an adequate and properly organised mobile army. Notwithstanding
the number of times that this lesson has been repeated, we have
been slow to learn it. It is doubtful if we have learned it even
yet. English seamen in all ages seem to have mastered it fully;
for they have always demanded--at any rate for upwards of three
centuries--that expeditions against foreign territory over-sea
should be accompanied by a proper number of land-troops. On the
other hand, the necessity of organising the army of a maritime
insular state, and of training it with the object of rendering
effective aid in operations of the kind in question, has rarely
been perceived and acted upon by others. The result has been a
long series of inglorious or disastrous affairs like the West
Indies voyage of 1595-96, the Cadiz expedition of 1625, and that
to the Ile de Ré of 1627. Additions might be made to the list.
The failures of joint expeditions have often been explained by
alleging differences or quarrels between the naval and the military
commanders. This way of explaining them, however, is nothing but
the inveterate critical method of the streets by which cause
is taken for effect and effect for cause. The differences and
quarrels arose, no doubt; but they generally sprang out of the
recriminations consequent on, not producing, the want of success.
Another manifestation of the way in which sea-power works was first
observed in the seventeenth century. It suggested the adoption
of, and furnished the instrument for carrying out a distinct
maritime policy. What was practically a standing navy had come
into existence. As regards England this phenomenon was now of
respectable age. Long voyages and cruises of several ships in
company had been frequent during the latter half of the sixteenth
century and the early part of the seventeenth. Even the grandfathers
of the men who sailed with Blake and Penn in 1652 could not have