destruction of Washington gave a sharp lesson of the dangers incurred
through the noblest water-ways, if their approaches be undefended; a
lesson, recent enough to be easily recalled, but which, from the
present appearance of the coast defenses, seems to be yet more easily
forgotten. Nor should it be thought that conditions have changed;
circumstances and details of offence and defence have been modified,
in these days as before, but the great conditions remain the same.

Before and during the great Napoleonic wars, France had no port for
ships-of-the-line east of Brest. How great the advantage to England,
which in the same stretch has two great arsenals, at Plymouth and at
Portsmouth, besides other harbors of refuge and supply. This defect of
conformation has since been remedied by the works at Cherbourg.

Besides the contour of the coast, involving easy access to the sea,
there are other physical conditions which lead people to the sea or
turn them from it. Although France was deficient in military ports on
the Channel, she had both there and on the ocean, as well as in the
Mediterranean, excellent harbors, favorably situated for trade abroad,
and at the outlet of large rivers, which would foster internal
traffic. But when Richelieu had put an end to civil war, Frenchmen did
not take to the sea with the eagerness and success of the English and
Dutch A principal reason for this has been plausibly found in the
physical conditions which have made France a pleasant land, with a
delightful climate, producing within itself more than its people
needed. England, on the other hand, received from Nature but little,
and, until her manufactures were developed, had little to export.
Their many wants, combined with their restless activity and other
conditions that favored maritime enterprise, led her people abroad;
and they there found lands more pleasant and richer than their own.