THE OCEAN AS A BATTLE-FIELD 295 



strangled by all sorts of vexatious restrictions ex- 

 pressly designed to that end. It is to me an inspiring 

 thought that, after all the centuries of blood-shedding 

 upon the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, all the 

 terrible deeds done solely for the purpose of robbery 

 and murder dignify these crimes by what other 

 names we may a power should at last obtain the 

 pre-eminence whose palpable object was, and is, the 

 preservation of peace in order that commerce might 

 be free to develop upon lawful lines, and that the 

 merchant seaman might go upon his peaceful way, 

 none daring to make him afraid. 



The good work accomplished by Blake in estab- 

 lishing a fleet for the protection of commerce instead 

 of aggression suffered a temporary set-back with the 

 Restoration. We need not linger over these dis- 

 reputable days, for they cannot be considered without 

 deepest shame, but pass on to the much more satis- 

 factory fact that, in spite of all that a corrupt 

 Government could do, the naval power of Britain 

 was only temporarily weakened, it suffered no per- 

 manent degradation. No other nation was able to 

 wrest from us our proud title of Keeper of the Peace 

 of the seas, and through all the welter of European 

 warfare there remained one force always to be 

 reckoned with that could turn the scale whichever 

 way its possessors listed, and that was the Navy of 

 England. It is true that during our shameful and 

 entirely unnecessary war with our own flesh and blood, 

 the American colonists, we experienced many isolated 

 defeats of individual ships, which was only what might 

 have been expected under the circumstances. But 

 they were merely incidents, and had no real influence 



