MODERN NAVAL POWERS. Among the naval powers of the present day, Britain claims the pre-eminence; a pre-eminence founded on vast national reSources, from which the government supplies itself at the call of vanity or ambition; and upon an extended commerce, covering every ocean and every sea, and furnishing employment to thousands of hardy seamen, who are forced at pleasure into the public service. The next marine in point of force and number is that of France. The great population aud resources of that nation, and the extent of coast by which she is nearly surrounded, naturally adapt her to make a brilliant display of naval power. But her mercantile marine, the only true foundation of a military one, has been so crippled and kept under by the superior force and grasping character of her neighbour, that the large navy which she now possesses rather results from the determination of government to create one, than from the character and immediate interests of the nation. Spain, though even more adapted than Britain, by the happy union of great internal and external resources and means of development, to excel as a maritime power, and though but half a century since she was second only to the mistress of the seas, may now, thanks to the withering extension of priestcraft and despotism, eating like a cancer at the core of her greatress, be said to possess no marine whatever. Russia, with little commerce, is not yet without a formidable fleet, which, called into existence by the ambition of her emperors, may increase in power and rest on a more natural foundation, should she, while development is going on within, gain an extent of coast on the Mediterranean, and add the Greek seamen to the number of her subjects. Holland is still prominent among naval powers, excelling as formerly in the number and excellence of her ships, and in the skill, experience, and courage of her seamen. She owes her present comparative insignificance more to the development of her neighbours than to her own deterioration. This brief view would have included, a few years since, all the maritime nations of the earth. But in the mean time a nation has sprung up in another hemisphere, destined ere long to become the chief of naval powers; we speak of this western world, and our own happy union. Already is our commercial marine second only to that of Britain; already do her statesmen calculate the time that must elapse before we can equal her; already do they point out to the period when the VOL, VI. L sceptre of the seas shall depart from the hand that has so long wielded it in the spirit of tyranny and exclusion. It is true, that not only Britain, but several minor powers, exceed us in number and force of ships; but, as in every nation, the commercial marine is the true and only foundation of the military marine, so the extent of the one is the only true measure of the other. The sinews and muscles of naval war are not the less our own that we do not exercise them; when it shall be necessary to strike the blow, their force will assert itself. But it is not enough that the pugilist shall have strength of body, nor does it suffice that we possess the elements of naval power. They must be developed, concentrated, organised. Our merchant ships visit every corner of the world where there is water to float them, and our ships of war must follow to lend them protection, and enable them to pursue their occupations in peace. A dozen ships of the line, displaying the American ensign in the British Channel, would have protected our trade from belligerent spoliation, and saved us from the check which our national progress received, and the heavy debt which we contracted in the late war. We are, however, indebted to that event, for calling into existence the navy which we now possess. The few ships we sent to sea at its commencement, accomplished, indeed, more than could have been expected from so inconsiderable a force, and fairly fought their way into public favour. Their astonishing speed, and the active energy of their commanders, enabled them to harrass the enemy in every sea; and, aided by a discipline never before equailed in any naval service, when they met an enemy of equal, or even slightly superior force, they were able to thunder forth their fire with a precision and rapidity that rendered a naval battle the affair of minutes instead of hours. Since the war, we have added greatly to the number of our ships, until now we could put to sea at short notice with a dozen ships of the line, the largest, noblest, and most efficient that ever went into battle. This is not merely an American conceit, but the acknowledgment of the whole world, We have preserved the exterior proportions of the most beautiful class of vessels in our ships of the line, which, while they present the level side, uniform outline, and perfect symmetry of frigates, for which they are often mistaken at sea, yet threaten an enemy with batteries of one hundred guns of a calibre hitherto unknown upon the ocean. We see no room for improvement in this important class of our ships, should there not soon occur another era in naval war, by the introduction of a new agent more destructive than any now in use. We have not been so successful in the frigates and sloops which we have constructed since the war, as in our ships of the line. New models have been introduced with a view to improvement, and the result is, that while the best of the new frigates and corvettes are in no particular superior to the old ones, many of them are decidedly inferior in speed and beauty. We speak of beauty as an advantage, and we consider it so without doubt; for, independently of the fact that good looks and good qualities are almost invariably found together in ships, that attachment of officers to the vessel they sail in, which is so desirable, depends in no slight degree upon her beauty. The era to which we allude, as capable of changing the system of naval war, and setting aside our ships of the line, is the introduction of bomb-cannon, or the practice of projecting bombs horizontally. It has been discovered that shells, or hollow shot, charged with combustible matter, may, with perfect ease, be projected in a right line from ordinary cannon, and that, consequently, they may not only be used from the land against ships, which the difficulty of striking when projected in a curve before prevented, but also in the ordinary naval battle between ship and ship. The frail character of these floating castles, too, renders them peculiarly as sailable by this means of destruction. Experiments have been tried in various countries, and especially in France, to prove the practibility of this new mode, and the results, so far as we are acquainted with them, threaten the overthrow of the present method of naval warfare. Hollow shot, charged with combustibles, were fired from ordinary cannon into masses of timber bound more securely together than the most solid ship, and they were rent to pieces. Hulks prepared for the purpose were attacked in the same manner; when the shell failed to explode, it produced the same injury as an ordinary shot; if it entered a mast and there exploded, it shivered and overturned it with its whole system of yards and rigging; if it came through the side and lodged upon deck, its explosion scattered smoke, fire, and destruction on every side; if it lodged in the side and there exploded, the rent opened, if near the water, was such as to cause inevitable sinking. These facts, thus determined, have led naturally enough to various speculations as to the means of meeting the danger. There are two sides to a question of fighting, as to every other question; and when efficacious means of destruction have been invented, it next becomes ne cessary to devise preventive means to obviate them. In this spirit we remember to have seen, several years ago, an article in the "French Review," in which the practibility was gravely discussed of defeuding ships from shell and shot of every kind, by means of bands of iron nailed upon the whole exterior surface. Should this idea be realized, ships of war would become so many cuirassiers afloat. We would suggest to the attention of the speculative, that since shot are harmless when they strike even a wooden surface at a certain angle, ships of war, instead of being wall-sided, might be made to tumble out, and continue increasing in beam from the surface of the water upwards, so as to give to their sides the angle that would deflect a cannon-ball. This would be the more feasible, if, as has been suggested by the speculators on the subject, the introduction of bomb-cannon should cause the abandonment of large ships, and the substitution of smaller ones; for, whilst a ship of the line offers many times the surface for attack that a sloop or a schooner does, her increased means of annoyance are not proportionate; ten bombs lodged in the side of a ship being as efficacious for her destruction as a hundred, a ship carrying ten guns becomes as formidable as one mounting ten times ten. What we here give is only the result of experiments upon the other side of the ocean. We should like much to know if any thing has been done on this side. If the same experiments have produced the same results here, and proved conclusive as to an approaching change in naval war, would it not be the part of wisdom, instead of multiplying expensive constructions connected with an exploded or obsolescent system, to be beforehand, not only in introducing the new engine, but in preparing to meet and resist it? The advantage will attach to the first nation that adopts it, in the event of war; but cannot long remain peculiar. If the plea of humanity be in the way of its adoption, we answer, with the history of all ages to support us, that naval war has become less fatal to life as the means of destruction have become more effective and formidable. The slain at Salamis were more than those of Lepanto, and this last battle counted alone many times the added victims of the Nile, of Trafalgar, and Navarino. Besides, what has humanity_to do with warfare? Is it from humanity that we mount guns of the heaviest possible calibre, from which we are prepared to shower round shot, grape, and canisterthat we wield muskets, pistols, pikes, cutlasses, and tomahawks? Why did we so strive, during the last war, to excel in rapidity of fire? And what, in fact, is any and every naval battle but a trial of powers of destruction? With us, indeed, the cause of resistance is the cause of humanity. Whatever may be the character of other governments, the genius of ours forbids any but a defensive war; and self-defence, among nations as among individuals, is equally legitimate and praiseworthy. But to return to our ships; admitting their organization to be perfect, that of the officers and crews who sail them admits of great melioration. To begin aft, as in duty bound, the first and most glaring defect that our system offers, is the want of the higher ranks found necessary in other countries, in every war like force, whether naval or military. We lay no stress on the embarrassment and humiliation our commanders sustain on foreign stations, where they often come in contact with men of superior rank in command of inferior forces; nor of the crying injustice of allowing the faithful officer, after attaining the modest rank of captain in the prime of life, there to come to anchor and grow gray, until those who commenced their career under him as school-boy midshipmen shall have reached the same station, and become his equals. In descending to the subordinate officers, we think that we can still discover a want of proper gradation. To prove this, we will simply instance the fact, that the first lieutenant of a large ship, who has been fifteen or twenty years in service, is nowise superior in rank, emoluments, and consideration, to the youngest lieutenant of a schooner, whose term of service may be but half as long. There requires, we consider, two gradations of lieutenants; those of the inferior one being called sublieutenants, or ensigns. These could do the duties of lieutenant in the smaller vessel, and of sailing-masters in all. The rank of masters should be allowed to extinguish itself. Few of our commanders receive willingly on board their ships any other masters than passed midshipmen, temporarily appointed to the station; well aware, as they are, that men taken from the command of merchant ships are, through age, habits, and education, ill calculated to harmonize with the regular officers. One important advantage of having the duties of master filled by officers in the line of promotion, is, that they are very improving, and calculated to cherish science among those who perform them. The establishment of the intermediate gradation of ensigns, too, by multiplying promotions, would diminish the present tedious probations of midship men, and tend to keep hope and ambition alive in the pursuit of a toilsome career. We can, however, give no reason so potent for the creation of this rank, as the fact, that it already exists in the present practice of giving increased pay and additional buttons to passed midshipmen, whereby they are invested with a sort of mongrel promotion. Much as westhink this intermediate rank required, we do not see that positive necessity for it which exists for the creation of the higher ranks. Of the various classes of officers into which our navy divides itself, there is noue, however, that so urgently recommends itself to the solicitude of the country as that of midshipmen. It may be further said, that none can, by future results, so well reward the solicitude that may be bestowed upon it. The habits and characters of the older officers are already formed, and will admit only of slight modification; but midshipmen may be modified at pleasure. According to the existing system, their only education beyond the mere reading and writing they have learned of the school-madam, is picked up on board, so that if they acquire any thing in addition to the mere practice of the profession, it is owing, in the first place, to their own zeal and desire of improvement, and, as they grow older, and draw nigh the term of their probation, to the terrors of an approaching examination. Some may say that the practice of the profession is enough, and instance sundry hard fighters, who have known no more, to prove it. But our most meritorious officers, of every rank, are not of this opinion; and accordingly we find them acquainting themselves with the laws of nations, mastering the languages of those countries which they most frequently visit, and cultivating a taste for the sciences, and the study of that nature which presents herself to them in so many various and imposing forms. We conceive that a preparatory school ought to be established for the navy, similar to what the army possesses in the academy at West Point. In time of war, the navy is to fight our battles, to meet the danger at a distance upon the deep, and preserve our shores from the foot of the invader; surely the navy should not merely be brave, but skilled in all the arts and resources that decide the fate of battles; versed not only in whatever theory may suggest, but acquainted with all the expedients that have ever been resorted to in extremity of peril by the naval heroes of ancient and modern times. In seasons of peace, our friendly relations with the greatest powers of the earth are in no slight degree entrusted to the keeping of our naval commanders; for it is only on the common highway that we come in contact with each other, and it is there that our interest and honour are most often brought into collision. No one, then, can deny that the happiness of our country is as much entrusted to the safeguard of the navy, as to the officers of the army. Our ideas of a naval academy are, that it should be established in some healthy, isolated situation, with the sea in sight, and constant opportunities of witnessing the manœuvres of arriving and departing ships. The age of admission might be twelve years, and the term of service four years, making the youths sixteen at the time of graduation; at this age, with their previous training, they would be able to serve some better purpose on ship-board than that of playthings for the older officers. The system of discipline should be rigid, yet paternal, under the superintendence of a most carefully selected officer. Mathematics would of course form the groundwork of their education; but we would not urge its pursuit beyond the point necessary to render intelligible the various problems of nautical astronomy, upon this would afterwards be raised the superstructure of physics, astronomy, navigation, naval architecture, and the theory of working ships. In connexion with these more solid studies, a knowledge of history, of the laws of nations, and of the rules of composition, should be acquired. The French and Spanish languages should be thoroughly taught by natives, and the more advanced classes should be able to understand lectures in both languages. An infusion of young men of French and Spanish parentage, from Louisiana and the Floridas, would greatly facilitate this most necessary acquisition. Drawing would be a highly useful accomplishment to naval officers. As for general literature, we would leave them to acquaint themselves with it hereafter, during the abundant leisure of their future profession, doing no more to cherish a taste for it than to provide a well-seJected library, in which travels, naval chronicles, and whatever relates to the sea, should not be forgotten, and from which all idle books of a sickly and demoralizing character, such as form the chief niental nutriment of modern readers, should be most carefully excluded. Nor would we be satisfied, as in most seminaries, with merely training the mind; we would bestow equal care upon the unfolding of the bodily powers, and strive to send each aspirer forth a perfect Lacede monian. No young man should wear a sword until he could wield it to some purpose in defence of life or honour. The chief of our exercises, however, would be found in the manœuvres of a small ship; not moored in the mountains, as at Angouleme, nor planted upon dry land, or rather on the tops of trees, as at Amsterdam; but a real, moving, little live ship, that could lift her anchor and sail away at will. In such a ship, reefing, furling, steering, and all the manipulation, should be performed by the lads themselves. Each class should have its proper station. the junior class should do the hauling and deck-work; the next would know enough to become top-men; tho-e who should have served a year longer would fill the stations of forecastlemen, petty officers, and helmsmen; the senior class, having learned a lesson of obedience and subordination in each succeeding gradation, would now in turn exact equal deference in the character of officers, and be stationed in various parts of the ship, each directing the efforts of his more youthful and less experienced gang; while one of this number would in rotation be invested with the command of the whole, under the ever-watchful eye of the superintendent. An allotted portion of every fine day might be employed in stripping or rigging ship, or in reeting and furling; one day in each week should be exclusively appropriated to a cruise rouud the harbour. During at least one entire month of every year, we would set the whole school free from study, and keep the lads constantly embarked, organized, and stationed for evolutions and for battle, like the crew of a regular cruiser. In this interval we would not only have them reconnoitre the coast, and become pilots, but brave the ocean, visit various ports, and penetrate our noble rivers. We would not deny them the cordial attentions which their proud and admiring countrymen would hasten to teuder to them, wherever they appeared; and we can conceive no vaca tion so delightfully spent as would be this of our young aspirants after naval glory. Seamanship, taught in the way that we thus suggest, would be taught most tho roughly; nothing would be left to aceident, or individual ambition and desire of excellence, but every youth would be forced to become a seaman and an officer. We can see no reason for withholding the institution, which justice, not less to the navy than to the nation, claims from our legislators, but the plea of economy. remove this, we would suggest that the lads should be clothed and rationed upon a regular system, at the public expense; parents would be happy enough to procure their children such an education on any terms, and as for the boys, they are quite as well without money. We might Το It has been suggested, that, in the event of our having a naval academy, au observatory, for which we already possess the necessary instruments, should be connected with it, and the professors be constituted a board of longitude. The suggestion is an admirable one, and we would improve it by the additional idea, that the institution should contain a hydrographical dépôt, for the collection and collation of charts, and for procuring, by correspondence with navigators, naval and mercantile, whatever information might conduce to perfect a knowledge of the coasts and waters of the navigable world. Science gains by concentration, and the neighbourhood of such pursuits would greatly tend to raise the standard of scientific excellence among the students of the academy. The nation which holds the second rank for extent of commerce and navigation, should not depend entirely for the most necessaary calculations upon one that is already her rival, and may again become her enemy; nor be the only one to do nothing to improve nautical science, and diminish the dangers of the deep. Pride and policy alike forbid it. When our navy shall be supplied with officers from an institution such as has been suggested, we may confidently look for some new accessions to the honourable reputation which it has already obtained for itself. One of the greatest benefits it would incur, would be found in the probation of mind and character which would take place at the academy, whereby those who are disqualified would be purged from the profession, and, instead of going on disgracing themselves as midshipmen, lieutenants, and superior officers, be arrested at the very threshold. The seeds of good being thus sown, and our young men thus prepared to run an honourable career, much might still be done after they entered upon the active exercise of the profession, by the care and solicitude of the commanders. We think there might be more sympathy between the commander and his officers. Especially do we think there should be, as we know there often is, something paternal in the government over the midshipmen. think that every opportunity of unprovement should be thrown in their way, by not only allowing them to visit the ports where their ship may be anchored, but encouraging them to make excursions into the interior, and bring away more definitive ideas of national manners and customs than can be gathered in a visit of a We few hours to the shore, the chief of which time is usually spent in the billiard-room, It is in the power of every commander to introduce his officers, everywhere, to the best society, and we can conceive no way so effectual of diverting them from destructive dissipation, The author of the "Naval Sketches" speaks very sensibly on this subject, in describing the occupations of our officers during their yearly wintering at Minorca. Before we take leave of that part of our naval system which applies to the officers, we will avail ourselves of the occasion to express a few opinions upon the subject of their uniform.` In all military corps, one of the most efficacious means for the support of discipline and concerted action, is a uniformity of dress. Harmonious appearance and the mere gratification of the eye are not its only advantages. It furnishes the means of distinguishing a peculiar set of men from all others, and, by preventing them from withdrawing themselves from the observation of their superiors, greatly increases their sense of amenableness. It abets the authority of those who order, and rivets the subservience of those who obey. The great essentials of a uniform dress we take to be perfect and decided uniformity, in connexion with plainness, cheapness, neatness, and durability. These essentials are in no particular attained by the present system. Our officers have now a dress so expensive and gaudy, and in such bad taste, that they are ashamed to wear it; and an undress, that is no dress at all. Both being lawful to be worn, some choose the one, and some the other, according to individual fancy; whilst others compromise matters by adopting a mean between both. Thus, a laced hat may sometimes be seen in connexion with a rolling-collared coat, nowise different from those worn by our citizens, except in a profusion of buitous. In fact, the undress naval uniform is a uniform exclusively of buttons; and nothing is more common than to see a coat, which has already done its owner good service in his peaceful character of citizen, during the interval of his cruises, by the aid of a few pounds of brass, transformed suddenly, upon the arrival of an order from Wash ington, into as pugnacious a campaigner as ever paraded a quarter-deck. The fashion of such an old servant, its velvet collar, or fan-tail skint, can no more than faithful service save it from conscription. We think that there should be one only uniform; which, whilst it should be cha racteristic and decided, should be at once neat, plain, chcap, and durable, entirely fice from all lace and tinsel, to glitter for |