boats, however large the vessel, is so marked, that the latter would not merely be shook to pieces by the discharge of serviceable guns, but could not live at sea. Combining our fine war frigates, which are unrivalled as a body, Government can upon any emergency call into existence, for the service of the country, at a few days' notice, a powerful fleet of 358 steam ships manned with hardy seamen in constant work. Of these, after leaving sufficient to equal in number, though of greatly superior power, the combined forces of all the nations in the globe, there will still remain our majority of 250 disposable. The Mercantile Steam-Marine of the British Empire will thus become a powerful auxiliary to Government, the efficiency of which can scarcely be estimated too highly. However various may be the opinions of individuals, of the degree in which steam ships may be beneficially employed in future warfare, if we examine the tonnage and power of those leviathans of the deep, at page 144, and take into account the heavy ordnance they could carry, especially the British Queen and President, we cannot doubt, that a new power of this description must give some considerable superiority to the side which employs it against an adversary deficient of similar means of resistance. The two last throwing into an enemy weight of metal in proportion to their size, and able to take up and maintain, independent of the wind, those positions which are so eagerly contended for by naval commanders, and the possession of which frequently decides the victory, cæteris paribus, would be formidable antagonists of the largest men-of-war yet built, that could be brought against them. hoist the pennant and whip the seas. Her steamers will also, in future, form the indestructible floating bridge, over which her troops will pour to concentrate British valour and discipline upon a given point, with unerring certainty and unexampled despatch.

England may soon again

This is not the place to enter fully into an inquiry, to show that, in the event of a war, England would surely maintain more, rather than less, of her usual superiority on the seas; and that, however numerous and powerful may be the ships of other powers, they are still, as they were in the last war, but built for our use. Money will enable any country to build a fleet, but geographical position, and the moral and physical peculiarities, which as surely distinguish nations in accordance with such positions, as the mountains and hills of a country determine the length of the rivers and localities of cities and towns, are indispensable to form good seamen. The spirit of adventure kept alive, and urged to action by the necessity of providing subsistence, which a dense population cannot find upon an inadequate territory, has compelled the English to seek occupation upon the waters, and led them to make homes in distant lands. Colonies have sprung up as a necessary consequence, creating a vast carrying trade, and returning to the mother country streams of wealth, whose source is inexhaustible, which enlarges the more as demands are made upon it, and which disuse alone dams up. The surprising increase in her population, during an unexampled peace, has given a momentum to these causes, never surpassed. Will they cease to produce the same effects? Is the hardy endurance of vigorous constitution possessed by her people, and necessary to ensure a continuance of the most efficient seamen, in any way diminished? To pursue the subject at any length, would but lead to an extension of these passing remarks, at variance with the design. It seems, however, written in distinct characters, in the history of nations, that those well-defined and unalterable causes, which alone, or for the most part, are calculated, in nations similarly situated as England, to produce the best seamen, still exist, and in greater force, in the British Empire; have never existed, do not exist at this time, and cannot for centuries, if ever, exist

to the same extent in France, Russia, America, or in any great and prolific Continents, to separate their population, and to render their characteristics so marked, as to enable them to contend, with fair probability of success, against British seamen. So much has been said lately of the formidable naval strength of France, that I will but add a few words by way of contrast with her indomitable conqueror. Whilst Venice, Holland, Spain, and Portugal have each, in her palmy days, furnished her contingent of good navigators and naval heroes, France has supplied few in comparison with her territorial sway and revenues. To enumerate those of England, we must take the muster-roll of her history in the navy, in commerce, and in enterprise. It is idle to expect that the first four of these powers will ever recover strength, to become formidable antagonists of Great Britain on her proper element, when the increase of her population over her deaths, exceed eight hundred a day. France has never been a Naval power. Are, then, those causes changed, or are they now changing, which hitherto have prevented her giving birth to, and continuing a numerous race of hardy seamen? Frenchmen can possess no feeling for the Navy—

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Besides, they are all for the land service,

Not emulating Nelson, Duncan, Howe, and Jervis."

They have no predilection, founded on those glorious associations of triumph and glory, that feed their national vanity in the army. With them there is no confidence of future victory at sea to urge them on, which past success makes so alluring; which snatches a triumph from the uncertain hand of fortune, by anticipating it; "making that true by thinking it, which had been false without." With them, as regards the Navy, it is NON possunt quia NON posse videntur; with Englishmen the reverse, Possunt quia posse videntur. This is everything. Confidence gives the nerve to dare, the arm to

execute. Like the sword of Brennus, it turns the scale. "To do greatly" is to "dare greatly:" daring, it is done. Encourage still this feeling, by equal ships, sufficient crew, and honest pay; inspire it in the nation, and the navy will continue invincible. Mortification and defeat at sea have followed the most vigorous efforts of the French, and tarnished a national glory, the stain of which no exertions can remove.

So long as the springs of action which regulate the human mind remain, so long must England and France maintain their relative strength upon the seas. We do not find that Frenchmen, as individuals, are different from the rest of mankind, and will follow an occupation where failure is the general rule, success the exception. If compelled to choose, they will naturally prefer a service where the contrary has prevailed. To become great at sea, is not in their not in their power. It is contending against their nature. Their country refuses them the necessary physical and mental capabilities. Theirs is essentially a military nation, ours as distinct a naval nation, though we have not shown deficient capabilities as regards military glory. But the hand of Providence, for some wise purpose, has stamped, in characters too legible to be unread, directions to the several governments of the earth:-To France and all Continental States-Maintain armies to protect your territories from the aggression of your neighbours. To England and maritime States-Encourage a navy to protect your islands and colonies. We dislike what we perform not well; and, especially when experience has taught us we shall not succeed, we naturally turn our attention to something else. Though Sir Joshua Reynolds has concurred in the opinion of Dr. Johnson, who denied to original talent any particular bent of the mind, and said, that accident alone directs great powers to that path of eminence in which they are conspicuous, we are not to be blinded by the authority of great names, to believe, however much we may revere the talent,

what the experience of biography contradicts. Nature, besides, has implanted propensities in men, by which they seek, from natural, not acquired aptitude, those various occupations which have led to the division of labour and to distinct classes of society. If the military genius of France were directed to the sea, would it produce the same effects on that element as it has done on land? What did all Napoleon's gigantic efforts to form a navy effect, and what was the result?—the annihilation of half the fleet of his overgrown power, and the addition of the other half, to swell our own. We stripped France of nearly every stick upon which a sail could be hoisted, and then we stripped her of her colonies. We shall do so again. Well was that distinction drawn in the power of her Emperor.

"Then haste thee to thy sullen isle,

And gaze upon the sea;

That element may meet thy smile--
It ne'er was ruled by thee."

The French, constitutionally, hate the sea more than any other nation, without feeling the necessity that drives Islanders to follow it. Necessity in the poorer classes, pride and poverty in the higher, for the most part create seamen even in the British Empire. The same causes that compel Englishmen to follow the sea, are not in operation in America. So long as the boundless and prolific plains of that vast country remain untenanted, and individuals continue so constituted as to prefer ease and comparative plenty, to broken rest, hardships of all kinds, a life of momentary peril and bad pay, so long will America want native seamen. It is notorious, that in the late war she fought us with our own sailors. There is more to fear, perhaps, from the hardy enduring Russians, though it is idle employment to dwell upon those stirring feelings prevalent among individuals, which instruct us that a nation of serfs could never contend