How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves

by William Giles Kingston

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Copyright Status: Manuscript of this book is available in public domain and copyright already expired.

How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves is a history on the Great Britain's Royal Navy written by William Henry Giles Kingston, often credited as W. H. G. Kingston, an English writer of boys' adventure novels.

Kingston's introduction:

Rome was not built in a day, nor has the glorious British Navy attained its present condition except by slow degrees, by numerous trials and experiments, by improvements gradually and cautiously introduced, and by the employment of a vast amount of thought, energy, and toil. We are apt to forget when we see an elaborate machine, the immense quantity of mental and physical exertion it represents, the efforts of the united minds perhaps of many successive generations, and the labour of thousands of workmen. I propose briefly to trace the progress which the British Navy has made from age to age, as well as its customs, and the habits of its seamen, with their more notable exploits since the days when this tight little island of ours first became known to the rest of the world.