misunderstood. As Clausewitz laid down long ago, 'wars are
in reality only the expressions of policy itself'. It is absurd,
for example, to describe the peace treaty which ended the
American War in 1783 without considering the effect on the
negotiations of Rodney's victory at the Saints the previous
year. Even such a familiar passage as the opening of Dryden
Essay on Dramatic Poesy, where he describes the sound of
gunfire as he and his friends row down the Thames, gains in
interest if it is realized where and why the battle was fought.

It is in this sense that I have tried to link naval with
national history, to combine the interest inherent in the
former with its relevance to the political or literary life of the
country. The distinguished figures who pass across these pages
are not presented as invariably victorious, high-minded or
eccentric. They play their games of bowls, they put their
telescopes to their blind eyes, but they do not always behave
as popular mythology would have us believe. The important
as well as the memorable things said or done by the Navy
have engaged my attention, and I crave the indulgence of the
reader for the ample--possibly excessive--use of quotation,
because I prefer the living voice of the past and the vigour of
a seaman's phrase to insipid modern paraphrases.

To do all this within the compass of a single volume re-
quires the exclusion of tactical details except in the descrip-
tion of the great events of history, such as the Armada or the
battle of Trafalgar. Tactics are largely irrelevant to questions
of grand strategy, and they can be properly appreciated only
by those with experience under sail, of whom few survive.
All account of the navy in medieval times has also been
omitted because at that period England was not a sea power
and a National Navy did not really exist. Our narrative starts
with the navy of Henry VIII and the geopolitical revolution
of the early sixteenth century. It concludes with the dropping
of the atomic bombs at the conclusion of the Second World
War. That event opened the new and unpredictable era of
naval warfare which faces the modern strategist. What is

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