There is also another reason for this supremacy; arising from the fact, that England may throw her whole national force into a navy; while other powers, however ambitious of naval eminence, _must_ at least divide their force between the land and sea services. France, with its immense frontier, must keep up an immense army during war. Russia, with a frontier from the Niemen to the North Pole, must keep up an immense army at all times. The maintenance of those armies is essential to the national existence, while the maintenance of a fleet is only gratifying to the national ambition. The consequence is as clear as a matter of arithmetic. France and Russia, attacking England separately, _must_ be ultimately beaten. America, even if she were a more formidable opponent than either, will also be beaten, and for the same reason. A fleet is not _essential_ to her; the undivided force of the States will never be applied to her navy. The national strength will be expanded over inland conquest; the sea-coast towns will be rapidly reduced to insignificance by the superiority of the great inland settlements; and the time will come, when the cities of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, will have no more weight with the inland powers of Louisiana and the prairies, than Brighton or Broadstairs have with the power of London. They will be watering places, or, at best, warehousing places, and will be no more able to keep up a navy, than the Isle of Thanet would be able to keep up the Channel fleet. All this, however, tends only to show, that a fleet is the supreme instrument of British dominion; and that its strength, its skill, and its discipline, should employ the utmost activity, liberality, and vigilance of every Cabinet which desires to do its duty to the empire. We now proceed to give some account of the interesting and intelligent work of which Captain Plunket has supplied the translation, accompanied with valuable explanatory notes of his own. Some time since, there appeared in the well-known Parisian _Revue des deux Mondes_, articles on the English and French naval systems, by a French officer, Captain de la Gravière. The object of those papers was less to give a history of the naval war, than to ascertain the causes of that almost unbroken series of triumphs which made the fame of the British fleet; and, on the other hand, which ultimately extinguished the fleet of a nation so brave, ambitious, and enterprising as the French.