ships there was mutual hostility between the officers of the regular corps and the supplementary officers taken in on the outbreak of war, and known as _officiers bleus_. None of the corporations of the old French monarchy was more aristocratic or more jealous than the _Corps de la marine_. The so-called despotic King of France had far less power of choosing his officers than the constitutional King of Great Britain. M. de Rouille endeavoured to revive the professional spirit of the officers, dulled by years of dawdling about the dockyards, by establishing the Académie de la marine, with the well-known writer on tactics, Bigot de Morogue, as its first head. But it was years before this could bear fruit, and France began the Seven Years’ War with all the conditions internal and external against her. How came it, then, that her navy was not mewed up in port at once? The answer is easy. Because the British Navy had its arms tied behind its back by the incapacity of the men who ruled, till Pitt freed it. The first great operation of the war was conducted under a fatal combination of administrative stupidity in London and of the old leaven in the fleet. Reports that the French were preparing a powerful squadron at Toulon began to reach England before the end of 1755. The orders to prepare had been given in August, but in the destitution of the French dockyards eight months passed before it was ready. The boasted _classes_ failed to produce men, and the French were driven to offers of bounty, and to attempts to recruit Italian sailors at Genoa. It was long before the urgent representations of our Consul at Genoa, and of General Blakeney at Minorca, could make the Ministry see that the island was in danger. Blakeney was a gallant old Anglo-Irishman born in 1672, who had fought against the Rapparees in 1690, and served under King William and Marlborough, had been at Carthagena with Vernon, and had defended Stirling Castle against the Jacobites in the ’45. He commanded the place, though bedridden with gout, in the absence of Lord Tyrawley the Governor, who according to the easy practice of the day drew his salary at home. It was not less characteristic of the time that many officers of this threatened garrison were absent on leave when the French invaded the island.