XII. THE SUPPLY AND COMMUNICATIONS OF A FLEET.
INDEX.

Ten of the essays included in this volume first appeared in the
_Encyclopoedia_Britannica_, the _Times_, the _Morning_Post_, the
_National_Review_, the _Nineteenth_Century_and_After_, the
_Cornhill_Magazine_, and the _Naval_Annual_. The proprietors of
those publications have courteously given me permission to
republish them here.

Special mention must be made of my obligation to the proprietors
of the _Encyclopoedia_Britannica_ for allowing me to reproduce
the essays on 'Sea-Power' and 'The Command of the Sea.' They are
the owners of the copyright of both essays, and their courtesy
to me is the more marked because they are about to republish them
themselves in the forthcoming edition of the _Encyclopoedia_.

The paper on 'Naval Strategy and Tactics at the Time of Trafalgar'
was read at the Institute of Naval Architects, and that on 'The
Supply and Communications of a Fleet' at the Hong-Kong United
Service Institution.

I

SEA-POWER[1]

[Footnote 1: Written in 1899. (_Encyclopoedia_Britannica_.)]

Sea-power is a term used to indicate two distinct, though cognate
things. The affinity of these two and the indiscriminate manner
in which the term has been applied to each have tended to obscure
its real significance. The obscurity has been deepened by the
frequency with which the term has been confounded with the old
phrase, 'Sovereignty of the sea,' and the still current expression,
'Command of the sea.' A discussion--etymological, or even
archaeological in character--of the term must be undertaken as
an introduction to the explanation of its now generally accepted
meaning. It is one of those compound words in which a Teutonic
and a Latin (or Romance) element are combined, and which are
easily formed and become widely current when the sea is concerned.
Of such are 'sea-coast,' 'sea-forces' (the 'land- and sea-forces'
used to be a common designation of what we now call the 'Army
and Navy'), 'sea-service,' 'sea-serpent,' and 'sea-officer' (now
superseded by 'naval officer'). The term in one form is as old
as the fifteenth century. Edward III, in commemoration of the
naval victory of Sluys, coined gold 'nobles' which bore on one
side his effigy 'crowned, standing in a large ship, holding in
one hand a sword and in the other a shield.' An anonymous poet,
who wrote in the reign of Henry VI, says of this coin:

For four things our noble showet