Cruisers, Corsairs and Slavers - Basil Lubbock (Hardback) 01-02-1993

I have compiled this chronology of Naval actions against the picaroon, pirate and slaver of the nineteenth century for three reasons. In the first place I wish to show the modern generation of sailors how their ancestors carried on their 'lawful occasions'. In these days of trust in the machine the human element is in some danger of losing its power of initiative, and that spirit of dash and enterprise, which should compose the ground tier of every naval officer. Admiral of the Fleet, Sir George Keyes tells us in his memoirs that there were two schools of thought in the Royal Navy during the Great War * the "material" school and what I will call the "do and dare" school. By the end of the war, officers who had followed out the tenets of the latter school were to be found at the head of things, in every fleet, on every station, through every clime they were the leaders of the King's Navee! But in peace time the lessons of war tend to be forgotten and specialists in the complicated machinery of the modern war engine gradually slip into all the best jobs, whilst the all round sailor, who may possess the gift of command and that priceless Nelson touch,the spice of nerve and daring, which must be met at the bottom of every successful action, is liable to miss his chance through lack of opportunity. At the same time, many a clever and promising officer is led away from the executive into the soul-deadening den of the scientific expert, where he loses his individual personality in familiarizing himself with the mathematical symbols of astronomy and physics, the combinations and coefficients of machinery, the abstractions and permutations of the master gunner, the chemical formulae of the gas man and the delicate explosive forces of the mine and torpedo man. Yet there is nothing in mechanics that the most moderate brain cannot grasp, and only practise is needed to make one perfect in the most complicated engine of destruction, whereas the command of men and of ships needs e