1806 - Maritime strength of the rival powers

	Naval history of Great Britain - Vol. IV by William James
1806	British and French Fleets	212

Heavy as had been the loss to the French navy at the Battle of Trafalgar, it was by no means in so desperate a state as some of the English periodical writers would have the public believe. Steel, in his monthly Navy-list for March in the present year, enumerates the number of line-of-battle ships then belonging to France at 19 : while, with an air of triumph, he states the British line-force, including 50s, at 243 sail. This appears in a small table, entitled " Naval Force of Europe " and in which France, as a naval power, ranks below Sweden, Denmark, and even Turkey. So far from the statement being correct as relates to France and England, the one possessed, in a state for sea-service and building, more than 53 sail of the line, thus

Brest	afloat	10	building	3
Orient	afloat	0	building	2
Rochefort	afloat	6	building	2
In the Scheldt	afloat	0	building	10
Vigo	afloat	1
Cadiz	afloat	5
Toulon	afloat	3	building	2
Genoa	afloat	0	building	2
With Willaumez	afloat	6		21
With L'Hermitte		1	Afloat	32
		32	Total	53

Several of the ships here marked down as building were ready to be launched, and some were actually afloat. Among the ships of the line which Napol�on at the commencement of the war had ordered to be built, were two at Nantes, one at Bordeaux, one at Marseilles, one at Ostende, and one at Saint-Malo. These have been excluded from the statement, because it is doubtful whether or not they were proceeded upon. In the course of two or three years, every one of the above 21 building ships was actually in commission ; and it is believed that, before the close of the year 1806, several other line-of-battle ships, including two or three three-deckers of the class of the Imp�rial, were laid down in the different ports of the French empire.

Out of the above 53 ships, not one mounted, or was intended to mount, fewer than 74 guns ; whereas England, if her 64-gun ships be excluded, possessed, in a state for service and building, but 102 sail of the line. * Nor, with the addition of the 64s, would the number exceed 123. The absurdity of including stationary harbour-ships, hulks, and 50-gun ships, when the total on the opposite side contains no vessels of that description, has already been exposed. � Even admitting that, in the year 1806, Russia or Spain had about the same number of line-of-battle.

* See Appendix, Annual Abstract No. 14.

� See vol. i., p. 57.

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