ever had their weaknesses and their shortcomings. The story of their occasional pettinesses and errors is often quite as instructive as the record of their normally great and noble actions; and he would be but a poor and short-sighted lover of his country, or of his hero, who should seek to heighten the glory of an established fame by painting out its shadows. Neither Great Britain nor the United States has uniformly behaved like an angel: neither ever will behave in that manner. But I believe that both are essentially honest, and that both, especially when time is allowed them for cool reflection, desire truth and justice with equal sincerity.
Yet, after all, that is a small matter. The point that struck me as being most ungenerous in the attack of the New York paper was the suggestion directed, not against us Britons, but against Captain Mahan and Mr. Roosevelt. To insinuate that one of these is capable of deliberately subtracting from the truth in order to pander to English vanity, and that the other is capable of deliberately adorning the truth in order to pander to American Chauvinism, is surely to outrage the honour of both and to besmirch the dignity of American history. I sought, and I welcome, the co-operation of these gentlemen because the transparent good faith of their writings has deeply impressed itself upon me, and because I have ever been of opinion that, cœteris paribus, Americans are alike as capable and as desirous as Englishmen of exercising impartiality. It seems to me fair, moreover, to let both sides be heard, and that I could not possibly offer surer guarantees of my anxiety to do strict justice than by inviting distinguished American writers to co-operate in this work on equal terms with Englishmen. Any historian, no matter his good faith, may err, as well in his facts as in his conclusions; but if either Captain Mahan or Mr. Roosevelt err it will not, I promise both English and American readers, be on the score of national prejudice or personal insincerity. I only wish that the two countries could be induced to permanently co-operate in the making of history with as single an aim as we Britons and our American cousins are on this occasion endeavouring to write it.
To the reader — and with him I include the critic — I must add yet another word. The task which my fellow-workers and I have undertaken is one full of difficulties and pitfalls. Some periods of our naval history are now comprehensively dealt with for the first time. Others, which have been dealt with over and over again, have been cobwebbed with myths and errors. I know not whether
