Page:Memorandum (Rear-Admiral Sir John C. Dalrymple Hay, 1912).djvu/9

( 5 ) and unremitting attendance for more than four years and a half.

Sir John Hay had thus not only completed every condition to qualify him for an Admiral, but had devoted more than five years of service to the duties which the First Lord of the Admiralty requested him to perform.

But having done so, having served actively in every war, and having performed laborious and unpaid duties in peace, he had a right to the belief that Government would fulfil the conditions of service under which he had continued to serve.

On the 24th March, 1866, however, a new rule was made, and it was provided that a retirement at certain fixed ages would for the future be enforced on all flag officers. Though this rule to a certain extent deprived