Flag and Fleet

Flag and Fleet, by William Wood

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Title: Flag and Fleet How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the
Seas
Author: William Wood
Release Date: November 17, 2006 [EBook #19849]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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FLEET ***

Produced by Al Haines

THE SEA IS HIS
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.

[Frontispiece: VIKING MAN-OF-WAR.]

FLAG AND FLEET
HOW THE BRITISH NAVY WON THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS

BY
WILLIAM WOOD
Lieutenant-Colonel, Canadian Militia; Member of the Canadian Special
Mission Overseas; Editor of "The Logs of the Conquest of Canada";

Author of "All Afloat: A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways";
"Elizabethan Sea Dogs: A Chronicle of Drake and his Companions";
and "The Fight for Canada: A Naval and Military Sketch."

WITH A PREFACE BY
ADMIRAL-OF-THE-FLEET SIR DAVID BEATTY G.C.B., O.M.,
G.C.V.O., Etc., Etc.

TORONTO: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
OF CANADA, LTD., AT ST. MARTIN'S HOUSE
1919

COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1919, BY
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LIMITED

To
Admiral-of-the-Fleet
Lord Jellicoe
In token of deep admiration And in gratitude for many kindnesses
during the Great War I dedicate this little book, Which, published
under the auspices of The Navy League of Canada and approved by the
Provincial Departments of Education, Is written for the reading of
Canadian Boys and Girls

PREFACE

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.

INTRODUCTION
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.
The Navy is not the whole of British sea-power; for the Merchant
Service is the other half. Nor is the Navy the only fighting force on
which our liberty depends; for we depend upon the United Service of
sea and land and air. Moreover, all our fighting forces, put together,
could not have done their proper share toward building up the Empire,
nor could they defend it now, unless they always had been, and are still,
backed by the People as a whole, by every patriot man and woman, boy
and girl.
But while it takes all sorts to make the world, and very many different

sorts to make and keep our British Empire of the Free, it is quite as true
to say that all our other sorts