ced so many other of
the kingdoms of the earth, was to place his armed majority where it
could act with overwhelming force against an armed minority. Only one
thing lay between him and his purpose, but that one thing was the navy
of England. Napoleon knew that if he had but {334} command of the
Channel for a very few hours the landing of which he had dreamed, and
for which he had schemed so long, would be a reality, and a march on
London as easy as a march on Vienna. But he never got those few hours'
command of the sea. Perhaps no greater monument of human vanity exists
than the medal which Napoleon, madly prophesying, caused to be struck
in commemoration of the conquest of England. Perhaps no pages of all
the pages of history are more splendid than those which record the
triumphs and the glories of the English fleet in the mortal struggle
with France. When the great war began it was well for England that her
navy was in effective condition; it was perhaps better still that the
traditions of her navy were rich with heroic deeds, examples splendid
to emulate, hard to surpass, but which, however, the sailors of King
George the Third were destined to surpass.

[Sidenote: 1797--Mutinies in the British Navy]

Yet the conditions of life under which the English sailor lived were
scarcely of a kind to foster the serene, austere virtues of patriotism
and heroism. The English sailor was often snared into the active
service of his country sorely against his will by means of the odious
instrument for recruiting known as the press-gang. His existence on
board the mighty and beautiful men-of-war was a life that at its best
was a life of the severest hardship, and that at its worst was hard
indeed to endure. He and his fellows were herded together under
conditions of indescribable filth, squalor, and discomfort, often
foolishly ill-fed, often cruelly ill-treated, often the victims of
intolerable tyranny from brutal superiors. It is sometimes little
short of marvellous that the sailors on whose faith the safety of
England depended should have proved so faithful, so cheerful, so
desperately brave. There was, indeed, a moment when the faith of some
of them failed, and when the safety of England was in greater jeopardy
than it had been in since the crescent of the Armada was reported off
Plymouth or the Dutch ships lay in the Medway. While the war with
France was still in its gloomy dawn the unwisdom of treating British
sail