et; not a single merchant vessel belonging to the
allies had been captured by a hostile cruiser. Supplies and
reinforcements for the besieging armies were transported to them
without escort and with as little risk of interruption as if
the operations had been those of profound peace.

No sooner was the Crimean war over than another struggle took
place, viz. the war of the Indian Mutiny, and that also was waged
entirely on land. Here again the command of the sea was so complete
that no interruption of it, even temporary, called attention to
its existence. Troops and supplies were sent to India from the
United Kingdom and from Hong-Kong; horses for military purposes
from Australia and South Africa; and in every case without a
thought of naval escort. The experience of hostilities in India
seemed to confirm the experience of the Crimea. What we had just
done to a great European nation was assumed to be what unfriendly
European nations would wish to do and would be able to do to
us. It was also assumed that the only way of frustrating their
designs would be to do what had recently been done in the hope
of frustrating ours, but to do it better. We must--it was
said--depend on fortifications, but more perfect than those which
had failed to save Sebastopol.

The protection to be afforded by our fleet was deliberately declared
to be insufficient. It might, so it was held, be absent altogether,
and then there would be nothing but fortifications to stand between
us and the progress of an active enemy. In the result the policy
of constructing imposing passive defence-works on our coast was
adopted. The fortifications had to be multiplied. Dependence
on that class of defence inevitably leads to discovery after
discovery that some spot open to the kind of attack feared has
not been made secure. We began by fortifying the great dockyard
ports--on the sea side against a hostile fleet, on the land side
against hostile troops. Then it was perceived that to fortify
the dockyard ports in the mother country afforded very little
protection to the outlying portions of the empire. So their principal
ports also were given defence-works--sometimes of an elaborate
character. Again, it was found that commercial ports had been
left out and that they too must be fortified. When this was done
spots were observed at which an enemy might effect a landing
in force, to prevent which further forts or batteries must be
erected. The most striking thing