Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original maps. See 48497-h.htm or 48497-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48497/48497-h/48497-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48497/48497-h.zip) THE SILENT WATCHERS * * * * * * _By the Same Author_ THE LOST NAVAL PAPERS _A series of exciting stories which reveal_ _the English Secret Service as it really_ _is—silent, unsleeping, and supremely_ _competent._ “William Dawson is a great creation, a sheer delight. If Mr. Bennet Copplestone’s intriguing book meets with half the success it deserves, the inimitable Sherlock Holmes will soon be out-rivalled in popularity by the inscrutable William Dawson.”—_Daily Telegraph._ _$1.50 Net_ JITNY AND THE BOYS “The book is full of the thoughts which make us proud to-day and help us to face to-morrow. Yes, ‘Jitny’ has my blessing.”—_Punch._ “Motoring people could do nothing better than sit down and have a spin, in imagination, by reading this book. A clinking motor-car story.” —_Daily Chronicle._ _$1.50 Net_ NEW YORK—E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY * * * * * * THE SILENT WATCHERS England’s Navy during the Great War: What It Is, and What We Owe to It by BENNET COPPLESTONE Author of “The Lost Naval Papers” “The Navy is a matter of machines only in so far as human beings can only achieve material ends by material means. I look upon the ships and the guns as secreted by the men just as a tortoise secretes its shell.”—PROLOGUE. [Illustration] New York E. P. Dutton & Company 681 Fifth Avenue Copyright, 1918 By E. P. Dutton & Company All Rights Reserved First Printing, Sept., 1918 Second Printing, Oct., 1918 Printed in the United States of America NOTE