Theirs was the salty tradition, virile and perpetual, which a century later and in a friendlier guise was to create a Grand Fleet which should keep watch and ward in the misty Orkneys and hold the Seven Seas safe against the naval power of Imperial Germany.

Then, as now, the English nation believed that its armed ships were its salvation.
It is easier to understand, bearing this in mind, why after the fight of the _Guerriere_ the London _Times_ indulged in such frenzied lamentations as these: We witnessed the gloom which that event cast over high and honorable minds....

Never before in the history of the world did an English frigate strike to an American, and though we cannot say that Captain Dacres, under all circumstances, is punishable for this act, yet we do say there are commanders in the English navy who would a thousand times rather have gone down with their colors flying than to have set their fellow sailors so fatal an example.
Good God! that a few short months should have so altered the tone of British sentiments! Is it true, or is it not, that our navy was accustomed to hold the Americans in utter contempt?
Is it true, or is it not, that the _Guerriere_ sailed up and down the American coast with her name painted in large characters on her sails in boyish defiance of Commodore Rodgers?
Would any captain, however young, have indulged such a foolish piece of vain-boasting if he had not been carried forward by the almost unanimous feeling of his associates?
We have since sent out more line-of-battle ships and heavier frigates.

Surely we must now mean to smother the American navy.

A very short time before the capture of the _Guerriere_ an American frigate was an object of ridicule to our honest tars.