326 Professor Laughton on the Invincible Armada. [May 4, 



ago the country was exposed to a very great danger, wliicli was made 

 greater still by the uncertainty of the Government as to the proper 

 way to meet it, and by their halting between two opinions. Had the 

 money which -was wasted on useless shore defences m England or in 

 the equipment of trooj^s for Flanders been spent in providing a few more 

 Arks or Triumphs, or a larger supply of shot — though the want seems 

 due to the very unusual exj)cnditure and a very natural miscalculation 

 — the victory would have been more assured. As it was, however, 

 it seems to me that we have before us a grand experience, conveying, 

 to those who can read it, most useful and important lessons. Although 

 subject to the most grinding parsimony, our navy in the day of need 

 was found equal to what was required of it. Professor Seelcy tells us 

 we had no navy worthy of the name before the days of the Common- 

 wealth.* He is in error. "We had not only a navy, but a navy which, 

 by the care and prudence and ingenuity of its princijial officers, and 

 especially of Hawkyns, who had been for some years its comptroller, 

 was superior to the navy which, in popular repute, was the most 

 powerful in the world. It was no mere chance which made our largo 

 ships more handy, more weatherly, more heavily armed than those of 

 Si)ain, and, above all, wliich had them ready when they were wanted. 

 Is this the case at the present day ? I fear not. I am misinformed 

 if either our shij)S or guns are suj)erior to those of our neighbours ; 

 it is, I am told, an open question whether the armaments of our ships 

 are not inferior to those of possible enemies ; and I am speaking not 

 from popular gossip or newspaper paragraphs, but from official 

 utterances in the House of Commons, when 1 say that several of our 

 largest ships — the Triumjyhs or Arhs of the present day — are lying in 

 harbour useless for want of guns, which are not likely to be supplied 

 for some months; or of gun fittings, discovered to be defective only 

 when the ship is ordered for commission. Much has been said of 

 want of money — of estimates reduced below starvation point. The 

 want here, at least, is not of money, but of judgment and knowledge 

 and effective sui^ervision. It will be little excuse to the nation to 

 attribute any possible disaster to a departmental error — to a dual 

 control- — to the outrageous fact that the supply of ships is regulated 

 by one board and that of guns by another ; the two working inde- 

 pendent of, and sometimes at variance with, each other. But this is 

 beyond my present purpose. I will only add that, as imitation is the 

 sincerest form of flattery, so a readiness for action, similar to that 

 which enabled our forefathers to achieve this great victory, will be 

 the truest and the best commemoration of their glory. And yet I 

 think that in this, its Tercentenary, there is a peculiar fitness in the 

 desire to record it on a visible monument. Storied urn or animated 

 bust cannot, indeed, call back the fleeting breath of the great dead ; 

 but they may aid in preserving their memories, a light to lighten our 

 path and to guide our footsteps. [J. K. L.] 



* 'Expausioii of England,' p. 81. 



