supplies can be conveyed from one point to the
other, according to the needs of a fleet, by interior lines, not
exposed to risks of maritime capture. The extent of the coast-line,
the numerous harbors, and the many directions from which approach can
be made, minimize the dangers of total blockade, to which all islands
are subject. Such conditions are in themselves advantageous, but they
are especially so to a navy inferior to its adversary, for they convey
the power--subject, of course, to conditions of skill--of shifting
operations from side to side, and finding refuge and supplies in
either direction.

Jamaica, being but one-tenth the size of Cuba, and one-fifth of its
length, does not present the intrinsic advantages of the latter
island, regarded either as a source of supplies or as a centre from
which to direct effort; but when in the hands of a power supreme at
sea, as at the present Great Britain is, the questions of supplies, of
blockade, and of facility in direction of effort diminish in
importance. That which in the one case is a matter of life and death,
becomes now only an embarrassing problem, necessitating watchfulness
and precaution, but by no means insoluble. No advantages of position
can counterbalance, in the long-run, decisive inferiority in organized
mobile force,--inferiority in troops in the field, and yet much more
in ships on the sea. If Spain should become involved in war with Great
Britain, as she so often before has been, the advantage she would have
in Cuba as against Jamaica would be that her communications with the
United States, especially with the Gulf ports, would be well under
cover. By this is not meant that vessels bound to Cuba by such routes
would be in unassailable security; no communications, maritime or
terrestrial, can be so against raiding. What is meant is that they can
be protected with much less effort than they can be attacked; that the
raiders--the offence--must be much more numerous and active than the
defence, because much farther from their base; and that the question
of such raiding would depend consequently upon the force Great Britain
could spare from other scenes of war, for it is not likely that Spain
would fight her single-handed. It is quite possible that under such
conditions advantage of position would more than counterbalance a
_small_ disadvantage in local force. "War," said Napoleon, "is a
business of positions;" by which that master of lightning-like
rapid