necessary that she should possess and maintain, in the highest possible state of efficiency, the Navy by which she can take full advantage of her incomparable natural position, necessary, too, that that Navy should be scientifically distributed, i.e. in accord with the principles of strategy.
In the next chapter it will be shown that Great Britain does possess such a Navy, and that it is judiciously distributed. In order, however, that the lay reader may be able to follow the facts and figures that will be laid before him, and to understand the conclusions drawn from them, he should know in what the principles of strategy consist, and be acquainted with a concrete example of their application to naval warfare.
No better definition of strategy can be given than that contained in a single sentence of a letter written by Napoleon to his brother Joseph: "There is a great
