by the virtual ubiquity of our cruising force. This, of course,
involved the necessity of employing a large number of cruisers,
and of arranging the distribution of them in accordance with the
relative amount and value of the traffic to be protected from
molestation in different parts of the ocean. It may be mentioned
here that the term 'cruiser,' at the time with which we are dealing,
was not limited to frigates and smaller classes of vessels. It
included also ships of the line, it being the old belief of the
British Navy, justified by the experience of many campaigns and
consecrated by the approval of our greatest admirals, that the
value of a ship of war was directly proportionate to her capacity
for cruising and keeping the sea.

If the ocean paths used by our merchant ships--the trade routes
or sea communications of the United Kingdom with friendly or
neutral markets and areas of production--could be kept open by
our navy, that is, made so secure that our trade could traverse
them with so little risk of molestation that it could continue to
be carried on, it resulted as a matter of course that no sustained
attack could be made on our outlying territory. Where this was
possible it was where we had failed to keep open the route or line
of communications, in which case the particular trade following
it was, at least temporarily, destroyed, and the territory to
which the route led was either cut off or seized. Naturally,
when this was perceived, efforts were made to re-open and keep
open the endangered or interrupted communication line.

Napoleon, notwithstanding his supereminent genius, made some
extraordinary mistakes about warfare on the sea. The explanation
of this has been given by a highly distinguished French admiral.
The Great Emperor, he says, was wanting in exact appreciation
of the difficulties of naval operations. He never understood
that the naval officer--alone of all men in the world--must be
master of two distinct professions. The naval officer must be
as completely a seaman as an officer in any mercantile marine;
and, in addition to this, he must be as accomplished in the use
of the material of war entrusted to his charge as the members of
any aimed force in the world. The Emperor's plan for the invasion
of the United Kingdom was conceived on a grand scale. A great
army, eventually 130,000 strong, was collected on the coast of
north-eastern France, with its headquarters at Boulogne. The
numerical