but which would, nevertheless, be the actual result. So in this
country of 100,000,000 people, the sudden loss of $1,000,000,000
a year would produce a distress seemingly out of all proportion
to that sum of money, because the individual loss of every loser
would be felt by everybody else.

Since to a great manufacturing nation, like ours, the greatest
danger from outside (except actual invasion) would seem to be the
sudden stoppage of her oversea trade by blockade, we seem warranted
in concluding that, since _the only possible means of preventing
a blockade is a navy_, the primary use for our navy is to prevent
blockade.

This does not mean that a fleet's place is on its own coast, because
a blockade might be better prevented by having the fleet elsewhere;
in fact it is quite certain that its place is not on the coast as
a rule, but at whatever point is the best with relation to the
enemy's fleet, until the enemy's fleet is destroyed. In fact, since
the defensive and the offensive are so inseparably connected that
it is hard sometimes to tell where one begins and the other ends,
the best position for our fleet might be on the enemy's coast. It
may be objected that the coast of the United States is so long
that it would be impossible to blockade it. Perhaps, but that is
not necessary: it would suffice to blockade Boston, Newport, New
York, the Delaware, the Chesapeake, and the Gulf, say with forty
ships. And we must remember that blockade running would be much more
difficult now than in the Civil War, because of the increased power
and accuracy of modern gunnery and the advent of the search-light,
wireless telegraph, and aeroplane.