There was never any real chance of success, though it is true Dumouriez thought otherwise.  He believed the enterprise might have gone through if a diversion had been made by the bulk of the fleet against Ireland, and under cover of it a coup de main delivered upon the Isle of Wight, “for which,” he said, “six or eight of the line would have been enough.”  But it is inconceivable that old hands like Hardy and Kempenfelt would have been so easily beguiled of their hold on the line of passage.  Had such a division been detached up the Channel from the allied fleet they would surely, according to tradition, have followed it with either a superior force or their whole squadron.

The well-known projects of the Great War followed the same course.  Under Napoleon’s directions they ran the whole gamut of every scheme that ever raised delusive hope before.  Beginning from the beginning with the idea of stealing his army across in flat-boats, he was met with the usual flotilla defence.  Then came his only new idea, which was to arm his transport flotilla to the point of giving it power to force a passage for itself.  We replied by strengthening our flotilla.  Convinced by experiment that his scheme was now impracticable, he set his mind on breaking the blockade by the sudden intrusion of a flying squadron from a distance.  To this end various plausible schemes were worked out, but plan after plan melted in his hand, till he was forced to face the inevitable necessity of bringing an overwhelming battle force up to his transports.  The experience of two centuries had taught him nothing.  By a more distant concentration than had ever been attempted before he believed he could break the fatal hold of his enemy.  The only result was so severely to exhaust his fleet that it never could get within reach of the real difficulties of its task, a task which every admiral in his service knew to be beyond the strength of the Imperial Navy.  Nor did Napoleon even approach a solution of the problem he had set himself—­invasion over an uncommanded sea.  With our impregnable flotilla hold covered by an automatic concentration of battle-squadrons off Ushant, his army could never even have put forth, unless he had inflicted upon our covering fleet such a defeat as would have given him command of the sea, and with absolute control of the sea the passage of an army presents no difficulties.

Of the working of these principles under modern conditions we have no example.  The acquisition of free movement must necessarily modify their application, and since the advent of steam there have been only two invasions over uncommanded seas—­that of the Crimea in 1854, and that of Manchuria in 1904—­and neither of these cases is in point, for in neither was there any attempt at naval defence.  Still there seems no reason to believe that such defence applied in the old manner would be less effective than formerly.  The flotilla was its basis, and since the introduction of the torpedo the power of