crews, a large number of people engaged in the various handicrafts
which facilitate the making and repairing of naval material, or
following other callings more or less closely connected with the water
and with craft of all kinds. Such kindred callings give an undoubted
aptitude for the sea from the outset. There is an anecdote showing
curious insight into this matter on the part of one of England's
distinguished seamen, Sir Edward Pellew. When the war broke out in
1793, the usual scarceness of seamen was met. Eager to get to sea and
unable to fill his complement otherwise than with landsmen, he
instructed his officers to seek for Cornish miners; reasoning from the
conditions and dangers of their calling, of which he had personal
knowledge, that they would quickly fit into the demands of sea life.
The result showed his sagacity, for, thus escaping an otherwise
unavoidable delay, he was fortunate enough to capture the first
frigate taken in the war in single combat; and what is especially
instructive is, that although but a few weeks in commission, while his
opponent had been over a year, the losses, heavy on both sides, were
nearly equal.

It may be urged that such reserve strength has now nearly lost the
importance it once had, because modern ships and weapons take so long
to make, and because modern States aim at developing the whole power
of their armed force, on the outbreak of war, with such rapidity as to
strike a disabling blow before the enemy can organize an equal effort.
To use a familiar phrase, there will not be time for the whole
resistance of the national fabric to come into play; the blow will
fall on the organized military fleet, and if that yield, the solidity
of the rest of the structure will avail nothing. To a certain extent
this is true; but then it has always been true, though to a less
extent formerly than now. Granted the meeting of two fleets which