Before beginning with that struggle, it may be well to supplement the rough estimate of England's total naval force, given, in lack of more precise information, by the statement of the First Lord of the Admiralty made in the House of Lords in November, 1777, a very few months before the war with France began.

Replying to a complaint of the opposition as to the smallness of the Channel fleet, he said:-- "We have now forty-two ships-of-the-line in commission in Great Britain (without counting those on foreign service), thirty-five of which are completely manned, and ready for sea at a moment's warning....

I do not believe that either France or Spain entertains any hostile disposition toward us; but from what I have now submitted to you, I am authorized to affirm that our navy is more than a match for that of the whole House of Bourbon."[117] It must, however, be said that this pleasing prospect was not realized by Admiral Keppel when appointed to command in the following March, and looking at his fleet with (to use his own apt expression) "a seaman's eye;"[118] and in June he went to sea with only twenty ships.
It is plainly undesirable to insert in a narrative of this character any account of the political questions which led to the separation of the United States from the British Empire.

It has already been remarked that the separation followed upon a succession of blunders by the English ministry,--not unnatural in view of the ideas generally prevalent at that day as to the relations of colonies to the mother-country.

It needed a man of commanding genius to recognize, not only the substantial justice of the American claims,--many did that,--but also the military strength of their situation, as before indicated.