this thought
became the nucleus of all my writing for twenty years then to come;
and here I may state at once what I conceive to have been my part in
popularizing, perhaps in making effective, an argument for which I
could by no means claim the rights of discovery. Not to mention other
predecessors, with the full roll of whose names I am even now
unacquainted, Bacon and Raleigh, three centuries before, had
epitomized in a few words the theme on which I was to write volumes.
That they had done so was, indeed, then unknown to me. For me, as for
them, the light dawned first on my inner consciousness; I owed it to
no other man. It has since been said by more than one that no claim
for originality could be allowed me; and that I wholly concede. What
did fall to me was, that no one since those two great Englishmen had
undertaken to demonstrate their thesis by an analysis of history,
attempting to show from current events, through a long series of
years, precisely what influence the command of the sea had had upon
definite issues; in brief, a concrete illustration. In the preface to
my first work on the subject, for the success of which I was quite
unprepared, I stated this as my aim: "An estimate of the effect of Sea
Power upon the course of history and the prosperity of nations; ...
resting upon a collection of special instances, in which the precise
effect has been made clear by an analysis of the conditions at the
given moments." This field had been left vacant, yielding me my
opportunity; and concurrently therewith, untouched from the point of
view proposed by me, there lay the whole magnificent series of events
constituting maritime history since the days of Raleigh and Bacon,
after the voyages of Columbus and De Gama gave the impetus to
over-sea activities, colonies, and commerce, which distinguishes the
past three hundred years. Even of this limited period I have occupied
but a part, though I fear I have skimmed the cream of that which it
offers; but back behind it lie virgin fields, in the careers of the
Italian republics, and others yet more remote in time, which can never
be for me to narrate, although I have examined them attentively.

I cannot now reconstitute from memory the sequence of my mental
processes; but while my problem was still wrestling with my brain
there dawned upon me one of those concrete perceptions which turn
inward darkness into light--give substance to shadow. The _Wachusett_
was lying at Cal