From an aquatint in the South Kensington Museum]
External affairs now lent a spur to screw propulsion. In ’44 the French navy came under the reforming power of the ambitious Prince de Joinville, and from this year onwards the attitude of France to this country became increasingly hostile and menacing. The thoughts of the French were turned toward their navy. No sooner had de Joinville been placed in command than schemes of invasion were bruited in this country; and the public viewed with some alarm the altered problems of defence imposed on our fleets by the presence in the enemy’s ports of a steam-propelled navy. Sanguine French patriots sought to profit by the advent of the new power. A pamphlet appeared in Paris claiming to prove that the establishment of steam navigation afforded France the very means by which she could regain her former level of naval strength. The writer, using the same arguments as Colonel Paixhans had used in ’22, reviewed the effect of steam power on the rival navies, and pointed to the Duke of Wellington’s warnings in parliament of the defencelessness of the English coasts and to his statement that if Napoleon had possessed steam power he would have achieved invasion. These cries of alarm, said the writer, should trace for France her line of policy. She should emulate the wise development of steam propulsion as practised by Great Britain. “We think, England acts; we discuss theories, she pursues application. She creates with activity a redoubtable steam force and reduces the number of her sailing ships, whose impotence she recognizes.... Sailing vessels have lost their main power; the employment of steamers has reduced them to the subaltern position of the siege artillery in a land army.” The writer praised English policy in the matter of steam development: its wise caution, its reasoned continuity. There had admittedly been some costly deceptions. Nevertheless the method was to be commended, and France should proceed in a similar manner: by a succession of sample units while steam was still in the experimental stage, by far-sighted single strides, and then by bold and rapid construction of a steam navy which would compete on more even terms with that of her hereditary rival.[157]