real and positive peril, and to urge upon Her Majesty's Government the
paramount importance of preparing to meet not only a possible, but a
probable danger, that Lord Lyndhurst addressed the House of Lords. He
began by impressing upon their lordships the fact that the policy which
he advocated was not aggressive, but strictly defensive. He reviewed the
history of previous attempts to invade England. He pointed out the
significant circumstance, that these attempts had hitherto failed mainly
by reason of the casualties to which sailing-vessels were always
exposed. He pressed upon their attention the change which
steam-navigation had recently wrought in naval warfare. He quoted the
pithy remark of Lord Palmerston, that "steam had converted the Channel
into a river, and thrown a bridge across it."

He demonstrated from recent history the facility with which France could
transport large forces by sea to distant points. Then, in tones
tremulous with emotion, he drew upon the resources of his own marvellous
memory. "I have experienced, my lords, something like a sentiment of
humiliation in going through these details. I recollect the day when
every part of the opposite coast was blockaded by an English fleet. I
remember the victory of Camperdown, and that of St. Vincent, won by Sir
J. Jervis. I do not forget the great victory of the Nile, nor, last of
all, that triumphant fight at Trafalgar, which almost annihilated the
navies of France and Spain, I contrast the position which we occupied at
that period with that which we now hold. I recollect the expulsion of
the French from Egypt, the achievement of victory after victory in
Spain, the British army established in the South of France, and then the
great battle by which that war was terminated. I cannot glance back over
that series of events without feeling some degree of humiliation when I
am called upon to state in this House the measures which I deem it to be
necessary to take in order to provide for the safety of the country."