contempt. It was owing to the want of sailors, and not to the fault of
their officers, that the ten ships of the line, which during their
late impudent quarrel with Britain had been stipulated to join the
French fleet, never sailed."[22] "The French Navy, which at all times
depended chiefly upon the West India trade for a supply of seamen,
must have been laid up, if the war (of American Independence) had
continued another year."[23] Whatever the accuracy of these
statements,[24]--and they are those of a well-informed man,--they
represented a general conviction, not in Great Britain only but in
Europe, of the results of the Navigation legislation. A French writer
speaks of it as the source of England's greatness,[25] and sums up his
admiration in words which recognize the respective shares of natural
advantages and sagacious supervision in the grand outcome. "Called to
commerce by her situation, it became the spirit of her government and
the lever of her ambition. In other monarchies, it is private
individuals who carry on commerce; but in that happy constitution it
is the state, or the nation in its entirety."

In Great Britain itself there was substantial unanimity. This colored
all its after policy towards its lately rebellious and now independent
children, who as carriers had revived the once dreaded rivalry of the
Dutch. To quote one writer, intimately acquainted with the whole
theory and practice of the Navigation Acts, they "tend to the
establishment of a monopoly; but our ancestors ... considered the
defence of this island from foreign invasion as the first law in the
national policy. Judging that the dominion of the land could not be
preserved without possessing that of the sea, they made every effort
to procure to the nation a maritime power of its own. They wished that
the merchants should own as many ships, and employ as many mariners as
possible. To induce, and sometimes to force, them to this application
of their capital, restrictions and prohibitions were devised. The
interests of commerce were often sacrificed to this object." Yet he
claims that in the end commerce also profited, for "the increase in
the number of ships became a spur to seek out employment for them." In
1792, British registered shipping amounted to 1,365,000 tons,
employing 80,000 seamen. Of these, by common practice, two-thirds--say
50,000--were available for war, during which it was the rule to relax
the Act so far as to require only on