Germans to be aware that, in their present circumstances, they are not likely to quarrel with the first naval Power of the world, or to cherish the hope of conquest from an Armada of North Sea merchantmen.
It is probably useless to offer these considerations to our alarmists. It is their nature to conjure up visions of evil, and if one fancy is dispelled, another will present itself. Up to last summer it was France that threatened us, and not a week passed in the Session without some reference to the French ironclads, their number, size, thickness, and so forth, or to French guns and chassepots and mitrailleuses. No sooner is France overthrown than Germany is at once put in its place, and declared far more dangerous, though formerly the main point insisted upon was that the enemy were only separated from us by twenty miles of sea. But, as suming what these gentlemen expect,—that one or more Continental Powers should ever make the attempt to land a force upon these shores,—we submit that the event which the author of The Second Armada anticipates is far more probable than such a landing and such a march as others have described. We know something from former experience of the difficulties which impede the assembling of fleets and flotillas, the embarcation and transport of large bodies of troops, and of the obstacles to landing and penetrating inland in presence of defensive forces. We also know the overwhelming power of the British Navy, and that it could dissipate in a few hours all the maritime preparations by which we are said to be threatened. Nor is there any reason to doubt that the land forces of which this country will now be able to dispose could be collected and concen-
