U.S. Destroyer _Lawrence_ ” ” 304 Stern View of H.M.S. _Sylvia_ ” ” 306 H.M.S. Torpedo Boat Destroyer _Swift_ ” ” 308 H.M.S. _Wear_ ” ” 308 H.M.S. Torpedo Boat Destroyer _Tartar_ ” ” 310 H.M. Torpedo Boat Destroyer _Maori_ ” ” 310 U.S. Scout _Salem_ ” ” 312 U.S.S. _Maine_ ” ” 312 H.M.S. _Dreadnought_ ” ” 314 H.M.S. _Neptune_ ” ” 318 H.M. Super-Dreadnought _Colossus_ ” ” 318 The Brazilian Battleship _Minas Geraes_ ” ” 322 U.S.S. _North Dakota_ ” ” 324 INTRODUCTION When or where the first warship was built is unknown, so also is the campaign in which it was employed. A war with naval usages of any sort cannot have been fought until the aggressor had some means of transporting the spoil across the water. From the raft to the fire-hollowed canoe was but a step, and having accomplished so much, the ingenuity of the naval architects of the period found scope in making improvements, gropingly, slowly, but none the less surely. The development of ships used for warlike purposes, as well as of ships designed as implements for fighting, forms a most attractive branch of study in its relation to the evolution of empires, no less than that of civilisation. Nor is the interest any the less if the attention be confined simply to the consideration of the development of the ships as ships of war. In this book I am endeavouring to describe, clearly and briefly, the main features of the progress in warship building among the different peoples of the world, from the earliest recorded times onward. The greater attention is paid to modern warships, and the story of their development is narrated with an avoidance of abstruse technicalities, so that any reader of average intelligence and education may be able to obtain a clear understanding of the steps by which that wonderful creation, the modern navy, and especially the British Navy, has come into being.