Writing in October, 1907, a month before the fleet sailed from Hampton Roads, the _Spectator said_: "All over America the people will follow the movements of the fleet; they will learn something of the intricate details of the coaling and commissariat work under warlike conditions; and in a word their attention will be aroused.

Next time Mr.Roosevelt or his representatives appeal to the country for new battleships they will do so to people whose minds have been influenced one way or the other.

The naval programme will not have stood still.

We are sure that, apart from increasing the efficiency of the existing fleet, this is the aim which Mr.Roosevelt has in mind.

He has a policy which projects itself far into the future, but it is an entire misreading of it to suppose that it is aimed narrowly and definitely at any single Power." I first directed the fleet, of sixteen battleships, to go round through the Straits of Magellan to San Francisco.