(4) In view of the above, I agree that Fox should remain with the Indian convoy and that _Dartmouth_ should take the three transports to Mombassa, afterwards hunting _Königsberg_. (5) The whole of this should be co-ordinated and worked out into a regular time-table of sailings, to which the military must adhere, sending more or less transports, according to their convenience. It must be clearly understood that no intermediate sailings are possible. W. S. C. The position in the Pacific was also complicated. When I went to the Admiralty at the end of 1911, arrangements were made to form the China squadron of the _Defence_, the _Minotaur_, and an armoured cruiser of the County class. These two first-named ships were in themselves a very satisfactory disposition against the powerful German armoured cruisers, _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_. They were approximately equal to the Germans in modernity, size and speed, but of heavier metal, firing a broadside of 2,520 pounds as against 1,725 pounds of their rivals. But as time passed and the pressure upon us grew more severe, we had in 1913 to bring one of these ships (_Defence_) back to the Mediterranean. In order to fill the gap with the least possible inroad upon our home strength, Prince Louis being First Sea Lord, we devised a frugal scheme by which the _Triumph_—one of the two battleships which had been built for and bought from Chili to prevent their falling into Russian hands at the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War—was made to serve as a depot ship manned on mobilisation from the crews of the river gunboats on the Yangtse and the West River. Her sister (the _Swiftsure_) shortly afterwards became the flagship in the East Indies. These two ships had the good speed for battleships of their date of 20·1 knots. They carried four 10–inch and no less than fourteen 7·5–inch guns. They were not heavily armoured, and according to our ideas they were a compromise between the battleship and the armoured cruiser. Differing in conception at many points from the standard types of the Royal Navy, these vessels did not fit homogeneously into any of our battle squadrons, and were conveniently employed on special duties. Without the _Triumph_ Admiral Jerram’s squadron (_Minotaur_ and _Hampshire_ with the light cruiser _Yarmouth_) would on the outbreak of war have had little or no margin, though the _Minotaur_ was the strongest of all our armoured cruisers. But once the _Triumph_ was mobilised, our superiority, except in speed, was overwhelming, and we could afford to see how greater matters went at home before deciding whether to reinforce the China station or not.