A Short History of the Royal Navy 1217-1815 / Volume II 1689-1815

PREFACE

I submit this second part of the Short History of the Royal Navy to the kindness of the reader and the animadversions of reviewers with a profound sense of its deficiencies. That some were inevitable where so much had to be told in so narrow a space is no excuse for such errors as I have committed. It is my sincere hope that they are not very frequent nor very gross, and that my book does at least indicate the main outlines of the polity and the achievements of the navy. It is my pleasant duty to thank the Reverend William Hunt for his kindness in revising my proofs, and for the many excellent suggestions he made. I have also to present my thanks to Messrs. Blackwood for giving me their permission to make use in Chapter III. of matter published in Blackwood’s Magazine; and to the proprietors of the Saturday Review for allowing me to make use of articles on the mutinies of 1797, formerly published in that periodical.