A SHORT HISTORY

OF THE

ROYAL NAVY

1217 TO 1688

BY

DAVID HANNAY

METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.
LONDON
1898

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PREFACE

It has been my endeavour in this book to give a popular, butclear and not inaccurate, account of the growth, and services,of the Royal Navy. I have not attempted a general maritimehistory of England. This, which would include the rise and extensionof commerce, discovery, much scientific matter and muchlegislation, would be the life-work of a Gibbon or a Hume.Such a task would be far beyond my powers, even if circumstances,which need not be specified, did not refuse me command of thetime needed for so great an undertaking.

I am not unconscious that a landsman deals with sea affairs ata certain risk. He has, in Southey's phrase, to walk among sea-terms"as a cat does in a china pantry." He is liable to discover,from the criticism of a sailor, that he has made a fleet sail withintwo points of the wind—a disaster which it was once my lot toundergo. Perhaps only long professional experience will save awriter from such errors. If, as is only too probable, there aresome in this book, I can but beg for the favourable considerationof the friendly reader.

The present volume ends at that dividing line in our history,the Revolution of 1688. Another will give the history of the greatstruggle with France and her dependent allies, which began in1689, and ended only when the time of great naval wars was over—forat any rate the larger part of a century, if not for ever. Themain subject of the present volume, apart from the formation ofthe naval service, is the less known, but not less important, andassuredly not less arduous, struggle with Holland.

I have made it the rule to adopt the accepted spelling ofnames—to write Monk, not Monck; Raleigh, not Ralegh;Hawkins, not Hawkyns. Matthew Arnold once gave it as hisreason for not adopting a reformed system of spelling classicalnames, that he would not pass his life in a wilderness of pedantryin order that his children might attain to an orthographical Canaan.That Hawkins used a "y" where we use "i" in his name, asin other words, therein following the custom of his time, does notseem to me to be any reason for departing from the practice ofthe language as it is to-day.

DAVID HANNAY.

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CONTENTS