Alexandria Daily Gazette, Commercial & Political

"Ships, Colonies, and Commerce." It has long been the ambition of France to become a great naval as well as a great military nation. It was peculiarly the policy of Richelieu to increase the naval power of France. Colbert wished to increase the commerce of his country, but the measures which he took for that purpose were ill-judged in the extreme, and the merchants asked him to let them alone. It is notorious that Bonaparte is almost as anxious for "ships, colonies, and commerce," as for continental dominion. He is jealous and envious of Old England, and is vain enough to hope one day to possess her navy and her trade. In the late Expose of the state of the Empire, which, from its immense length, is not published at large in any of the newspapers, he boasts that in India, prizes to the value of 15 millions (of francs undoubtedly) have been the result of the cruizes of his frigates. (The English acknowledge that the French cruizers have been very successful in the Indian Seas.) He says that his privateers in all parts of the world, and above all in the seas of India and Guadaloupe, have proved themselves formidable to the enemy. It is stated that ten ships of the line are fitted for sea at Antwerp; that twelve ships of the line and as many frigates, have been launched within the year; that twenty-five more, and as many frigates, are on the stocks; that his ports are preserved in perfect order, and the creation of that of Cherbourg far advanced: that Spezzia is about to become a second Toulon; that the Boulogne flotilla is still in a state of complete equipment; and that the union of almost all the coasts of the Mediterranean to France, secures to his arsenals and his ships abundant supplies of provisions, stores and men.

To this epitome we subjoin the following extracts.

[Freeman's Journal.]

"Marine.—Though during the present campaign, the government has limited its maritime operations, still a squadron armed at Toulon as if by enchantment, and conducted with skill, has been able to defeat, by able manœuvres, the combinations of the enemy, by conveying to Corfu two years supplies of men, artillery, provisions and ammunition. After having thus rendered useless the expedition with which that barrier of the Adriatic was threatened, the fleet of admiral Gantheaume returned safe through the difficulties of a boisterous navigation, and all the dangers of continued tempests. The colonies have in like manner been successfully supplied with provisions, by squadrons of frigates and corvettes, which, while they fulfilled that important object, had, like the squadron that went to Corfu, the advantage of making prizes of a great number of the enemy's ships."