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Page 27
France being a nation on the continent of Europe, and Britain an
island in its neighbourhood, each of them derived different ideas from
their different situations. The inhabitants of Britain could carry on
no foreign trade, nor stir from the spot they dwelt upon, without the
assistance of shipping; but this was not the case with France. The
idea therefore of a navy did not arise to France from the same
original and immediate necessity which produced to England. But the
question is, that when both of them turn their attention, and employ
their revenues the same way, which can be superior?
The annual revenue of France is nearly double that of England, and her
number of inhabitants nearly twice as many. Each of them has the same
length of ground on the Channel; besides which, France has several
hundred miles extent on the Bay of Biscay, and an opening on the
Mediterranean: and every day proves that practice and exercise make
sailors, as well as soldiers, in one country as well as another.
If then Britain can maintain a hundred ships of the line, France can
as well support a hundred and fifty, because her revenue and her
population are as equal to the one as those of England are to the
other. And the only reason why she has not done it is because she has
not till very lately attended to it. But when she sees, as she now
sees, that a navy is the first engine of power, she can easily
accomplish it.
England very falsely, and ruinously for herself, infers, that because
she had the advantage of France, while France had the smaller navy,
that for that reason it is always to be so. Whereas it may be clearly
seen that the strength of France has never yet been tried on a navy,
and that she is able to be as superior to England in the extent of a
navy, as she is in the extent of her revenues and her population. And
England may lament the day, when, by her insolence and injustice, she
provoked in France a maritime disposition.
It is in the power of the combined fleets to conquer every island in
the West Indies, and reduce all the British Navy in those places. For
were France and Spain to send their whole naval force in Europe to
those islands, it would not be in the power of Britain to follow them
with an equal force. She would still be twenty or thirty ships
inferior, were she to send every vessel she had; and in the meantime
all the foreign trade of England would lay exposed to the Dutch.
It is a maxim which, I am persuaded, will ever hold good, and more
especially in naval operations, that a great power ought never to move
in detachments, if it can possibly be avoided; but to go with its
whole force to some important object, the reduction of which shall
have a decisive effect upon the war. Had the whole of the French and
Spanish fleets in Europe come last spring to the West Indies, every
island had been their own, Rodney their prisoner, and his fleet their
prize. From the United States the combined fleets can be supplied with
provisions, without the necessity of drawing them from Europe, which
is not the case with England.
Accident has thrown some advantages in the way of England, which, from
the inferiority of her navy, she had not a right to expect. For though
she had been obliged to fly before the combined fleets, yet Rodney has
twice had the fortune to fall in with detached squadrons, to which he
was superior in numbers: The first off Cape St. Vincent, where he had
nearly two to one, and the other in the West Indies, where he had a
majority of six ships. Victories of this kind almost produce
themselves. They are won without honour, and suffered without
disgrace; and are ascribable to the chance of meeting, not to the
superiority of fighting: For the same Admiral, under whom they were
obtained, was unable, in three former engagements, to make the least
impression on a fleet consisting of an equal number of ships with his
own, and compounded for the events by declining the actions.[4]
To conclude: if it may be said that Britain has numerous enemies, it
likewise proves that she has given numerous offenses. Insolence is
sure to provoke hatred, whether in a nation or an individual. That
want of manners in the British Court may be seen even in its
birth-days and new-years odes, which are calculated to infatuate the
vulgar, and disgust the man of refinement; and her former overbearing
rudeness, and insufferable injustice on the seas, have made every
commercial nation her foe. Her fleets were employed as engines of
prey; and acted on the surface of the deep the character which the
shark does beneath it.--On the other hand, the Combined Powers are
taking a popular part, and will render their reputation immortal, by
establishing the perfect freedom of the ocean, to which all countries
have a right, and are interested in accomplishing. The sea is the
world's highway; and he who arrogates a prerogative over it
transgresses the right, and justly brings on himself the chastisement
of nations.
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