We are a naval power, before all and
above all: a power that has its roots in the sea,
like a water-plant. The sea made us rich and
powerful; gave us colonies; brought us
commerce; has been, not our bride, as it was to
Venice, but our nurse and our foster-mother.
We ought to be a match for all the world afloat;
and, virtually, we have been so. If France, then,
becomes equally strong, afloat, with us, we must
have been retrograding.   There was a time when
such a competition would have seemed an
absurdity. At that time France accepted naval
inferiority to England as a mere matter of course.

But that time has gone by—went by twenty
years ago and more. Under Louis Philippe there
was a resolute determination exhibited to match
us, if possible, in naval matters, by the French
government; and the Prince de Joinville took
the lead in showing how it ought to be set
about.  Has the reader ever perused the prince's
paper on the Mediterranean Squadron, which
appeared in the Revue des Deux Mondes in
August, 1852? It is equally curious from its
facts and from its tone. His highness shows
how a French squadron gradually formed itself,
in 1839, on the Levant station, and amounted
to thirteen vessels in the November of that year.
It was the time of the Turkish difficulties, on
which France and England held different views,
and the prince expresses himself with great
frankness, on the feeling inspired in his squadron
by the neighbourhood of ours. His admiral—
Lalande—was one of their best officers, and
spared no pains to make his force qualified for
every contingency. A sentence shall show us
the sentiment prevailing on board his ships:

"The Vanguard (says Prince de Joinville) passed
close to us, as if the better to show her superiority.
It was a beautiful vessel; our jealous eyes could find
nothing to criticise in her. . . . The commander—
an old man of noble and respectable figure—stayed
in his balcony, and saluted us in passing.    Perhaps
we were prejudiced, but we thought we saw in this
salutation another expression than that of cordiality;
and a thousand bitter memories made our hearts
swell."

Pretty strong this! It conjures up in my
mind the whole scene—Besika Bay, with the
plains of Troy behind—black rocky Tenedos
away opposite—French and English facing each
other, where Trojans and Greeks had fought face
to face ages ago. I remember the Vanguard (one
of Symonds's finest line-of-battle ships) well. She
was not only in beautiful, but even in luxurious
order; what sailors call "a gingerbread ship."
But, bless your highness, old Sir D. D. (the
"noble and respectable") never meant anything
sarcastic in bowing that fine grey head of his!
We did expect to come to blows with your ships
that winter, and most of next year; and our
squadron was not all it ought to have been,
except in heart.   But we took things coolly,
and never thought of pouting and sneering, as
you seem to think we must have been doing.

A few pages afterwards, the prince goes on,
speaking of the time when the Eastern question
was more and more complicated:

"Our squadron, equal in number to the British
squadron, was worth more than it.  We fired, as
well as they; and we were very superior to them in
manoeuvres. . . . To us this spectacle was the naval
reawakening of France; we found in it an enjoyment
and a patriotic satisfaction that we could not express."

No doubt their enthusiasm was genuine, and
our "Naval Peer" tells us that Lalande went so
far as to ask leave to attack the British fleet.
It is worth people's while to reflect on all this;
for the great object of the French government
was to establish "a tradition;" and, in the
absence of a victory, the tradition of a squadron
that believed it could have got a victory is,
it thought, better than nothing.

The danger blew over. England went her
own road, and France did not resist her.  In a
few months we youngsters were all singing,

   "And what became of Mahmoud Bey?
    He mounted his moke and he rode away;
    And d—d his eyes if he would stay
    At the siege of St. John d'Acre!"

By '41 the Mediterranean station had relapsed
into its old, pleasant, gentlemanly, and dissipated
dulness.  But the French have been proud ever
since of "l'escadre de la Méditerranée," and of
the compliments paid to it by Sir Charles Napier
in Parliament; and we may date from 1839-40
a new hopefulness and activity in the French
marine. Since that time they have never wanted
the powerful and disciplined nucleus of a strong
force.

The face of France changed in '48 ; the
monarchy vanished in a cab; but France, once
more revolutionised, did not neglect her navy.
That very year she appointed a commission—an
enquête parlementaire—to overhaul the marine
affairs of her empire, to report, and to recommend.
The commission did all three, in many
scores of business-like sittings. I can only,
from my space, give the briefest notices of the
results come to by the commissioners, after
examining eighty-nine witnesses; but here are
a few of them, abridged from the valuable work
of our "Naval Peer:"

"The number of line-of-battle ships, fixed at
forty in 1846, to be raised to forty-five, or thirty
afloat and fifteen building."

"The squadron of evolution to consist of ten sail
of the line."

"A steam-engine to be fitted to all ships of the
line."

"Twenty frigates of great speed, and twenty of
less, recommended."

"The command of forts at naval posts to be under
the Minister of Marine."

"The Inscription Maritime and Levée Permanente
to be preserved."

"Naval cadets in the school-ship to be at sea
three months in a year."

"Among ships' companies there shall be a special
body of seamen gunners."

"The store of coals at the ocean ports shall be
always for one year at the least."

Here is a handful of dragon's teeth out of
many, to be sown for future crops of "glory"
of the French stamp as quickly as possible.
And no doubt the recommendations of this