The Great Collapse revealed no new wonders, though the cargo-carrying _Deutschland_, converted into a ‘front submarine’ and mounting 5.9–in. guns, was a sight for the gods as she lay floating on the bosom of old Father Thames. Another former commercial cruiser, U 139, had just returned to the Fatherland after a voyage of sixty-four days with a company of ninety-one, fifteen of whom were specially detailed for manning prizes. One ugly brute, believed to have been responsible for the sinking of 47,000 tons of shipping, carried forty-two mines and twenty-two torpedoes. Perhaps the most interesting discovery was a cat-o’-nine-tails stained with blood, extracted from under the bunk of a certain U-boat commander. Two sailors were so enamoured of their own country that they had to be persuaded to go on board the transport at the point of a revolver. One commander, in handing over his signed declaration, was good enough to remark, “We shall be coming over again for them soon.” Another officer explained that his periscope was missing and his compass gave an incorrect reading because a steamer had ‘sat’ on his boat, while a British Lieutenant-Commander had the satisfaction of piloting a submarine he had once attacked in German waters. Another boat was brand-new from the shipbuilding yard. Nearly all were camouflaged. The majority of the submarines surrendered were certainly not of the cruiser type, about which one heard so much during the war, although in the first batch to reach Harwich was a monster 340 ft. long, with a displacement of 2300 tons and accommodation for a crew of seventy. The remainder were mostly of 800 tons displacement, 225 ft. long, and 22 ft. beam. It has taken ten centuries to make the British Navy; it took four and a quarter years for the Senior Service to secure the surrender of its most formidable rival in the greatest Sea Conquest of all time. ----- Footnote 1: Now Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald H. S. Bacon, K.C.B., K.C.V.O., D.S.O. Footnote 2: Reply of Mr Bonar Law to Mr G. Lambert and Commander Bellairs in the House of Commons, 5th March, 1918. Footnote 3: Fulton’s report, 9th September, 1801. Footnote 4: Readers who wish for further details of Fulton will find them in _Robert Fulton, Engineer and Artist, his Life and Works_, by H. W. Dickinson, A.M.I.Mech.E. (London, 1913), and other documentary evidence in _Projets et Tentatives de débarquement aux Iles Britanniques_, by Édouard Desbrière (Paris, 1902), vol. ii, pp. 255–259, 279–280. Footnote 5: Speech of 27th April, 1917. Footnote 6: In this connexion see particularly Chapter X. Footnote 7: Proclamation of 5th February, 1915. Footnote 8: Note to the German Minister in Mexico, dated Berlin, 19th January, 1917. Footnote 9: Speech in the House of Lords, 10th August, 1917. Footnote 10: Dated 1st March, 1915. Footnote 11: Sir Edward Grey to Mr Page, 15th March, 1915. Footnote 12: