ents necessary
to every operation. The treacherous hostility of the French cabinet,
and the unfortunate subserviency of Spain to that treachery, made
corresponding energy on the part of England a matter of public demand;
and when France and Spain sent out fleets of a magnitude till then
unknown, England was urged to follow their example. The defeats of the
combined navies excited the nation to still more vigorous efforts; and
the war closed with so full a demonstration of the matchless
importance of a great navy to England, that the public feeling was
fixed on giving it the largest contribution of the national
confidence.

The time was at hand when the trial was to involve every interest of
England and mankind. The first grand struggle of revolutionary France
with England was to be on the seas; and the generation of naval
officers who had been reared in the American war, then rising into
vigour, trained by its experience, and stimulated by its example,
gallantly maintained the honour of their country. A succession of
sanguinary battles followed, each on the largest scale, and each
closing in British victory; until the republic, in despair, abandoned
the fatal element, and tied her fortunes in the easier conflicts of
the land. The accession of Napoleon renewed the struggle for naval
supremacy, until one vast blow extinguished his hopes and his navy at
Trafalgar. Peace now exists, and long may it exist! but France is
rapidly renewing her navy, taking every opportunity of exercising its
strength, and especially patronising the policy of founding those
colonies which it idly imagines to be the source of British opulence.
But whether the wisdom of Louis Philippe limits the protection of
French trade to the benefits which commerce may confer on his vast
kingdom, or looks forward to the support which a mercantile navy may
give to a warlike one, we must not sleep on our posts. The life of any
individual is brief on a national scale; and his successor, whether
regent or republican, may be as hot-headed, rash, and ambitious, as
this great monarch has shown himself rational, prudent, and peaceful.
We must prepare for all chances; and our true preparation must be, a
fleet that may defy all.

It is a remarkable instance of the slowness with which science
advances, that almost the whole scientific portion of seamanship has
grown up since the middle of the seventeenth century, though America
had been reached in 1492, and India in 1