7 Editors’ Foreword disputes over territorial waters, shipping lanes, and fishing rights, the intent of ocean-based missile launches, responsibilities toward refugees afloat, and global concerns about climate change – one has only to read the daily headlines to know that the navies of the world are often at the centre of international conflict, trade, and diplomacy. The same was true of the Georgian era. Naval history is often about the interactions of navies as they extend the reach of their governments beyond their countries’ shores. These are the types of stories we wanted to capture in this 2023 issue of the Trafalgar Chronicle. That’s why we chose as our theme ‘The Navies of the Georgian Era – An International Perspective’. With this theme, our readers can see how international naval history provides the back-story for the many international tensions, rivalries and alliances of today’s geopolitical landscape. The 2023 edition offers fourteen well-written articles by authors from six countries on the leading navies of the Age of Sail. This edition presents articles on the navies of England, US, India, France, Sweden, denmark, Russia and the Ottoman Empire. This issue begins with an article by frequent contributor dr Anthony Bruce, writing about the Royal Navy’s Western Squadron’s two victories over the French at Cape Finisterre in 1747. Vice Admiral George Anson led the first battle and Rear Admiral Edward Hawke led the second. Andrew will take you right into the heart of each tense engagement! Nicholas James Kaizer, Canadian scholar and expert on single-ship actions of the War of 1812, examines the factors leading to Royal Navy defeats in the largely forgotten sloop actions of the War of 1812, and highlights their importance to the study of the Royal Navy in that war. We like to think that the Trafalgar Chronicle can welcome not only articles from established naval historians, but can also serve as an incubator for those who are just entering the field. Such is the case with college student Saikat Mondal of Calcutta who provides an erudite history of the Bombay Marine, and its support to the Royal Navy in India from 1607 to 1830, when the Marine became the Indian Navy. This scholar has certainly introduced a new topic to this journal! Next, we have Kenneth Flemming’s history of the eighteenth-century Russian Navy beginning under Peter the Great and revitalised by Catherine the
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