The hope is to be cherished that America will never again cross swords with her kin beyond seas, but if moved by some untoward fate she should, it is not too much to say that a Naval Board of Strategy at Washington will devise plans of naval attack and defence quite similar to those of the Marine Committee. The weak spots in a nation’s armor often prove to be its outlying dependencies, especially when they are situated near the enemy’s coast. The principles of naval strategy which led the Marine Committee either to attack, or to plan to attack, Canada, the Newfoundland fisheries, the Bermudas, and the British West Indies, are still operative, notwithstanding the vast changes which the past century and a quarter have witnessed in the methods of naval warfare, and in the distribution of the territory of the Western Hemisphere among nations, new as well as old. In a world of change the fundamental principles of naval strategy remain immutable. FOOTNOTES: [206] Marine Committee Letter Book, Committee to Navy Board at Boston, November 16, 1778. [207] F. M. Caulkins, History of New London, 539-40; Records and Papers of New London Historical Society, Part IV, I, 9. [208] Journals of Continental Congress, September 14, 1778. [209] Bancroft, History of United States, V, 319; Marine Committee Letter Book, Committee to Navy Board at Boston, September 28, November 10, 1779. [210] Marine Committee Letter Book, Committee to Captain Olney, to Captain Harding, and to Navy Board at Boston, February 10, 1779; Committee to Merchants of Baltimore, February 23, 1779; Boston Gazette, April 26, 1779; Publications of Rhode Island Historical Society, VIII, 259. [211] Marine Committee Letter Book, Committee to Navy Board at Boston, May 4, May 20, 1779; Continental Journal and Weekly Advertiser, August 26, 1779; Boston Gazette, September 20, 1779. “Last Saturday noon this town was alarmed by the Appearance of Seven Topsail Vessels in the Offing, which, however, soon subsided, for between the Hours of Three and Five in the Afternoon were safe anchored in this Harbour the Continental Ships of War, ‘Providence,’ ‘Queen of France’ and ‘Ranger,’ with Four Prize Ships laden with Rum and Sugar, being part of a Jamaica Fleet bound to London captured by the above Vessels.”—Continental Journal and Weekly Advertiser, August 26, 1779, published at Boston. [212] Publications of Rhode Island Historical Society, VIII, 259. [213] See Chapter IX and X, Naval Duties of American Representatives in Foreign Countries. [214] Marine Committee Letter Book, Morris to Jones, February, 1, 1777; Morris to Commodore Hopkins, February 5, 1777. [215] Files of newspapers for the period of the Revolution. [216] Marine Committee Letter Book, Committee to Navy Board at Boston, May 8, November 9, 1778. CHAPTER VII THE BOARD OF ADMIRALTY