fall of Napoleon we found ourselves again at war with a great
power. We had as our ally the owner of the greatest navy in the
world except our own. Our foe, as regards his naval forces, came
the next in order. Yet so overwhelming was the strength of Great
Britain and France on the sea that Russia never attempted to
employ her navy against them. Not to mention other expeditions,
considerable enough in themselves, military operations on the
largest scale were undertaken, carried on for many months, and
brought to a successful termination on a scene so remote that
it was two thousand miles from the country of one, and three
thousand from that of the other partner in the alliance. 'The
stream of supplies and reinforcements, which in terms of modern
war is called "communications,", was kept free from even the threat
of molestation, not by visible measures, but by the undisputed
efficacy of a real, though imperceptible sea-power. At the close
of the Russian war we encountered, and unhappily for us in
influential positions, men who, undismayed by the consequences
of mimicking in free England the cast-iron methods of the Great
Frederick, began to measure British requirements by standards
borrowed from abroad and altogether inapplicable to British
conditions. Because other countries wisely abstained from relying
on that which they did not possess, or had only imperfectly and
with elaborate art created, the mistress of the seas was led to
proclaim her disbelief in the very force that had made and kept
her dominion, and urged to defend herself with fortifications by
advisers who, like Charles II and the Duke of York two centuries
before, were 'not ashamed of it.' It was long before the peril
into which this brought the empire was perceived; but at last,
and in no small degree owing to the teachings of Mahan, the people
themselves took the matter in hand and insisted that a great