Such then in brief were the war activities of one of our chief Mercantile Marine Companies, and it is surely a record of which the whole Empire, not less than every member and employee of the Cunard Company itself, may well be proud. In the study of it we have perhaps been able to perceive, as in a wider survey of a larger number of units might have been less possible, something of the peculiar genius for organisation and adaptation that, in spite of so much ignorant criticism, our race possesses. It is at any rate an indication that the sea instinct that has been our inheritance for so many centuries is as strong to-day as ever, and a happy augury for the future of a country, whose very breath of life depends upon its maintenance of Admiralty, in the widest sense of the word. Thos. Forman & Sons, Printers, Nottingham, Liverpool, London [Illustration: MAP SHEWING PRINCIPAL ROUTES SET BY CUNARD SHIPS DURING THE WAR] Transcriber’s Notes Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed. Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced. Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to the corresponding illustrations.