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,