have been established in any complete and systematic way
at such an early date. And we furnished other ships than
destroyers, for besides providing what I have called the
modern convoy that which protects the compact mass of
vessels from submarines it was necessary also to furnish
escorts after the old Napoleonic plan. It was the business
of the destroyers to conduct the merchantmen only through
the submarine zone. They did not take them the whole
distance across the ocean, for there was little danger of
submarine attack until the ships had arrived in the infested
waters. This would have been impossible in any case with
the limited number of destroyers. But from the time the
convoys left the home port there was a possibility that the
same kind of attack would be launched as that to which
convoys were subjected in Nelsonian days; there was the
danger, that is, that surface war vessels, raiders or cruisers,
might escape from their German bases and swoop down
upon them. We always had before our minds the activities
of the Moewe, and we therefore deemed it necessary to
escort the convoys across the ocean with battleships and
cruisers, just as was the practice a century ago. The
British did not have ships enough available for this purpose,
and here again the American navy was able to supply the
lack ; for we had a number of pre-dreadnoughts and cruisers
that were ideally adapted to this kind of work.
III
On April 30th I received a message from Admiral Jellicoe requesting me to visit him at the Admiralty. When I arrived he said that the projected study of the convoy system had been made, and he handed me a copy of it. It had been decided to send one experimental convoy from Gibraltar. The Admiralty, he added, had not yet definitely decided that the convoy system should be adopted, but there was every intention of giving it a thorough and fair trial. That same evening at dinner I met Mr. Lloyd George, Sir Edward Carson, and Lord Milner, and once more discussed with them the whole convoy idea. I found the Prime Minister especially favourable to the plan and, in fact, civilians in general were more kindly disposed toward the convoy than seamen, because they were less familiar with the nautical and shipping difficulties which it involved.
