to the modern Naval Discipline Act, and may have originally suggested it, though a very similar expression occurs in a complaint of the Commons in 1416.[1]
The doctrine of the influence of sea-power is, therefore, no new one. It has been analysed, and, so to speak, codified by nineteenth-century writers, such as Mahan and Colomb; but in all its most essential bearings it was fully gasped by this anonymous fifteenth-century rhymester. In the following century it was familiar to Bacon,[2] who, in his essay, ‘Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates,’ wrote: “To be master of the sea is an abridgment of a monarchy… He that commands the sea is at great liberty, and may take as much and as little of the war as he will; whereas those that be strongest by land are many times, nevertheless, in great straits. Surely at this day, with us of Europe the vantage of strength at sea, which is one of the principal dowries of this kingdom of Great Britain, is great, both because most of the kingdoms of Europe are not merely inland, but girt with the sea most part of their compass, and because the wealth of both Indies seems in great part but an accessory to the command of the seas.” And, in the seventeenth century, Ralegh understood the doctrine, when, in his ‘Discourse of the First Invention of Ships,’ he declared: “Whosoever commands the sea, commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world, commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.”
Yet even the unknown author of the ‘Libel’ preached an ancient and, in theory, a long-accepted gospel. Cicero wrote to Atticus: “Consilium Pompeii plane Themistocleum est; putat enim, qui marl potitur, eum rerum potiri.”
The reconstitution of the Royal Navy was a slow process. At first it seems to have been attempted by the process of buying and adapting merchantmen. As early as July, 1461, a ship, the Margaret, of Ipswich, which carried cannon, was spoken of as “our great ship.”[3] In 1463 a caravel was bought for £80, and a partial or entire share in the Jonh Evangelist was similarly secured.[4] In 1468, the Mary of Grace was purchased; and in 1470 a ship called the Martin Garcia was acquired from Portugal.[5] A St. Peter was
