On the Ocean 175 



Nor was it alone by the victories, but by the cruises, 

 that the year was noteworthy. The Yankee men- 

 of-war sailed almost in sight of the British coast 

 and right in the track of the merchant fleets and their 

 armed protectors. Our vessels had shown them 

 selves immensely superior to their foes. 



The reason of these striking and unexpected suc 

 cesses was that our navy in 1812 was the exact 

 reverse of what our navy is now, in 1882. I am 

 not alluding to the personnel, which still remains ex 

 cellent ; but, whereas we now have a large number 

 of worthless vessels, standing very low down in 

 their respective classes, we then possessed a few ves 

 sels, each unsurpassed by any foreign ship of her 

 class. To bring up our navy to the condition in 

 which it stood in 1812 it would not be necessary 

 (although in reality both very wise and in the end 

 very economical) to spend any more money than at 

 present ; only instead of using it to patch up a hun 

 dred antiquated hulks, it should be employed in build 

 ing half a dozen ships on the most effective model. 

 If in 1812 our ships had borne the same relation 

 to the British ships that they do now, not all the 

 courage and skill of our sailors would have won us 

 a single success. As it 'was, we could only cope with 

 the lower rates, and had no vessels to oppose to the 

 great "liners" ; but to-day there is hardly any for 

 eign ship, no matter how low its rate, that is not 

 superior to the corresponding American ones. It is 

 too much to hope that our political short-sightedness 

 will ever enable us to have a navy that is first-class 



