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COPYRIGHT, 1917.
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FOREWORD
What follows is not written to praise ourmerchant sailors and fishermen. They are indeedworthy of all praise. But we looked for nothingelse than that they would in every circumstanceof trial and danger show themselves to be whatthey are, peerless. At what date or on what occasionin their history have they failed? From afierier ordeal a firmer courage and a harder resolutionhave emerged, as we believed it would. Ofthis the world is already very well aware. Theirfriends know it and their foes. What remains thenis not to praise them but to instruct ourselves.Our vision has been limited. We knew that in theNavy lay our strength, but in our thoughts we definedit as the Royal Navy. Till these troubledyears the Merchant Service had for many Englishmenonly a shadowy existence. For the firsttime it has come acutely home to us that "thesea is all one,—the navy is all one." That shipsare Britain's treasure, her shipping trade hermost vital industry, her sea-faring population herunique possession, the sea itself her partner inher national fortunes, and her merchant sailorsthe builders of her empire have been facts manifest[iv]enough to others, perceived perhaps by Britonsin moments of reflection, but how rarely reflectedin the full light of national consciousness.
The very fame of thee,
It rose not, it grows not,
It comes not, save by sea."
Let it not be said that we shall do justice to ourmerchant sailors and fishermen when the historyof their doings in these days comes to be written