time necessary for the transit, and there is
sufficient fine weather in the course of every
summer to make a satisfactory passage
possible.

It is plain that, under these circumstances,
everything will depend on the old story of the
"command of the Channel." If Englishmen and
Frenchmen are relatively what they were, and have
taken equal pains with the new work, the Englishman
ought to beat. Twenty screw liners under the
union jack ought to beat the same or a greater
number under the tricolor. But—seamanship?
Well, the same kind of seamanship will not be
employed, that is, in perfectly fine weather and
smooth water, and going into action with masts
bare. But even under these circumstances (the
most favourable to the French) there will be
fleet-manoeuvring necessary, an eye for
combinations, a general readiness in clearing wreck
and other obstructions for action, and in
action, in which we ought to have the
superiority. Of course, too, many accidents may
occur; such as a fouled screw, to meet the
consequences of which requires the old
seamanlike qualities. And, when it comes to
making sail, and working under sail, whatever
advantages we ever had, ought still to be on our
side. Assuming, in fact, a perfect equality of
conditions between two squadrons, why should
the new seamanship give us less advantage than
the old?  It was once new, and we had to learn
it, and we did so successfully.   All that is wanted
is that we shall learn, as Sir Howard Douglas
enforces upon us, and not content ourselves
with thinking that there is some mystic quality
in our blood which will enable us to do miracles
upon salt water more than anywhere else. This
last notion is loudly maintained by many British
amateurs, whose stomachs indignantly revolt
against it by the time they get outside the
Nore.

Assuming, then, that a perfect British screw
fleet will defeat a ditto of any other nation, the
next question is, how we have been accommodating
ourselves to those changes which alone
could bring such an assumption into a moment's
doubt? Good dockyards, good ships, good men,
and good discipline—these are the necessities for
a sovereign of the seas.

If we wanted a proof of the French zeal in
naval matters (and there are a score
forthcoming from any inquirer at once), it would
be afforded by the familiar instance of
Cherbourg. There we have, or rather they have, a
kind of model modern dockyard, free from the
faults of old ones, and rich in all that ought to
be found in the new. It is much nearer to us than
older French arsenals, is built in the smoothest
part of the Channel, and on a scale suited
to the most formidable preparations. Take Portsmouth
and Plymouth dockyards, and you find that
there is a great deal of time lost in consequence
of the departments being separate from each
other; whereas rigging, arming, and victualling all
go on at Cherbourg within the same walls. In our
ports above named, boats, lighters, buoys, keep
endlessly moving through the yellow water (at
the risk of wetting and otherwise damaging
goods); while, in Cherbourg, everything is put on
board from the wharfs, alongside which the ship
lies.  And so, of course, with coaling.  Coal
must be hoisted out of a ship's hold, and thus
taken on board—a tedious process, "hateful to
the seamen," as The Naval Peer justly
observes, instead of being moved from the quays
by machinery, as in the Norman port.  Again,
the Cherbourg authorities don't "hulk" their
seamen as we do in narrow, dirty, old-fashioned
hulks; but march them aboard comfortably,
from a kind of naval barracks.  Surely
all these are sensible business arrangements
vastly superior to our old happy-go-lucky way of
managing matters; and ought to teach us to
mend it.  Dockyards are the "positions" on
which fleets retreat for refreshment and repair;
and rapidity in, and convenience for, refitting a
fleet, would be half the battle in war time.
That the French are eminently business-like in
their way of doing work was shown at Genoa in
the late war.

This general superiority, of sizes and of
arrangements about Cherbourg, and its nearness
(only fifty-two miles) to our coast, makes
Cherbourg an ugly neighbour.  Blockade it, you
will say, as Collingwood did Toulon, so
persistently.  Nobody supposes that such
traditions will not be honestly acted on by our
service. But blockades have been evaded
before; and a steam fleet, running twelve miles an
hour, would not be so easy to catch if once a
feint had drawn the blockading force from before
its prison.  Observe, too, as an instance of the
organisation of Cherbourg, that French ships
can enter Cherbourg docks at all times of high
water, and that our ships can only enter those
of Portsmouth and Plymouth during spring
tides.

The fortification of our dockyards and arsenals
involve a military question.  But it is not denied
that Cherbourg is very strong from that point
of view, nor that the improvements which have
been going on at Portsmouth of late years still
fall short of what is wanted.

Turn now to the question of ships. It is a
curious fact, illustrative of the excellent
character of our seamen, that we English have
never been so superior in ship-building as some
among us seem to fancy.    We imitated the
Dutch, before beating them, in the seventeenth
century, and we captured from the French,
before beating them, in the eighteenth century.
Some of our finest vessels were prizes during the
last war, and inflicted deadly injury on the nation
that had produced them.  Nelson's exclamation,
"Thank God, the Spaniards cannot build
men!" is well known.   So that the mere fact of
the French having fine vessels is not, one which
ought to alarm or astonish us by itself.    When a
late wit, who had once been a sailor, heard that
the French were building steamers rapidly, he
said, "Glad of it—we want a few more!"

But, suppose the French have been building
on a scale which alters the old proportions of
force between the two countries in this department?