A. T. Mahan

“ Compared with insecurity such as this, the fast growing debt of Great Britain possessed a relative solidity; which even exceeded the absolute confidence felt that the interest would be regularly paid. Behind her stood the history and the prestige of a Sea Power which men knew had met many a heavy reverse, yet had never failed; and which stood before Napoleon more mighty than ever. Far and wide, through many a sea and in many a land, stretched the roots of her strength; never more glorious, because never more sorely tried than by the great emperor. ”

“ In a contest between equal navies for the control of the sea, to waste military effort upon the capture of small islands, as the French did in 1778, is a preposterous misdirection of effort; but when one navy is overwhelmingly preponderant, as the British was after 1794, when the enemy confines himself to commerce-destroying by crowds of small privateers, then the true military policy is to stamp out the nests where they swarm. ”

“ The power of Great Britain was sea power in its widest sense, commercial and naval; against it, therefore, he aimed to effect such a combination as would both destroy her commerce and cripple her navy. The impotence of France and Spain, united, to injure the one or the other had been clearly shown by repeated defeats, and by the failure of the commerce-destroying so industriously carried on during seven years of war. Far from decaying or languishing, the commerce of Great Britain throve everywhere with redoubled vigor, and her fleets rode triumphant in all seas. ”

“ I declare that the whole of the interference of Great Britain has been with the general view of seeing if it was possible, either by our own exertions or in concert with any other Power, to repress this French system of aggrandizement and aggression, with the view of seeing whether we could not re-establish the blessings of peace; whether we could not, either separately or jointly with other Powers, provide for the security of our own country and the general security of Europe. ”

“ The final clause foreshadowed the policy of the Orders in Council of ten years later, towards which Great Britain, under the stress of war, was steadily gravitating. The law of self-preservation, divined by the instinct of the state, demanded that the United Kingdom should become, for that war, the storehouse of the world's commerce. The more thriving that commerce, the better for her, if it could be concentrated in her own borders. Thus France and the whole world should become tributary to a wealth and to a power by which, not Great Britain only, but the world should be saved. ”

“ On the heights above Boulogne, and along the narrow strip of beach from Étaples to Vimereux, were encamped one hundred and thirty thousand of the most brilliant soldiery of all time, the soldiers who had fought in Germany, Italy, and Egypt, soldiers who were yet to win, from Austria, Ulm and Austerlitz, and from Prussia, Auerstadt and Jena, to hold their own, though barely, at Eylau against the army of Russia, and to overthrow it also, a few months later, on the bloody field of Friedland. ”

“ It is difficult to praise too highly the prompt and decisive step taken by Lord Barham, when so suddenly confronted with the dilemma of either raising the blockade of Rochefort and Ferrol, or permitting Villeneuve to proceed unmolested to his destination, whatever that might be. To act instantly and rightly in so distressing a perplexity—to be able to make so unhesitating a sacrifice of advantages long and rightly cherished, in order to strike at once one of the two converging detachments of an enemy—shows generalship of a high order. ”

“ Great Britain hastened at once to place herself by the side of the insurgents. Four years later, when the British people were groaning in a protracted financial crisis,—when, if ever, there was a hope that the expected convulsion and ruin were at hand,—Napoleon, instead of waiting for his already rigorous blockade to finish the work he attributed to it, strove to draw it yet closer, by demands which were unnecessary and to which the czar could not yield. Again Great Britain seized her opportunity, received her late enemy's fleet, and filled his treasury. ”

“ Will it be possible, not for France only but for all Europe,—for the concurrence of all Europe is necessary to the effectual working of the scheme,—to dispense with the neutral carrier (whom it is the tendency of the Berlin decree to repel) for a length of time sufficient to ruin Great Britain? Can Europe forego external commerce for a longer time than Great Britain can spare the European market? ”

“ We have the satisfaction of knowing that we have survived the violence of the revolutionary fever, and we have seen the extent of its principles abated. We have seen Jacobinism deprived of its fascination; we have seen it stripped of the name and pretext of liberty; it has shown itself to be capable only of destroying, not of building, and that it must necessarily end in a military despotism." [60] Such, in truth, was the gain of the first war of Great Britain with the French Revolution. ”

“ The war impedes and checks, but does not stop, its progress. Drained of its seamen for the war-fleets, it modifies the restrictions of generations, throws open its ports to neutral ships, its decks to neutral seamen, and by means of those allies maintains its fair proportions, until the enemy proclaims that the neutral who carries but a bale of British goods, even to his own country, ceases thereby to be a neutral and becomes the enemy of France; a proclamation which but precipitated the ruin of French commerce, without markedly injuring that of its rival. ”

“ THE Warfare against Commerce during the French Revolution, alike under the Republic and under Napoleon, was marked by the same passionate vehemence, the same extreme and far-reaching conceptions, the same obstinate resolve utterly to overthrow and extirpate every opposing force, that characterized the political and military enterprises of the period. ”

“ It was a dangerous part to play, this waiting on opportunity, against such a man as swayed the destinies of the Continent during the next twelve years. From it arose a hesitating, selfish, and timid policy, fluctuating with every breath of danger or hope of advantage, dishonoring the national name, until it ended in Jena and the agonies of humiliation through which the country passed between that disaster and the overthrow of Napoleon. Such a spirit is prone to side with a strong combination and to yield to a masterful external impulse. ”

“ Fortunately for Europe and for freedom, another spirit, less demonstrative but equally powerful, was already living and animating another great nation, peculiarly fitted by position and by the character of its power to grapple with and exhaust that which was vicious and destructive in the temper of the French Revolution. ”

“ Great Britain took substantially the same ground. Peace was worse than worthless, if insecure; and experience had shown that no defence except that of steady and open hostility was availing, while the system which had prevailed in France remained the same. She could not recognize a change of system in the mere violent substitution of one set of rulers for another. Disavowing any claim to prescribe to France what should be her form of government, the British ministry nevertheless said distinctly that the best guarantee for a permanent change of policy would be the restoration of the Bourbons. ”

“ The disastrous commercial condition of France was freely admitted on all sides; but in several powerful speeches it was attributed directly and convincingly to the working of the law itself. "Neutrals repelled from our ports; our agricultural products without any outlet abroad; our industry and commerce annihilated; our colonies helpless; our shipping ways deserted; a balance of twenty thousand sailors in English prisons; our ships of war without seamen,—such are the political effects of the law which is ruining, crushing us." ”

“ But the English temper, when once aroused, was marked also by a tenacity of purpose, a constancy of endurance, which strongly supported the conservative tendencies of the race and were equally foreign to the French character. Once embarked in the strife, and definitely committed for the time to the preservation, rather than to the progress, of society, under leaders who strongly embodied the national traits, hatred of the enemy's principles became more conspicuous, superficially, than the love of freedom, which yet retained its hold deep in the hearts of both rulers and people. ”

“ Jealously reserving to British merchant shipping the trade of her own and conquered colonies, she yet met the immense drain made by the navy upon her merchant seamen by relaxing the famous Navigation Laws; permitting her ships to be manned by foreigners, and foreign ships to engage in branches of her commerce closed to them in time of peace. But while thus encouraging neutrals to carry the surplus trade, whose rapid growth was outstripping the capacity of her own shipping, she rigorously denied their right to do as much for her enemies. ”

“ The world has never seen a more impressive demonstration of the influence of sea power upon its history. Those far distant, storm-beaten ships, upon which the Grand Army never looked, stood between it and the dominion of the world. Holding the interior positions they did, before—and therefore between—the chief dockyards and detachments of the French navy, the latter could unite only by a concurrence of successful evasions, of which the failure of any one nullified the result. ”

“ Not only Great Britain, but the European world was threatened with subversion. That Pitt did not bewail aloud the wreck of his hopes, the frustration of his career, the diversion of his energies from the path that was dearest to him, shows the strength, not the instability, of the man. That he laid aside the reforms he had projected, and discouraged all movements towards internal change, which, by dividing the wills of the people, might weaken their power for external action, proves but that concentration of purpose which, sacrificing present gratification to future good, achieves great ends. ”

“ So severe was the suffering and poverty caused by this isolation, that in the moment of his greatest triumph, immediately after signing the peace of Campo Formio, which left Great Britain without an ally, in October, 1797, Bonaparte wrote: "Either our government must destroy the English monarchy, or must expect to be itself destroyed by the corruption and intrigue of those active islanders. Let us concentrate all our activity upon the navy and destroy England." ”

“ The revolutionary spirit, which underlay the frequent changes of men in the French Government, showed how fixed was its purpose to alter forcibly the institutions of other states, regardless of the habits and affections of their citizens, by the systems imposed upon the smaller neighboring nations, hammered all upon the anvil of French centralization, in defiance of the wishes and the struggles of the people concerned. Europe thus found itself face to face with a movement as enthusiastic in its temper and as radical in its demands as the invasions of the Mahometans. ”

“ It was fortunate for Great Britain that the direction of naval operations at so critical a moment was in the hands of a man, who, though over eighty and long a stranger to active service, understood intuitively, and without need of explanation, the various conditions of weather and service likely to affect the movements of the scattered detachments, British and hostile, upon whose rapid combinations so much now depended. ”

“ A competent American witness, before quoted, who had spent two years in France, wrote, in 1809: "The French rulers, whatever may be their power, are unable to obtain supplies at home except by sacrifices equivalent to the risk which is incurred by contracting with them. Their credit abroad may be estimated by the fact, which is so well known to us all, that no intelligent merchant in this country can be induced, by any consideration, to make advances in their favor, or to accept a bill on their treasury, from their highest accredited agent." ”

“ All the genius of Napoleon could not create demands when there was not means to gratify them, and the exquisite products of French taste and skill labored under the same disadvantage as coffee and sugar, than which they were even less necessary; men could dispense with them. Production, stimulated by an exaggerated protection, became for a time excessive and then ceased; even the exclusion of British manufactures and the frequent burnings could not secure the continental market to articles, the raw materials for which were made so dear by the sea blockade, or by the long land carriage. ”

“ To this fanatical, yet lofty, and in the masses of the French people generous and devoted spirit, continental Europe had no equal force to oppose. It is a common remark that the eighteenth century saw the appearance of several ruling princes who were possessed with the liberal views of the rising school of philosophers, and who sincerely desired to effect the improvement and elevation of their people,—to remove grievances, to lighten burdens, to advance the general welfare. ”

“ Despite the undeniable sufferings of large classes among the people, the ministry could boast from year to year the general prosperity of the realm, the flourishing condition of commerce, the progressive preponderance and control of the sea exerted by the navy, and a series of naval victories of unprecedented brilliancy, which stimulated to the highest degree the enthusiasm of the nation. ”

“ Its cession by Spain to France had at once aroused the jealousy, with which, from colonial days, the people of the United States have viewed any political interference by European nations on the American continent, even when involving only a transfer from one power to another. In the dire straits of the Revolution, when the need of help from abroad was so great, they had been careful to insert in the Treaty of Alliance with France an express stipulation, that she would not acquire for herself any of the possessions of Great Britain on the mainland ”

“ A series of unpleasant surprises awaited first one party and then the other, producing in Great Britain a feeling of insecurity, which gave point and added vigor to the declamations of those who from the first had scoffed at the idea of any peace proving permanent, if it rested upon the good faith of the French government and surrendered those material guarantees which alone, they asserted, could curb the ambition and enforce the respect of a man like Bonaparte. ”

“ The battle between the sea and the land was to be fought out on Commerce. England had no army wherewith to meet Napoleon; Napoleon had no navy to cope with that of his enemy. As in the case of an impregnable fortress, the only alternative for either of these contestants was to reduce the other by starvation. On the common frontier, the coast line, they met in a deadly strife in which no weapon was drawn. The imperial soldiers were turned into coast-guards-men to shut out Great Britain from her markets; the British ships became revenue cutters to prohibit the trade of France. ”