eed," has to be kept in mind. To stop off at a wayside
port, to diverge even considerably from the shortest route, may often
be a real economy of time.

The office of cruisers thus employed is to substitute certainty for
conjecture; to correct or to confirm, by fuller knowledge, the
inferences upon which the conduct of operations otherwise so much
depends. Accurate intelligence is one of the very first _desiderata_
of war, and as the means of obtaining and transmitting it are never in
excess of the necessities, those means have to be carefully
administered. Historically, no navy ever has had cruisers enough;
partly because the lookout and despatch duties themselves are so
extensive and onerous; partly because vessels of the class are wanted
for other purposes also,--as, for instance, in our late war, for the
blockade of the Cuban ports, which was never much more than
technically "effective," and for the patrolling of our Atlantic
seaboard. True economical use of the disposable vessels, obtaining the
largest results with the least expenditure of means never adequate,
demands much forethought and more management, and is best effected by
so arranging that the individual cruisers can be quickly got hold of
when wanted. This is accomplished by requiring them to call at cable
ports and report; or by circumscribing the area in which they are to
cruise, so that they can be readily found; or by prescribing the
course and speed they are to observe,--in short, by ensuring a pretty
close knowledge of their position at every moment.

For the purposes of intelligence, a cruiser with a roving commission,
or one which neglects to report its movements when opportunity offers,
is nearly useless; and few things are more justly exasperating than
the failure of a cruiser to realize this truth in practice. Of course,
no rule is hard and fast to bind the high discretion of the officer
senior on the spot; but if the captains of cruisers will bear in mind,
as a primary principle, that they, their admirals, and the central
office, are in this respect parts of one highly specialized and most
important system in which co-operation must be observed, discretion
will more rarely err in these matters, where errors may be so serious.
That with a central office, admirals, and captains, all seeking the
same ends, matters will at times work at cross purposes, only proves
the common experience that things will not always go straight here
below. When Nels