the future. Partners, each, in the great commonwealth of nations which
share the blessings of European civilization, they alone, though in
varying degrees, are so severed geographically from all existing
rivals as to be exempt from the burden of great land armies; while at
the same time they must depend upon the sea, in chief measure, for
that intercourse with other members of the body upon which national
well-being depends. How great an influence upon the history of Great
Britain has been exerted by this geographical isolation is
sufficiently understood. In her case the natural tendency has been
increased abnormally by the limited territorial extent of the British
Islands, which has forced the energies of their inhabitants to seek
fields for action outside their own borders; but the figures quoted by
Sir George Clarke sufficiently show that the same tendency, arising
from the same cause, does exist and is operative in the United States,
despite the diversion arising from the immense internal domain not yet
fully occupied, and the great body of home consumers which has been
secured by the protective system. The geographical condition, in
short, is the same in kind, though differing in degree, and must impel
in the same direction. To other states the land, with its privileges
and its glories, is the chief source of national prosperity and
distinction. To Great Britain and the United States, if they rightly
estimate the part they may play in the great drama of human progress,
is intrusted a maritime interest, in the broadest sense of the word,
which demands, as one of the conditions of its exercise and its
safety, the organized force adequate to control the general course of
events at sea; to maintain, if necessity arise, not arbitrarily, but
as those in whom interest and power alike justify the claim to do so,
the laws that shall regulate maritime warfare. This is no mere
speculation, resting upon a course of specious reasoning, but is based
on the teaching of the past. By the exertion of such force, and by the