“I am not one to advocate the reducing of our navy in any degree below that proportion to the French navy which the exigencies of our service require; and, mind what I say, here is just what the French Government would admit as freely as you would. England has four times, at least, the amount of mercantile tonnage to protect at sea that France has, and that surely gives us a legitimate pretension to have a larger navy than France. Besides, this country is an island; we cannot communicate with any part of the world except by sea. France, on the other hand, has a frontier upon land, by which she can communicate with the whole world. We have, I think, unfortunately for ourselves, about a hundred times the amount of territory beyond the seas to protect, as colonies and dependencies, that France has. France has also twice or three times as large an army as England had. All these things give us a right to have a navy somewhat in the proportion to the French navy which we find to have existed if we look back over the past century. Nobody has disputed it. I would be the last person who would ever advocate any undue change in this proportion. On the contrary—I have said it in the House of Commons, and I repeat it to you—if the French Government showed a sinister design to increase their navy to an equality with ours; then, after every explanation to prevent such an absurd waste, I should vote 100 millions sterling rather than allow that navy to be increased to a level with ours—because I should say that any attempt of that sort without any legitimate grounds, would argue some sinister design upon this country.”

Letter to French Laurence (12 May 1797) after hearing of the mutinies in the Royal Navy, quoted in R. B. McDowell (ed.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume IX: May 1796–July 1797 (Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 333
1790s

Source: The Commercial Power of Great Britain, 1925, p. xxxi; cited in: The Westminster Review https://books.google.nl/books?id=ByA6AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA339, Volume 4. Oct 1825. p. 340

Preface
1790s, Rights of Man, Part I (1791)

Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), p. 63

Second Speech on Conciliation with America (1775)

Book I, ch. 13 http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk1ch13.asp: Of the Military and Maritime States.
Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769)

Early career years (1898–1929)
Source: Speech in Glasgow (9 February 1912), quoted in The Times (10 February 1912), p. 9

On a heroine in Tales of the South Pacific (1947) in Commercial Appeal (31 December 1951)

As quoted in The Military Quotation Book by James Charlton, p. 37.