The Lords of the Admiralty have rather astonished the world
by their Minute on the results of the late Court-Martial on the loss of the Vanguard.' They justify the Vice-Admiral in command for continuing the rate of speed through the fog, though they censure him for an opinion which he in- cidentally expressed, that it is within the discretion of leaders of divisions to act, with regard to speed in a fog, independently of, and contrary to, the orders of the AdmiraL They also disapprove the signal made by the Admiral for the alteration of formation, as not tending to keep the squadron so much under his control as another signal named would have done. They declare the loss of the Vanguard' to have been chiefly due to the slackening of the speed of the Van- guard,' and to the improper sheering out of line ordered by Lieu- tenant Evans, of the ' Iron Duke ;' and they justify Captain Hickley in increasing speed so far as to recover his station, " he being warranted in supposing that Her Majesty's ship ' Vanguard' was maintaining the speed at which she was going when she was last in sight." As to the absence of the fog-signal in the 'Iron Duke,' and the unreadiness of everything in the ' Vanguard' for pumping and closing the watertight compartments, the Admiralty Minute says not a word. The incapacity which the catastrophe elicited, seems ultimately traceable to the " grey matter" of the Admiralty's brain.
