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August 20, 1853.] THE LEADER. 805
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Of The Storm-Battered Tent, And The Athl...
Happil y * indeed , our soldiers have seldom been engaged in fratricidal warfare , and long may such an event be impossible ; but the fact that they have been liable to be called to resist the people in the name of a Government , and that the army is not national but exclusive in its . organization , has contributed , to estrange the citizen from the soldier . We are glad to believe that this estrangement tends to disappear . But no such cloud , we repeat , has ever interposed between the nation and the national navy . Perhaps the love of
the sea and of sailors is , like seamanship , organic in the Englishman ; certain it is , that the national feeling towards the navy is nothing less than affection . The recent Review , then , if it have no other result , "will have emphatically consecrated this close identification of the British navy with the British nation . Our Queen , who , we in ay say ifc without the risk of flattery , has achieved the rare good fortune of making her
office as sympathetic as her person is beloved , wedding a masculine activity with womanly grace , never more finely impersonates the majesty of the State of which she is the Chief , than when she goes forth to lead her fleet with the Uoyal Standard at the main . TalK about abolishing the Salic law I Why , if Uoyalty could be ever feminine , Royalty would be immortal , and revolutionists would bend the knee .
But we are digressing . The assemblage of the fleet at Spithead has been , we are prepared to assert , of eminently practical advantage . It has realized , in a substantial and statistical shape , the actual progress of naval science , according to the latest improvements . We are fortunately enabled to appeal to the attestation of a foreign pen to corroborate our assertion . Monsieur Xavier Raymond , a distinguished writer in the Journal des Debats , and , we believe , himself a sailor , though he . disclaims the right to speak
professionally , has lately paid a visit to the squadron at Spithead , and he records his experiences in an article which it does an Englishman ' s heart good to read . He says he was especially struck by the extraordinary progress made in the equipment of the ships , generally and in detail , since 1839 , when he visited Admiral Stopford's fleet at Malta . He compares such ships as the Princess Charlotte and the Pembroke with the Priece Regent , the London , and the Neptune . The Princess Charlotte , it may be remarked , was the flag-ship on the coast
of Syria , and mounted 104 guns : the Pembroke was a small 78 : both ships of the old construction . The Trench writer says truly , that in 1839 we were still using up the accumulated 'materiel of the great war ; and that , embarrassed with the profusion in our dockyards , we scarcely ventured to launch new ships . The equipment of our ships , too , was at that time strictly oldfashioned , and obstinately closed to any
improvements unknown to . Nelson ' s captains . In 1839 , oven the French navy was superior to oura in many of those conditions : especially in gunnery . Add to this , the gun room-officers were sacrificed to the easy and luxurious conveniences which a long peace had introduced . In fact , says M . Raymond , tho British navy , in . 1839 , seemed to bid fair to rcsomble the army of Darius .
But the ' * brush , " on the coast of Syria , in 1810 , and the chances of European war , completely revolutionized tho discipline and the equipment of our ships , Tho dockyards were alive again . Ship alter ship ( of questionable qualities , too often ) was launched . Reforms , often , perhaps , unpercoived , in tho construction ana in . tho arming of tho ships , wore- eagerly adopted in tho teeth of respected prejudices and venerable- traditions . The Rodney and tho Vanyuard t tho Jformidablo and the Jjondon , marked ii surprising advance , aa compared with tho old second-rates , or even with tho old iirsfc-rates .
• Tom 1839 to 1853 , naval roform has nevor slac kened . In somo directions , perhaps , it lias iniHtaken wastefulness for activity . But if we think of tho progress in war steamers , from the ¦ f'tyfUninp to tho Terrible , and from the Terrible to tho ¦ Impcrieuso and the ' JDlike of Wellington , Wo shall be able to form some estimate of what has boon achieved . Tho size of our ships has | nove ; iBed in . amazing proportions . . Nelson ' s "ugship could almost bo shipped aa a boat ^ n board the present Impth'ionse , a fifty-gun j itfato . It WlUJ only tho other day that our Jl ° avieatflhipsbogan to carry 8-inch 08 * -pounders : w ° auvo now whole tiers of sixty-eights , and
whole batteries of 10-inch eighty-fours . USTot long ago it was a wonder to hear of a steamer firing a shell : now every steamer can fire a shell from every gun . Nelson ' s captains won their glorious ? victories before double-shotted guns were dreamt of , and his seamen gunners never took an aim : our 10-inch eighty-fours are fired with all the deadly precision of tirailleurs de Vincennes . But we need not go so far back to understand what an extraordinary impetus has been given to the perfection of Our navy within the last few months . The Peace Society will not have been utterly fruitless , if only that the reaction from its follies has lent the full support of the national will to the efforts of the most able naval
administration we have known since the war . Indeed , the late Board of Admiralty , with all its political sins , meant well , and made good beginnings ; to ascribe less than this to the Duke of Northumberland would be an injustice . Only a few months since , When the cry of national defences and of French invasion was up , we found , with indignant surprise , that the French Government had launched and armed the most powerful war-steamer ( LeJSfapolSon ) in the world ! We had nothing fit to look at such a prodigy of science and power . We have now eight screw ships of the line completely armed ; two of them absolutely unapproachable for speedandpowercombined . We have the counterpart of lie . Napolion in the St .
Jean , d'Acre , or , as the sailors say , the Jane Take her , fitting out at Sheerness ; when we say a counterpart , however , we ought to add that the St . Jean d'Acre ' -will be a vastly , superior ship . The Duke of Wellington ( why was not the ship called simply Wellington , or The Duke ?) is , as we have said , without compare on the seas , and she will soon have a sister ship by her side , the Royal Albert , which was ready for launching as a sailing first-rate at the beginning of this year . TheDukeis the largest ship ever built , 3759 tons , 290 feet long , 60 broad , 78 deep ; and propelled by engines equivalent by tubular expansive power to 1600 horse power . What would J ^ elson have said could he have risen from his monumental
sleep last Thursday week ? He would have recognised by the side of her Majesty that gallant captain of his , now Admiral of the Fleet , who alone of all survivors could ( if the invincible modesty of true courage would allow him to speak ) tell the Queen how , in the Gulf of Finland once , he had made a Russian line-of-battle ship strike her colours in the teeth of the whole Russian squadron , with the British fleet five miles dead to leeward ! Nelson would have told
her Majesty that the Russians are no contemptible antagonists at sea—those dogged Northmen ! His own dictum was , " Go alongside a Frenchman ; outmanoeuvre a Russian . " Nelson would , no doubt , have folt ( as we all felt ) a pang when ho saw thoso glorious towers of canvass riddled by " smokers " : he would have seen at once that there could be no more squadrons at sea for twenty-two months at a stretch , blockading tho enemy ' s coasts j and that tho next war would be a sharp and decisive conversation of eighty-fours
and sixty-eights , that might possibly last half an hour ! Let us hope that his great soul would haA r o been consoled by the conviction that our ships , if insufliciently manned , are well manned : inspired by the glorious traditions of a flag untarnished , and by tho memories of a name immortal . He would have found our Government alivo to the necessity of making English seamen lovo tho service , and ding to it . We cito the concluding words oi' tho French writer whom wo have already quoted as an iinpartiul witness .
" The English aro proud of their steam fleet , and they have a- rig-lit to he so . Aa lor myself , although unqualified to . speak professionally , 1 am quifco disposed to accept tho opinion of the profession that ho formidable an armament , has never been seen , and that ifc would curry into any action every condition of success . " I will add , howovor , by way of conclusion , that this brilliunt display of mechanical forces is not what I most admired in my brief vi ;; ic to Portsmouth , nor is it that 'which gives me tho highest idea of the
grandeur and tlio resources of the British navy . Noblo as they are , these ships are but tho result of something greater and far moro noblo than themselves , of something which lias given them life , and which will give Ihom successors when the perishable materials of which they are composed shall have disappeared . This somethiiig—it in Kugland herself , it ; is the moral life that ; animates her , it is the spirit at oneo conservative ami progressive , which permits her to renew constantly without destroying , and which applied to hor navy
permits her to modify ,- to correct , to perfection at o witliout risk , save a little money expended . It is tho administrative and political institutions which have made England the freest and best governed jjeople in the world—the people which has better than all other nations tho sentiment of her material and moral prosperity . If I \ vere English I should have confidence in English ships , but 1 should have more confidence still in those hearts of oak than in those wooden walls—in the men and in the principles than in the materials . "
We heartily accept this generous testimony from France . May it be a pledge , among others , of a sincere and perpetual alliance between the two nations ! May our ships fight side by sido in future battles against the common enemy ! War between France and England is henceforth fratricidal . The camp at Chobham has been more familiarized to our readers than the fleet—to many of them visually on the spot ; to all in repeated descriptions . For many even of the soldiers combined movements in mass were a novelty ; but there , on the peaceful grounds of Chobham , both soldiery and public learned the effect of
combined movements on broken ground ; learned the character of camp life in its dSsagremens of sudden surprises , scanty furniture , and wet tents , if not in its severer hardships , or sterner perils . And the men came out nobly—the picturesque movements of disciplined lines unbroken by the broken ground—the . sweeping' charges of cavalry - —the thunder of artillery , telling not more to the eye than the ready obedience , the steady drill , the quick movement , and cheerfully sustained exertion told to the experienced mind , how well the British soldier comes up to the standard in mettle and temper .
The two pageants have already had successes much more substantial than mere display , and we rejoice to observe their moral effect upon the public mind . They have served as " practice" in no small degree ; since ifc was remarked that the regiments engaged there performed evolutions decidedly better after the first . Their drill and capacity had already been developed ' under proper training . In other respects the campaign at Chobham has been very effectual in testing the discipline , the temper , and the good will of tho men ; and of the officers , too , we might say . The
fleet showed that it was already able to perform evolutions of a magnitude , witli a minute exactness , truly surprising , amidst elements so uncertain . But it is the advantage of the navy that a large part of the difficulty and risk which an armed force has to encounter is constantly putting the courage and capacity of the sailor to the test , even in tho time of tho profoundest peace . We have an army , then , which can promptly adapt itself to any exigency ; avo have a fleet ready for emergencies which scarcely another nation on the earth would venture to
confront . Hie nation is once more conscious ol its strength by land , and still more by water , and tho fact of that consciousness is in itself a wholesome and invigorating one . When a nation thus confronts its own disciplined strength , if there be any greatness remaining in it , better ideua are- derived than those of vaunting over other nations , or those of servility to domestic powers . The existence of that fleet doeH not make tho Englishman tremble before constituted authority a whit more than he did before ; but on tho contrary it makes him feel more thoroughly part of a great nation , and ,
therefore , more independent . It does not make him feel stronger in courage to face other nations ; but it doos remind him that there arc other arbitraments than thoso of diplomacy or reason ; and while England holds herself able to sustain discussion with tho world , she also knows that a ho is strong to meet a disputant in another spoeios of controversy , if he has tho hardihood to choose that ruder contest . England , therefore , feels herself competent to sustain tho course that her judgment selects , well furnished , with all that is'necessary to moot her foes in any part of tho world , coino how , and when tliey may .
But , great and good m that moral is , thero is a healthy moral beyond oven that . For how , under tho blessing of God , has thin little inland of ours attained to lw supremacy P Surely by tho rosoluto practical direction of energies , at once concentrated und manifold ; by tho vigour ot hor industrial portiimcity , by hor ardent and obstinato following out of tho results of scionco , abstract and applied ; by her unchecked and uncor-
August 20, 1853.] The Leader. 805
August 20 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 805
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 20, 1853, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_20081853/page/13/
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