In the first edition, already extensively quoted from, of its issue of Wednesday, April 29th, the Times contained the following telegram from its Portsmouth correspondent:—

“Portsmouth, Tuesday, 9.30 p.m.—H.M.S. Invincible, guardship at Southampton, arrived here early this afternoon, and is now at Spithead, where H.M.S. Hero, Minotaur, Hercules, Glatton, Galatea, Latona, Iris, Bellona, Seagull, and Rattlesnake, all vessels belonging to the A Division of the Fleet Reserve of this port, are also at anchor. The ten ships last named represent the only Portsmouth vessels that are immediately available, and several of them are not really quite fit for sea. Moreover, they are all, at present, short-handed. It may be recollected that some time ago, when the five cruisers and two gun-vessels of the Australian Squadron were commissioned, the rule restricting service on the Australian station to men of five years’ standing and upwards was suspended in order to provide crews for them, and that, in addition, many men were taken out of the harbour ships. From the depletion which was thus caused, the Royal Dockyards and the various Naval Barracks have never completely recovered; and in consequence there has to-day been the greatest difficulty in finding for the mobilised vessels even sufficient crews to take them to Spithead. Other ships could be sent thither, if only men were forthcoming. The ten warships that have been commissioned here would, to man them properly, need 2800 officers and men. Barely 1200 were available, and, although a few men of the Royal Naval Reserve have offered themselves, and have been gladly accepted, I doubt whether the total number of people now on board the ships in question exceeds 1500 all told. All kinds of civilians are volunteering, but none of them are accepted pending the receipt of instructions from the Admiralty. The ships are in the meantime busily engaged in getting in their powder and shell, and work is, while I write, being energetically carried on by the aid of the electric light. All the seaward forts are manned, and many of the buoys and beacons have been to-day removed, nor were the usual lights exhibited this evening; but unfortunately the conflict between the naval and the military authorities continues, and it is but too evident that the rapid perfecting of our defensive preparations is being dangerously delayed by the fact that the local command is divided. I learn, as I close this dispatch, that the Alexandra, flagship of the Reserve Squadron, from Portland, has also arrived and has anchored at Spithead. The Hotspur from Harwich, the Audacious from Hull, the Shannon from Bantry, and the Neptune from Holyhead, are expected in the course of to-morrow, and the Iron Duke from Queensferry, the Superb from Greenock, and the Belleisle from Kingstown on Thursday.”

The same issue also contained the appended brief reports from Plymouth and the Medway:—

“Plymouth, Tuesday, 11 a.m.—The Conqueror, Achilles, Gorgon, Hecate, Prince Albert, Forth, Inconstant, Thames, Spanker, and Sharpshooter have to-day gone out of harbour, and are now anchored with the Black Prince within the breakwater. They are the only vessels at this port that are in anything like a state of immediate readiness for sea, yet they are only half manned, and there is no probability, so far as can at present be seen, of providing proper complements for more than half of them.”

“Sheerness, Tuesday, 11 p.m.—The following vessels of the Medway Fleet Reserve, A Division, are now here—viz., Empress of India, Northampton, Cyclops, Hydra, Narcissus, Arethusa, Mersey, Medea, Medusa, Barracouta, Grasshopper, Salamander, Skipjack, and Sheldrake. Though all of them have been officially reported as ready for sea, several—notably some of the cruisers and gun-vessels—are suffering from various temporary defects, and not one is, or at present can be properly manned, as neither lieutenants nor men are available in sufficient numbers. The Empress is reported to have developed defects in her big guns, and is therefore partially useless. The Blenheim is not completed, but she may be got ready in ten days.”

It was further announced that the Channel Fleet, consisting of the battleships Royal Sovereign, Anson, Howe, and Rodney, the belted cruisers Aurora and Immortalité, and the small craft Curlew and Speedwell, was at Vigo, and had been ordered home by telegraph, viâ the Falmouth-Vigo cable. It might be expected at Spithead on Saturday morning. Most of the above-quoted news was of an unsatisfactory nature; for though the mention of so many ships as being more or less ready for sea inspired a certain vague confidence in the mind of the average layman as he sat at his breakfast table, the admission that, owing to lack of men, half of them were really useless, was one the significance of which could not but strike even him who had only the most casual knowledge of naval affairs. To the expert the reports were still more painful, for every expert knew well enough that ships like the Minotaur, Shannon, Achilles, Prince Albert, and others were, manned or unmanned, of little value save on paper. Naturally, therefore, the early morning news, and particularly the terrible intelligence of the catastrophe off Toulon, aroused immense excitement and universal uneasiness. But excitement does not at once betray itself. Men must first meet and talk, and hear one another’s views and apprehensions concerning what has happened and what is to come. And ere they had time to meet and talk on that awful Wednesday, more alarming news than had yet reached them arrived, and drove them from a state of repressed excitement into a condition of panic.

The French had struck boldly, promptly, and effectively at Toulon, but, alas! not only there. Before ten o’clock a second edition of each of the morning papers announced the occurrence of a fresh and more humiliating catastrophe than that which had befallen us in the Mediterranean. The Standard’s account is here given:—

“Portsmouth, Wednesday, 6.45 a.m.—While lamenting the magnitude of the misfortune that has just overtaken a great part of the Fleet assembled here, and the dreadful fate that has overwhelmed I am afraid to say how many hundreds of Her Majesty’s officers and men, it is impossible to avoid admiring the energy and dash of an enemy who, almost as soon as war is declared, succeeds in planting a deadly blow at our very vitals. What has happened is shocking in the extreme; but it is also marvellous. With a suddenness that seems almost inexplicable, the squadron at Spithead has been practically destroyed. Late last night it seemed ready to go anywhere and do anything; this morning the little that exists of it is a shattered remnant, barely able to keep itself afloat, and utterly useless for any of the purposes of the immediate future.

“I had, as you are aware, obtained authority from the Admiralty to proceed to sea as a passenger on board H.M.S. Alexandra during the Channel cruise, which it was yesterday announced the Reserve Squadron would undertake as soon as it could be assembled at Spithead. The only ships of the squadron to arrive yesterday were the Invincible from Southampton and the Alexandra from Portland. The latter did not take up her anchorage until between nine and ten o’clock at night; but as she had been previously sighted and signalled, I—with some difficulty—engaged a shore boat and was at Spithead, ready to board her when she appeared. The ships already there were anchored in two lines, which stretched from the south-west, nearly abreast of No Man’s Land and the Horse Sand to the north-west, abreast of Gilkicker Point and Ryde. The heavier part of the Fleet formed the line which lay nearest to the Isle of Wight, and, beginning from the south-east, consisted of the Hercules, Minotaur, Alexandra, Hero, Invincible, and Glatton. The cruiser squadron formed the line which lay nearest to the harbour, and, beginning from the south-east, consisted of the Rattlesnake, Bellona, Iris, Galatea, Latona, and Seagull. There were thus six vessels in each line, the Rattlesnake being abreast of the Hercules, the Bellona of the Minotaur, and so on; and there was a distance of two cables between the ships of each line, and of four cables between the lines.

“Most of the ships, when I reached Spithead, were taking in powder and shell, and were doing so by the light of their search-lights, from the hoys and barges which lay alongside. Some ships, also, were completing with coal. All, moreover, were taking in sea stores and supplies of every kind, the result being that night seemed to be turned into day, and that Spithead was crowded with boats and launches. I boarded the Alexandra as soon as she had taken up her berth between the Minotaur and the Hero; but, though it was getting late, there was, of course, no thought of turning in. Indeed, even if there had been no work on hand, and if Spithead had been as quiet as it commonly is at ten o’clock, there was so much anxiety in every ship concerning the news from the Mediterranean, and such continuous expectation that weighty intelligence of some sort would presently be brought off by one of the numerous craft from the shore, that no one cared to go to sleep lest perchance he might not hear the first word of definite intelligence. The few officers who had leisure to sit in the ward-room and smoking-room could talk of nothing but the war and the ships up the Straits. Those who had to be on deck thought, if they did not talk, on the same subjects. The Vice-Admiral and captain had gone ashore to see the Commander-in-Chief; the ship was in charge of the commander; and I had nothing better to do than to take stock of the scene around me.

“Alongside the Hero a hoy was hoisting out powder cases and boxes of ammunition, which were stacked around the turret on her low deck forward, and thence gradually removed to the magazines below. The Minotaur was filling up with coal, and had a barge on each side of her. The Iris, abreast of us, was, like the Hero, taking in her powder, and also a number of huge electro-contact mines—great red-painted iron cases, which must have weighed nearly a ton a-piece. We at first did nothing, but soon a coal barge came alongside, and we began not only to fill up our bunkers, but also to pile coal on our decks, for the order had gone forth that every ship was to be coaled to her utmost capacity. Usually when a ship is coaling her ports are closed, and pains are taken to exclude as much as possible the all-pervading dust; but we and the other ships were coaling cleared for action, and with half the guns loaded and run out. No vessel had her torpedo nets completely down, as all had craft alongside; but all had a certain number of boats out, and the whole anchorage between the Nab on the east and Hurst Castle on the west was supposed to be patrolled by these and by torpedo boats. A large amount of material in the shape of spars and buoys had been towed out of harbour during the day, with a view to constructing substantial defence booms, within which ships might lie in safety; but the work of construction had not been begun, and most of the material was anchored on No Man’s Land, where it was to remain for the night. No one, I think I may safely say, thought that there was the slightest probability of our being attacked. At midnight, however, with a view to making all sure, a couple of first-class torpedo boats were sent out by each entrance, and the four were ordered to scout between Christchurch and Selsea Bill, and at the back of the Isle of Wight.

“Portsmouth, as the crow flies, is only about seventy knots—nautical miles—from Cherbourg. A vessel steaming, therefore, at a speed of fifteen knots, should do the distance easily in five hours. Our enemy must have come from Cherbourg. He can scarcely, indeed, in the circumstances, have come from anywhere else; and he probably left Cherbourg at about nine o’clock, for he came upon us soon after two this morning. The sea was smooth, the night was dark and chilly, and our vitality was at its lowest, as most men’s vitality is in the small hours, when suddenly, apparently not more than two or three miles from us, we heard the boom of a gun. In an instant all were on deck. Some declared that the sound had come from the east; others swore that they had seen the flash light up the sky over Egypt Point to the westward. The commander at once ordered away all the craft from alongside, and directed that the nets were to be fully rigged out; but, as everyone knows, lighters and barges cannot be got rid of in an instant, and long before the order could have been obeyed, we and our consorts were in the midst of one of the bloodiest struggles of which history gives any record.

“Within a minute of the time when we heard the first report we heard others, and saw over Bembridge Point the bouquet of a rocket which, we knew, had been fired by one of our boats as a signal that the enemy was approaching in force. I am not exaggerating, and I in no way do injustice to our officers and men, when I say that a scene of the direst confusion followed. The captain of the Hercules was the senior officer present. He signalled by means of flash lights from his mast-head, ‘Cruisers will slip their cables and proceed with dispatch to sea in search of the enemy, those lying to eastward of the Galatea going out by the eastward, and those lying to westward of the Iris going out by the westward entrance. Rendezvous, Spithead, 8 a.m. Battleships will prepare to slip cables and follow—’ But the signal was never completed. The shore boats and lighters were still pushing off; our officers were still shouting at them from the bridge and gangways for their delay, and the poor bum-boat women were shrieking, partly from fear and partly because they and their goods had been separated, when another rocket and yet another went up from a point well on our side of the Nab, and, under the glare of their explosions, we saw, not a mile and a half from us, three or four low-lying black hulls, which we knew could only be those of the torpedo cruisers of the enemy. In an instant, and forgetful of our torpedo boats, which must have sent up the warning rockets, and which must, therefore, have been not far out of the line of fire, every vessel that could bring a gun of any kind to bear, opened in the direction of the foe. The roar was infernal, and, for a brief period, the dense smoke hid everything from us; but such slight air as there was gently carried the smoke to the westward, and soon we could see the enemy again. He was apparently none the worse for his reception, and was now much nearer to us. Fire was re-opened, and maintained with fury. The Alexandra was incommoded somewhat by the ships to windward of her, and fired only occasionally; but the Hercules, Minotaur, and Rattlesnake seemed to blaze away almost without intermission, and the volumes of smoke that came slowly to leeward showed how freely they were spending their powder. The enemy fired very little. We expected to hear him using his torpedoes. And use them he did, but not from the direction which we anticipated. That attack had lasted, I suppose, a quarter of an hour, and there had been little, if any, cessation of the firing from our side, when, to our consternation, a second attack quickly developed itself from the westward. It is quite clear to me now that the eastward attack by three or four torpedo cruisers—probably vessels of the Condor and Bombe types—was merely a feint intended to amuse us while the real attack from the westward was being made. The Needles, or westward passage to Spithead, is not a particularly easy one in any circumstances, and is commanded not only by numerous batteries, but also by the Brennan torpedo station at Fort Cliff End; but our enemies chose to take the risk of coming to grief in their attempt to find their way in by that passage, and it must be sadly admitted that the results have more than justified their temerity.

“The real attack was delivered by torpedo boats only, some being of the ‘haute mer’ type, and others of the ordinary first-class. The larger vessels seem to have acted as ‘division boats,’ and there appear to have been four divisions engaged, each division on this occasion consisting of one torpilleur de haute mer and three torpedo boats, making sixteen craft all told. I do not pretend to be certain either as to the exact numbers or as to the exact constitution of the force; but those who had the best opportunities of knowing, place both as I have given them. The flotilla must have evaded our scouts, possibly by first making the land near Christchurch and then by keeping close under it; for it was not seen until, almost like a flash, it steamed in close order past Fort Cliff End. Both Fort Cliff End and Hurst Castle were using their search-lights, and it was owing to this fact that the enemy was discovered. But the forts were unprepared for instant action, and ere fire of any kind could be opened, the boats were somewhere abreast of the Bramble, and within ten or twelve minutes’ steam of their quarry. Even when the forts did open they did no harm, for the smoke of the action which was raging at the other end of the anchorage was drifting between them and the enemy. Besides, when the search-lights from the forts, or later, from the ships, fell upon any particular craft, they rendered all the other craft of the enemy completely invisible; and the operators, speedily becoming conscious of this fact, and being anxious to show up as many of the enemy as possible, shifted their projectors so rapidly as to confuse the eyes of the men at the guns. The truth seems to be that the most effective shelter under which a torpedo boat can approach to do damage is the shelter afforded by a search-light played upon some other vessel by the intended victim. Moreover, very few guns could be brought to bear, the chief works being so constructed as to be almost powerless for action on the Solent side, and being mainly designed to impede the foe as he comes in from the west-south-west, not to destroy him after he has got in. Thus the French steamed up without let or hindrance to within quite a short distance of the Glatton and Seagull, which formed, as I have already said, the north-eastern extremities of our two lines. These ships, or their picket boats, sighted the flotilla when it cannot have been anything like a mile from them. At the first shot from the Fleet, or perhaps before it, the divisions must have separated in order to act in accordance with orders previously given to them. Two divisions, now formed in a single column of line ahead, came up at full speed between our lines. The other two divisions, disposed respectively on the port and starboard quarters of the central divisions, came up also in columns of line ahead, one on each side of the still anchored Fleet. The central divisions came on therefore at a distance of about two cables from the ships on either beam of them. The other divisions kept about as far outside the lines, and the speed I imagine was fully eighteen knots. As the boats executed that terrible rush through us, they were saluted with a perfect hurricane of projectiles; but they did not, so far as I know, fire a gun in reply, and I fear that a good many of our own shot intended for the central divisions must have done more harm to friend than to foe. It was fearful work: the very silence of the grey boats made the now brilliantly illuminated though smoke-dimmed scene the more impressive. One could not help admiring so splendid an exhibition of pluck, even though one was fully conscious of the magnitude and imminence of one’s own peril. But there was little time for thought. Our lines were less than a mile in length. Travelling at eighteen knots a boat covers a mile in about three minutes, and in five or six minutes at the outside the dismal tragedy had begun and ended. The French launched their torpedoes with wonderful precision, the central divisions discharging both right and left, and the outside divisions, which approached a few seconds later, apparently endeavouring to rectify any mistakes or omissions which their comrades of the centre had been guilty of. Too well, alas! did they do the business. It is as yet too early to send you details, save of what happened to the vessels immediately within my own sphere of vision; but there is no hope, that, by waiting, I can obtain any less disheartening general results than those which I can already give you. The Hero, Invincible, Iris, Galatea, and Bellona have been sunk or have been obliged to run ashore to avoid sinking; the Minotaur has been blown up, the explosion of a torpedo having, it is believed, fired some of the explosive stores which she had just taken on board; the Alexandra has a great hole in her port quarter and a compartment full of water; and the Glatton has a hole in her bows. Only the Hercules, Latona, Seagull, and Rattlesnake have escaped uninjured. A torpedo, barely submerged, seems to have actually exploded in contact with the Hercules, but that ship’s stout construction and armoured belt saved her from anything worse than a very severe shaking. Several lighters and small craft were also sunk; and the loss of life, in one way and another, is, I fear, frightful. It is doubtful whether more than fifty of the Minotaur’s people survive. The blowing up of the vessel was so violent that we, who were anchored immediately astern of her, felt as if we were jerked out of the water, and a moment later our decks were covered with and even set on fire by her burning fragments. May I never live to have another so awful experience. Limbs, ragged pieces of charred flesh, scraps of clothing, as well as wreckage, fell on board of us; and the shock of the explosion smashed everything in the Alexandra that had not already been shattered by the bursting of a French torpedo under her own port quarter. The Iris was struck just before we were, and, being in a sinking condition, was run on to the Sturbridge Sand, where she lies with her bows in two and a half fathoms. The Bellona is on the Harrow Bank, immediately under Fort Monckton. The Galatea and Hero lie sunk at their anchorages; and I am sorry to have to say that, in the struggle, a quantity of ammunition on the Hero’s deck blew up, killing and injuring a number of people. The Invincible sank while endeavouring to run on to the outer Spit. The heaviest losses were suffered by the Minotaur, Hero, and Galatea. The other ships have lost very few men killed, but have had a good many wounded; and in all the vessels which were torpedoed there were numerous sufferers from the poisonous and suffocating effects of the explosive gases and from shock. The Alexandra’s loss is ten killed, and sixty-four wounded or otherwise injured. The torpedo which struck her threw down everyone on board, and raised a column of water of such volume that when part of it fell on deck, it washed men into the scuppers just as if it had been a heavy sea.

“The enemy also have suffered, but very slightly in comparison with us. Two torpilleurs de haute mer and four torpedo boats are said to have been sunk or blown up, and of those which got away several are known to have been badly damaged. Whether our fire did any harm worth mentioning to the small cruisers which began the affair is more than we can tell. We cannot, however, claim to have done much more than destroy six little craft, and to have worked other harm which, altogether, may represent a quarter of a million. The French have done us damage to the extent of at least two and a quarter millions in money alone. They may have lost a hundred in killed and wounded; we, at the lowest computation, have lost nearly a thousand. The blow, therefore, is one the seriousness of which it would be folly to shut one’s eye to. It is, as far as the Portsmouth squadron is concerned, a thoroughly crippling one.

“That the French attack was both well designed and well carried out it is impossible to deny. It came swiftly after the declaration of war; it was so arranged as to give the attacking torpedo boats the full advantage not only of the feint from the eastward, but also of such wind as was moving; and it was designed in such a way as to place the torpedo boats, after they had done their work, in a position whence, in case of necessity, they could be rescued by their friends the cruisers. In fact it cannot be doubted that, after their wild rush through our lines, some of the boats must have been very glad to run at once under the protection of their larger consorts; for several of them were certainly badly mauled. Of our own four boats which went out at midnight to scout we have as yet heard nothing; but there is every reason to fear, at least with regard to those which were on the eastern side of the Isle of Wight, that they have been destroyed or captured. The Rattlesnake slipped her cable and followed the retreating enemy for some miles, but was recalled by the Vice-Admiral, who was returning from the shore when the alarm was first given, and whose steam launch narrowly escaped being run down by the port line of French torpedo boats as the vessels turned at the head of our port line in order to rejoin their friends. The Spithead forts, I should add, did not fire during the engagement. It is rumoured that they had not been supplied with ammunition. The Commander-in-Chief has just left harbour in his yacht, the Fire Queen, to inspect the ships which are damaged or aground, and to settle what is to be done. In the meantime the town is in a panic, other attacks being feared. The blowing up of the Minotaur broke nearly every pane of glass in Southsea, and created such alarm that several aged people are reported to have died from fright.”

The second edition of each of the morning papers contained a dispatch to the above effect. The bad news, owing to the lateness of its arrival, was printed without comment; but immediate comment was unnecessary—the intelligence spoke for itself. We had been suddenly deprived of the services of five ironclads and three cruisers; which, added to the tale of vessels that had been lost or taken off Toulon, made a total of ten ironclads and five cruisers accounted for by the enemy within forty-eight hours of the commencement of hostilities.

The panic that ensued has had no parallel in the history of the country. The violation of our coasts, and indeed of our chief naval port, was an exploit which the majority of Englishmen had for generations deemed beyond the power of any foreigner or combination of foreigners: and the shock of knowing that it not only could be, but had been effected, threw nearly all men off their balance. The less-educated classes entirely lost their heads, and, at hastily summoned meetings in Trafalgar Square and elsewhere, wildly denounced not only those who were, but also those who were not, responsible for the disaster. It was, perhaps, difficult to apportion the responsibility among those who might be fairly blamed—among, for example, the members of the Government, the Lords of the Admiralty, and the chiefs of certain departments—but it was ridiculous to blame, as many mob orators did, the admirals and captains who had been concerned. Steadier brains realised this, and their views were substantially represented on this occasion by the St. James’s Gazette, which in the course of its reflections that afternoon, said:—

“Let us be under no delusion as to the real causes of our misfortunes. These may be easily catalogued. For years we have had naval manœuvres every summer; and all of these have been full of valuable lessons, to the majority of which we have, nevertheless, kept our eyes shut. For years we have had a large number of ships on the list of the Royal Navy; but we have not taken the trouble to make certain that the greater part of these shall always be ready for immediate service. For years we have had a Naval Intelligence Department; but we have not made it large enough to be thoroughly efficient, and we have never raised it to the level which it ought to occupy as the supreme adviser of what should and what should not be done in naval affairs. For years we have known that the French Fleet at Toulon was being gradually increased, but we have never taken care that our Mediterranean Fleet should be in all respects superior to it. For years we have had it dinned into our ears that divided command at the naval ports—especially with regard to coast and harbour defences—is a source of danger, but we have not listened. For years we have been told that we were lamentably short of stokers, seamen-gunners, and, indeed, bluejackets of all sorts; but our efforts to increase their numbers have been spasmodic and half-hearted. For years we have been aware that excessively big guns were a broken reed on which to depend, but no action has been taken in consequence. We might extend the lamentable catalogue of our omissions and commissions, but it is useless and undignified to moan over the unalterable past. The future only is now our concern. Existing arrangements have convincingly demonstrated their feebleness and inadequacy. Some means must be provisionally adopted for properly managing the naval affairs of the Empire. It may be a bad thing to swap horses when one is crossing a stream; but if one’s own horse be sinking, there is no better course open. The Admiralty has collapsed; yet, although it is moribund, it still has the power to work harm. Let it, therefore, gracefully and promptly hand over its duties to stronger men. We do not blame their Lordships so much as we blame the system under which they have worked. But we have no time for making compliments or for considering excuses. Already we have been hardly hit. Another blow may paralyse us altogether. The safety of the country is the one thing to be thought of, and we trust that neither the Admiralty nor the public will think of anything else. To the one we recommend unselfishness and resignation to the needs of the moment; to the other, calmness, loyalty, and patriotic devotion. Ours is not an inheritance to vanish in a day, but neither is it a treasure to be trifled with.”