In a country so eminent for mathematical acquirements as ours, is it not extraordinary, that this most useful branch of knowledge should have been so rarely applied to national advantage? What treatises on this important subject can we oppose to those, which have been published by French academicians, and by Bouguier in particular? “Oh! for a bridge to pass over two hundred thousand _sans-culottes_!” I hear often exclaimed. Not that bridge which, according to Milton, Death consolidated across Chaos, could be more fatal to the remaining innocence of our first parents, than such a structure, in the shape of a superior fleet, would prove to their English descendants. To prevent its erection, or to have a chosen band of pioneers ready to destroy it, must be our concern. I am, however, well convinced, that hitherto they have never seriously intended to invade us. This bug-bear has now for more than a century been employed to affright us; to cramp our foreign efforts; to diminish our sum of productive labour, one of the most important of national considerations; and to debauch the manners of our artisans and peasants in camps and barracks[D]. I have been curious to hear their account of the signal defeat, which they experienced on the first of June. This ship was not in their fleet, having been _launched since_; but Captain Le Franq commanded on that day L’Entreprenant, of 74 guns, and some of the other officers were also parties concerned. Not the invincible superiority of British seamen in fighting and managing their ships, but “Treason! treason! joined to the ignorance, obstinacy, and cowardice of Jean Bon St. André, caused the loss of the day.” This naval dictator, who from a Hugonot curate at the foot of the Pyrenees was raised to be a member of the convention, and delegated by that body to superintend the equipment, and direct the manœuvres, of a great fleet, is never mentioned but with execration. His star set with that of his master, Robespierre. I have heard an officer assert, that he _saw_ him, in the heat of the engagement, seized with a sudden emotion, start from Admiral Villaret, near whom he was standing, in the stern-gallery of La Montagne, and run pale and breathless down to the lower gun-deck, under a pretence of encouraging the men; nor could he be drawn thence, until the danger was over. “His seamanship,” continued this gentleman, “consisted in having made one short passage. He might be a good _ecrivain ou secretaire_; but for the marine! _Oh! le vilain--------!_” But for him, they say, the action would have been renewed, agreeably to the wishes and representations of Monsieur Villaret; for “_the English were beaten, and might have been destroyed_.”----I cannot help thinking, that if _Jean Bon St. André_ really did prevent a renewal of the battle, he is not altogether so obnoxious to the reproaches of his fellow-citizens as they describe him to be, France is not the first