But there has been the supreme British fleet. It has made the creation and preservation of the Empire possible by securing the free transit not merely of soldiers, but, far more important, of settlers, merchants, administrators, organisers, and missionaries. Scattered as it is over all the seas of the world, the British Empire would undoubtedly be broken into fragments if the security of the ocean high-roads by which it is united were ever to be lost. But although the British Navy has made the growth of the Empire possible, and has held it together, it has not conquered it. A fleet _cannot_ conquer great areas of land; it _cannot_ hold masses of discontented subjects in an unwilling obedience; it _cannot_ threaten the freedom or independence of any land-power. It is strong only for defence, not for offence. There are two aspects of the work of the British Navy during the last three centuries which deserve to be noted, because they also help to indicate the character of the work done by the British Empire during this period. In the first place, the British naval power has never been used to threaten the freedom of any independent State. On the contrary, it has been employed time and again as the last bulwark of freedom against great military Powers which have threatened to overwhelm the freedom of their neighbours by mere brute strength. That was so in the sixteenth century, when Spain seemed to be within an ace of making herself the mistress of the world. It was so a hundred years later, when the highly-organised power of Louis XIV. threatened the liberties of Europe. It was so again, a century later, when Napoleon's might overshadowed the world. It is so once more to-day, when the German peril menaces the liberty of nations. During each of these desperate crises the British Navy has seemed to neutrals to be interfering unduly with their trade, in so far as their trade helped the enemy. In this connection it is worth noting that it has been for two centuries the invariable rule of the British Navy that in no circumstances must a neutral vessel ever be sunk, and in no circumstances must the lives of non-combatants be sacrificed. But is it not reasonable to say that in each of these great wars the theoretic rights of neutral trade were justly subordinated to the struggle for the preservation of liberty? In all the great crises of modern European history, then, British naval power has been the ultimate bulwark of liberty.