service, from the earliest times to the present, does not exist, and is badly needed. Another is that a naval history, planned upon lines other than the most restricted, is too great a work to be undertaken by any single writer. Pepys designed such a history, but did not get much beyond the collection of part of his material for it. Nicolas began such a history, but lived to complete only two volumes of it.
So much for the failures to complete. The failures to satisfy are more numerous. I find that Schomberg and others fail because they are grossly and carelessly inaccurate. Brenton fails because he is prejudiced and injudicial. James partially fails because, although he is painstaking and, with few exceptions, fair, he is a chronicler rather than a historian; he does not sufficiently attempt to explain causes and motives; he does not adequately dwell upon results and deductions. Lediard and others fail because, instead of depending first of all upon original sources of information, they have been content to go first of all to second-hand ones, and only occasionally or subsidiarily to the best of all authorities. And it must be admitted that nearly all British writers of naval history, Nicolas being the only prominent exception, have devoted their almost exclusive attention to recording military operations, and have left in comparative neglect such equally important matters as naval administration, the development of the matériel and personnel of the service, the progress in the arts of navigation, gunnery, etc., the social life and customs of the sea, and even, in some cases, the story of naval expeditions of discovery.
On the other hand, James and Nicolas and Mahan are eminently satisfying to this extent — James, in that he is, as a rule, laborious and conscientious; Nicolas, in that he is learned, full, and comprehensive; and Mahan, in that he is luminous and scrupulously fair, and has applied the teachings of the past to the possibilities of the present and the future.
It was naturally my desire both to complete my undertaking and to satisfy the reader; and, falling into communication on the subject with Mr. R. B. Marston, of the publishing firm, I agreed with him, after we had discussed the general project, that a work in five or six volumes of the size now in hand might be made to contain a sufficiently comprehensive account of the military history of the Royal Navy from the earliest times to the present without necessitating any undue neglect of the civil history, of the development of
