In 1859 there also appeared the famous “Leipsic Article,” commenting on the decline of the British Fleet and the rise of the French. Certain extracts from this, though dealing with the past for the most part, are here given _en bloc_, for they indicate very clearly the circumstances in which, _under pressure from German influences, the modern British Navy came to be founded_. It is, to say the least of it, questionable whether but for this Teutonic agitation public opinion in England would ever have been aroused from its lethargy in time. This epoch-making article appeared in the _Conversations Lexicon_, of Leipsic. After some prelude the article referred to the appearance of the French Fleet in the Crimean War:-- “The late war in the East (Crimean) first opened the eyes of Englishmen to the true position of affairs, and it was not without some sensation of alarm that they gazed at this vision of the unveiled reality. Here and there, indeed, an allusion, having some foundation in fact, had been heard, during the Presidency of Louis Napoleon, and had drawn attention to the menaced possibility of an invasion of the British Isles; but such notions were soon overwhelmed by the derision with which they were jeeringly greeted by the national pride. “Those expressions of contempt were, however, not doomed to be silenced in their turn by the sudden apparition in the autumn of 1854 of thirty-eight French ships of the line and sixty-six frigates and corvettes, fully manned and ready for immediate action. During the three preceding years Louis Napoleon had built twenty-four line-of-battle ships, and in the course of the year 1854 alone thirteen men-of-war were launched, nine of which were ships of the line. In addition to these, the keels of fifty-two more, comprising three ships of the line and six frigates, were immediately laid down. The English had thus the mortification to be obliged not only to cede to their allies the principal position in the camp, but also reluctantly to acknowledge their equality on that element whereon they had hoped to reign supreme.... * * * * *