in 1213 William
Longsword, his half-brother, with a fleet gathered from the shipping of
Dover and the south-eastern ports, destroyed a French fleet that had
assembled on the coast of the Netherlands to transport an invading army to
England. Damme (i.e. "the dams or embankments to keep out the sea") was
then a fortified port. It is now a Dutch village, some miles from the
coast, in the midst of green meadows won from the sea, with roads shaded by
avenues of trees, and only the traffic of its canal to remind it that it
once had a harbour.

Four years later Hubert de Burgh, Governor of Dover Castle, defeated
another attempted raid on England by improvising a fleet and attacking the
French squadron in the Straits. De Burgh got to windward of the French,
then sailed down on them, grappled and boarded them. There was an incident
which happily we do not hear of again in naval warfare. As the English
scrambled on board of the French ships they threw quicklime in the eyes of
their opponents. It was, no doubt, an ugly trick of piratical fighting, for
in those days when there was no police of the seas there was a certain
amount of piracy and smuggling carried on by the men of Dover and the
Cinque Ports. Just as for lack of police protection highway robbery was a
danger of travel by road, so till organized naval power developed there was
a good deal of piracy in the European seas, and peaceful traders sailed in
large fleets for mutual protection, just as travellers on land took care to
have companions for a journey. The Channel was also enlivened by occasional
fights for fishing-grounds between fleets of fishing-craft, and the
quicklime trick of Hubert de Burgh's battle was probably one of the methods
of this irregular warfare.

Edward I had a navy which did useful service by coasting northward, as his
armies marched into Scotland, and securing for them regular supplies and
reinforcements by sea. Under his weak successor the sea was neglected, and
it was the third Edward who used the navy effectually to secure that his
quarrel with France should be fought out, not on English ground, but on the
Continent, and thus became the founder of the sea power of England.

There was no Royal Navy in the modern sense of the term. When the King went
to war his fleet was recruited from three different sources. The warship
was a merchantman, on board of which a number of fighting-men, knights,
men-at-arms, archers and billmen were embarked. These