Doubtless you saved England at the Falkland Islands.
Doubtless you prepared our Fleet for this war! (Nothing to boast of! You the clay in the hands of the Potter!) And it seems likely that some Joshua will reap what you have sown! Yet history will put it right.
“O lonely grave in Moab’s land! O dark Beth-Peor’s hill!
Speak to these curious hearts of ours and teach them to be still!”
Ever faithfully yours,
(Signed) J. Moresby.
FOOTNOTES
[1] “This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark.”—Phil. iii. 13, 14.
[2] Sir Julian Corbett, the author of the wonderful “Seven Years’ War,” wrote to me in past vituperative years as follows:
“Yesterday I was asked if it were really true that you (Sir John Fisher) had sold the country to Germany! I was able to assure the questioner that the report was at least exaggerated. It is often my fortune to be able to quiet minds that have been seriously disturbed by the unprecedented slanders that have been the reward of your unprecedented work.”
[3] See [letters] at end of this chapter.
[4] On hearing of von Tirpitz’s dismissal I perpetrated the following letter, which a newspaper contrived to print in one of its editions. I can’t say why, but it didn’t appear any more, nor was it copied by any other paper!