Transcriber’s Note
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RECORDS
RECORDS
BY
ADMIRAL OF THE FLEET
LORD FISHER
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
MCMXIX
v
Preamble
The main purpose ofthis second book isobvious from its title.It’s mostly a collectionof “Records” confirmingwhat has already been written,and relates almost exclusivelyto years after 1902. As LordRosebery has said so well,“The war period in a man’slife has its definite limits”;and that period is whatinterests the general reader,and for that reason all attemptat a biography has beendiscarded.
In our present distress wevicertainly want badly justnow Nelson’s “Light fromHeaven”! Nelson had whatthe Mystics describe as his“seasons of darkness anddesertion.” His enfeebled bodyand his mind depressed usedat times to cast a shade onhis soul, such as we now feelas a Nation, but (if I rememberright) it is Southeywho says that the Sunshinewhich succeeded led Nelsonto believe that it bore with ita prophetic glory, and thatthe light that led him on was“Light from Heaven.” Wedon’t see that “Light” as yet.But England never succumbs.
vii
PREFACE
Napoleon at St. Helena told us what all Englishmenhave ever instinctively felt—that we should remain apurely Maritime Power; instead, we became in thisWar a Conscript Nation, sending Armies of Millionsto the Continent. If we stuck to the Sea, saidNapoleon, we could dictate to the World; so we could.Napoleon again said to the Captain of the BritishBattleship “Bellerophon”: “Had it not been foryou English, I should have been Emperor of theEast, but wherever there was water to float a ship,we were sure to find you in the way.” (Yes! wehad ships only drawing two feet of water with six-inchguns, that went up the Tigris and won Bagdad.Others, similar, went so many thousand miles upthe Yangtsze River in China that they sighted the Mountainsof Thibet. Another British Ship of War so manythousand miles up the Amazon River that she sightedthe Mountains of Peru, and there not being room toturn she came back stern first. In none of these casesh