, no navy, no sea-power since the world began, has any record to
compare with this.

"Let us be backed with God and with the seas,
Which He hath given for fence impregnable,
And with their helps, only, defend ourselves:
In them, and in ourselves, our safety lies."
--_Shakespeare._
_King Henry VI, Part III, Act IV, Scene I._

POSTSCRIPT

THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS

Landsmen are many while seamen are few. So the world thinks more of
armies than of fleets. Our enemies hate all British sea-power, while
our friends never know the half of what it means. So friend and foe
alike are apt to side against us by making the laws against blockading
fleets very much harder than those against besieging armies.

All we can do is to stand firmly on our perfect rights and show the
world the five good reasons why:--

1. The sea and land have equal rights. Blockading fleets are like
besieging armies. So if besieging armies have the right to stop
supplies from reaching the places they besiege, why should blockading
fleets be told to let supplies go through?

2. All parts of our great Empire are joined together, not by land, but
sea. So if we lose our rights of self-defence at sea we lose the very
breath of life.

3. We claim no rights we will not share with others. When the American
blockade of the South during the Civil War (1861-5) ruined the British
cotton trade we never interfered, though we had by far the stronger
navy.

4. We have never used the British Navy to bully weak nations out of
their oversea possessions. Who could have stopped our taking the
Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese possessions in Africa and Asia?

5. British sea-power has always been on the side of freedom; and every
time a tyrant has tried to fight his way to world-dominion the Royal
Navy has been the backbone of all the forces that have laid him low.

THE CANADIAN

I never saw the cliffs of snow,
The Channel billows tipped with cream,
The restless, eddying tides that flow
About the Island of my dream.
I never saw the English downs
Upon an April day,
The quiet, old Cathedral towns,
The hedgerows white with may.

And still the name of England,
Which tyrants laugh to scorn,
Can thrill my soul. It is to me
A very bugle-horn.

A thousand leagues from Plymouth shore,
In broader lands I saw the light.
I never heard the cannon roar,
Or saw