Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/98

 54 THE WINTER TROUBLES. CHAP, at all to the power of the troops she employed, '. and rather indeed corresponded to the puniness of the odEicial machinery which sent them into the field. Her great naval victories, her arduous struggles maintained by small squadrons or single ships, her resulting dominion of the seas, with all its magnificent consequences, her wonderful mariner enterprises on many a shore, the ever-extending sway of her great India Company, her commerce, her riches, her vast and growing authority on the continent of Europe,(^) and withal, though too often wasted, the splendid fighting of her soldiery — all these, the brilliant concomitants of the war she maintained against revolutionised France, might suffice to console her when failing in numbers of land - service enterprises. But fail she too often did, in that first part of the strife which lasted nearly seventeen years.(^) In the kind of war which then raged, the power England had of despatching land-forces to chosen coasts was equivalent, if judiciously used, to the strength conferred by great armies ; and since also, though in moderate, yet always in- creasing numbers, she soon had a matchless soldiery, with besides a command of vast wealth, it was scarce possible that the numberless land- service efforts she made in the seventeen years should all prove so barren as to yield no splendid exploits. But (apart from attacks against hostile colonies, of which I will afterwards speak) the effective achievements. Thus, for instance, Sir
 * splendid exploits,' speaking generally, were not