ships,
carrying 9,000 guns, an equal number of gun-boats and smaller craft,
besides a respectable navy connected with her East Indian colonies: a
grand sum-total of more than 900 vessels and not less than 20,000 guns.
Here, then, is a fleet, built and ready for service, which is many times
stronger than that which we have been able to gather after eighteen months
of constant and strenuous effort. And behind this array there is a
community essentially mercantile, unsurpassed in mechanic skill and
productiveness, and full of sailors of the best stamp. What tremendous
elements of naval power are these! One does not wonder that the remark
often made is so nearly true,--that, if there is any trouble in the
farthest port on the globe, in a few hours you will see a British bull-dog
quietly steaming up the harbor, to ask what it is all about, and whether
England can make anything out of the transaction.

* * * * *

There is another consideration which perhaps many would put foremost. Has
the nation kept pace with the progress of science and mechanic arts? Once
her superior seamanship almost alone enabled England to keep the sea
against all comers. But it is not quite so now. Naval warfare has
undergone a complete revolution. The increasing weight of artillery, and
the precision with which it can be used, make it imperative that the means
of defence should approximate at least in effectiveness to the means of
offence. The question now is not, How many ships has England? but, How
many mail-clad ships? how many that would be likely to resist a
hundred-pound ball hurled from an Armstrong or Parrott gun? And if it
should turn out that in this race France had outrun England, and had
twenty or thirty of these gladiators of the sea, most would begin to doubt
whether the old dynasty could maintain its power. The interest and
curiosity felt on this subject have almost created a new order of
periodical literature. You open your "Atlantic," and the chances are ten
to one that you skip over the stories and the dainty bits of poetry and
criticism to see what Mr. Derby has to say about iron-clads. You receive
your "Harper" and you feel aggrieved, if you do not find a picture of the
Passaic, or of Timby's revolving turret, or of something similar which
will give you a little more light concerning these monsters which are
threatening to turn the world upside down. Now all this intense curiosity
shows how general