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What does it all amount to? Certainly, no damage to England.

Populous States, like the United States, France, and Germany, difficult to attack on their main soil, are doing a maritime Power like England a real service, and holding out a limb to be smitten, in every harbour they improve or depôt they establish on the seaboard or beyond their own territory, as long as they leave them undefended, or do not increase their fleet.

This principle is well understood by both Germany and France. Germany has as yet a small navy, and therefore defends her coast-towns regardless of expense; France has Colonies, and is lavish in the improvement of her fleet; but America, who talks of acquiring distant harbours and outlying islands, leaves her own ports unguarded, and neglects her fleet, ignoring obvious necessities both on land and sea.

There is a danger, but it is a somewhat remote one, of America closing in on the Panamá Canal by land. It would not be very surprising if, in the course of a limited number of years, Mexico were to follow the example of Texas and join the Union. It is said American adventurers and speculators in the new railways are acquiring considerable influence-the process being repeated till the Canal was actually reached. This would not give the States the use of the Canal as long as they were weak at sea, but it might close it to us, and even pressure at New York might fail to coerce the new community.

An American writer, more sensible than his neighbours, thus sums up the present situation :— "The views recently expressed by Mr. Blaine on the Panamá Canal are not practicable, even if sound in theory, for the reason that Panamá is not within the control of the United States, but of Great Britain. A glance at the Atlantic coast of America will demonstrate this. There we see that Great Britain has at Halifax, Nova Scotia, a strong military and naval depôt; at the Bermudas south of it another similar depôt; at Jamaica, in the Caribbean Sea, at the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico, another; and at the Belize, Honduras, another. Besides, she holds convenient and strong picket-posts at her many island possessions, commanding every pass from the Atlantic Ocean into the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, and the United States has not one.

"In consequence, Great Britain holds a complete check on our Atlantic and Gulf coasts from the St. Lawrence to the Rio Grande by a strong cordon of military and naval posts, shutting in our ports whatever fleets we may have, weak as they are, and threatening our sea-coast defences. Now, way down south of this cordon, in latitude 10 degrees, will be the Canal, already completely under the control of Great Britain, whose men-of-war possess the ocean; and unless we create a navy more powerful than that of Great Britain (that can break through her naval command of our coasts, and steam down to the rescue of the Panamá isthmus), always to remain under the guns of the British navy, we might almost as sensibly talk of protecting the neutrality of the Cape of Good Hope as any canal through the American isthmus.”

England has, in fact, no reason to shrink from a contest with the United States in the present condition of their defences and effective resources. If that contest should be necessary, where, and in what manner, and by what means should the States be met?

There will, we think, be no dispute that a land and lake attack, or offensive defence, should be engaged in by Canada, and a naval attack and blockade by the Imperial navy.

But there may be a difference of opinion as to whether, considering the great increase of population, English troops should be committed to the American mainland along the coast. We certainly think they should. The dread the Americans themselves display of such a course being adopted would be a sufficient argument in its favour, but there are other sound reasons for such a pro- ceeding; in justice to Canada, we should divert as much military opposition as possible from them, and we believe that we shall more effectually do so by attacking the sea-coast towns with at least a portion of our force than by adding the whole of it to the Canadian army.

The more we remove the scene of the contest to American soil-to Long Island and such places, the more we shall divert their attention from Irish and other adventures; although, of course, we expect our powerful fleet to defend not only our home soil, but our distant depôts, should any temporary disablement of its activity or superiority occur during the war, we shall be in a far better position to fight on or negotiate if land forces planted on American soil have still to be got rid of. With the position reversed, we think all our efforts would be exerted to get the Americans out of Ireland before we sent an expedition to America.

Besides, excellent as our depôts are in the Atlantic and Gulf, it appears that some nearer places of refuge and supply, especially for certain classes of ships, would have to be established on or near the mainland. These will require defenders against the American militia and volunteer marine, even if placed on islands, and while there they should certainly take the offensive whenever circumstances are favourable; that the force employed should be small and select, in as far as it should be perfectly equipped, perfectly disciplined, able to embark and disembark in the shortest possible time, and pro- vided with sufficient transport to escape from an untenable position and move off to another, applies rather to the units than to the whole force. The larger the total the better, not for the hopeless task of conquest, but for multiplying the means of harassing the coast.

Whether, in the first instance, this force should be collected at one or all of the Atlantic and Gulf stations, and how much of it should be retained for their defence during the various phases of the war, how much devoted to serious attacks on given points, and how much to minor raids along the whole line, is a question of detail, and not the object of the present paper; but that all the Atlantic and Gulf depôts used should be in telegraphic communication with each other through England seems a matter of prime necessity.

In a war with the United States, as has been already pointed out, any depôt imperfectly defended might be attacked by what we might perhaps call a filibustering expedition, that is to say, a collection. of imperfectly disciplined men, and imperfectly equipped ships, yet capable of doing serious mischief if insufficiently opposed. Should, then, the efficient defence of our five depôts be considered too great a

Appendix No. 9.

UNITED STATES.

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