as the anchoring of a Russian fleet off the Nore would have been to this country he was directed to cast anchor, on his return, off the Piræus, and bid defiance to France and Russia, the guarantees with ourselves of the independence of Greece. On this occasion we were so near a rupture that the French ambassador actually left London, and the Russian one was preparing to follow his example, when an immediate war with the two largest powers of Europe—thus, by unparalleled rashness on our part, brought, for the first time for half a century, to act cordially together-was only prevented by our succumbing and referring the matter to arbitration, as they had all along proposed, instead of exacting it at the cannon's mouth, as we had at first endeavoured to do. And for what mighty national interest was this enormous peril incurred, when, as usual, we were wholly unprepared to meet it? Was it to save Hindostan from invasion, or raise the blockade of the Nore, or extricate our fleet from the grasp of the Czar? No! It was to enforce private claims of M. Pacifico and Mr Finlay on the Greek Government, to the amount of a few thousand pounds a proceeding which afforded the Continental powers, if they had been as hostilely disposed as Our Government, a fair precedent for sending a Russian fleet of thirty ships of the line to the Nore, to demand satisfaction from our Government for the brutal attack on Marshal Haynau ! And yet, such is the infatuation produced by party spirit, that not only was this aggressive act approved by a majority of the House of Commons, even after we had been obliged to recede from it, but it was approved by the very men who are constantly preaching up the immediate advent of a pacific millennium, and the necessity of disbanding our troops and selling our ships of the line.

Surrounded then, as we undeniably are, with the flames and the passions of war on every side; slumbering on the edge of a volcano, the fires of which are smouldering under our feet and gathering strength for a fresh and still more terrific explosion; actuated as we are by unbounded national haughtiness, and a most

aggressive system of foreign policy, have we done anything to support our pretensions, or avert those ravages from our own shores which we have so liberally scattered on all the adjacent coasts? Have we 100,000 regular troops and 200,000 landwehr, in the British Islands, ready to repel insult; and a fleet of 30 ships of the line and 20 armed steamers, ready afloat and manned, on the German Ocean and in the Channel, to secure our harbours from attack, and raise a blockade of our coasts? Have we-since we are so set upon a foreign war, and have done so much to spread the passions which necessarily lead to it, and made so many hostile demonstrations calculated instantly to induce it-made preparations in our Exchequer and our granaries for its expenses and its privations ? Have we, like Frederick the Great when he invaded Silesia, a fund of £7,000,000 in the Treasury, to meet his war expenses; or Napoleon, when he plunged into Russia, a reserve of £14,000,000 in the vaults of the Tuileries? Have we fortified Woolwich, the general arsenal of the empire, and Chatham, and our other naval depots, hitherto undefended? Have we cleared out the glacis of Portsmouth and Plymouth, so as to give free range to the guns of the works, and established a great central fortification at Weedon, or some other central point in England, whither our troops might retire, if obliged to evacuate London, and where the new levies, raised in haste, might receive the elements of discipline, without the risk of being assailed, while yet in the awkward squad state, by the enemies' cuirassiers?

Alas! we have done none of these things. Woolwich is still an open depot, liable to be taken by a single regiment; there is not a bastion at Weedon; there is not a defensible post in the environs of London; Chatham, Sheerness, and Deptford are entirely open on the land side; and although Portsmouth and Plymouth are fortified, and may be pronounced impregnable against a naval assault, they are far from being so against a land force. The enemy would not require to run a sap up to the counter

scarp we have saved him the trouble, by allowing houses to be built almost everywhere so near the ditch, that the besiegers would effect a lodgment there the first day, and be able to batter in the breach in two days more. Landwehr we have none, unless 30,000 pensioners-most valuable veterans, of great use against mobs, or for garrison service, but little qualified for the field-deserve the name: our yeomanry, though admirably mounted and full of spirit, are wholly unacquainted with the duties, and unaccustomed to the fatigues, of actual warfare. We have not more than seven or eight ships of the line, and these but imperfectly manned, ready for sea in our harbours; and the regular troops in Great Britain, though second to none in the world in discipline and courage, can only muster 37,000 sabres and bayonets, and in the two islands amount only to 61,000!! In proportion to the eagerness with which we have spread abroad the passions and lighted the flames of war in all the adjoining states, is the assiduity with which we have neglected or abandoned our own defences; and the promptitude we have evinced, on every possible occasion, to provoke the hostility or rouse the jealousy of the most powerful states in our neighbourhood can be paralleled only by the simultaneous reductions we have effected in our own armaments, and the utterly defenceless state in which we have exposed ourselves to their attacks. Judging from our internal reductions, one would suppose we were never again to go to war: judging from our foreign policy, one would suppose we were never again to be at peace.

To illustrate these remarks, and demonstrate the utter insanity of our simultaneous adoption of the most aggressive foreign policy and the most pacific internal preparation, we subjoin from Sir Francis Head's late most admirable and interesting work a vidimus of the military force of the principal European powers, as compared with that of Great Britain, and subjoin to it a statement of our naval force, accompanied with that of France, Russia, and the United States-the principal maritime powers of the Continent and America:

This is the entire force, so far as European troops are concerned, which is on foot to protect the immense British dominions in the four quarters of the globe! And as the entire regular force in Great Britain and Ireland is only 61,848 men, with 40 guns equipped for the field-and at least a fifth of every military force must always be deducted for sick, absent, and deserters-it follows that 50,000 men, with 40 guns, is the very utmost of regular troops that could be relied on in both islands to meet an enemy. Of this at least 20,000 would require to be left in Ireland; so that 30,000 men alone could be assembled in the last extremity for the defence of Great Britain! As to the pensioners and yeomanry, they would be entirely absorbed in forming garrisons, keeping up the communications, and preserving tranquillity in the manufacturing towns in the interior.

Formidable as this state of matters is, it becomes doubly serious when the state of our naval force is considered.

In 1792, before the war broke out, and when our population was not a half, nor our commerce and colonial dominions a fourth of what they now are, the naval force of Great Britain

Line,
Frigates,
War-steamers,

14 †

Thus Russia and France could produce 85 ships of the line, 80 frigates, and 102 war-steamers, against our 65 or 70 of the line, 147 frigates, and 56 war-steamers. A disproportion sufficiently great for a country which boasts of being mistress of the waves the more especially when it is recollected that both these hostile nations are actuated by the greatest jealousy of our naval power, and envy of our commercial greatness, and that we have so managed our foreign policy that, not six months ago, we were within a hairsbreadth of a war with both united. We are aware of the resources which, if the contest were prolonged for any considerable period, would arise to this country from the steam-packets to America and the West Indies, which their owners are taken bound, on an emergency, to place at the disposal of the Admiralty. But this provision, though a most wise and judicious one, and of very great moment in a lengthened conflict, would obviously be of little or no avail if war surprised us, as to all appearance it will do, in our usual state of fancied security and entire want of preparation, and a Russian fleet of twenty-five ships of the line from the Baltic anchors off the Nore, simultaneously with a French one of ten off Portsmouth, with as little warning or intimation as Admiral Parker gave to the Russians when he appeared at the mouth of the Dardanelles, or to the Greek Government when he cast anchor off the harbour of the Piræus.

But the danger becomes incomparably greater, and assumes the most portentous aspect, when two other circumstances connected with our naval situation are taken into consideration, of vital importance in

This shows that out of twentyeight line-of-battle ships and fifties in commission at that period, only thirteen were in the British harbours, and even including the Experimental Squadron, only fifteen. Of these, at least a half are mere guardships-such as the Victory at Portsmouth-of little real use but to furnish a mast for the Admiral on the station to hoist his flag. Of the six or seven that really are fit for sea, not more than one half are fully manned. Accordingly, it is universally known among naval men, that there are not more than three or four ships of the line that could on a sudden emergency be got ready for sea in the British harbours: being not half the force which the Danes had when they were suddenly attacked by Nelson in 1801, and by Lord Cathcart in 1807. On the first occasion, they had nine ships of the line and floating batteries moored off Copenhagen: on the last, eighteen ships of the line were taken by the victors, and brought to the British shores.

6

10

We are often told of the immense force which England now has in her steam-vessels - more numerous, it is said, and unquestionably better manned and navigated than any in Europe; and the "Excellent," at Portsmouth, is referred to as able at a moment's warning to furnish the requisite amount of experienced gunners. Fully admitting the high discipline and training of the gunners on board the Excellent, of whose merits we are well aware, they cannot do impossibilities. They amount only to five hundred men; and what are they to the forces requisite to defend the British shores against a combined French and Russian fleet, such as we all but brought upon us last April, when the French ambassador left London ?

What could four or five hundred trained gunners do when scattered over fifteen or twenty sail of the line, and as many steamers, the crews of which were suddenly huddled together-supposing them got at all-from the merchant service, where they had received no sort of

training in naval warfare? What could the peace steam-boats, not pierced for a single gun, do against the broadsides of the Russian line-ofbattle ships, or the huge war-steamers which excited such astonishment among our naval men, when exhibited at the late review at Cherbourg? The thing is quite ridiculous. They would furnish, in Napoleon's words, ample chair au cannon, and nothing

more.

Contrast this now with the state of preparation in which the French and Russian navies are kept, in consequence of their having both a regular force raised by conscription, and constantly paid and under arms like their land forces, wherewith to commence the conflict. The Czar has always twenty ships of the line and ten frigates in the Baltic, completely equipped and ready for sea, with 30,000 soldiers ready to step on board of them; and it would be surprising if, in passing the Sound, they were not reinforced by the six ships of the line and steam-frigates at the disposal of Denmark,* who would desire nothing better than to return, in a manner equally unexpected, the sudden visits we paid her in 1801 and 1807. France, in addition to sixteen ships of the line in commission, and double that number of war-steamers, has no less than 55,000 seamen ready to be called on, like the national guard, at a moment's warning, perfectly trained to gunnery and warlike duties, who could man double that number of line-of-battle ships and war-steamers.

“The French nation, however, deeming it unsafe to rest on any such frail contingency as voluntary enlistment, has wisely, as well as justly, decreed that her maritime districts and commercial marine shall be subject to the same obligation to serve their country as the other classes of the community; and, accordingly, by the laws of France, every boy who goes to sea is required to register his name on the Inscription Marine.' After one year's probation, he enters into the class of Mousses' until he is sixteen, when he becomes a novice' or apprentice till eighteen, when he is classed as a marine or seaman, and he is thenceforward at the service of the state till he is fifty years of age. Besides this, about of the gene

ral conscription throughout the inland provinces are by law liable to serve in the navy. By the above arrangements, it appears that between the year 1835 and 1844, both inclusive, 55,517 seamen answered the calls of the annual Levée permanente, and, moreover, that very nearly the whole of the French merchant seamen, amounting altogether to upwards of 100,000 men, must have passed successively through the royal navy.

"Under this admirable system--which, while it flatters the passions, cultivates the mind, and comfortably provides for the sailor, the French nation are prepared, by beat of drum, to march from their various quarters to their respective ships, compagnies permanentes of welltrained gunner seamen; and thus, at a moment's warning, even in time of peace, to complete the manning of sixteen sail of the line."-SIR FRANCIS HEAD, 184, 185.

It is no exaggeration, therefore, but the simple truth, to say that France and Russia could, in ten days from the time that their respective ambassadors left London, appear with a fleet of thirty ships of the line and forty frigates or war-steamers in the Channel, with which they could with ease blockade the Thames, Portsmouth, and Plymouth, where not more, at the very utmost, than eight or ten line-of-battle ships, and ten or twelve war-steamers, most of them only half manned, could be collected to oppose them. We have no doubt the crews of this diminutive fleet would do their duty as nobly as they did at the Nile and Trafalgar; but we shudder at the thought of the national blindness and infatuation which the existence of England as an indewould expose them, and with them pendent nation, to such fearful odds.

In any such conflict, it is by the forces which can suddenly be rendered available that everything will be determined. It may be quite true that England possesses resources in the vast extent of her mercantile navy and steam-vessels, and the undaunted character of her seamen, which, in any prolonged contest, would give her the same superiority which she maintained throughout the last war; but it is not the less true, that this contingent ultimate superiority would be of no avail to avert disaster-it may