d the heaviest artillery fire, and that one of the Syndicate's
motor-bombs could destroy a vessel or a fort. But these things had
been proved in isolated combats, where the new methods of attack and
defence had had almost undisturbed opportunity for exhibiting their
efficiency. But what could a repeller and half a dozen crabs do
against the combined force of the Royal Navy,--a navy which had in the
last few years regained its supremacy among the nations, and which had
made Great Britain once more the first maritime power in the world?

The crabs might disable some men-of-war, the repeller might make her
calculations and discharge her bomb at a ship or a fort, but what would
the main body of the navy be doing meanwhile? Overwhelming, crushing,
and sinking to the bottom crabs, repeller, motor guns, and everything
that belonged to them.

In England there was a feeling of strong resentment that such a little
fleet should be allowed to sail with such intent into British waters.
This resentment extended itself, not only to the impudent Syndicate,
but toward the Government; and the opposition party gained daily in
strength. The opposition papers had been loud and reckless in their
denunciations of the slowness and inadequacy of the naval preparations,
and loaded the Government with the entire responsibility, not only of
the damage which had already been done to the forts, the ships, and the
prestige of Great Britain, but also for the threatened danger of a
sudden descent of the Syndicate's fleet upon some unprotected point
upon the coast. This fleet should never have been allowed to approach
within a thousand miles of England. It should have been sunk in
mid-ocean, if its sinking had involved the loss of a dozen men-of-war.

In America a very strong feeling of dissatisfaction showed itself.
From the first, the Syndicate contract had not been popular; but the
quick, effective, and business-like action of that body of men, and the
marked success up to this time of their inventions and their
operations, had caused a great reaction in their favour. They had, so
far, successfully defended the American coast, and when they had
increased the number of their vessels, they would have been relied upon
to continue that defence. Even if a British armada had set out to
cross the Atlantic, its movements must have been slow and cumbrous, and
the swift and sudden strokes with which the Syndicate waged war could
have been given by ni