" MORE SEA FIGHTS OF THE GREAT WAR."
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.") SIR,—In your kindly review of More Sea Fights of the Great War the critic takes exception to the passage : " A few more errors of judgment like that which sent the gallant Admiral Cradook with more than a thousand officers and men to their deaths, and the rival fleets would have been so nearly equal that our initiative would have been snatched from us and our blockade broken." I am very sorry that the paragraph should give an impression that we wished to blame Admiral Cradock for fighting when he did. The error of judgment was of course committed by those who ordered him to the Pacific to meet Von Spee. The weight of ' Good Hope's' and Monmouth's' broadsides was 2,460 pounds; Scharnhorst ' and Gneisenau could throw 3,440. It is true that-the slow old battleship `Canopus' had been sent to reinforce our gallant Admiral, but had he steamed to meet her, leaving Von Spee to play havoc with our commerce, his action would hardly have been in fgll accordance with the glorious naval traditions handed down tc
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