xxx INTRODUCTION 



nately there was no standing army in the United 

 States, and only a small navy, so that the country 

 was free from that pernicious influence of a 

 professional military caste which works such 

 frightful evil in Europe, being indeed driven to 

 desire opportunities for practising the work for 

 which the profession exists. In Britain the army 

 and navy never wished to fight America. They 

 would have felt wars with her to be almost civil 

 wars, bella nullos habitura triumphos. And when 

 in recent years America began to have a great 

 navy, her officers and sailors, as often as they 

 found themselves in foreign ports, always frater 

 nized with those of British vessels, and found 

 the latter friends ready made. 



The basis for good will grew wider and 

 firmer with the increased intercourse of private 

 citizens which followed the introduction of 

 steam navigation. Private friendships became 

 incomparably more numerous, and the interests 

 of commerce were more closely interwoven. 



Neither nation was drawn into war by such 

 alliances with any other state as we now see 

 to be among the most deadly sources of war. 

 Happily for herself, America has had no entan 

 gling alliances; that risk existed only in 1793-5. 

 Britain, not always so carefully detached, never 



