eed be, to
the cause at stake.

In war, a navy's primary duty has usually been to protect the coast
and trade routes of its country; and in order to do this, it has had
to be able to oppose to an attacking fleet a defending fleet more
militarily effective. If it were less effective, even if no invasion
were attempted, the attacking fleet could cripple or destroy the
defending fleet and then institute a blockade. In modern times an
effective blockade, or at least a hostile patrol of trade routes,
could be held hundreds of miles from the coast, where the menace
of submarines would be negligible; and this blockade would stop
practically all import and export trade. This would compel the
country to live exclusively on its own resources, and renounce
intercourse with the outside world. Some countries could exist
a long time under these conditions. But they would exist merely,
and the condition of mere existence would never end until they
sued for peace; because, even if new warships were constructed
with which to beat off the enemy, each new and untrained ship would
be sunk or captured shortly after putting out to sea as, on June
1, 1813, in Massachusetts Bay, the American frigate _Chesapeake_
was captured and nearly half her crew were killed and wounded in
fifteen minutes by a ship almost identical in the material qualities
of size and armament--the better-trained British frigate _Shannon_.

For these reasons, every nation that has acquired and has long
retained prosperity, has realized that every country liable to
be attacked by any navy must either be defended by some powerful
country, or else must keep a navy ready to repel the attack
successfully. To do this, the defending navy must be ready when the
attack comes; because if not ready then, it will never have time
to get ready. In regard to our own country, much stress is laid by
some intelligent people--who forget the _Chesapeake_ and _Shannon_--on
the 3,000 miles of water stretching between the United States and
Europe. This 3,000 miles is, of course, a factor of importance,
but it is not a prohibition, because it can be traversed with great
surety and quickness--with much greater surety and quickness, for
instance, than the 12,000 miles traversed by the Russian fleet,
in 1904, in steaming from Russia to Japan.

The 3,000 miles that separate the United States from Europe can
be traversed by a fleet more powerful than ours in from two to
three weeks; and the fleet