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36 Unfortunately, there are persons who do not think, but just pin their faith on the dicta of some man, to whom they attribute special knowledge or special foresight; it will, therefore, still be necessary to ascertain who to-day is playing the part of the blind leader of the blind, and then to array against his dicta the testimony of the large number of military and naval experts who differ from him, first, however, sweeping away a traditional error, which has contributed not a little to that sense of insecurity which it is my object to dispel.

There is a very general belief that, at a time when a huge flotilla was waiting at Boulogne to carry a hundred and fifty; thousand French soldiers across the Channel, England's greatest Admiral, deluded by false' reports, sailed to the West Indies, leaving his country defenceless, save for such resistance as her small Army could offer to the, invaders. I will not stop to prove that the] conditions under which it was possible to