Alfred, I repeat, gave us London. This was a great service which he rendered to the safety of the country. But there was still a greater service. The Saxon had quite forgotten the seamanship in which he had formerly known no master and no equal. Alfred saw that for the sake of safety there must be a first line of defence before the coast could be reached. England could only be invaded in ships, and by those who had the command of the seas. Therefore, he created a navy: he built ships longer, heavier, swifter than those of the Danes, and he sent these ships out to meet the Danes on what they supposed to be their own element. They went out: they met the Danes: they defeated them: and before long the Saxons had afloat a fleet of a hundred ships to hold the mastery of the Channel. The history of the English navy is chequered: there have been periods when its pretensions were low and its achievements humble: but since the days of Alfred the conviction has never been lost that the safety of England lies in her command of the sea. Fortresses and walled cities are useful: it is a very great achievement to have given them to the country: London alone, restored by Alfred, was the nation’s stronghold, the nation’s treasure house, a city full of wealth, filled with valiant citizens, unconquered and defiant: that was a very great gift to the country: but it was a greater achievement still to have given to the country a fleet which was ready to meet the enemy before they had time to land, and to give them most excellent reasons why they should not land: to make the people understand that above all things, and before all, it was necessary for all time to keep the mastery of the seas. Remember, therefore, that Alfred, thus, gave us the command of the seas. As Rudyard Kipling, our patriot poet, says: We have fed our seas for a thousand years, And she calls us, still unfed, Though there’s never a wave of all her waves But marks our English dead. “Never a wave of all her waves”—and it was Alfred who first sent out the English blood to redden those waves in defence of hearth and home.