[ 624 ] [JUNE; 



NAVAL ADMINISTRATION OP GREAT BRITAIN*. 



" List, ye LANDSMEN, all to me !" 



IT is not, we believe, generally known, that this pamphlet, of which 

 so much has been said, and concerning which so much more has been 

 thought, is the production of the late Admiral Sir Charles Penrose. In 

 the commencement of his remarks, the Admiral tells us, " that during the 

 time he had been employed in arranging his reflections on the conduct 

 of our naval administration, it often occurred to him to consider whether 

 the subject is in itself of sufficient importance, and, the errors which occur 

 in its management of sufficient magnitude to justify," fyc. fyc. The pamphlet 

 itself is the best corrector of this doubt; the affectation of which doubt is 

 the only thing throughout the pages which can be met, by either party 

 in the State, in any other spirit than one of fixed and. serious atten- 

 tion. The Admiral's counterfeited misgivings as to the importance of the 

 subject must have arisen from a powerful sense of the contrary; a species 

 of hypocrisy which is common to mankind, but which an old sailor should 

 have been above, especially as he was not speaking of himself, but of a 

 Service wherein may be said to lie the principal part of our political 

 strength. We are not professing any puritanical horror of hypocrisy, 

 for we think there are times when this failing has in it ' ' a soul of good- 

 ness." It is very well, for example, in the maudlin speeches which cus- 

 tom demands after dinner, when even Mr. Canning might have found it 

 proper and becoming to crave indulgence for the imperfections of his 

 oratory, when Mr. Rothschild might call himself a poor man, and the 

 Duke of Wellington profess himself the humblest individual in the room; 

 and whatever has been said in praise of plain speaking, we cannot but 

 think that there is something amiable in that kind of hypocrisy which 

 avoids the utterance of truths which would uselessly wound the feelings 

 of a friend. It is hardly too bold a word to say, that every man is more 

 or less a hypocrite. A great part of the literary strength of Dryden was 

 contained in his prefaces, which might be said to have originated the 

 best parts of the modern code of criticism. The world read and loudly 

 applauded them; and therefore, in one of his last and most perfect treat- 

 ises of this kind (the preface to his version of Juvenal), the poet pre- 

 tends humility, and says, " This is the last time I will commit the crime 

 of prefaces, or trouble the world with my notions of any thing that relates 

 to verse." Now some little might be said in extenuation of this weak- 

 ness in Dryden, because the subject is himself; but that an old and able 

 Naval officer should come forward with an apologetical aspect, and a 

 modest doubt as to the value and importance of his own profession, is 

 merely foolish. Admiral Penrose knew well enough, and so does every 

 one else, that our maritime supremacy is an object of the most vital con- 

 sequence to our very political existence ; and that it is not the less so 

 because it happens to be grossly neglected by the Legislature, which 

 seems to think it hardly worth a debate. It is true that a farce is per- 

 formed annually at St. Stephen's, under the title of " Navy Estimates." 

 But who are the dramatis per sonce ? A nautical Matthews, perpetually 

 punning on " round sterns and square tucks " a pert Irish secretary, 

 ever ready to ridicule the false reckoning and ^figurative rhetoric of a 



* Remarks on the Conduct of the Naval Administration of Great Britain since 1815. 

 15y a Flag Officer. 8vo. 



