“One is amazed at the destruction accomplished which was not visible from the sea, and at the bravery of the Arab gunners in remaining at their posts so long. The number and variety of their guns are surprising and the stock of projectiles and ammunition is immense. If they had had more men and been well commanded, the fleet would have had a very warm reception. In one fort we counted several 18-ton guns, 19-inch Armstrongs. In another four 9-inch and one 10-inch Armstrong; in another two 15-inch smooth-bores ... besides 40-pounder Armstrongs and any number of old 32-pounders.... One small battery gave the ships a great deal of trouble ... it was effectually silenced at last, every gun being knocked off the trainings. At Bab el Meks some Armstrongs were knocked down, others were hit up with muzzles in the air, and embedded in one gun we found shots from a Gatling.”[48] The present United States navy may be said to date from 1883. After the close of the rebellion the American Government had no further need of the majority of the war vessels built or improvised for that struggle, and having sold some, neglected nearly all the remainder. America and Spain almost came to blows over what was known as the Virginius affair, and the great republic prepared to do its best on “the mobilisation in southern waters of a fleet which consisted in great part of antiquated and rotting ships.”[49] The United States also sadly missed the possession of an efficient navy when serious differences arose with a powerful European state over the right interpretation and application of the Monroe Doctrine to the Panama Canal and the control thereof. Both these events, supported by the Ten Years War in Cuba and the unconcealed American sympathy for the Cubans, prepared the country for the acceptance of the dictum that a more modern navy was necessary, and this was emphasised when it was announced during the administration of President Rutherford B. Hayes that the navy of any European power was superior to that of the United States, and that even Chili, with the _Almirante Cochrane_ and the _Huascar_, would be able to bombard San Francisco and that the United States Government had not the means to prevent them. In order to appreciate the enormous progress which the United States have made as a naval power in the past thirty years one must turn to the American Navy List for 1879, and compare it with the present equipment in the matter of ships and personnel, which places the United States in the position of being the second naval power of the world--second, indeed, only to Great Britain, and with resources for the production of warships of the latest design and the highest fighting capacity scarcely if at all inferior to those of the United Kingdom itself. In 1879 there--