland, but that did not prevent the warm-hearted people of Queenstown from hailing them as their own. This cordiality was appreciated, for the trip across the Atlantic had been very severe, with gales and rainstorms nearly every day. The senior officer in charge was Commander Joseph K. Taussig, whose flagship was the _Wadsworth_. The other vessels of the division and their commanding officers were the _Conyngham_, Commander Alfred W. Johnson; the _Porter_, Lieutenant-Commander Ward K. Wortman; the _McDougal_, Lieutenant-Commander Arther P. Fairfield; the _Davis_, Lieutenant-Commander Rufus F. Zogbaum; and the _Wainwright_, Lieutenant-Commander Fred H. Poteet. On the outbreak of hostilities these vessels, comprising our Eighth Destroyer Division, had been stationed at Base 2, in the York River, Virginia; at 7 P.M. of April 6th, the day that Congress declared war on Germany, their commander had received the following signal from the _Pennsylvania_, the flagship of the Atlantic Fleet: "Mobilize for war in accordance with Department's confidential mobilization plan of March 21st." From that time events moved rapidly for the Eighth Division. On April 14th, the very day on which I sent my first report on submarine conditions to Washington, Commander Taussig received a message to take his flotilla to Boston and there fit out for "long and distant service." Ten days afterward he sailed, with instructions to go fifty miles due east of Cape Cod and there to open his sealed orders. At the indicated spot Commander Taussig broke the seal, and read the following document--a paper so important in history, marking as it does the first instructions any American naval or army officer had received for engaging directly in hostilities with Germany, that it is worth quoting in full: