1 82 ALL AFLOAT 



which will probably surprise most students of 

 Canadian history. At Halifax alone eighteen 

 Nova Scotian privateers took out letters of 

 marque against the French between*! 756 and 

 1760, twelve more against the French between 

 1800 and 1805, and no less than forty-four 

 against the Americans during the War of 1812. 



The century of peace which followed this 

 war gradually came to be taken so much as a 

 matter of course that Canadians forgot the 

 lessons of the past and ignored the portents of 

 the future. The very supremacy of a navy 

 which protected them for nothing made them 

 forget that without its guardian ships they 

 could not have reached their Canadian nation- 

 ality at all. Occasionally a threatened crisis 

 would bring home to them some more intimate 

 appreciation of British sea-power. But, for 

 the rest, they took the Navy like the rising and 

 the setting of the sun. 



The twentieth century opened on a rapidly 

 changing naval world. British supremacy was 

 no longer to go unchallenged, at least so far 

 as preparation went. The German Emperor 

 followed up his pronouncement, ' Our future is 

 on the sea/ by vigorous action. For the first 

 time in history a German navy became a 

 powerful force, fit to lead, rather than to 



