to Madison an alliance with England against France and Spain. But
Madison kept him steady. Six months later he accused John Randolph, who
had abandoned the party, of entertaining the intolerable heresy of a
league with England.

Mr. Jefferson once thought it necessary that the United States should
possess a naval force. It would be less dangerous to our liberties than
an army, and a cheaper and more effective weapon of offence. 'The sea is
the field on which we should meet a European enemy.' 'We can always have
a navy as strong as the weaker nations.' And he suggested that thirty
ships, carrying 1,800 guns, and manned by 14,400 men, would be an
adequate force. But the New Englanders, those bitter Federalists, loved
the sea, lived by foreign trade, and wanted a fleet to protect their
merchantmen. Mr. Jefferson's views became modified. He took a strong
dislike to the naval service. He condemned the use of the navy by the
late President, and wished to sell all the public armed vessels.
Finding, however, that the maritime tastes of the nation were too strong
for him, he hit upon the plan of a land navy as the nearest
approximation to no navy at all. Gunboats were to be hauled out of the
water, and kept in drydocks under sheds, in perfect preservation. A
fleet of this kind only needed a corps of horse marines to complete its
efficiency. The Federalists laughed at these 'mummy frigates,' and sang
in a lullaby for Democratic babes this stanza:

'In a cornfield, high and dry,
Sat gunboat Number One;
Wiggle waggle went her tail,
Pop went her gun.'

The pleasantry is feeble; but the inborn absurdity of this amphibious