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.

DAVID HANNAY

CONTENTS

CHAP.PAGE
I.The War with France till 1693[1]
II.Expeditions, Convoy, and the Privateers[49]
III.The Men and the Life[80]
IV.The Two Colonial Wars[98]
V.The Seven Years’ War till 1758[133]
VI.The Years of Triumph[166]
VII.The American War till 1780[204]
VIII.The American War till the Fall of Yorktown[243]
IX.The Close of the War and the East Indies[271]
X.The First Stage of the War[293]
XI.The War till the End of 1797[323]
XII.The Mutinies[355]
XIII.The Nile[385]
XIV.Invasion till the Close of 1801[411]
XV.Trafalgar[436]
XVI.The Command of the Sea[467]
Index[493]

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ROYAL NAVY