result has been a
long series of inglorious or disastrous affairs like the West
Indies voyage of 1595-96, the Cadiz expedition of 1625, and that
to the Ile de Re of 1627. Additions might be made to the list.
The failures of joint expeditions have often been explained by
alleging differences or quarrels between the naval and the military
commanders. This way of explaining them, however, is nothing but
the inveterate critical method of the streets by which cause
is taken for effect and effect for cause. The differences and
quarrels arose, no doubt; but they generally sprang out of the
recriminations consequent on, not producing, the want of success.
Another manifestation of the way in which sea-power works was first
observed in the seventeenth century. It suggested the adoption
of, and furnished the instrument for carrying out a distinct
maritime policy. What was practically a standing navy had come
into existence. As regards England this phenomenon was now of
respectable age. Long voyages and cruises of several ships in
company had been frequent during the latter half of the sixteenth
century and the early part of the seventeenth. Even the grandfathers
of the men who sailed with Blake and Penn in 1652 could not have
known a time when ships had never crossed the ocean, and squadrons
kept together for months had never cruised. However imperfect
it may have been, a system of provisioning ships and supplying
them with stores, and of preserving discipline amongst their
crews, had been developed, and had proved fairly satisfactory.
The Parliament and the Protector in turn found it necessary to
keep a considerable number of ships in commission, and make them
cruise and operate in company. It was not till well on in the
reign of Queen Victoria that the man-of-war's man was finally
differentiated from the merchant seaman; but two centuries before
some of the distinctive marks of the former had already begun to
be noticeable. There were seamen in the time of the Commonwealth
who rarely, perhaps some who never, served afloat except in a
man-of-war. Some of the interesting naval families which were
settled at Portsmouth and the eastern ports, and which--from
father to son--helped to recruit the ranks of our bluejackets
till a date later than that of the launch of the first ironclad,
could carry back their professional genealogy to at least the
days of Charles II, when, in all probability, it did not first
start. Though landsmen co