On this point the one naval witness, Admiral Sir John Ommanney Hopkins, G.C.B., late a Naval Lord of the Admiralty, and Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, was equally emphatic. He granted that, if the theatre of war was in the Mediterranean and a very large proportion of the British Fleet were away from our shores, during that time a foreign force might possibly be thrown into England; but, on the other hand, there was this to be remembered, "that if we command the sea, directly the invasion takes place and our Fleets fall back on our own shores, then the possibility of that force ever returning to its country is at an end; it ought to be swallowed up in this country."[1]
Lastly, turning from the testimony to the practical invulnerability of this country given seven years ago, when the hypothetical invader was France, let us hear what the latest
- ↑ Blue Book, vol. i. p. 110.
