And are such men to be had the moment they are wanted ? Far from it. Hitherto they never have been obtainable on the sudden without impressment, and not always with it. The want of seamen during the late war was often so great, that any bricklayer, nursery gardener, or tailor, who looked tolerably · muscular, and had made even a voyage to Margate, might find himself suddenly whipped on board a man-of-war, though certain to prove when there only a wretched and useless encumbrance; but the press-gangs were themselves too hard pressed to make up the required number to be very particular in their selection. But even if impressment were certain to be effectual, could it now be employed? Impressment means much; it means the getting together of crews by the most brutal violence, of men therefore reluctant and resisting, and some of them savagely resentful. It means, as an inevitable consequence, habitual flogging as the only instrument of discipline, and the consequent prevalence of a state of feeling amongst seamen, during which there never can be any safeguard against such events as the MUTINY OF THE NORE, probably the greatest peril to which England was ever exposed. Impressment, therefore, is bad policy, even if the humanity of the present age would endure it. But, politic or impolitic, it would not be borne for a week. We are able to sleep soundly enough over frightful social evils which keep beneath the surface; but we are as sensitive to any open and glaring hardship as sore eyes are to the light of the sun. An age which can hardly endure the execution of the most atrocious criminals, and which is strongly inclined to think that all military punishments might be commuted for a little gentle scolding, would much rather see the Lord Mayor of London go out with his plate of keys to a conqueror, and then feast him in Guildhall, than witness from day to day the really revolting cruelties which are always connected with impressment.

Nature of Naval Discipline.

If the necessity ever shall arise, therefore, for a greater number of seamen than those who are now afloat, it must be otherwise provided for. But this relates simply to the one point of securing the men. The men, when secured, are still only the materials out of which crews are to be composed, for the crew of a man-of-war is a piece of human machinery, than which there is no one more complicated or more difficult to get into order. It is for naval men to say what training is sufficient; but many months at the least must be requisite to establish such a concert amongst several hundred men that they shall all act as one, not merely in a tempestuous sea, but under a raking fire, with masts crashing overhead, and splinters as dangerous as balls flying from the bulwarks at every shot. Imagine the time and trouble which it must have taken to get up the discipline of a ship, as was done in the Dreadnought, and probably in others during the last war, to such a point, that three complete broadsides could be fired in the space of three minutes and a half. The discipline of a man-of-war is not only hard to get up, but so hard to keep up, that a few months of an incapable commander are at any time enough to deprive a crew of one-half of its efficiency. From all this it follows, that whatever number of men may be wanted upon an emergency must be provided and organized beforehand, for otherwise they will not be forthcoming.

A Naval Force, for Emergencies.

There is no reason for keeping ships in readiness, except to meet emergencies, and it is a mistake to suppose that the emergency is provided for by an inadequate force, merely because that force seems excessive while it is lying idle. The shrewdness of commercial intelligence is seldom at fault in cases of this kind. It knows how to compare the work to be done and the force that is to do it. Take, for example, the case

of a London morning paper. There are few kinds of work so difficult, and probably not one more admirably done, than the reporting of the parliamentary debates. But an efficient reporting corps is organized not for ordinary, but for extraordinary occasions. If any one were to observe, on some Tuesday or Thursday evening, fifteen or twenty gentlemen of high education and intelligence driving backwards and forwards between the House of Commons and a distant printing-office, to record the stale trivialities of some sleepy discussion, all the pros and cons of which could be given by any one of those gentlemen in an hour, without going to the House of Commons at all, such an observer would certainly think that there was an immense expenditure of power for a very small purpose. But if it happens very soon after that an occasion of great importance calls forth, from many leading statesmen, opinions which the whole empire is anxiously looking for, then all that powerful organization is called fully into play, and the speed, the completeness, and the finish, with which the multitude of winged words are arrested and arranged, result, and can only result, from the union of large numbers acting under a perfect and habitual discipline. The wonders of reporting-and the more the process is looked into the more wonderful it will appearare only accomplished by establishments which do not shrink from an outlay so great as often to seem extravagant in proportion to the work done. But if ever a spirit of grudging economy is applied to a reporting corps, the result is invariably the same. The great occasion which is the true test of its efficiency has to be met by makeshifts and sudden substitutes, and never fails to be signalized by blundering and breaking down. It must be exactly the same with the Navy. It is useless to compute how many men and ships are wanted, merely for sailing-matches or for quiet cruising in the Channel. The proper number is that which will serve to defend the coast, whenever the coast requires to be defended. But then the cost? The cost is the cost of insurance. All the insurance offices live upon payments in exchange for which they give

nothing but the mere feeling of security. Whenever they have to pay upon a policy, it is to them so much loss, and the business could not go on at all, if there were not hundreds willing to pay the premium for one who has to claim the compensation. It is now thought almost disgraceful in a private person to neglect insurance. What should such neglect be thought in a nation-in a nation having greater treasures to insure, and easier means of insuring them, than any other in the world?

Steam Tactics.

The new element of steam makes the necessity for precaution much greater than before. It completely supersedes a system of warfare in which England at all events had established a superiority, and must introduce another in which she will have to start as it were afresh, and on equal terms with her rivals. No one knows or can know to what changes in naval tactics this single cause may lead. We have seen, indeed, what wonders steam ships can do in the way of bombardment, and against Asiatics, and nothing could be more unjust than to cast a slight upon the brilliant achievements of the English Navy in Syria and China; but the great naval battles, in which the tug shall be of Greek with Greek, are all yet in the future. And the character of that future may be mainly determined by ideas now working in the brain of some smooth-faced lieutenant or some nimble topman, just as the military genius which astonished the old tacticians at Monte Notte belonged, twelve months previously, to a young artillery officer, who was sauntering about the streets of Paris in want of employment. Nor is it at all impossible for naval heroes to be born at both sides of the Channel. St. Malo before now has had her Duguay Trouin, and Dunkirk her Jean Bart, who, as the enthusiastic French historian' tells us, did, in their day, give matter for thought to the people of Plymouth. If anything of the sort should

1 Michelet.

occur again, one would certainly hope to see in that most magnificent of harbours a little more activity than was shown in the matter of the Amazon.

Age of Naval Commanders.

One more remark must be added upon a point of considerable delicacy, but which ought not to be withheld because statesmen, whatever they may think, do not speak of such things, and journals, like judges, only pronounce opinions when some overt acts are brought in question before them. The Admirals of England are no doubt all possessed of the gallantry which belongs to the profession, and we know from eminent instances to how late a period the energy of command may survive; but it must still be considered a doubtful policy, to observe something like a rule of not entrusting the highest commands, except where the threescore years and ten commonly allotted to the life of man are nearly or altogether completed. It certainly was not by the observance of this rule that Wellington, Napoleon, or Nelson, was enabled to win great battles, but it was by the observance of this rule that England sustained that calamitous reverse, which has made the disasters of Cabul as memorable in English military history, as the loss of Varus and his legions was in that of Rome.

The Artillery.

There yet remains one branch of the national defences upon which nothing has been said, and the efficiency of which still more evidently depends upon an elaborate apparatus and an elaborate education. Is the condition of the artillery what it should be? Whatever it be, it is certain that if it should fall to the lot of a commander to defend England, he will have to rely solely upon such men and equipments as he finds actually ready, for neither by the militia, nor by volunteering, nor by