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 together could not have made, and cannot keep, our Empire, unless the Royal Navy had kept, and keeps today, true watch and ward over all the British highways of the sea. None of the different parts of the world-wide British Empire are joined together by the land. All are joined together by the sea. Keep the seaways open and we live. Close them and we die.

This looks, and really is, so very simple, that you may well wonder why we have to speak about it here. But man is a land animal. Landsmen are many, while seamen are few; and though the sea is three times bigger than the land it is three hundred times less known. History is full of sea-power, but histories are not; for most historians know little of sea-power, though British history without British sea-power is like a watch without a mainspring or a wheel without a hub. No wonder we cannot understand the living story of our wars, when, as a rule, we are only told parts of what happened, and neither how they happened nor why they happened. The how and why are the flesh and blood, the head and heart of history; so if you cut them off you kill the living body and leave nothing but dry bones. Now, in our long war story no single how or why has any real meaning apart from British sea-power, which itself has no meaning apart from the Royal Navy. So the choice lies plain before us: either to learn what the Navy really means, and know the story as a veteran should; or else leave out, or perhaps mislearn, the Navy's part, and be a raw recruit for life, all thumbs and muddle-mindedness.

CONTENTS

BOOK I
THE ROWING AGE

WHEN SOLDIERS FOUGHT ROWBOAT BATTLES BESIDE THE SHORES
OF THE OLD WORLD

From the Beginning of War on the Water to King Henry VIII's
First Promise of a Sailing Fleet
1545