Note 56 — Chapter XVIII · GOVERNMENT UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

Mr. Disraeli’s Government need not be blamed too harshly for letting the Army alone. Till the fall of the Second Empire Parliament would probably not have voted the money or passed the measures necessary to put an end to the chaotic confusion and Crimean inefficiency of the military system under which orators used to declare “British troops had ever marched to victory.” But Mr. Corry, Mr. Disraeli’s First Lord of the Admiralty, had no such excuse for his neglect to build first-class ironclads. Even the Manchester Radicals would have voted him the money for that purpose had he been courageous enough to confess what was the truth, namely, that when he took office the British Navy was behind the age, and as a fighting force pitiably weak and obsolete. Another costly blunder was committed by Mr. Corry. He had not firmness enough to silence clamorous claims for commissions. Hence he over-officered the Navy, till it almost seemed at one time as if he meant to man his line-of-battle ships with his redundant admirals and his superfluous captains.