Letters and Papers of Professor Sir John Knox Laughton, 1830-1915 by Andrew Lambert

Author:Andrew Lambert [Lambert, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781351560283
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2019-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

173. Laughton to Browning

18 January 1898

I am obliged by your note, and will enter Ryan's name.

Those errata are an infernal bother. It was a most unlucky chance that led to it. Meantime I am anxious to know what he says in the EHR.

I had a note from Bridge a day or to ago. He hopes to be in England early in March.

174. Mahan to Laughton

11 February 1898

I have undertaken to write a magazine sketch of the career of Paul Jones.1 In connection therewith I have seen that you say in the Dictionary of National Biography that, notwithstanding nominally equal force, the Drake2 was really no match for the Ranger.3 Does this depend simply upon the want of preparation and of officers, a perfectly valid argument, or was there disparity of armament, in the calibre of the battery? Can you tell me what the Drake's battery was? I would be greatly obliged if among your memoranda you have easily accessible any data - precise - as to the size of Serapis's4 crew, number of killed and wounded, etc. I would not have you make any research, for the matter is not of sufficient importance, not to speak of your time; and moreover I myself cannot wait. I am expecting now to sail with my family on March 26, for Italy via Gibraltar, and I want to get this article into shape before we leave, so a prompt answer would help me. From Italy we expect to work slowly north, so as to reach England about the 1st of July, and to give the remainder of our time to your island, until our return at the end of September. My hands now are pretty full, closing up matters, and I have to read the proof of my contribution to Clowes's Naval. History. My 18125 will have to wait till I come back though I have started it; so also my intended compendium of Sea Power.6

1John Paul Jones (1747-92), considered the father of the US Navy. JKL had been highly critical of him in Studies.

2HMS Drake a sloop of 275 tons, ex mercantile vessel, 14 or 16 four pounders; taken 24 April 1778 by Jones in the USS Ranger.

3USS Ranger, ship sloop of 308 tons, 8 six pounders.

4HMS Serapis, frigate of 879 tons built 1778-79; taken by Jones in the Bon Homme Richard off Flamborough Head on 23 September 1779.

5Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 finally appeared in 1905.

6This is a reference to a projected work which was not written, rather than the revised lecture series Naval Strategy of 1911, to which Mahan refers slightingly in documents [251] and [254].

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