From Howard to Nelson: Twelve Sailors (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from From Howard to Nelson: Twelve Sailors

It is indeed true that the young navy, composed, as it was, of ships which could not keep the sea, was vastly stronger for attack than for defence; that at first, it was quite unequal to ward off invasion and that, even after the reconstruction by Alfred, or the reorganization by Ethelred, it was not the sure safeguard which it eventually became. Like other national institutions, it had its ups and its downs; but at a very early period in our history, men recognized that the security of the kingdom was based on its navy. When, in 1213, the Earl of Salisbury captured or burnt the whole of the French fleet at Damme when, in 1217, Hubert de Burgh destroyed the French fleet off Sandwich; when Edward III annihilated the French fleet at Sluys in 1340, or crushed the Spaniards off Winchelsea in 1350, there was no doubt in the minds of our forefathers that the navy was the wall and fence of the kingdom. But now, wrote Capgrave in the evil days of Henry VI.

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