unpleasantly upon those in power at Whitehall. Methods of procuration
must therefore be devised of a nature such as to insure that neither
trade nor Admiralty should suffer--that they should, in fact, enjoy
what the unfortunate sailor never knew, some reasonable measure of
ease.

In its efforts to extricate itself and trade from the complex
difficulties of the situation, Admiralty had at its back what an
eighteenth century Beresford would doubtless have regarded as the
finest talent of the service. Neither the unemployed admiral nor the
half-pay captain had at that time, in his enforced retirement at Bath
or Cheltenham, taken seriously to parliamenteering, company promoting,
or the concocting of pedigrees as a substitute for walking the
quarter-deck. His occupation was indeed gone, but in its stead there
had come to him what he had rarely enjoyed whilst on the active
service list--opportunity. Carried away by the stimulus of so
unprecedented a situation as that afforded by the chance to make
himself heard, he rushed into print with projects and suggestions
which would have revolutionised the naval policy and defence of the
country at a stroke had they been carried into effect. Or he devoted
his leisure to the invention of signal codes, semaphore systems,
embryo torpedoes, gun carriages, and--what is more to our
point--methods ostensibly calculated to man the fleet in the easiest,
least oppressive and most expeditious manner possible for a free
people. Armed with these schemes, he bombarded the Admiralty with all
the pertinacity he had shown in his quarter-deck days in applying for
leave or seeking promotion. Many, perhaps most, of the inventions
which it was thus sought to father upon the Sea Lords, were happily
never more heard of; but here and there one, commending itself by its
seeming practicability, was selected for trial and duly put to the