THE DEPARTURE FROM BALTIMORE Above the description of our return voyage I should like to put as a motto what the London _Morning Post_ of 18th July wrote regarding the attitude of the English Government towards the "Deutschland." "The 'Deutschland,' in view of her peculiar U-Boat qualities, will be considered as a war vessel, and be treated as such. "The warships of the Allies will therefore make every effort to discover the boat outside American territorial waters, and to sink her without warning." Thus ran a cablegram which reached America from London on the 19th July. Thus we ourselves read it in a copy of the _Morning Post_ which was sent to us at the end of July. There was at least one advantage, that we knew exactly what we had to expect. Never has the English point of view been so displayed in all its brutality. We had no torpedo tubes, no guns on board, not the smallest means of attack. We had not even weapons of defence which are always allowed on every English merchant ship. The most powerful of the neutral states had moreover openly recognised the "Deutschland" as a mere trading vessel, and yet we were to be sunk without warning! We knew, therefore, what lay before us. It was already known that eight enemy warships with patrol boats and nets were waiting in front of Chesapeake Bay in order to attack us directly we quitted American territorial waters, and to blow us up like blind fish, with mines. Foresight was therefore urgently impelled on us, and our only course was, with true U-Boat craftiness, to slip through somehow. We remembered, moreover, how we had already once succeeded in getting the best of the English and French efforts. Our running of the English blockade in Europe had certainly been by no means a smooth pleasure trip. Nothing had caused us greater amusement than the news of the delightful announcement made by Captain Gaunt of the English consulate in New York when the first rumour was heard of the voyage of a U-Boat to America. His reassuring words to the English public were: "It is impossible to send a U-Boat to America. And even if the Germans did send one we should soon catch her. A big submarine leaves a track of oil and machine dirt on the surface of the waters in her wake. Our fast cruisers would be able to follow these tracks and catch the boat for a dead certainty." Captain Gaunt is the expert on affairs of navigation at the Consulate, and ought to know. All we had to do, therefore, was to see to it that their second "catch" was as much of a "dead certainty" as the first. At last the 1st of August arrived. We had taken a hearty leave everywhere, completed all formalities with the authorities, and were ready for sea and for our rendezvous with the gentlemen in front of the bay.