But this must be the case with all distant and maritime possessions: indeed all naval superiority is attended with this necessary disadvantage; that, though actual power, it is not self-dependent, or the source of its own permanence. We cannot secure the possession of the sea in the same manner by taking ships as we can the possession of the land by taking fortresses and countries. The longer a successful continental warfare is carried on, the more able is the conqueror to carry it on: every new conquest that he makes furnishes him with the means of making more, and secures to him what he has already gained by striking at the heart of power, by disarming resistance, and by very liberally rewarding the expence and trouble of keeping it—Whereas the advantages that are gained at sea are, like that element itself, infinitely treacherous and uncertain. We may take their ships; but this will not hinder them from building others. We cannot build forts or erect passes on the seas, or dig them into trenches to keep out the enemy. We cannot enter their country and cut down their forests; we cannot enter their ports and destroy their magazines;—all their means and sources of power remain untouched. We cannot prevent their exertions, though we may constantly render them abortive. Thus, while at an enormous expence we maintain our actual superiority, we make no advances to our object—which is security; but are rather further from it. If we ever make peace, which I suppose will happen sooner or later, we shall find that we have not in any one respect lessened the means or palsied the energies of our rivals; and while we remain at war we are teaching them two very dangerous things, resolution and skill. I conceive no power can be long superior to the attacks of another, unless where it has the means of crushing its resistance in embryo. Naval dominion is in this respect what a government would be that should give to insurgents a free communication with each other, full liberty of forming plans and of organizing themselves into regular bodies of troops, and the privilege of never being attacked till they themselves gave the signal for the onset. Military conquests are therefore in their nature to a certain degree secure; because in maintaining them we have to contend with those whom we have bound hand and foot, from whom we have taken all effectual power of resistance; while in maintaining our naval superiority, we strengthen our adversary by struggling with him, since he has the full use of every limb and muscle, has every inducement as well as opportunity to exert himself to the utmost, and is in no danger of receiving any material hurt; at least this must be the consequence where our natural strength and advantages are at all equal. I know nothing but some such reasoning as this on the inefficiency of naval advantages, as a means of reducing the enemy to terms of submission, that could form the least excuse for the late ministers in