622 On the Personnel, Materiel, fyc. of the British Navy. [JUNE, 



must produce the most valuable data; and, as our navy costs twenty mil- 

 lions sterling, we think no pains ought to be spared for its scientific forma- 

 tion. 



We have before said, that, for a good account of our navy, we must refer 

 the reader to Uupin's work, Moreau's, &c. &c. Though a Frenchman, 

 Dupin shews himself intimately acquainted with every particular in (he 

 constitution of our navy, its construction, and resources. From being 

 admitted, with an unsuspicious liberality, into all our grand public, and even 

 into many of our private establishments, he has described every thing 

 minutely. We have been told by a cotemporary journal, that such display 

 to foreigners is politic, because it must inspire them with awe at our power. 

 It is possible, however, that they may have feared us as much before our 

 resources were explored, as after making those particular developments 

 that enable them to imitate them. Quite an opposite policy exists in 

 France; its naval arsenals are hermetically sealed against foreigners more 

 especially Englishmen. Dupin never details any thing in his works 

 respecting his own country that may enlighten us ; and, though he knows 

 very well we are half a century behind the French in ship-building, he, 

 with much policy, praises our hedge-carpenters' ships, without getting his 

 country to adopt the models of them. We cannot help smiling that Dupiti 

 should affect to complain, in his " Force Navale de la Grande Brctagne," 

 at a little brusquerie he experienced from the under-wardens of Ports- 

 mouth Dock Yard. It is not meant by this remark to hold up rudeness 

 to foreigners ; on the contrary, we think it highly reprehensible : but we 

 conceive that M. Dupin must have been too much pleased and well occu- 

 pied in beholding all that he did, to have really taken it so much to heart 

 as he would make us believe. We think, in the face of such assiduous 

 research on the part of the French naval engineers, of which Dupin is one, 

 we ought to promote the like exertions among our English naval engineers 

 those of the School of Naval Architecture and not repress their endea- 

 vours by every species of indignity and bad treatment. We understand 

 they are only put over the house carpenters, caulkers, and blacksmiths ; and 

 that their first scholars are gone to America, where they are handsomely 

 treated for their painful studies and valuable acquisitions, instead of being 

 looked upon, as they are here (as noticed by DupinJ, in the quality of 

 working bipeds. Dupin has been made Baron of France, although of the 

 class of mechanics : but when shall we be emancipated from gothic pre- 

 judices ? The arts which contribute so much to the conveniences of life 

 were honourable in ancient Greece : they deified Dsedalus, the inventor of 

 the saw. But so much has brnte force and haughty prejudices usurped 

 the empire of the mind, that now, when a nation has been supported through 

 the most arduous struggle ever known by her arts and manufactures, the 

 labourer is hardly thought worthy of his hire totally putting out of the 

 question gratitude and respect. We hope these things will be changed by 

 our new governors. 



