WITH FIRST CONTINGENT

DUTTON BOY WRITES OF TRIP AND ROYAL WELCOME EXTENDED

"Its Not So Much the Material Help as the Spirit Which Affects Them"

W.J. Mitton has received the following letter from his son, William, who is with the Eighth Battery forming part of the First Canadian Contingent. The letter was written on board S.S. Grampian as it lay in Plymouth Bay.

Well, here goes for a few lines to let you know the kind of trip we had. We sailed from Quebec on October 1 and proceeded down the river to Gaspe Bay. The whole fleet assembled there. We reached there on Oct. 2 and laid there until the 4th, when the whole fleet steamed away three abreast. It was a sight that must have made the habitants open their eyes. A fleet of that many liners and warships never left Canada before and I guess it will be many a day before it happens again. Gaspe Bay surely was an ideal place to conceal the mobilizations of the fleet. It is a large bay just past the mouth of the St. Lawrence on the south side, and is far enough off the track of all ships to be unseen. There is no town and I guess there is no telegraph, so I guess we were out of the ken of the world till to-day (Oct. 15.)

We had a big escort, which increased greatly as soon as we began to near Europe. We had several battleships at last, including the big Queen Mary. She is a regular monster, one of the most powerful fighting machines in the world. We passed the Bishop's Rock light early this morning, Oct. 14, and steamed up the channel and I saw the chalk cliffs of old England for the first time. We reached Plymouth Bay just before dark and are now anchored in the harbor to unload and entrain for our camp.

It surely gives a man confidence in Britain when he sees all the warships lying in port here. There seems to be dozens and dozens of them, ranging in size from the big white super-Dreadnoughts to the vicious looking little destroyers.

We had ideal weather nearly all the way over. The last two days were rather stormy and this boat is a great old roller, but I have never yet been sea sick, so it didn't bother me at all. We had all kinds of amusements on the ship - sports, card parties, concerts, etc. almost every night, so the time passed quite quickly.

We have had very good luck with our horses. Our battery did not lose a single horse and the whole brigade only four�,and it was a very hard trip for them too. To-morrow will be twenty days they have been on the ship.