But even more wonderful than this was the oversea transport done by all kinds of British sea-power working together as one United Service. The British carried nearly half of all the imports into Italy and France. They repaired more than a thousand ships a month. They ferried nearly two-thirds of all the Americans that crossed the Atlantic. They took to the many different fronts more than half a million vehicles, from one-horse carts to the biggest locomotives; more than two million animals--horses, mules, and camels; and more than twenty-two millions of men. Add to this well over a couple of hundred million tons of oil, coal, and warlike stores; remember that this is by no means the whole story, and that it takes no account of the regular trade; and you may begin to understand what British sea-power meant in this war. In the mere transportation of armies alone it meant the same thing as taking the entire population of Canada, three times over, with all its baggage three times over, and with its very houses three times over, across thousands of miles of dangerous waters in the midst of the worst war ever known. And yet, out of the more than twenty-two millions of men, less than five thousand were killed on the way; and many of these were murdered in hospital ships marked with the sacred Red Cross. The chances of safety from murder and fair risks of war put together were nearly five thousand to one. The chances of safety from fair risks of war by themselves were nearly ten thousand to one. No war, no navy, no sea-power since the world began, has any record to compare with this. "Let us be backed with God and with the seas, Which He hath given for fence impregnable, And with their helps, only, defend ourselves: In them, and in ourselves, our safety lies." --_Shakespeare._ _King Henry VI, Part III, Act IV, Scene I._ POSTSCRIPT THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS Landsmen are many while seamen are few. So the world thinks more of armies than of fleets. Our enemies hate all British sea-power, while our friends never know the half of what it means. So friend and foe alike are apt to side against us by making the laws against blockading fleets very much harder than those against besieging armies. All we can do is to stand firmly on our perfect rights and show the world the five good reasons why:-- 1. The sea and land have equal rights. Blockading fleets are like besieging armies. So if besieging armies have the right to stop supplies from reaching the places they besiege, why should blockading fleets be told to let supplies go through? 2. All parts of our great Empire are joined together, not by land, but sea. So if we lose our rights of self-defence at sea we lose the very breath of life. 3. We claim no rights we will not share with others. When the American blockade of the South during the Civil War (1861-5) ruined the British cotton trade we never interfered, though we had by far the stronger navy.