Admiral Cooper Key wrote a letter to Thursday's Times attack-
ing somewhat vehemently the criticisms passed by the Saturday Review, and by the Spectator, on the recent Admiralty Minute concerning the loss of the 'Vanguard:.' He points out that the Admiral of the iron fleet, Sir Walter Tarleton, was not on his trial before the recent court-martial, and had no opportunity of. defending himself for signalling that he intended to steam seven. knots an hour in a fog. This is perfectly true, and precisely what we complained of,—for he should have been put on his trial for what prima facie at least was clearly a most risky course. Admiral Key believes that Admiral Tarleton had probably ex- plained to the Admiralty his reason for doing what he did, and he suggests that the chief reason may have been the proximity of the Codling Banks, on to which the tide might have drifted the ships, had they been allowed to slacken speed. Such a reason would have been a fair kind of defence for a court-martial to con- sider, though, as Admiral Cooper-Key himself suggests to us, an ordinary layman would have proposed to alter the course as well as to slacken speed, so as not to run near the Codling Banks. This proposal Sir Cooper Key rejects, because it would have "necessitated two signals in a fog to an unpractised fleet." But if these great and costly vessels were really manned by mere beginners in the art of signalling and attending to signals, does. notthat in itself reflect discredit on the Admiralty ? Surelysignal- ling is an art which beginners might learn without risking the most valuable ships in the Navy ? Admiral Key adds that no ship was in sight when the fog came on, so that there was no danger of fouling a strange ship for some time to come. Yet, in point of fact, Captain Day kins did, as he believed, just escape fouling a strange ship; and the view taken of the horizon with a fog-bank coming Up which was, it is said, observed before leaving Dublin, cannot have been very trustworthy. After all, Sir Cooper Key would have done better not to apologise for the Minute of his superiors at the Admiralty, than to put in so very poor an apology as this.
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