[1] Bacon's Essay on "The Greatness of Kingdoms," first published in 1597. The extract is from the edition of 1625.

[2] Men of the same race of sailors and fishermen largely manned the victorious fleet of Tegethoff at Lissa, nineteen centuries later. See Chapter XI.

[3] "Antony and Cleopatra," Act iii, scene 7.

[4] Some interesting light was thrown upon the voyages of the Norsemen by a practical experiment made in 1893. A Viking ship was built on the precise lines and dimensions of the ancient ship dug out of the mound of Gokstadt in 1880, 77 feet long with a beam of 17 feet, and was rigged with one mast and a square mainsail and jib foresail. As a prelude to her being shown at the Chicago Exhibition she was successfully taken across the Atlantic under sail and without an escorting ship. She left Bergen on May 1st, 1893, and arrived at Newport, Rhode Island, U.S.A., on June 13th. She was commanded by Captain Magnus Andersen, who in 1886 had performed the feat of crossing the Atlantic in an open boat. Andersen had a crew of eleven men in the Viking ship. He reported that she had met with some bad weather and proved an excellent sea boat. Her average speed was nine knots, but with a fair wind she did eleven. In the following year the ship was accidentally sunk in the Chicago river, and raised and broken up.

[5] Admiral Jurien de la Gravière in his study of the campaign of Lepanto remarks that many a fortified strait has owed its inviolability only to its exaggerated reputation for the strength of its defences, and adds that in the Greek war of independence a French sailing corvette, the "Echo," easily fought its way into the gulf past the batteries, and repassed them again when coming out a few days later.

[6] The flagship.

[7] Galleys were used in the land-locked Mediterranean and Baltic up to the first years of the nineteenth century, but the only sailors who ever ventured to take galleys into the wild weather of the Atlantic were the Norse Vikings.

[8] These old wooden ships had a much longer life than the steel battleship of to-day, which becomes obsolete and is broken up after twenty years. The "Ark," launched in 1587 (and built at the cost of £5000 = £50,000 in the money of to-day), was refitted and renamed the "Anne Royal" (after James I's queen) in 1608; was the flagship of the Cadiz expedition of 1625, and was broken up in 1636. Hawkins's ship, the "Victory," was launched in 1561; she sailed as the "Resolution" in Blake's fleet under the Commonwealth; was renamed the "Royal Prince" at the Restoration, and was burned in 1666 during Charles II's Dutch war. She was then over a hundred years old and still fit "to lie in the line of battle."

[9] Macaulay, writing his ballad of the Armada before the full English and Spanish records of the time were available, represents the news as being brought to Plymouth by a merchantman that had seen "Castille's black fleet lie heaving many a mile" out by the Channel Islands, where the Armada was never sighted. The "tall 'Pinta'" chased her for hours. There was no such ship in the Armada. Macaulay took the name of one of Columbus's caravels to adorn his ballad. Instead of the enemy seeing "fire and smokes" at dawn, he describes with more picturesque effect, how, in the night—

[10] "Historie of the World," edit. 1736, ii, 565, quoted by Professor Laughton, "State Papers relating to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada," vol. i, Introduction, p. lxvi.

[11] "Her two decks and her poop were blown up: in which was the paymaster of this Armada with part of the King's Treasure."—Medina-Sidonia's narrative.

[12] "Entry" = boarding the ship.

[13] In some histories of the Armada and in more than one standard book of reference Lopez de Medina is confused with Medina-Sidonia, and it is stated that it was the flagship of the whole Armada that was lost on Fair Isle.

[14] Treves, "Cradle of the Deep," p. 175.

[15] Rodney in at first refusing was upholding the strict letter of the "Fighting Instructions," which forbade breaking the line or changing the order of battle during an action. Instruction XVI laid it down that:—

"In all cases of fight with the enemy the commanders of His Majesty's ships are to keep the fleet in one line, and (as much as may be) to preserve that order of battle, which they have been directed to keep before the time of fight."

[16] David Hannay, "Rodney" (English Men of Action), p. 213.

[17] Compare this with 23,000 horse-power of the "Dreadnought's" turbine engines.

[18] "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War," vol. i, pp. 726, 727. Worden recovered, and there was no permanent injury to his sight. He lived to be a distinguished admiral of the United States Navy.

[19] "Re d'Italia" (King of Italy); "Re di Portogallo" (King of Portugal).

[20] The "Principe di Carignano" was wooden built; all the rest iron.

[21] This was one of his least powerfully-armed ironclads, but Tegethoff seems to have selected her as his flagship because she was named after his old friend and chief, the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, who was at that time Emperor of Mexico, and involved in the final stage of the struggle that ended in his capture and execution by the Republican Juarez.

[22] Some of the forts were still known by English names, such as Wellington Tower, Bentinck Tower, and Robertson Tower.

[23] Semenoff had served with the Port Arthur fleet on board one of the cruisers which were disarmed in a neutral port after the battle of August 10th, 1904. He then returned to Europe, was attached to the staff of the Baltic fleet, and went out to the East on board the flagship. His remarkable narrative, "The Battle of Tsu-shima," is a vivid detailed account of the "Suvaroff's" fortunes during the fight. He died in 1910.

[24] These tables are from Sir George Sydenham Clarke's preface to Captain Lindsay's translation of Semenoff's "Tsu-shima," p. 11.

[25] The old turret-ship Chin-yen—captured from the Chinese (formerly the Chen-yuen) (4 12-inch and 4 6-inch guns)—was with the fleet, but is not included in a list of effective armour-clads.

[26] A German Atlantic liner purchased at the beginning of the war—formerly known as the "Königin Maria Theresa"—"roomy and luxurious, but as a warship useless," says the Naval Constructor Politovsky, Chief Engineer of the Baltic Fleet.

[27] "Tsu-shima," p. 10.

[28] "From Libau to Tsu-shima." By the late Eugene S. Politovsky. Translated by Major F. R. Godvey, R.M.L.I. 1906.

[29] "Tsu-shima," pp. 27, 28.

[30] English people have so seldom occasion or opportunity of consulting large-scale maps of Japan, that there is an impression that the battle of Tsu-shima was fought in narrow waters, where there was no chance of the Russians eluding Togo and little room for manœuvring. The strait in which the battle took place is really about as wide as the North Sea between Harwich and the Hook of Holland. (See accompanying sketch map.)

[31] Admiral Fölkersham had a paralytic stroke while at Honkohe Bay, and died at sea two days before the battle.