Captain Duro, of the Spanish
Navy, in his 'Armada Invencible,' placed within our reach
contemporary evidence from the side of the assailants, thereby
assisting us to form a judgment on a momentous episode in naval
history. The evidence was completed; some being adduced from
the other side, by our fellow-countryman Sir J. K. Laughton, in
his 'Defeat of the Spanish Armada,' published by the Navy Records
Society. Others have worked on similar lines; and a healthier view
of our strategic conditions and needs is more widely held than
it was; though it cannot be said to be, even yet, universally
prevalent. Superstition, even the grossest, dies hard.
Something deeper than mere literary interest, therefore, is to
be attributed to a work which has recently appeared in Paris.[63]
To speak strictly, it should be said that only the first volume of
three which will complete it has been published. It is, however,
in the nature of a work of the kind that its separate parts should
be virtually independent of each other. Consequently the volume
which we now have may be treated properly as a book by itself.
When completed the work is to contain all the documents relating
to the French preparations during the period 1793-1805, for taking
the offensive against England (_tous_les_documents_se_rapportant_
_a_la_preparation_de_l'offensive_contre_l'Angleterre_).
The search for, the critical examination and the methodical
classification of, the papers were begun in October 1898.
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