precise and clear manner by Bonaparte's Maritime Prefect at Antwerp, M.
Malouet, well known in your country, where he long remained as an
emigrant, and, I believe, was even employed by your Ministers.

You may, perhaps, smile at this vast naval scheme of Bonaparte; but if
you consider that he is the master of all the forests, mines, and
productions of France, Italy, and of a great part of Germany, with all
the navigable rivers and seaports of these countries and Holland, and
remember also the character of the man, you will, perhaps, think it less
impracticable. The greatest obstacle he has to encounter, and to remove,
is want of experienced naval officers, though even in this he has
advanced greatly since the present war, during which he has added to his
naval forces twenty--nine ships of the line, thirty--four frigates,
twenty-one cutters, three thousand prams, gunboats, pinnaces, etc., with
four thousand naval officers and thirty-seven thousand sailors, according
to the same account, signed by Malouet. It is true that most of our new
naval heroes have never ventured far from our coast, and all their naval
laurels have been gathered under our land batteries; but the impulse is
given to the national spirit, and our conscripts in the maritime
departments prefer, to a man, the navy to the army, which was not
formerly the case.

It cannot have escaped your observation that the incorporation of Genoa
procured us, in the South of our Empire, a naval station and arsenal, as
a counterpoise to Antwerp, our new naval station in the North, where
twelve ships of the line have been built, or are building, since 1803,
and where timber and other materials are collected for eight more. At
Genoa, two ships of the line and four frigates have lately been launched,
and four ships and two frigates are on the stocks; and the Genoese
Republic has added sixteen thousand seafaring men to our navy. Should