onies, isolated military posts, or islands below a certain
size,--it must ultimately be decided by naval power, by the organized
military force afloat, which represents the communications that form
so prominent a feature in all strategy. The magnificent defence of
Gibraltar hinged upon this; upon this depended the military results of
the war in America; upon this the final fate of the West India
Islands; upon this certainly the possession of India. Upon this will
depend the control of the Central American Isthmus, if that question
take a military coloring; and though modified by the continental
position and surroundings of Turkey, the same sea power must be a
weighty factor in shaping the outcome of the Eastern Question in
Europe.

If this be true, military wisdom and economy, both of time and money,
dictate bringing matters to an issue as soon as possible upon the
broad sea, with the certainty that the power which achieves military
preponderance there will win in the end. In the war of the American
Revolution the numerical preponderance was very great against England;
the actual odds were less, though still against her. Military
considerations would have ordered the abandonment of the colonies; but
if the national pride could not stoop to this, the right course was to
blockade the hostile arsenals. If not strong enough to be in superior
force before both, that of the more powerful nation should have been
closed. Here was the first fault of the English admiralty; the
statement of the First Lord as to the available force at the outbreak
of the war was not borne out by facts. The first fleet, under Keppel,
barely equalled the French; and at the same time Howe's force in
America was inferior to the fleet under D'Estaing. In 1779 and 1781,
on the contrary, the English fleet was superior to that of the French
alone; yet the allies joined unopposed, while in the latter year De
Grasse got away to the West Indies, and Suffren to the East. In
Kempenfeldt's affair with De Guichen, the admiralty knew that the
French convoy was of the utmost importance to the campaign in the West
Indies, yet they sent out their admiral with only twelve ships; while
at that time, besides the reinforcement destined for the West Indies,
a number of others were stationed in the Downs, for what Fox justly
called "the paltry purpose" of distressing the Dutch trade. The
various charges made by Fox in the speech quoted from, and which, as
regarded the Fra