into the amount of stores existing in the French arsenals; but one fact, which was arrived at by minute calculations and searching inquiry, throws great doubt on the possibility of executing this scheme within a limited period. It is proved, by evidence, that the whole supply of wood proper for ship building, now in store in the French arsenals, would not suffice, even with makeshifts, to construct more than 12 ships of the line and 15 frigates. Even this quantity of wood is ill assorted and frequently unprovided with those curved pieces which are essential to naval architecture. The head shipwrights of the yard at Brest, when asked what vessels they could build with the wood in store, replied that they could build no first class ship at all without substituting iron supports for wooden knees, and not above two vessels of the line even with these expedients. The adaptation of the screw-propeller to ships requires an extraordinary quantity of wood of a peculiar form to strengthen the stern of the vessel. In the ' Pomone,' third class screw frigate, 335 stères were used for this purpose, 158 stères of which were of rare and choice woods, being considerably more than would be required for a first class frigate without the screw. It has since been said that the whole arsenal of Cherbourg does not contain the materials for another such job. The Pomone' is the only frigate in the French navy which has been so adjusted at present; and if these details can be relied on, it is clear that without a very great increase and improvement in the stores of the French arsenals, the vast additions to the navy which have been proposed are physically impracticable. The whole stock of wood is stated at eight years' consumption, but that is irrespective of any extraordinary or peculiar demand.

Lastly, if the application of steam power to the whole navy of a great empire is adopted as a fundamental condition of its maritime strength, an abundant supply and good quality of coal fit for marine engines, becomes a matter of the gravest importM. Maissiat, a member of the Committee, was therefore instructed to report on this subject, which he did at great length. To have a supply of coal, said he, in this document, in time of war, from a certain source and of available quality, is a question of existence and non-existence to our navy. The unanimous opinion of the French officers commanding steamers is, that in the present state of machinery French vessels of war can only acquire a fair velocity in good weather, and in foul weather can only brave the sea and the wind, with the assistance of foreign coal. The simple question what nation can make the best fire with materials always at its command bids fair to exercise the same influence over maritime warfare and political

power that it has long had over industrial competition. The experiments already made on board the Mogador' and the Salamandre' between English Newcastle coal and the French coal of Grand d' Combe demonstrated, that in a voyage from Toulon to Algiers, in the same vessel, under similar circumstances, and with the same velocity, the consumption of English coal was 13,000 kilos., giving 12 hectolitres of cinders, whilst the consumption of French coal was 17,000 kilos. giving 23 hectolitres of cinders. In spite, however, of these discouraging results the Committee was strongly of opinion that every effort should be made by the introduction of Warlich's patent fuel and by every other means to render French coal exclusively available for the fleet, as no other could be relied on with certainty in time of war. It is not impossible that some improvements might be invented in boilers, which would adapt them better to the use of French coal, for this has been attempted with success in the construction of locomotive engines for French railroads, which enables them to use French coke to a considerable extent. But, to the natural inferiority of the article, must be added the difficulty and cost of conveying it at all to the important stations of Lorient, Brest, and Cherbourg; which are at a great distance from any coal fields and can only be conveniently supplied by sea. In these ports the Committee determined that a supply of English coal, for the consumption of at least one year, should always be kept in readiness. It is evident, that in the event of the outbreak of hostilities, coal will come to be considered as an important article of contraband of war, and that it will become a matter of great interest to this country to prevent a supply from the British coal fields from reaching the ports of our maritime antagonists.

Such are the causes of what we believe to be the material inferiority of the French navy to the naval resources of this country; and, as it is not our object to overstate any part of the case for the purpose of exciting undue apprehension, we shall recapitulate, before we proceed, those facts which are conclusively established by the evidence before us:

I. The French navy possesses but 27 line-of-battle ships afloat; of these, half are condemned and only 4 are provided with screw-propellers; they have, therefore, at present, no resource which could enable them to send to sea a second squadron.

II. The steam frigates and frigates with auxiliary screws, on which the French mainly depend for success in maritime warfare, are not yet built. One only, the Pomone,' is afloat. The steam fleet is, with very few exceptions, composed of paddle

steamers. An expenditure of 4,000,000 sterling would be required to complete the armament approved by the Commission. III. The squadron of line-of-battle ships in commission has not left the Mediterranean for many years, and probably, in the event of war, would not run the risk of passing the Straits of Gibraltar. The French stations abroad are complained of as small and, when compared to the English and American, inactive.

IV. The ports of France, with the exception of Brest and Toulon, are neither safe nor strong; and Cherbourg, which will be both, is still unfinished.

V. The stores of wood are inadequate to supply the demands of the service. The quality of the coal which can be obtained from French coal beds is decidedly inferior to our own. The machinery of the French is not able to rival our's and its price is enormously increased by the prohibitive duty on iron.

Having thus stated the evidence and the grounds on which we hold the French navy in its present state to be inferior to our own naval force, and having shown that the plans of the Commission for its improvement cannot be realised without extraordinary efforts and expenditure; we now proceed to discuss the second part of the question, namely, the organisation of the personnel of the naval service, on which we readily concede to France the merit of a very perfect system, from which our own naval authorities and statesmen may receive a useful lesson. With a number of seamen in the fleet, barely exceeding 16,000 in time of peace, the French Government has the whole maritime population under its control to such a degree that the commission of the navy might be raised in a few weeks to its maximum; that the seafaring men thus taken for the service of the State would all be already more or less acquainted with their duty; and that by the use of these means the whole fleet of France which is now afloat and fit for service could be manned for sea. It becomes, therefore, a matter of great interest to describe this system, and to arrive at a correct notion of its numerical results. M. de Lanjuinais was instructed by the Committee to draw up a separate report on the subject, and it is on the authority of this document that we arrive at the following details:

'Until the reign of Louis XIV., when an armament was required, the ports were closed, all the seamen who were wanted were taken and sent on board ship in the same manner as the English have retained their system of impressment to the present time. A royal ordinance of 17th December, 1665, introduced the experiment of class conscription in Aunis, Poitou, and Saintonge, which was subsequently extended to all the ports of the kingdom, by ordinances of

1668 and 1689. The system was based on the establishment of a general roll or register of the seamen established in every town and parish on the coast. They were divided into three classes, one of which was to serve every third year on the king's ships, and the two other years in the merchant navy. In Brittany, Guienne, Normandy, and Picardy, the service of the royal navy was only one year in four. Those who did not answer the roll-call were pursued as deserters, and all shipowners and captains were forbidden, under heavy penalties, to employ seamen drawn for the navy or not registered on the lists.

• This system, however, gave rise to considerable difficulties, and it was superseded by an ordinance of October 31. 1784, which introduced a series of nominal lists framed in small divisions of the territory, which are still called syndicates, They are divided into two columns, the one for married, the other for unmarried men, - the latter class serving one third longer than the former. The contingent furnished by each syndicate is in proportion to the whole number required. This maritime conscription was discussed by the Assemblies of the first revolution, but it is one of the few institutions of the country which survived that period of universal change. The efficiency of the system which had already manned our fleet for more than a century was acknowledged, and the laws of 1790, 1791, and especially that of the 3rd Brumaire, An IV., maintained, with some slight alterations, the mode adopted by Louis XIV., and which has ever since placed an entire class of our countrymen, from the age of eighteen to that of fifty, in peace and in war, at the disposal of the State. The principal conditions of this system are:

I. Registered seamen have alone the right to navigate and to fish in the seas and waters of France.

II. They are entitled, when in the service of the State, to pensions after twenty-five years' service, and to pensions for wounds and infirmities on the same scale as the officers and men of the army. Their wives and children have also claims to pensions.

III. They are dispensed from all other military services.

A ministerial circular of 9th April, 1835, has carried this system to its present state of perfection. The permanent levy includes all seamen from twenty to forty, and officers of the merchant service to forty-five, not having previously served. The next class consists of men who have not served above four years; and beyond that the whole maritime population may be raised. After thirty-six months' service, the officers and seamen are entitled to their liberty till called upon to serve again; and after six years' service, they are no longer liable to the ordinary levies. This mode of raising men finds them wherever they are, whether at home or in any port of France to which they may repair.' (Vol. i. pp. 256-8.)

In a country where, as in France, military conscription is the rule of society, this burden is less severely felt than it would be in a country of voluntary service. But, on the other hand, the military conscription takes but a portion of the population.

The naval conscription takes, or may take, the whole-a cir cumstance of great value to the fleet, because there are few men in the seafaring population who have not passed at least some time on board the vessels of State. But it establishes what the French Admirals themselves do not scruple to call a system of slavery, defensible solely on the principle that every citizen ow es his life to the service of his country.

Let us now see the number of the men supplied by this system to the public service:

:

On the 1st of January, 1850, the maritime population of France amounted to an effective total of 139,310 men. But of these, 3744 were captains of merchant vessels, 6492 masters of coasting vessels, 1217 pilots, and 42,301 boys (novices et mousses), besides 14,051 dockyard workmen. Deducting these classes, which are not strictly available for the service of the fleet as able-bodied seamen, the residue is 71,505, of whom 66,111 are seamen.'

Such are the figures taken from the seaman's Register, but it is probable that a large number of names are retained there improperly. If we apply a different test, taken from the tables of trade and navigation in France from 1837 to 1847, the result is considerably smaller. The general opinion of the French Chambers of Commerce and the Commissioners of the Maritime Inscription concurs in asserting that the maritime population is rather on the decline. From other evidence, carefully examined by M. de Lanjuinais, it appears that in 1825 there were about 30,000 seamen on the rolls who did not go to sea, and that in 1850 32,000 were in the same predicament, from want of employment. These researches led the Commission to conclude that the real number of able-bodied seamen employed in the merchant service in 1850 was 38,500, including officers, mariners, and seamen; and if we add to this number the 16,000 men serving in the imperial navy, we arrive at a total of 54,500 men. Another document, prepared in the marine department, reckons the whole number at only 51,641; but this calculation excludes those who have not yet served on board a ship-of-war.

This number would still be more than sufficient to man our whole fleet, supposing it to consist of 328 vessels, according to the ordinance of 1846. For we find that the complete armament of these vessels would require 59,921 officers and seamen. But a third of these is to be supplied, according to an invariable rule, by the military conscription in the 21 maritime departments.* The number of men to be

* It may be doubted how far this proportion is admissible in a well-constituted fleet, and the opinions of French officers differ on the point. It should, however, be borne in mind that out of the corps of infanterie de marine, now consisting of 12,000, the French provide