Flag and Fleet: How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas

Thy way is in the sea, and Thy path in the great waters, and Thy footsteps are not known. —Psalm LXXVII. v. 19.
The Sea is His: He made it, Black gulf and sunlit shoal From barriered bight to where the long Leagues of Atlantic roll: Small strait and ceaseless ocean He bade each one to be: The Sea is His: He made it— And England keeps it free.
By pain and stress and striving Beyond the nations' ken, By vigils stern when others slept, By lives of many men; Through nights of storm, through dawnings Blacker than midnights be— This sea that God created, England has kept it free.
Count me the splendid captains Who sailed with courage high To chart the perilous ways unknown— Tell me where these men lie! To light a path for ships to come They moored at Dead Man's quay; The Sea is God's—He made it, And these men made it free.
Oh little land of England, Oh mother of hearts too brave, Men say this trust shall pass from thee Who guardest Nelson's grave. Aye, but these braggarts yet shall learn Who'd hold the world in fee, The Sea is God's—and England, England shall keep it free.
—R. E. VERNÈDE.

BY Admiral-of-the-Fleet Sir David Beatty, G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O., etc.
In acceding to the request to write a Preface for this volume I am moved by the paramount need that all the budding citizens of our great Empire should be thoroughly acquainted with the part the Navy has played in building up the greatest empire the world has ever seen.
Colonel Wood has endeavored to make plain, in a stirring and attractive manner, the value of Britain's Sea-Power. To read his Flag and Fleet will ensure that the lessons of centuries of war will be learnt, and that the most important lesson of them all is this—that, as an empire, we came into being by the Sea, and that we cannot exist without the Sea.
DAVID BEATTY, 2nd of June, 1919.
Who wants to be a raw recruit for life, all thumbs and muddle-mindedness? Well, that is what a boy or girl is bound to be when he or she grows up without knowing what the Royal Navy of our Motherland has done to give the British Empire birth, life, and growth, and all the freedom of the sea.