I should hope that readers who have found this volume useful to them will not confine their studies to it. Abundant materials for a deeper and more comprehensive study of the subject will be found in the several works incidentally mentioned or quoted in my text, and in the writings of those other contemporary authors with whom Sir Charles Ottley has done me the high honour to associate myself. In these several works further guidance to a still more sustained study of the subject will be found, and in this regard I would specially mention the admirable _Short History of the Royal Navy_, by Mr David Hannay--two volumes which, in addition to their other and more conspicuous merits, contain a well-selected list of authorities to be consulted prefixed to each chapter. These references, which in truth cover the whole subject, will, I trust, better serve the purpose of the advanced or advancing student than any such Bibliography as I could compile on a scale commensurate with the form and purpose of the present Manual. Readers of my other writings on naval topics will, perhaps, observe that in one or two cases, where the same topics had to be discussed, I have not hesitated to reproduce, with or without modification, the language I had previously employed. This has been done deliberately. The topics so treated fell naturally and, indeed, necessarily within the scope of the present volume. To exclude them because I had discussed them elsewhere was impossible. Wherever I found I could improve the language previously employed in the direction of greater lucidity and precision I have done so to the best of my ability, so that the passages in question are close paraphrases rather than mere transcripts of those which occur elsewhere. But I have not attempted to disguise or weaken by paraphrase any passages which still seemed to me to convey my meaning better than any other words I could choose.