long the dread of the slaver and the pirate, will, in every distant sea, be treated with contemptuous insult. Let us consider, then, whether it would not be better policy to begin to fortify ourselves with our sailing ships. Let us consider the arena they occupy in distant voyages upon the chess-board of the world; and the terrific retaliation they could inflict, if properly equipped, upon any nation at present in existence who dared to threaten us with invasion. For, be it remembered, when Hannibal made an incursion into the Roman states, that skilful and warlike nation instantly sent their eagles to Carthage: and our sea eagles, if we do not clip their wings, would be still more excursive! Let us then suppose that every British merchant ship, above a given tonnage, was obliged to carry an armament; not the trumpery old guns we too often see, mounted upon rotten carriages, for mere show; one long tom upon a circle is worth a whole tier of them, especially with a well trained seaman gunner to give it effect. once an instance of a fleet of piratical Malay prahus retreating from a merchant ship, whose captain coolly singled out their chief for his victim with a rifle bullet. How much more telling, then, would have been the effect, if the pirate admiral's craft had been cut asunder at long range by a well directed shot!

There was

Let every armed ship, then, carry an expert seaman gunner, to instruct the officers and crew. How could their time be better employed in running before the listless trade winds than in learning the noble art of self-defence under proper training, not only with artillery, but with small arms? I meet with men continually on board American merchantmen, who have been thus trained in our gunnery ships, and served their stated period upon a foreign station in our men-of-war. Surely it would be wise to secure their services to our own flag and country. We might then laugh at piratical attempts in or upon our distant colonies, and meet them by the combined action of our merchant ships. And this discipline might be achieved at a comparatively trifling expense to the nation. The seaman gunner thus borne upon the ship's books, might receive an annual bounty of Five Pounds, funded in his name, at saving's-bank interest, in the treasury of Greenwich Hospital, till his return from each voyage; this, in addition to his pay for the performance of all his duties on board as an able seaman, would, I believe, be found a sufficient inducement.

Such men, thus looking homeward for their reward, would be a check upon unruly spirits, would always be found by the side of the officers.

war.

And now let us see and consider the check mate this great maritime country would give to any wild speculator in the desperate game of Be it remembered, we have colonies and courts of judicature in every region of the earth; and in whatever sea a ship was captured, we could proceed immediately to condemnation, by legalizing those colonial courts to carry into effect such powers immediately on the breaking out of a war. These are pieces on the chess-board which other nations do not possess, except in an infinitely inferior degree.

And the present march of science has incalculably increased all the

powers of simultaneous action. Steam and electricity would re-echo the call to arms,-measured by minutes only in the three kingdoms, and only by days and weeks to distant colonies. Well, we have been told by a gallant officer, "That London might be invested before preparation could be made for effective defence." But he should in courtesy have proposed some plan of operations by which we might give our foes "a Rowland for their Oliver." But perhaps he believes that London invested England would be won! Forbid it, Heaven! The wealth of London would retreat faster than they could follow it; while its streets and squares would become a second Saragossa!

The first act would have barely commenced; and let the crown only make it law, that the moment a hostile force was concentrated for the invasion of England, and the fact avowed, that then every British armed merchant ship would become an authorised letter of marque and reprisal, and then the offending nation's commerce would be annihilated, and their trading vessels swept from the ocean at a blow. We have only to look back to the last American war for evidence of this. America had no navy. She had a few men-of-war, and nobly they acquitted themselves; but the nation armed! The nation arose as one man; and sending forth their letters of marque, they distressed our merchants, and carried away from us more prizes than we took from them with our splendid navy!

But the Peace Society would exclaim-oh! oh! that would be buccaneering! Granted: or, in other words, a maritime guerilla; equally justifiable with the proposed rifle corps or trained bands on shore. My ship is as much my castle and fortune as their freehold ; and I should consider it also justifiable to engage in offensive warfare against any people, who, taking advantage of my absence on a distant voyage, had invaded my country, for the double purpose of enslaving me and depriving me of a home.

War is a national, not an individual affair; and the people who engage in it, especially the aggressors, must prepare themselves for all its visitations and sufferings as a people.

Standing thus on the defensive, Britain would have the vantage ground; and great would be the peril to that nation which attacked her single handed. This war of reprisals would enlist the sympathies of chivalric Englishmen now serving under the American flag, and their name is Legion. Nay, so close are the affinities of the AngloSaxon race, that nothing would prevent their mingling indirectly in the fray. Transfers of clipper ships would be quickly made in our western ports. The temptation would be irresistible. Manners, language, arms, and a kindred spirit, would prevent the possibility of distinguishing the sea rovers of the one country from the other. In this I am transcribing the opinions of many intelligent Americans in addition to my own. Such then, it appears to me, may be serious considerations for those enthusiasts on the Continent who dream of subjugating England by a coup de main. Paris and its marshals may be France; but London is not England.

Such, I believe, would be the effect of an easy line of policy com

menced in time. Our annals will show many a merchant ship, in the olden time, fighting in a style which would not disgrace the proudest navy in the world. If the present line of policy succeeds, our maritime supremacy is still secure. That is a question of time, and time only can decide.

But let us now attend to the direct proposition of Mr. Anderson, or the immediate defence of our coasts, by arming our mercantile steam marine. We have witnessed, in common with many others still living, the extraordinary defence made by the Norwegian and Danish gun boats, against the maritime chivalry of England. And the tactics with our armed steam Guarda Costas would be similar in effect. Taking up their position in and among the shoals and flats which girdle our coasts, and where vessels of heavier water draught could not approach them, they would advance and retire at pleasure. Independent of which, let us refer to what we have seen, and take a case in point, a 64 gun ship, attacked by a squadron of one-gun boats. They spindled out into a single line, shifting with their oars at every discharge, while enveloped in the smoke; and the shot from the ship having to cover a widely extended space, and aimed at small objects, was at so vast a disadvantage, that they suffered but little from his fire; while he, as a single target of large dimensions, was hulled every shot, and lost upwards of fifty men in an incredibly short space of time; and but for a breeze springing up, the consequences might have been still more serious. There can be no doubt then of the power a steam flotilla would possess as a protection to our coasts*. In addition to which, the enemy's concentrated force must be blockaded by steam men-of-war, and truly they are formidable engines at long range; at close quarters I fear that both the combatants would be in flames in a very few minutes; for if we take into account that the midship section of these ships is like a lucifer match from the intense heat of the engine department, it would require almost superhuman energies to keep the fire under which might be caused by shell guns. Be that as it may, steam will and must be employed as blockading squadrons. We well remember the Boulogne flotilla and the encampment upon the hill. There the great desideratum with our squadron then was, to be always at their post; and if blown away to leeward, to beat back again to their position with all possible dispatch. Accordingly, our swiftest cruisers were always under way; under storm sails if necessary; and never was a more effectual blockade. A detachment of the fleet was always kept to windward; and by the time their lee drift had brought them abreast the blockaded port, in most cases the gale was over. Thus the encampment on the hill, the movements of the flotilla, and all the arrangements of the enemy, were strictly telegraphed as daily reconnoitred.

But a new feature will present itself to our naval armaments as relating to steam cruisers, especially if all our steam towing company's

* We possess a great advantage over other nations in the number of naval officers upon half pay, the elite of whom might be instantly commissioned into the steam flotilla, as they were into the hired armed service during the late war.

wessels, our coasting steamers, and packets, are to be converted into Guarda Costas, or as sea fencibles, to watch against or contend with an advancing enemy.

Our sailing frigates and brigs, being provisioned and stored for months, kept the sea without difficulty. Their propelling power was not used up daily and hourly; and if partially disabled by the enemy's fire or the tempest, their crippled spars, split sails, and stranded ropes, were replaced; and the gallant ship was quickly again prepared for action; and whether under storm sail or flowing sheet, there they were, the untiring and vigilant guardians of their country's security and honour! But this cannot be the case to the same extent with steam warfare. You cannot, while under way upon the restless element, splice a sway beam or a cross head, or put an iron patch upon a boiler. Such vessels must inevitably repair to the nearest port, as is often the case now with steam vessels in distress, availing themselves of Ramsgate Harbour, where the smithy and forges of that establishment readily afford them the assistance they require.

But there is also another momentous question as regards the efficiency of a blockade squadron of steam men-of-war; and it is surprising that it escaped the acute perceptions of some or other of the honourable members representing the coal districts, for it was entirely overlooked in the parliamentary debate. They had not considered that a powerful steam armament, together with its auxiliary fleet, while destined for a night dash, or sudden attack, will remain quiescent in port, with merely a sufficient supply of fuel to cross the channel and return; but the British defensive squadron must to a great extent keep the sea, or open roadsteads, and be always prepared to meet them at a moment's warning. The question then naturally enough suggests itself," Where are they to coal?" Are they, with their present enormous consumption of fuel, to have a fleet of colliers in constant attendance upon them? Such a fleet would be worse than useless with any wind and swell on; and the expense of hired vessels would be enormous. How then? The greatest possible dispatch will be necessary to such a service; and there must be extensive coal depôts on shore. But where? The Cinque Ports and Harbours in the Narrow Seas, have been impoverished, neglected, and silted up; and there are those who assert that it is no matter. Harbours of refuge or supply are useless! But in the event of a sudden outbreak, they would bitterly repent these rash conclusions*! The writer of this article

Instances were numberless of the daring success of the French privateering depredations upon our coasts. A Dieppe lugger was sunk, while attempting to board a merchant brig in Dover Roads, by a shot from the battery. More than a thousand officers of our mercantile marine, were in French prisons at the same time. Some of them had been taken out of the Downs anchorage from under the wings of their convoy. H.M. brig, Bloodhound, had a narrow escape; a lugger had dogged her through the Narrows, supposing her to be an armed merchantman; night came on as she reached the Downs anchorage. She brought up, and while the men were aloft furling sails, the lugger dashed alongside, and threw the boarders upon her deck. It required a desperate struggle to withstand this audacious attack. And these things should be remembered by those who fancy that Harbours of Refuge for merchant coasters and others may be dispensed with.

well remembers the danger attending the passage through the Straits of Dover, from the enemy's privateers, spite of the imposing fleet which studded the Channel; and the many days, and often weeks, which elapsed while fleets of colliers, coasters, and others, crouded the harbours and roadsteads, waiting with their convoy the advent of a fair wind.

But surely it requires no argument to prove the strong auxiliary arm of national defence which efficient harbours ever have been in time of war. The battle of the Nile would not have been fought but for the facility afforded to Lord Nelson at Naples for refitting his fleet. And it would be fair, as respects the present position of the two greatest naval powers upon earth, to put the still closer question, "Which of the ports or principal havens on the neighbouring shores, have been lost to its navy since the Norman invasion?" Then look at Cherbourg, and all the inferior ports right and left of that magnificent naval station, and blush for our own country ever boasting of its naval superiority; and yet, with an unaccountable apathy, taking away the resources which should support and improve its havens and harbours, and suffering many of them to be irrecoverably and hopelessly lost! and this same people adorn their chief city with the finest and most expensive bridges in the world; erect a House of Commons unrivalled in magnificence, and build, as if by magic, a Temple of Crystal, to display their wealth and advancement in the arts and sciences, and to excite the admiration and envy of surrounding nations! It is indeed passing strange, that amid all this luxury, wealth, and power, that warning voice, so soon to pass away from a heedless generation, appears to be unheard! That prophetic warning, again and again presented to them by the literature and press of their country :-"We have no defence, no hope of defence, excepting in our fleet. And if it be true that the exertions of the fleet alone are not sufficient, we are not safe for one week after a declaration of war. WELLINGTON."

May a grateful nation appreciate in time this admonition of its venerable and patriotic warrior! and it will, under God's blessing, be still preserved from the miseries of war!

His

[There is much for deep consideration in Capt. Martin's 'paper. remarks on the subject of our harbours are to the purpose, as well as his observations on supplying our steamers with coal; but the training of our merchant seamen in gunnery, however desirable, is easier to propose than to accomplish. Now, however, that the invasion panic! is gone by, which certain writers and Editors of newspapers thought fit, for reasons of their own, to magnify and encourage (for such persons must have something to talk about); now that all this is gone by, we may copy the following extract from a reported speech of M. Cormenin at the Peace Congress, in which there is much good sense. But all this serves for amusement. We have always laughed at the invasion idea as chimerical, and as often speculated whether it would be most polite for our Navy to convoy the dreaded flotilla to our shores, or stay at home to receive it with due honours! But we are getting political for once, and shall finish our reveries with M. Cormenin's observations.]

Never had France less strength, less justice, fewer pretexts, less need, less interest, less of public consent, less union, less money, less