A recent familiar instance is found in the American War of Secession.

Had the South had a people as numerous as it was warlike, and a navy commensurate to its other resources as a sea power, the great extent of its sea-coast and its numerous inlets would have been elements of great strength.

The people of the United States and the Government of that day justly prided themselves on the effectiveness of the blockade of the whole Southern coast.

It was a great feat, a very great feat; but it would have been an impossible feat had the Southerners been more numerous, and a nation of seamen.

What was there shown was not, as has been said, how such a blockade can be maintained, but that such a blockade is possible in the face of a population not only unused to the sea, but also scanty in numbers.
Those who recall how the blockade was maintained, and the class of ships that blockaded during great part of the war, know that the plan, correct under the circumstances, could not have been carried out in the face of a real navy.