[ Royal Navy ] Autograph Letter Signed "R B Farquhar" to "Hall", about the revision of regulations and the Russian Fleet's firing on fishing boats at Dogger Bank.

Seven pages, 12mo, two bifoliums, fold marks, staining caused by (removed) sellotape, text clear and complete. "I have read with great interewst the proposed draft revision of the present Regulations governing the exams & advancement of acct. officers." He hopes they will be adopted, but then raises "points of criticism" about hard-working secretaries, officers who fail first time, fewer different certificates of service, presentation of certificates by candidates, disuse of a writer as a clerk, etc. He had taken command of the "Essex" on the 14 September (i.e. a month previously) and he tells of passing "three of the Russian Baltic Fleet 20 miles East of Lowestoft, little dreaming what a terrible cowardly tragedy hadbeen enacted the night before, some 200 miles to the N.E.d! [ "the Dogger Bank Incident" ] | I have no doubt that the action of the Russians was dictated by absolute cowardice & panic and not improbably by the drunkenness of the senior officer (and perhaps others) present [...] brutal outrage & the Government must rise to the occasion." He looks forward to seeing his family whoi, as well as himself, were dispoapopointed thathe didn't get a Mediterranean commission. He "would not wish to serve under a finer C.in C. than 'A.K.W.' [Arthur K. Wilson]". He praises his crew ('fine West Country" but "terrible leave-breaker'). In a PS he says that no-one else had access to the papers he is returning.