The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1865-02-21
TUESDAY MORNING. FEBRUARY 2l, 1865

England does not treat the United
States with that respect which is due
to youth from old age. The immense
naval armaments of Brother Jonathan
do not excite that astonishment and con-
sternation in the Old World which he
had right to expect. They have the
eifrontry in England to be amused with
the bravado of the Federals because they
have seven hundred ships of-war, mount
ing nearly five thousand guns. A pri~
vate letter from London, published in the
Enquirer, says that, "setting aside the
improvements already made in gunncry,
machinery, or structure-and they are
more considerable than is talked about ;
setting aside what is now being done in
that way-and it is much more than is
generally known; we (the English) have
at this instant navy consisting of six
teen ships, of one hundred guns and up
wards, averaging, collectively, one thou
sand eight hundred and twenty guns,
and engines Of II, ,2O0~horse power; we
have twenty seven ships, carrying ninety
or ninety lone guns each, mounting more
than five thousand three hundred guns
altogether, with engines Of over 10000
horse power; we have twenty-one gun
vessels, varying from 40 to 1Go-h horse
power each, and two hundred gunboats,
varying from 20 to 6o-horse power each.
Now, leaving out vessels Of the ram
species, we show an aggregate of eight
hundred and forty regular war ships,
mounting more than seven thousand six
hundred guns. Remember that, of
this enormous aggregate, every vessel
was especially constructed for ma
val purposes. Per contra, remember
that, out Of the seven hundred YES
sells now boasted as the United States
navy, only two hundred and thirty six
were expressly built for the navy Or for
naval use, and that number includes all
their valueless iron clads and old vessels.
Need point out the Importance of this
fact, as it goes to exhibit the innate
weakness of the numerous, but compa-
ratively powerless, navy of the Fede>
rails? And yet they cry to us, Marry,
come on like the clown in the circus.
They admit that all the navy-yards in
the United States combined would not
offer as many facilities for the construc-
ton of war vessels as the least of the
regular navy-yards in England. What
chance. then, is there in their favor in
case of the pressures arising from war
with us 1t is true, they could, for a
time, annoy, and perhaps seriously i'm
lure, our commerce. That difficulty,
however, would be of transient char
acter, or soon mastered, if France put a
hand in the business with US; if not as
an active ally, at least as a sheltering
one, or one that would engage to take
no advantage of us. 1t is in the doubt
we entertain of that identical point that
any of our misgivings, as a people, are
centred"
These are facts which the United States
will do we'll to digest before it bursts its
breeches in the conceit Of naval supre-
macy. Neither England nor France bave
been Indifferent spectators of naval opera
tons in America, nor deaf to the boast
full shouts which have been set up in
the United States Of what they intend to
do. Whilst all this absurd uproar has
been going on in America, the French
and English have been quietly working
out two navies, either of which would
crush the fleets of the Union like nut
shell. No light of science, or expe-
rience, has been wanting; no expense,
no labor, no resource of industry or ar
omitted to make their work perfect. " At
this moment" says the letter from which
we quote, England and France are
pushing, to it's most practical issue,
every point in the proof-armor theory,