I
The Navy is very old and very wise. Much of her wisdom is on record
and available for reference; but more of it works in the unconscious
blood of those who serve her. She has a thousand years of experience,
and can find precedent or parallel for any situation that the force of
the weather or the malice of the King's enemies may bring about.
The main principles of sea-warfare hold good throughout all ages, and,
_so far as the Navy has been allowed to put out her strength_, these
principles have been applied over all the seas of the world. For
matters of detail the Navy, to whom all days are alike, has simply
returned to the practice and resurrected the spirit of old days.
In the late French wars, a merchant sailing out of a Channel port
might in a few hours find himself laid by the heels and under way for
a French prison. His Majesty's ships of the Line, and even the big
frigates, took little part in policing the waters for him, unless he
were in convoy. The sloops, cutters, gun-brigs, and local craft of all
kinds were supposed to look after that, while the Line was busy
elsewhere. So the merchants passed resolutions against the inadequate
protection afforded to the trade, and the narrow seas were full of
single-ship actions; mail-packets, West Country brigs, and fat East
Indiamen fighting, for their own hulls and cargo, anything that the
watchful French ports sent against them; the sloops and cutters
bearing a hand if they happened to be within reach.