We are often told of the immense force which England now has in her steam-vessels--more numerous, it is said, and unquestionably better manned and navigated than any in Europe; and the "Excellent," at Portsmouth, is referred to as able at a moment's warning to furnish the requisite amount of experienced gunners. Fully admitting the high discipline and training of the gunners on board the Excellent, of whose merits we are well aware, they cannot do impossibilities. They amount only to five hundred _men_; and what are they to the forces requisite to defend the British shores against a combined French and Russian fleet, such as we _all but brought upon us_ last April, when the French ambassador left London? What could four or five hundred trained gunners do when scattered over fifteen or twenty sail of the line, and as many steamers, the crews of which were suddenly huddled together--supposing them got at all--from the merchant service, where they had received no sort of training in naval warfare? What could the peace steam-boats, not pierced for a single gun, do against the broadsides of the Russian line-of-battle ships, or the huge war-steamers which excited such astonishment among our naval men, when exhibited at the late review at Cherbourg? The thing is quite ridiculous. They would furnish, in Napoleon's words, ample _chair au cannon_, and nothing more. Contrast this now with the state of preparation in which the French and Russian navies are kept, in consequence of their having both a regular force raised by conscription, and constantly paid and under arms like their land forces, wherewith to commence the conflict. The Czar has always _twenty ships_ of the line and ten frigates in the Baltic, completely equipped and ready for sea, with 30,000 soldiers ready to step on board of them; and it would be surprising if, in passing the Sound, they were not reinforced by the six ships of the line and steam-frigates at the disposal of Denmark,[7] who would desire nothing better than to return, in a manner equally unexpected, the sudden visits we paid her in 1801 and 1807. France, in addition to sixteen ships of the line in commission, and double that number of war-steamers, has no less than 55,000 seamen ready to be called on, like the national guard, at a moment's warning, perfectly trained to gunnery and warlike duties, who could man double that number of line-of-battle ships and war-steamers.