1904.
July 28th.
... We have a new scheme for a reorganisation of the whole Admiralty and have got the Order in Council for it! The new scheme gives the First Sea Lord nothing to do, except think and send for Idlers! It also resuscitates the old titles of Sea Lords dating from A.D. 1613, but which some silly ass 100 years ago altered to Naval Lords.
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1904.
August 17th.
... I have got 60 sheets of foolscap written with all the new Naval proposals and am pretty well prepared for the fray on October 21st.
[Sir John Fisher became First Sea Lord of the Admiralty on October 21st (Trafalgar Day), 1904; and the correspondence is scanty between that date and the autumn of 1907.]
1907.
Sept 12th.
... I really can’t understand Mr. Buckle giving —— his head in this way in the columns of The Times! but I suppose it “catches on” and makes the flesh creep of the “old women of both sexes” (as Lord St. Vincent called the “Invasion lot” in his day!) and his memorable saying so infinitely more true now than then. When asked his opinion of the possibility of an invasion, he replied “that if considered as a purely military operation he was loth to offer an opinion but he certainly could positively state it could never take place by sea!”
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1907.
Oct. 7th. Molveno.