The service which gloried in the exploits of Anson and of Hawke discerned the approach of the Seven Years’ war without misgiving; and the ferocity shown in the treatment of Byng enables us now to measure the surprise caused by the result of the action off Minorca.  There were further surprises in store for the English Navy.  At the end of the Seven Years’ war its reputation for invincibility was generally established.  Few, perhaps none, ventured to doubt that, if there were anything like equality between the opposing forces, a meeting between the French and the British fleets could have but one result—­viz. the decisive victory of the latter.  Experience in the English Channel, on the other side of the Atlantic, and in the Bay of Bengal—­during the war of American Independence—­roughly upset this flattering anticipation.  Yet, in the end, the British Navy came out the unquestioned victor in the struggle:  which proves the excellence of its quality.  After every allowance is made for the incapacity of the Government, we must suspect that there was something else which so often frustrated the efforts of such a formidable force as the British Navy of the day must essentially have been.  On land the surprises were even more mortifying; and it is no exaggeration to say that, a year before it occurred, such an event as the surrender of Burgoyne’s army to an imperfectly organised and trained body of provincials would have seemed impossible.

The army which Frederick the Great bequeathed to Prussia was universally regarded as the model of efficiency.  Its methods were copied in other countries, and foreign officers desiring to excel in their profession made pilgrimages to Berlin and Potsdam to drink of the stream of military knowledge at its source.  When it came in contact with the tumultuous array of revolutionary France, the performances of the force that preserved the tradition of the great Frederick were disappointingly wanting in brilliancy.  A few years later it suffered an overwhelming disaster.  The Prussian defeat at Jena was serious as a military event; its political effects were of the utmost importance.  Yet many who were involved in that disaster took, later on, an effective part in the expulsion of the conquerors from their country, and in settling the history of Europe for nearly half a century at Waterloo.

The brilliancy of the exploits of Wellington and the British army in Portugal and Spain has thrown into comparative obscurity that part of the Peninsular war which was waged for years by the French against the Spaniards.  Spain, distracted by palace intrigues and political faction, with the flower of her troops in a distant comer of Europe, and several of her most important fortresses in the hands of her assailant, seemed destined to fall an easy and a speedy prey to the foremost military power in the world.  The attitude of the invaders made it evident that they believed themselves to be marching to certain victory.