Europe, at the period which we have now reached, was engaged in a general war. This had begun with the French Revolution, when France bade defiance to the rest of the world; and, kept alive by the aggressive policy and military ambition of Napoleon, it continued, with occasional interruptions, until the power of the French Emperor was overthrown at Waterloo. During all this time England was the most persistent and successful enemy of the French,--fighting them sometimes alone, sometimes in coalition with the great States of the Continent, but always fighting. It was on the sea that the English were most successful. Here the French and the Spaniards, brave as they were, seemed to be no match for the islanders; and the splendid victories of Lord Howe off Ushant, of Sir John Jervis at Cape St. Vincent, and last and greatest of all, of Nelson at the Nile and at Trafalgar, won for the English Navy an imperishable renown, and destroyed the naval power of France and Spain. The wonderful battles between the French and English navies were fought with great fleets, numbering sometimes thirty or forty ships-of-the-line, carrying each from sixty to one hundred and twenty guns, and the largest of them as many as one thousand men. To keep these fleets manned with sailors was no easy task. After all who would volunteer were gathered in, there still remained a great dearth of men; for it was a hard life that the sailors led on board the ships-of-war, especially if, as often happened, the captain, or the second in command, was a harsh and tyrannical officer. How bitterly the men hated the service was shown by the mutinies at Spithead and the Nore. So it became necessary to resort to compulsion to recruit the crews.