bility might be for that purpose:
but this can be considered only as accidental, and not as a standard
to compare permanent power by, and could last no longer than until
those powers built as many or more ships than the former. After this a
larger fleet was necessary, in order to be superior; and a still
larger would again supersede it. And thus mankind have gone on
building fleet upon fleet, as occasion or situation dictated. And this
reduces it to an original question, which is: Which power can build
and man the largest number of ships? The natural answer to which is,
That power which has the largest revenue and the greatest number of
inhabitants, provided its situation of coast affords sufficient
conveniencies.

France being a nation on the continent of Europe, and Britain an
island in its neighbourhood, each of them derived different ideas from
their different situations. The inhabitants of Britain could carry on
no foreign trade, nor stir from the spot they dwelt upon, without the
assistance of shipping; but this was not the case with France. The
idea therefore of a navy did not arise to France from the same
original and immediate necessity which produced to England. But the
question is, that when both of them turn their attention, and employ
their revenues the same way, which can be superior?

The annual revenue of France is nearly double that of England, and her
number of inhabitants nearly twice as many. Each of them has the same
length of ground on the Channel; besides which, France has several
hundred miles extent on the Bay of Biscay, and an opening on the
Mediterranean: and every day proves that practice and exercise make
sailors, as well as soldiers, in one country as well as another.

If then Britain can maintain a hundred ships of the line, France can
as well support a hundred and fifty, because her revenue and her
population are as equal to the one as those of England are to the
other. And the only reason why she has not done it is because she has
not till very lately attended to it. But when she sees, as she now
sees, that a navy is the first engine of power, she can easily
accomplish it.

England very falsely, and ruinously for herself, infers, that because
she had the advantage of France, while France had the smaller navy,
that for that reason it is always to be so. Whereas it may be clearly
seen that the strength of France has never yet been tried on a navy,
and that she is able to be as superio