This Elibron Classics title is a reprint of the original edition published by John Murray in London, 1839.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1839.

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Excerpt from The Life of George Lord Anson: Admiral of the Fleet, Vice-Admiral of Great Britain, and First Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty, Previous to and During, the Seven-Years' War In this kind of feeling Howe and St. Vincent parti cipated. The former never talked of the glorious lst of June, nor did the latter of the 14th of Feb ruary it is said indeed he always discouraged that topic being brought into conversation. I think it was Lord St. Vincent who once made the observation, that it was that man only who had performed one little exploit who was for ever talking about it. But if the Life of Anson affords not scope for recording many brilliant deeds of his own, he had the great merit of preparing fleets, selecting, appoint ing and making officers to command them, by which and by whom the British navy was never more tri umphant, nor that of France more humbled and reduced, than in the seven-years' far, when Anson may be said to have had the whole direction of the naval department. No one ever formed a juster esti mate of naval characters and it is worthy of remark that the officers who served under him, in his cele brated voyage, were those who highly distinguished themselves in the said war Saunders, Keppel, Brett, Denis. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Despite a supreme belief in itself, the Royal Navy of the early eighteenth century was becoming over-confident and outdated, and it had more than its share of disasters and miscarriages including the devastating sickness in Admiral Hosier’s fleet in 1727; failure at Cartagena, and an embarrassing action off Toulon in 1744\. Anson’s great circumnavigation, though presented as a triumph, was achieved at huge cost in ships and lives. And in 1756 Admiral Byng was shot after failure off Minorca. In this new book, the bestselling author Brian Lavery shows how, through reforms and the determined focus of a number of personalities, that navy was transformed in the middle years of the eighteenth century. The tide had already begun to turn with victories off Cape Finisterre in 1747, and in 1759 the navy played a vital part in the ‘year of victories’ with triumphs at Lagos and Quiberon Bay; and it conducted amphibious operations as far afield as Cuba and the Philippines, and took Quebec. The author explains how it was fundamentally transformed from the amateurish, corrupt and complacent force of the previous decades. He describes how it acquired uniforms and a definite rank structure for officers; and developed new ship types such as the 74 and the frigate. It instigated a more efficient (if equally brutal) method of recruiting seamen, and boosted morale and motivation and a far more aggressive style of fighting. The coppering of ships’ hulls and the solving of the problems associated with longitude and scurvy, were also hugely significant steps. Much of this transformation was due to the forceful if enigmatic personality of George, Lord Anson. In a largely static society, he changed the navy so that it was fit for purpose, and in readiness for Nelson just decades later. Using a mass of archival evidence and a mix of official reports and personal reminiscences, this book offers a fascinating and engrossing analysis of all these far-reaching reforms, which in turn led to the radical transformation of Britain’s navy into a truly global force. The consequential effect on the world’s history would be huge.

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