pted finality.
Thus the service and its officers, in the full performance of their
functions, were alive and growing. Nor was this all. The same
surroundings that promoted this healthful evolution applied also a
continual test of fitness to persons. As each war began, there were
still to be found in the prime of vigor and usefulness men whose
efficiency had been proved in its predecessor, and thus the line of
sustained ability in leadership was carried on from one naval generation
to another, through the sixty-odd years, 1652-1713, over which these
conditions extended.

The peace of Utrecht in 1713 put an end to this period. A disputed
succession after the death of Queen Anne, in 1714, renewed the condition
of internal disquietude which had paralyzed the external action of
England under Charles I.; and this co-operated with the mere weariness
of war, occasioned by prolonged strife, to give both the country and the
navy a temporary distaste to further military activity. The man of the
occasion, who became the exponent and maintainer of this national
inclination, was Sir Robert Walpole; to whom, during his ministry of
over twenty years, can fairly be applied Jefferson's phrase concerning
himself, that his "passion was peace." But, whatever the necessity to
the country of such a policy, it too often results, as it did in both
these cases, in neglect of the military services, allowing the equipment
to decay, and tending to sap the professional interest and competency of
the officers.

From this last evil the United States Navy in Jefferson's day was saved
by the simple fact that the officers were young men, or at the most in
the early prime of life,--the Navy itself, in 1812, being less than
twenty years old as a corporate organization. The British Navy of 1739
was in very different case. For a quarter of a century the only
important military occurrence had been the Battle of Cape Passaro, in
1718, where the British fleet in a running fight destroyed a much
inferior Spanish force; and the occasion then was not one of existent
war, but of casual hostilities, which, precipitated by political
conditions, began and ended with the particular incident, as far as the
sea was concerned. Back of this lay only Malaga, in 1704; for the
remaining years of war, up to 1713, had been unmarked by fleet battles.
The tendency of this want of experience, followed by the long
period--not of peace only, but--of professional depression resulta