Samuel Johnson said in 1759: "No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned." In fact, the great man had understated his case. He was talking of sailors in general, not of those serving in navies in time of war. The naval prayer, first recorded in the 17th century and still part of the church services of Britain's Royal Navy, asks for preservation not only "from the dangers of the sea" but also "from the violence of the enemy." It is this "violence" that is the overriding theme of this book. Naval warfare is almost as old as conflicts between armies on land, and as in land campaigns, it is the great battles that catch the imagination, the titanic clashes that can be said to have changed the course of history. Some, such as Cape Ecnomus between Rome and Carthage, or Leyte Gulf between the US and Japan in Word War II, involved vast fleets; others, such as the battles of Chesapeake Bay or the Nile, were fought by a relatively small number of ships. In spite of this, their strategic consequences were equally momentous.
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