The workings of many parts of the British government 200 years ago are still unfamiliar to us today and this book has uncovered several mysteries. It is an original contribution to the study of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars in several ways. Firstly, it looks not only at the navy, but right across the rapidly changing Whitehall government machine, as well as the City and the merchant shipping community. Secondly, it examines the continual process by which the British government solved the problem of transporting provisions and stores to warships on foreign stations, and troops, stores and provisions across the sea to confront the seemingly overwhelming land power of France and its conquered states.

The government was a customer in the shipping market and the Transport Office, headed by its Board, did not requisition merchant vessels, as happened in twentieth-century conflicts. Scholars have hitherto treated the Transport Board as part of the navy, but in fact it was a central procurement organisation, set up by William Pitt's administration in 1794. In the previous war, that of the American Revolution, the Navy Board, the army and the Board of Ordnance hired their own merchant ships, and frequently found themselves in competition when hiring merchant ships as government transports, much to the financial advantage of ship owners. After 1794 the three services were provided with transports by the Transport Board. Under the chairmanship of Sir Rupert George, who had the tricky job of taking orders from the three services, the Treasury and other government ministers, the Transport Board and department performed well, and the award of a baronetcy to George in the middle of a war was a strong indication of the success of his department.

However, in spite of the very large number of merchant ships registered in Britain, it was not easy to find suitable merchant ships at the right time. Setting the Transport Board's chartering rates, per ton per month, required constant and delicate decision-making. It was given the task of assembling thousands of tons of shipping for very large amphibious expeditions, often at short notice, which lay beyond the resources available. Every one of these operations against the near continent failed, none more so than the Walcheren expedition of 1809, perhaps the nearest parallel to the D-Day operation of June 1944.