The Story of the British Navy. By E. Kelpie Chatterton.
(Mills and Boon. 10s. 6d. net.)—One of Mr. Chatterton's aims is to do justice to the men who, at successive stages in our history, helped to build up our Navy, to create its traditions, and, generally, to make out of its rude beginnings the magnificent institution which is now our pride. For the time when we had no Navy we must go far back indeed. Before the Conquest the necessity of such a defence was recognized. William's great enterprise might well have failed but that the English Navy had finished its annual service—what we should now call its "Autumn Manoeuvres." It is to Richard I., it seems, that we must attribute the first attempt to create some- thing like naval discipline. Still, a Navy as we now conceive of it can scarcely be said to have existed before the end of the six- teenth century. But if it can hardly be said that there were men- of-war, there were certainly pirates. The narrow seas were fine hunting-grounds, and respectable citizens must have knowingly invested in armed craft which had instructions not to let any prize slip by, even though it might be owned by their own countrymen. It might almost seem as if a man lost all respect for life and property as soon as ever he set foot on a plank. Not less deplorable was the waste, the peculation and general cor- ruption which,time after time,threat,ened the very existence of our Fleet. The Commonwealth brought in a "new broom" adminis- tration, but even that implement grew foul in a few years. Later on came the gross scandal of the Sandwich administration ; the old abuses even survived the fiery ordeal of the Napoleonic wars. Mr. Chatterton's book is always interesting, and gives us much to think about.
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