For a long time a strong feeling had been growing up among philanthropists and reformers of all kinds against the practice of impressment and against the discipline of the "cat," as the flogging instrument was commonly termed. The philanthropists and the reformers generally were met by the old sort of familiar argument. They were told that it would be utterly impossible to man a navy if the press-gang were to be abolished, and equally impossible to keep the Navy up to its work and in decent condition if seamen were no longer liable to the punishment of the lash. The innovators were asked whether they knew better how to raise and maintain an efficient Navy than did the naval authorities, on whose shoulders rested the responsibility of defending the shores of England from foreign invasion. Those who made themselves conspicuous by their advocacy of what were then beginning to be called humanitarian principles were roundly accused of want of patriotism, and it was often suggested that they were anti-English in their sentiments and their instincts, and were persons who would probably, on the whole, rather welcome the foreign invader than lend a hand to drive him back. The spirit of humanity and of reform was in the air, however, and in the reformed Parliament there were many men who had as good a gift of eloquence as the best of their opponents, and who could not be frightened out of any purpose on which they had set their minds and hearts. In 1835 the Government of Lord Melbourne brought in a measure for the abolition of the press-gang {267} system and for limitation of compulsory service in the Navy to a period of five years. This measure not only had its own direct and immediate beneficial effects, but it also did much to prepare the way for the abolition of flogging. Many years, indeed, had to pass before this latter reform could be accomplished, but it was clear that, when the manning of the Navy no longer brought with it its captures from the criminal classes, the time was coming for the gradual adoption of a system of discipline more in accordance with the principles of humanity and the character of a noble service. As we have seen in all previous experiences of reform, the forebodings of the anti-reformers proved to be utterly false alarms in regard to the manning and the discipline of the Navy. We have seen some foreign wars since the days of William the Fourth, and we have heard alarms of foreign invasion again and again. But the Navy, under its improved conditions, has never been in want of volunteers to man it, and the greatest lovers of peace have always proclaimed it to be the surest and best defence of the country. There were many leading men in the House of Commons since those days who persistently demanded a reduction in the Army on the very ground that England could safely defy any foreign foe so long as she had the bulwark of such a Navy. [Sidenote: 1840--The new Houses of Parliament]