The maritime history of the country divides itself into three periods. First, there are the ages during which the people was being formed and the weapon forged. This may be said to extend from the first beginnings to the accession of the House of Tudor. At that date, when, be it noted, the Portuguese were exploring the sea route round Africa to the east, and Columbus was leading Spain to America, there was still much to be done in the work of consolidation within, and in the perfecting of the ship; but a vessel had been made which could sail the world round, and in the British Isles it had come to this, that England was predominant, and that for her fellow-islanders the choice was between conquest at her hands, or union on honourable terms. The second period stretches from the accession of the House of Tudor to the close of the seventeenth century, when superiority of power at sea had been fully won. The third, beginning with the Revolution, lasts until our own time. It includes the two hundred years or so during which England, having now united to herself, or conquered, all rivals within these islands, has exercised the power she had won. A complete history of the maritime power of England would be a vast subject, for it must include the whole story of the growth of her commerce, and her commercial or fiscal legislation. The object of this book is more modest. It is merely to describe in the main lines, and without professing to enter into detail, the growth and action of the Royal Navy--the armed force by which England has protected her commerce, has made her strength felt in the strife of nations, and has first secured, and then defended, her dominions beyond the sea.