Excerpt from The Story of the British Navy, From the Earliest Times, to the Present Day

And Admiral Mahan, in this twentieth century, has been not less definite.

It is then the Object Of this book to provide for the general reader an opportunity Of realising in a volume Of moderate dimensions, and in the most attractive manner at my command, some idea of the enviable heritage which the past ages have bequeathed to us as sons Of the sea. There are in existence excellent volumes, closely written, the work of gifted writers; but invaluable though they remain as works Of refer ence they have not succeeded, owing to their great size and price, in winning the attention Of the man-in the-street, the man out Of whose purse the navy is kept going. That there is a real need for such a history of the British navy as can be contained within the covers Of one volume has been emphasised by the highest authority as well as by private individuals. In other volumes I have endeavoured to trace the history Of the ship herself from the earliest times of her usefulness up till the present day. And the singularly enthusiastic appreciation which has wel comed these efforts has prompted me to Offer to the same public this time an account not Of the ships, but Of the deeds which they were able to perform to trace the noble pedigree Of the greatest navy the world has ever seen; to show its origin, to indicate the lines on which it developed, and why to put before the reader the battles and wars through which it has passed, and lastly to illustrate these by the best contemporary pictorial evidence procurable.

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