In the previous chapters we have looked at how the civil branch of the eighteenth-century Navy operated in terms of politics, administration and finance. This chapter and the ones that follow will run through a large part of the eighteenth century chronologically, beginning roughly in the period following the War of the Spanish Succession and ending as the War of American Independence came to its conclusion. A number of themes will be taken up in these chapters. The first of these concerns the efforts of various naval administrations to maintain an adequate and sustainable battlefleet. This was a task complicated by growing overseas commerce requiring naval protection, a corresponding build-up of numbers of naval vessels, but also an infrastructure of docks and yards that could not keep pace with this advance. Added to this there was an urgent need to make the royal dockyards more efficient and productive, a goal that proved largely elusive despite some moderate successes. Second, Britain’s growth as a naval power was complicated, rather than restrained, by a Parliament reluctant to vote large sums for the naval estimates. As already indicated, this apparent parsimony was a form of parliamentary control over the public purse rather than a reluctance to fund the Navy. Even so, finding enough money to maintain the fleet was a matter that taxed the ingenuity of successive naval administrators. Third, there was the matter of personalities. As indicated in a previous chapter, the influence of the First Lord of the Admiralty was circumscribed both politically and administratively. However, there were men who held this post in the eighteenth century, who were able either to use their political influence, their talent or a superior understanding of the Navy and its affairs to address many of these problems of finance, planning and management. Foremost amongst these individuals were Anson and Sandwich, but there were others, such as Wager, Egmont and Hawke, professionally adept but not noticed in this particular context by the generality of historians.

Most of these personalities will figure prominently in the following chapters but three further themes will also emerge in the course of this particular chapter. During almost all of the period under consideration, the Navy’s ships suffered from an environmental problem that impacted on both the health of crews and the condition of the ships. The scope and extent of this problem has not been fully appreciated.