The inquiry into the loss of the Vanguard' has been
chiefly occupied this week with the evidence of officers of the ' Iron Duke,'—the vessel which ran into and sank her. From this evidence it appears that the Iron Duke' not only sheered out of her place in the line " to port," in order, as the officer of the watch thought, to ensure less risk of collision in the fog,—and of course, without communicating this change to the Vanguard,' which was driven out of its line by a sail ahead, and not by any arbi- trary resolve of this kind,=but that she increased her speed up to eight knots during the fog,—the flagship having only signalled that she was going seven knots,—in order to regain, as she thought, what she had lost. The inquiry produces a painful impression of the cross-purposes at which the various commanders were as to the proper policy to pursue in a fog. Almost every one seems to have acted on his own inspirations,-,-and these were, unfortu- nately, somewhat subjective and decidedly incoherent.
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