omplications with a Sea Power like England. Posterity will
one day read the exact terms of the telegram--now in the
archives of Windsor Castle--in which I informed the
Sovereign of England of the answer I had returned to the
Powers which then sought to compass her fall. Englishmen who
now insult me by doubting my word should know what were my
actions in the hour of their adversity.

"Nor was that all. Just at the time of your Black Week, in
the December of 1899, when disasters followed one another in
rapid succession, I received a letter from Queen Victoria,
my revered grandmother, written in sorrow and affliction,
and bearing manifest traces of the anxieties which were
preying upon her mind and health. I at once returned a
sympathetic reply. Nay, I did more. I bade one of my
officers procure for me as exact an account as he could
obtain of the number of combatants in South Africa on both
sides, and of the actual position of the opposing forces.
With the figures before me, I worked out what I considered
to be the best plan of campaign under the circumstances, and
submitted it to my General Staff for their criticism. Then I
dispatched it to England, and that document, likewise, is
among the State papers at Windsor Castle, awaiting the
serenely impartial verdict of history. And, as a matter of
curious coincidence, let me add that the plan which I
formulated ran very much on the same lines as that which was
actually adopted by Lord Roberts, and carried by him into
successful operation. Was that, I repeat, the act of one who
wished England ill? Let Englishmen be just and say!

"But, you will say, what of the German navy? Surely that is
a menace to England! Against whom but England are my
squadrons being prepared? If England is not in the minds of
those Germans who are bent on creating a powerful fleet, why
is Germany asked to consent to such new and heavy burdens of
taxation? My answer is clear. Germany is a young and growing
Empire. She has a world-wide commerce, which is rapidly
expanding, and to which the legitimate ambition of patriotic
Germans refuses to assign any bounds. Germany must have a
powerful fleet to protect that commerce, and her manifold
interests in even the most distant seas. She expects those
interests to go