It has taken ten centuries to make the British Navy; it took four and a quarter years for the Senior Service to secure the surrender of its most formidable rival in the greatest Sea Conquest of all time.
[1]. Now Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald H. S. Bacon, K.C.B., K.C.V.O., D.S.O.
[2]. Reply of Mr Bonar Law to Mr G. Lambert and Commander Bellairs in the House of Commons, 5th March, 1918.
[3]. Fulton’s report, 9th September, 1801.
[4]. Readers who wish for further details of Fulton will find them in Robert Fulton, Engineer and Artist, his Life and Works, by H. W. Dickinson, A.M.I.Mech.E. (London, 1913), and other documentary evidence in Projets et Tentatives de débarquement aux Iles Britanniques, by Édouard Desbrière (Paris, 1902), vol. ii, pp. 255–259, 279–280.
[5]. Speech of 27th April, 1917.
[6]. In this connexion see particularly Chapter X.
[7]. Proclamation of 5th February, 1915.
[8]. Note to the German Minister in Mexico, dated Berlin, 19th January, 1917.