lly
and in the highest sense a picked body. The lesson of the war
of 1812 should be learned by Englishmen of the present day, when
a long naval peace has generated a confidence in numerical
superiority, in the mere possession of heavier _materiel_, and
in the merits of a rigidly uniform system of training, which
confidence, as experience has shown, is too often the forerunner
of misfortune. It is neither patriotic nor intelligent to minimise
the American successes. Certainly they have been exaggerated by
Americans and even by ourselves. To take the frigate actions
alone, as being those which properly attracted most attention,
we see that the captures in action amounted to three on each
side, the proportionate loss to our opponents, considering the
smallness of their fleet, being immensely greater than ours.
We also see that no British frigate was taken after the first
seven months of a war which lasted two and a half years, and that
no British frigate succumbed except to admittedly superior force.
Attempts have been made to spread a belief that our reverses
were due to nothing but the greater size and heavier guns of our
enemy's ships. It is now established that the superiority in
these details, which the Americans certainly enjoyed, was not
great, and not of itself enough to account for their victories.
Of course, if superiority in mere _materiel_, beyond a certain
well-understood amount, is possessed by one of two combatants,
his antagonist can hardly escape defeat; but it was never alleged
that size of ship or calibre of guns--greater within reasonable
limits than we had--necessarily led to the defeat of British
ships by the French or Spaniards. In the words of Admiral Jurien
de la Graviere, 'The ships of the United States constantly fought
with the chances in their favour.' All this is indisputable.
Nevertheless we ought to see to it that in any future war our
sea-power, great as it may be, does not receive shocks like those
that it unquestionably did receive in 1812.

[Footnote 46: _Naval_War_of_1812_, 3rd ed. pp. 29, 30.]

SEA-POWER IN RECENT TIMES

We have now come to the end of the days of the naval wars of
old time. The subsequent period has been illustrated repeatedly
by manifestations of sea-power, often of great interest and
importance, though rarely understood or even discerned by the
nations which they more particularly concerned. The British
sea-power, notwithstanding the first year of the war of