A revised & updated study of Admiral Horatio Nelson's battles, as well as his ships, armaments, tactics, signals and instructions."From St. Vincent to Trafalgar, all Nelson's battles are here. It's a handsome, well-presented book, with many illustrations and maps to further explain the information within. Moreover, beyond Nelson's victories at the Nile and Trafalgar, it also gives a great deal of background detail about the British Navy of Nelson's day. For...

This authoritative history chronicles the Royal Navy's decisive yet little-known victory over the French during the Seven Years' War.In the mid-18th century, with virtually no regular troops at home, Britain was especially vulnerable to the immanent threat of French invasion. In a cunning naval offensive, the British fleet under Admiral Edward Hawke intercepted French ships on their way to rendezvous with invasion troopships gathered at the mouth of the Loire. Unfa...

Anthony Lockwoods story is at the heart of the Georgian Navy though the man himself has never taken centre stage in its history. His naval career described by himself as twenty five years incessant peregrination followed a somewhat erratic course but almost exactly spanned the period of the French wars and the War of 1812. Lockwood was commended for bravery in action against the French; was present at the Spithead Mutiny; shipwrecked and imprisoned in France; appointed master attendant of ...

How do we know if magick is real?Wherever you find people, there are stories about magick. Some are myth or folklore, others are tales meant to thrill and intrigue us, and others still are accounts of actual magick, real spirits, and the energetic properties of our natural world. The question is whether or not any of it is true. Mind Over Magick by Tracy Nicholas tackles this complicated—and often personal—inquiry by picking apart what we know, what we don...

In the first major study of the Royal Canadian Navy's contribution to foreign policy, Nicholas Tracy takes a comprehensive look at the paradox that Canada faces in participating in a system of collective defence as a means of avoiding subordination to other countries.Created in 1910 to support Canadian autonomy, the Royal Canadian Navy has played an important role in defining Canada's relationship with the United Kingdom, the United States, and NATO. Initially involved with partici...

In the first major study of the Royal Canadian Navy's contribution to foreign policy, Nicholas Tracy takes a comprehensive look at the paradox that Canada faces in participating in a system of collective defence as a means of avoiding subordination to other countries.Created in 1910 to support Canadian autonomy, the Royal Canadian Navy has played an important role in defining Canada's relationship with the United Kingdom, the United States, and NATO. Initially involved with partici...

In this fascinating account of Thomas Cochrane's extraordinary life, David Cordingly (Under the Black Flag and The Billy Ruffian) unearths startling new details about the real-life "Master and Commander"-from his heroic battles against the French navy to his role in the liberation of Chile, Peru, and Brazil, and the stock exchange scandal that forced him out of England and almost ended his naval career. Drawing on previously unpublished papers, his own travels, wide readi...

Most people know that Britain was invaded by the Romans, by the Vikings and by the Normans. Many will know about the Spanish Armada, launched by Philip II in 1588 to bring Protestant England to submission. But fewer people know that Philip launched a second armada in 1596 or that invasion plans were drawn up by the French in 1692, 1708, 1743, 1756, 1759, 1796 and 1801, and by the French together with the Spanish in 1779. In 1719, Spanish troops even landed in Scotland. Charles XII and Pete...

France, early summer 1794. The French Revolution has been hijacked by the extreme Jacobins and is in the grip of The Terror. While the guillotine relentlessly takes the heads of innocents, two vast French and British fleets meet in mid-Atlantic after a week of skirmishing.The French, in ships painted blood-red and bearing banners proclaiming 'la République ou la mort!' are escorting an American grain convoy to Brest to feed a starving population. Their ships are manned by a mutinou...

Who was responsible for the design of the Admiral Popov, the circular Russian battleship that wouldn't steer straight? Why did Lord Anson set out to circumnavigate the world with a crew of Chelsea pensioners? And how did the British cruiser HMS Trinidad manage to torpedo itself in the Arctic? The answers to these questions and details of numerous other entertaining and unbelievable historical events are revealed in this absorbing survey of naval incompetence from Roman times to the Falklands ...

Two hundred years ago, Napoleon Bonaparte dominated Europe and threatened Britain with invasion. Against him stood the Royal Navy and the already legendary Admiral Horatio Nelson. On 21 October 1805, a massive naval battle off the coast of Spain decided mastery of the seas. Then, over the following days and nights, the battleships and their exhausted crews endured a gale of awesome fury. As Captain Charles Tyler wrote to his wife Margaret, 'the wind blew a perfect storm'. The authors of th...

“[Perrett] argues that Gordon, who went from a humble boy seaman to an admiral during a remarkable career, was the real inspiration for Hornblower.” —The ScotsmanEver since C.S. Forester’s fictional hero Horatio Hornblower began to delight and enthrall readers, there has been speculation as to whether his adventures were based on the career of a real naval officer. Several names were suggested; the general conclusion was that Hornblower was a composite cha...