Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 424, February 1851

Chapter VIII (3)

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How rapidly will the scales then fall from the eyes which have so long been blinded; how bitter will be the regret at the inexplicable insensibility now to solemn warnings; how intense the indignation at the delusions which, for the sake of present profit to the deluders, has so long been practised upon them! The burst of indignation with which the appointment of the Lord Cardinal was received throughout England, the more suppressed apprehensions with which the opening of the Californian treasures was viewed by our moneyed oligarchy, can afford but a faint image of the feelings of agony which will then wring the British heart--the frightful cry of distress which will then rise up from famishing millions, the universal horror at past neglect which will send the iron into the soul of our whole people. Their efforts to redeem the past will probably be great, their struggles will be those of a giant. But it may be too late. They will be in the condition of the Athenian people when Lysander cast anchor off the Piræus, after the burning of their fleet at Aigos Potamos; or of the Carthaginians, when the legions of Scipio, in the last Punic war, drew round their walls; or of the Parisians, when "Europe in arms before their gates" demanded the surrender of all their conquests. They will be profoundly mortified--they will be cut to the heart; they would give half they possess for a deliverance, but they will be _forced to submit_; and to the annalist of these mournful times will only remain the task of drawing the appropriate moral from the melancholy tale, and recording the fall and ruin of England for the instruction of, and as a beacon to be avoided by, future times.

The Free Trade and Bullionist orators will exclaim that this statement is overcharged--that these apprehensions are entirely chimerical--that neither France nor Russia have the slightest intention of going to war with us--that the days of hostility between nations are at an end--that, even if we were attacked, our resources are greater than ever--and that the insular situation of Great Britain gives her a security which renders the maintenance of costly armaments for the national defence wholly unnecessary. This is what they _will say_; and we tell them what _they will not say_.--They will never allude to the arguments which follow, which will demonstrate the reality of all this peril as clearly as any proposition in Euclid; if they do allude to them, it will only be to ridicule and misrepresent--the usual resource of detected error in presence of irresistible arguments. They will never allude to the facts or arguments adduced on the other side; but, treating the whole persons who adduce them--and ourselves among the rest--as utter fanatics and monomaniacs, continue to inculcate on their numerous readers--who never look at any papers on the other side--the entire security of the nation, the evident advent of a time when all wars are to cease, our secure and unassailable position, and the utter folly of incurring the certain evil of present expense for the purpose of warding off such contingent, remote, and chimerical dangers. We are well aware of the ability with which this method of upholding delusions is carried on, and of the readiness with which it is listened to both by the opulent and powerful class whose means of amassing fortunes would be diminished, and the numerous class whose burdens would in a slight degree be increased by a change of system.

The argument, that the era of wars has ceased, that Peace Congresses are henceforth to supersede the logic of cannon, and that the sooner we disband our troops, and sell our ships of the line, as a costly relic of a preadamite age, the better--would be an extremely strong one, and deserving of the most serious consideration, if it had any foundation in fact. But if this is not the case--if, on the contrary, the facts are all of an opposite character--then the argument, based on such a fallacious foundation, becomes the strongest which can be urged on the other side. Now, without going back to former times and the annals of history, let us attend only to our own days, and what we see around us, to ascertain whether there is any likelihood of war becoming unknown among men, and a real millennium causing all swords to be turned into pruning-hooks.

Everybody knows that the tendency of the present times is to become democratic; and it is chiefly in the increased weight of the people--the greatest sufferers from the ravages of war--in the direction of public affairs, that the advocates of universal peace rest their predictions of the immediate advent of a pacific millennium. What countenance do the facts of recent times--even if all previous history were set aside--afford to the assertion that democratic influence is essentially of a pacific character, and that with the increase in all civilised states of popular power, the disuse and, at length, extinction of war may be anticipated?

So far from affording any countenance to such an idea, all recent, as well as former experience, leads to conclusions directly the reverse, and induces the melancholy prognostication that, with the general increase of democratic influence, not only will the sphere of future hostility be augmented, but its fierceness and devastations will be fearfully enhanced. Who commenced the dreadful wars of the French Revolution, which for twenty long years deluged Europe with blood, and brought the tricolor standards--the emblem of Republicanism--into every capital of continental Europe?--Democratic ascendency in Paris; the crimes and ambition of the Girondists; the bloodthirsty passions of the Jacobins, which, not content with ravaging and drenching with gore their own country, could not find vent but in the sacking and plundering of all Europe. What afterwards gave rise to the terrible struggle in Poland in 1831, and induced the multiplied sufferings of that gallant but inconsiderate and infatuated democracy?--The French Revolution of 1830, which, but for the firmness of Louis Philippe, and his determination to risk all rather than gratify the passion for war in the Republicans who had elevated him to power, would have involved Europe in universal conflagration. What brought on the horrid civil war in Spain, which for five years overwhelmed the Peninsula with horrors and cold-blooded atrocities, which throw even those consequent on the invasion of Napoleon into the shade?--A democratic triumph in Madrid; the placing of a revolutionary queen on the throne of Spain; the determination and armed intervention of England and France to uphold the cause of popular aggression in both kingdoms of the Peninsula.

What overturned the throne and pacific policy of Louis Philippe?--His determination to keep at peace; his resolution to coerce, at any hazard, the ambitious designs of the Parisian democrats. He tried to be a "Napoleon of Peace," and he lost his throne and died in exile in consequence. What immediately followed the triumph of the Republicans in Paris in February 1848? Was it the reign of universal tranquillity--the advent of peace and good-will among men? Was it not, on the contrary, an outbreak of general hostility--the universal arming of nation against nation, of people against people, of race against race? Did not Republican Piedmont invade Lombardy; and Republican Prussia, Holstein; and Republican France besiege Rome? Did not the Magyar rise up, against the Sclave, and the Bohemian against the Austrian, and the Lombard against both; and was not the frightful scene of almost universal hostility appeased--and that for the time only--by the appalling appearance of a hundred thousand Muscovites on the Hungarian plains? Have not Austria and Prussia for the last six months been on the verge of a dreadful contest? Have not the burghers and ploughmen of all Germany been called from their peaceful avocations, to man the ranks of the landwehr? Have not eight hundred thousand men been arrayed on the opposite sides, and the banks of the Saale crowded with armies paralleled only by those which in 1813 stood on those of the Elbe? And what stopped this dreadful war, and sent back those multitudes of armed citizens unscathed to their peaceful homes? Was it republican France, or popular England? No; it was despotic Russia. It was the presence of a hundred and fifty thousand armed and disciplined Muscovites on the banks of the Vistula, which like a thundercloud overcast the east of Europe, and at last cooled down the ardent ambition of democratic Prussia into something like a just estimate of the chances of the conflict, and a temporary respect for the rights of other nations.

Turn to distant parts of the world, and is the prospect more indicative of the advent of a pacific millennium? Is it to be found among the English colonists in India, or the energetic republicans of America? Have not the English, for the last twenty years, been engaged in almost ceaseless hostilities in Hindostan or China, during which ultimately our victorious standards have been advanced to Cabul and Nankin; and we have seen our empire shaken to its very foundation by the disasters of the Coord Cabul Pass, and the frightful contest on the banks of the Sutlej? Is America more peaceful, and is the advent of the reign of peace foreshadowed by the entire abstinence from ambitious and angry passions in the republicans of its southern or northern hemisphere? Has not the former, since the disastrous era when its revolution began, been the theatre of convulsions so frequent, and bloodshed so incessant, that history, in despair, has ceased to record the names of these conflicts, and points with horror only to their woeful consequences? And has not Northern America, during the last twenty years, exhibited the most unequivocal evidence of the lust of conquest having gained possession of the most influential portions of her inhabitants? Were they not actually at war with us in 1837 to support the Canadian revolutionists; did they not cheat us out of three-fourths of Maine, and bully us out of half of Oregon; and have they not squatted down, without the vestige of a title, on Texas; and when the Mexicans resented the aggression, invaded their territory and wrested from them the half of it, including the whole auriferous region of California? In short, war surrounds us on all sides; its passions are raging throughout the world; an era of such hostile prognostications is scarcely to be found in the annals of mankind. And yet Mr Cobden and Mr Bright declare, to admiring and assenting audiences in Manchester, that the era of war is past, and that we should disband our troops and sell our ships of the line! They are like an insane patient in a distant wing of a building which is wrapped in flames, who positively refuses to do anything to save himself, saying, "They will never reach me."

Has the conduct of the English Government for twenty years past evinced the reality of the alleged disinclination to hostilities which is said to be creeping over all established governments, and to which popular ones in particular are in so remarkable a manner averse? Has not our conduct, on the contrary, even in Europe, been aggressive and provocatory to war in the very highest degree? Did we not unite with France to force a revolutionary government on Spain and Portugal, and to prevent a legitimate one in Belgium from recovering its lawful possessions? Did we not, along with Russia, Prussia, and Austria, throw down the gauntlet, at the time of the bombardment of Beyrout and the siege of Acre, to France; and did not the firmness of Louis Philippe and the accession of Guizot, whom he called to his councils at the critical moment, alone prevent a general and frightful war in Europe? It is well known, to all persons acquainted with the subject, that we were still nearer a war with France some years afterwards, when the affair of Otaheite and Queen Pomare revived the ancient and undying jealousy of the two countries. We know it for a fact, that at that period the French were prepared for, and _fully expected_ instant hostilities; and that for several nights six thousand choice light troops slept armed and accoutred on board the huge war-steamers at Cherbourg, ready to start at daybreak for a descent on the southern shores of Britain, and on some of its undefended dockyards, where not a vestige of preparation had been made to repel them.

But why recur to periods comparatively remote for proofs of a state of things which recur under our present foreign administration as periodically as commercial catastrophes do under our monetary system? In November 1849 we sent Admiral Parker, with the whole Mediterranean fleet, to the mouth of the Dardanelles, and took the Czar by the beard to rescue from his grasp some thousand Hungarian insurgents; and not content with this demonstration--which was as hostile 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:--

I. FRANCE.

_Regular troops_--

Infantry, 301,224
Cavalry, 58,932
Artillery, 30,166
Engineers, &c., 18,298
-------
408,630
National Guards, 2,630,800
---------

II. RUSSIA.

_Regular troops_--

Infantry, 468,000
Cavalry, 85,000
Cossacks, 20,000
-------
Regulars, 573,000
Guns, 1,020
-------
Garrisons and reserves, 150,000
Cossacks, 10,000
-------
160,000
-------

III. AUSTRIA (IN WAR.)

Infantry, 484,240
Cavalry, 54,560
Artillery, 26,104
Engineers, &c., 56,549
-------
626,453
In peace reduced to, 378,552
Landwehr, 200,000
-------

IV. PRUSSIA.

_Regulars and Landwehr_--

Infantry, 265,530
Cavalry, 49,662
Artillery, 23,400
Engineers, &c., 40,800
-------
379,392
Guns, 1,163
Landsturm, 222,416
-------

V. GREAT BRITAIN.

_Regulars, infantry, cavalry, and
artillery_--

In Great Britain, 37,845
" Ireland, 24,005
" European colonies, 7,915
" Asia, (English,) 30,467
" America, &c. 19,835
" Africa, 3,703
-------
123,768

Pensioners, 30,000
Dockyards-men, 8,000
Yeomanry, 13,441
Militia in Channel}
Islands, } 4,700
------ 56,141
-------
179,909
-------

--SIR F. HEAD, p. 5-36.

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 was--

Ships of the line, of which 115} 156
were effective, }
Frigates, 97[5]

At this moment our naval force stands as follows:--

Ships of the line, and building,} 93
of which 65 are serviceable, }
50 to 70 gun ships, 39
Frigates, 110
War-steamers, 56

The forces of the principal maritime powers of the globe, Spain being effete, stand thus:--

FRANCE.

Line, 46
Frigates, 50
Steamers of war, 102

RUSSIA.

Line, 45
Frigates, 30

AMERICA.

Line, 11
Frigates, 14
War-steamers, 14[6]

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 question, but which the advocates for reduction studiously keep out of view in its discussion.

The first is, the _immense extent of the colonial empire_ we have to defend, and the consequent unavoidable _dispersion_ of our naval force, such as it is, over the whole globe. This appears in the most decisive manner from the table quoted below, taken from the _United Service Gazette_ for December 1850, showing the distribution of our ships of the line in commission up to 25th November last.

This shows that out of twenty-eight 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.

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-of-battle 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,[7] 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
1/20 of the general 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 well-trained 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 would expose them, and with them the existence of England as an independent 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 be conquest--if the enemy, by having their forces better in hand, and available _in the outset_, were in a situation to gain an advantage which could never be recovered from in the commencement. It is impossible to overestimate the shock to credit, and ruin to the best interests of the empire, which would arise from a blockade of our harbours even for a single fortnight. Of what would it avail us that we had six noble sail of the line, and double that number of war-steamers in the Mediterranean, and as many scattered through the world, from China to California, if the Thames, the Mersey, and the Clyde, were blockaded by hostile fleets, and Portsmouth and Plymouth could only furnish five or six half-manned line-of-battle ships to raise the blockade? Russia has _no colonies_; France, next to none: thus the whole naval forces of both these Powers could be brought to bear, without deduction or defalcation of any sort, on Great Britain, more than half of whose navy is necessarily scattered over the globe. Our distant fleets would, in such a crisis, avail us as little as an army of pawns, with bishops and knights, would a chess-player who had received checkmate.

In the next place, these considerations become doubly powerful when it is recollected how very peculiar and tardy is the mode of _collecting men_, which alone is now thought of in the British navy. It is not generally known by landsmen--though hereafter they may come to know it to their cost--that in England at present there is _neither any standing royal naval force, nor any compulsory means of levying it_. By our great naval establishment and right of impressing seamen, we had, practically speaking, both during the war: but these days are past. The navy sailors are changed as ships come into harbour, and the right of impressment has virtually become obsolete. When a ship, after two or three years' service, comes into port, she is immediately _paid off_, and a new set of sailors, wholly ignorant of war, are slowly got together by the next captain who gets that or a corresponding ship; who in their turn, when they begin to become expert at their new duties, are displaced to make way for a third body of untrained men! What should we say to a manufacturer, a merchant, or a general, who should conduct things in this manner? Yet, such as it is, it is the system of the British navy. This subject, of vital importance, has been so well illustrated by two gallant naval officers, that we cannot do better than quote their admirable observations on it.

"A ship," says Admiral Bowles, "is required to relieve another for
foreign service. She is selected, reported ready for commission,
the captain and officers are appointed, and then volunteers are
advertised for. They come in slowly and uncertainly. If the ship
is a large one, the men will not enter until the heaviest part of
the work of fitting is completed: the equipment proceeds slowly and
carelessly, because energy and rapidity are impracticable; but even
then, those who enter first feel they are unfairly worked, and the
seeds of discontent and desertion are sown at the very commencement
of their service.

"Three, or sometimes four, months thus pass away, before the ship's
complement is complete; and, in the meanwhile, little progress
is made in discipline or instruction. She at last sails for her
destination, and relieves a ship which, having been three or four
years on active service is, or ought to be, in a high state of
efficiency; but on its arrival in England it is dismantled, the
officers and crew are paid off and discharged, and we thus proceed,
on the plan of perpetually creating and as perpetually destroying,
what we have with so much labour and expense endeavoured to
obtain--an effective ship of war."[8]

Captain Plunkett adds his valuable testimony to the same effect:--

"Voluntary enlistment may be considered entirely inapplicable to
cases of emergency. There are no means of calculating how long
ships would be manning, if, as would necessarily happen in cases of
emergency, their crews were not increased by men recently paid off
from other ships. In peace, there are usually _as many ships_ paid
off as commissioned in a year; and thus the men who leave one ship
join another. But, even with this aid, the average time occupied
by general line-of-battle ships in completing their crews, we find
to have been above five months. In 1835-6, when we commissioned
several ships of line at once, they were _six months waiting for
seamen, and were then very ill manned_. We may safely suppose
that, were ten sail of the line commissioned at this moment, and
did circumstances not admit of paying others off, we should not
see them manned in less than _eight_ months. We may therefore say
that, for any case of emergency, simple volunteering will fail,
_as it always has failed_. We may expedite the material fitting
of a fleet; we may move ships about our harbours, put their masts
in, and call them 'demonstration' or 'advance ships!' we may even
fit them for sea--for the dockyard men can do all that--but, when
fitted, _there they must remain_ for months waiting for seamen.
Foreign powers are quite aware of this, for it is the duty of
their consuls at our ports to inform their governments, and they
must laugh at the demonstration by which John Bull plays a trick
upon--HIMSELF!

"It is a matter of official avowal, and, we may add, of personal
and painful recollection, that, in 1840, we were unable to collect
a few hundred seamen to make a show of preparation.... When England
was vainly trying to scrape together a few hundred seamen, France
had (in _compagnies permanentes_) upwards of 3000 ready in the
Atlantic ports, and probably not less at Toulon.

"It is a fact as surprising as it is discreditable to England, that
_Russia could send thirty sail of the line to sea before England
could send three_.

"It is scarcely an exaggeration to say, we might _build_ a ship in
the time required to _man_ one."

We add not a word of comment on these admirable passages. Further illustration were worse than useless, after such words coming from such quarters.

It is often said that all fears of invasion are ridiculous, after the failure of Napoleon, who had 130,000 of the finest troops in the world to effect it. The _Times_, with its usual ability, makes the most of this argument. We accept the challenge: and, if we are not much mistaken, that able journal will have no reason to congratulate itself on having referred to that period for support of its argument:--

1. The regular land forces of France at that period were 450,000 men: about the same as they are now. But now that Power has, in addition, 2,000,000 well-trained National Guards in arms, which, by rendering her territory wellnigh unassailable, leaves her whole regular force available for foreign expedition.

2. England had then 160,000 regular troops on foot, including 30,000 of the army of reserve, raised in the preceding years, of whom about 100,000 were in the British Islands. In 1808, the Duke of York reported to Government that, without detriment to any necessary home service, 60,000 regulars could be spared for the Peninsula; and in 1809 she had 80,000 in active warfare--viz., 40,000 at Walcheren, 30,000 in Spain, and 10,000 in Sicily.

3. In addition to this, she had 80,000 militia, quite equal to troops of the line, in Great Britain and Ireland, besides 300,000 volunteers in arms, tolerably drilled and full of spirit.

4. She had 83 ships of the line in commission, and 230 in all the royal dockyards, and 508 vessels of war bore the royal flag.

5. She had a system of impressment in active operation, which in effect gave the Admiralty the command, on an emergency, of the whole sailors in the mercantile navy of Great Britain, as they successively came into harbour: and the magnitude of the royal navy was such, and its attractions--especially the hopes of prize-money and glory--so powerful, that the sailors of the fleet were as much a _standing force_ as Napoleon's grenadiers.

6. Austria and Russia were then in close alliance, offensive and defensive, with Great Britain, and 80,000 Muscovites, under Kutusoff, were hastening through Poland and Moravia to join 90,000 Austrians, who were on the Inn, threatening to invade Bavaria.

7. So instant was the danger, and so pressing the approach of a contest with the two greatest military powers on the Continent, that Napoleon was obliged to count not only by weeks but _by days_; and he had only just time enough to close the war, as he himself said, by "a clap of thunder on the Thames, before he would be called on to combat for his existence on the Danube."

Such were the circumstances under which Napoleon then undertook his long meditated and deeply laid project for the invasion and conquest of Great Britain. His plan was to decoy Lord Nelson away to the West Indies by a feigned expedition of the combined Toulon and Cadiz fleets, and for them suddenly to return, join the Ferrol squadron, pick up those of Rochefort and l'Orient, unite with that of Brest, and with the united force, which would be sixty sail of the line, proceed into the Channel, where it was calculated there would only be twenty or twenty-five to oppose them; and, with this overwhelming force, cover the embarkation of the 130,000 men whom he had collected on the coast of the Channel. The plan was not original on the part of Napoleon, though he had the whole merit of the organisation of the stupendous armament which was to carry it into execution. The design was originally submitted, in 1782, by M. de Bouillé to Louis XVI., and Rodney's victory alone prevented it from being attempted at that time. France's designs in this respect are fixed and unalterable: they were the same under the mild and pacific Louis as the implacable Napoleon, and suggested as ably by the chivalrous and loyal-hearted de Bouillé, the author of the flight of the Royal family to Varennes, as by the regicide Talleyrand, or the republican Décrès.[9]

Such was Napoleon's plan, formed on that of M. de Bouillé; and, vast and complicated as it was, it all but succeeded. Indeed, its failure was owing to a combination of circumstances so extraordinary that they can never be expected to recur again; and even these are to be ascribed rather to the good providence of God, than to anything done by man to counteract it.

Nelson's fleet of ten line-of-battle ships pursued the combined fleet of twenty from Cadiz to the West Indies; but they had four weeks the start of him: and upon arriving there in the beginning of June, he received intelligence that they had set sail ten days before for Europe. Instantly divining their plan, he--without losing an hour--despatched several fast-sailing brigs to warn the Admiralty of their approach. One of these, the _Curieux_, which bore the fortunes of England on its sails, outstripped all its competitors, and even outsailed the combined fleet, so as to arrive at Portsmouth on the 9th July. Without losing an hour, the Admiralty sent orders by telegraph to Admiral Calder to join the Rochefort blockading squadron, and stand out to sea, in order to intercept the enemy on his return to the European seas. He did so; and with fifteen sail of the line met the combined fleet of twenty, on the 15th July: engaged them, took two ships of the line, and drove the fleet back into Ferrol; where, however, he was too weak to blockade them, as their junction with the squadron there raised their force to thirty ships of the line.

Though this was a severe check, it did not altogether disconcert Napoleon. He sent orders to Villeneuve to set sail from Ferrol, and join the Rochefort and Brest squadrons which were ready to receive him, and which would have raised the combined fleet to fifty-five line-of-battle ships, then to make straight for the Channel, where Napoleon, with one hundred and thirty thousand men, and fifteen hundred gun-boats and lesser craft, lay ready to embark. On the 21st August, the Brest squadron, consisting of twenty-one sail of the line, under Gantheaume, stood out to sea. Every eye was strained looking to the south, where Villeneuve with thirty-five line-of-battle ships, was expected to appear. What prevented the junction, and defeated this admirably laid plan, which had thus obtained complete success so far as it had gone--for Nelson was still a long way off, his fleet having been wholly worn-out by their long voyage, and obliged to go into Gibraltar to refit? It was this: Villeneuve set sail from Ferrol with 29 sail of the line, on the 11th August, but instead of proceeding to the north--in conformity with his orders--to join Gantheaume off Brest, HE STEERED FOR CADIZ, which he reached in safety on the 21st of August, the very day on which he had been expected at Brest, without meeting with Sir Robert Calder, who had fallen back into the Bay of Biscay. For this disobedience of orders, Napoleon afterwards brought Villeneuve to a court-martial, by which he was condemned.

This unaccountable disobedience of orders entirely defeated Napoleon's scheme, for Austria was now on, the verge of invading Bavaria. He accordingly at once changed his plan; and, as he could no longer hope for a naval superiority in the Channel, before the Austrian invasion took place, directed all his forces to repel the combined Austrian and Russian forces in Bavaria and Italy. On September 1, his whole army received orders to march from the heights of Boulogne to the banks of the Danube. On the 20th October, Mack defiled, with thirty thousand men as prisoners before him, on the heights of Ulm; and on the day after--October 21--Nelson defeated Villeneuve at Trafalgar, took nineteen ships of the line, and ruined seven more. Between that battle and the subsequent one of Sir R. Strachan, thirty ships of the line were taken or destroyed; all hope of invasion for the remainder of the war was at an end; and "ships, colonies, and commerce" had irrevocably passed to Napoleon's enemies.

Such was the extraordinary and apparently providential combination of circumstances which defeated this great plan of Napoleon for the invasion of this country--a plan which, he repeatedly said, was the best combined and most deeply laid of any he had ever formed in his life. Its failure was owing to accident, or some overruling cause which cannot be again relied on. Had the _Curieux_ not made the shortest passage ever then known, from Antigua--twenty-four days; had Villeneuve reached the Channel unexpectedly on the 20th or 21st July, as he would have done but for its arrival--had he even sailed for Brest on the 11th August, as ordered, _instead of to Cadiz_, the invasion would in all human probability have taken place. What its result would have been is a very different question. With a hundred and eighty thousand regular troops and militia in arms in the British Islands, besides three hundred thousand volunteers, the conflict must at least have been a very desperate one. But what would it be now, when the French and Russians have greater land forces to invade us; when their naval superiority, at least in the outset of the contest, would be much more decisive; and, with a much more divided and discontented population at home, we could only--at the very utmost--oppose them with fifty thousand effective men in both islands, in the field.

It is often said by persons who know nothing of war, either by study or experience, that "if the French invaded us, we would all rise up and crush them." Setting aside what need not be said to any man who knows anything of the subject--the utter inadequacy of an unarmed, untrained, and undisciplined body of men, however individually brave, to repel the attack of a powerful regular army--we shall by one word settle this matter of the nation rising up. It would rise up, and we know what it would do. The _most influential part of it, at least in the towns, who now rule the state, would run away_. We do not mean run away from the field; for, truly, very few of those who now raise the cry for economy and disarming would be found there. We mean they would counsel, and, in fact, insist on submission. Many brave men would doubtless be found in the towns, and multitudes in the country, who would be eager at the posts of danger; but the great bulk of the wealthy and influential classes, at least in the great cities, would loudly call out for an accommodation on any terms. They would surrender the fleets, dismantle Portsmouth and Plymouth, cede Gibraltar and Malta--_anything to stop the crisis_. They would do so for the same reason that they now so earnestly counsel disbanding the troops and selling the ships of the line, and under the influence of a much more cogent necessity--in order to be able to continue without interruption the making of money. Peace, peace! would be the universal cry, at least among the rich in the towns, as it was in Paris in 1814. There would be no thought of imitating the burning of Moscow, or renewing the sacrifice of Numantia. The feeling among the vast majority of the manufacturing and mercantile classes would be--"What is the use of fighting and prolonging so terrible a crisis? Our workmen are starving, our harbours are blockaded, our trade is gone, we are evidently overmatched; let us on any terms get out of the contest, and sit quietly on our cotton bags, to make money by weaving cloth for our conquerors."

We have said enough, we think, to make every thoughtful and impartial mind contemplate with the most serious disquietude the prospect which is before us, under our present system of cheapening everything, and, as a necessary consequence, reducing the national armaments to a pitiable degree of weakness in the midst of general hostility, and the greatest possible increase of available forces on the part of all our neighbours, rivals, and enemies. But let us suppose that we are _entirely wrong_ in all we have hitherto advanced--that there is not the slightest danger of an invasion or blockade from foreign powers, or that our home forces are so considerable as to render any such attempt on their part utterly hopeless. There are three other circumstances, the direct effects of our present Free Trade policy, any one of which is fully adequate in no distant period to destroy our independence, and from the combined operation of which nothing but national subjugation and ultimate ruin can be anticipated.

The first is the extraordinary and appalling increase which, since Free Trade was introduced, has taken place in the proportion of the daily food of our population which is furnished by _foreign states_. Before the great change in our policy began, the nation had been rendered, practically speaking, self-supporting. The importation of wheat, for the five years from 1830 to 1835, was only 398,000 quarters; and even during the five bad years in succession, from 1836 to 1841, the average importation was only 1,700,000 quarters. From 1830 to 1840, the average importation of wheat and flour was only 907,000 quarters.[10] But since the great change of 1846, the state of matters has been so completely changed that it is now notorious that, in ordinary years, the importations cannot be expected to be ever less than 9,000,000 or 10,000,000 quarters of grain, about 5,000,000 quarters of which consists of wheat.[11] The importation in the single month of July last, in the face of prices about 42s. the quarter, was no less than 1,700,000 quarters of all sorts of grain;[12] and in the month ending November 5, with prices about 39s. 9d. the quarter of wheat, the importation was:--

Quarters.
Wheat, 309,162
Other grain, 181,753
Indian corn, 36,412
Flour and meal, 194,700
-------
721,657

--Price, 39s. 9d. quarter of wheat.

The average of prices for the last twelve weeks has been 39s. 9d. the quarter; but the importation goes on without the least diminution, and accordingly the _Mark Lane Express_ of December 28, 1850, observes,--

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Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 424, February 1851Chapter VIII (3)

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