Excerpt from Fighting Instruction, 1530-1816: Edited With Elucidations From Contemporary AuthoritiesAS to the general results, perhaps the most strik ing feature which the collection brings out is that sailing tactics was a purely English art. The idea that we borrowed originally from the -dutch is no longer tenable. The Dutch themselves do not even claim the invention of the line. Indeed in no foreign authority, either Dutch, French or Spanish, have I been able to discover a claim to the inven tion Of any device in sailing tactics that had per manent value. Even the famous tactical school which was established in France at the close Of the Seven Years' War, and by which the French ser vice so brilliantly profited in the War of American Independence, was worked on the Old lines of Hoste's treatise. Morogues' T actz'gue Nam/e was its text-book, and his own teaching was but a scientific and intelligent elaboration of a system from which the British service under the impulse Of Anson, Hawke, and Boscawen was already shaking itself free.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis 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.