cularly
fortunate such circumstances were to an author. For the two years that
they lasted I had no cares beyond writing; was unvexed by either
pecuniary anxieties or interference from my superiors. The College
slumbered and I worked. My results, after one season's use as
lectures, were published in two volumes, under the title _The
Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire_.

Of this work it may accurately be said that in order of composition it
was begun with its final chapter. The accumulation and digestion of
material had been spasmodic and desultory, for I had hesitated much
whether to pursue the treatment after 1783. The instability of the
College fortunes had irritated as well as harassed me. If the navy did
not want what I was doing, why should I persist? Nothing having been
given to the world, I had had no outside encouragement; and little
from within the profession, save the cordial approval of a very few
officers. However, during the two years of doubtful struggle I had
read quite widely upon the general history of the particular period,
as well as upon the effects of sea power in the Peloponnesian War;
together with such details as I could collect from Livy and Polybius
of naval occurrences while Hannibal was in Italy. My outlook was thus
enlarged; not upon military matters only, but by an appreciation of
the strength of Athens, broad based upon an extensive system of
maritime commerce. This prepared me to see in the Continental System
of Napoleon the direct outcome of Great Britain's maritime supremacy,
and the ultimate cause of his own ruin. Thus, while gathering matter,
a conception was forming, which became the dominant feature in my
scheme by the time I began to write in earnest. Coincidently with
these studies, and with my other occupations when at first president
of the College, two introductory chapters had been written; one
bridging the interval between 1783 and 1793, so as to hitch on to my
first book, the other dealing with the state of the navies at the
opening of the French Revolution.

There Mr. Whitney's action brought me up with a round turn. When I
resumed, late in 1889, I extended my reading by Jomini's _Wars of the
French Republic_, a work instructive from the political as well as
military point of view; concurrently testing Howe's naval campaign of
1794 by the principles advanced by the military author, which
commended themselves to my judgment. In connection with thi