“At the end of the Napoleonic wars Douglas had been appalled to witness the low standard of gunnery and gun drill aboard some British warships. Inspired by the brilliant training regime of Captain Philip B. V. Broke and the capture of the USS Chesapeake in 1813, he realized that naval officers required a basic knowledge of gunnery as part of their basic training, and that seaman gunners should be encouraged to remain in the service. In 1818 he presented his findings to the Admiralty, without success. He then began to correspond with Broke... Douglas's Treatise on Naval Gunnery, which went through five editions between 1820 and 1861... was more than a mere artillery training manual; it encompassed key elements of national strategy, notably the development of new weapons and tactics for the bombardment of foreign naval bases - initially Cherbourg in France. He considered that mortars, and later Armstrong breech-loading cannon, enabled naval forces to lay off at long range and destroy naval bases. In the Crimean War his ideas were applied at Sveaborg in August 1855 with devastating results.” (ODNB) Contemporary ownership inscription, ?Thomas Malory, to the title page, and a quantity of informed pencilled notes to the margins, relating to the training and status of gunners in the Royal Navy; “Gunners in the Navy of the US are better paid, have furnished cabins, decent servants, are held in respect, their names on the Navy Register, good retirements &c....”
8vo. Original dark blue embossed cloth, title gilt to spine. Frontispiece and 4 other plates, 2 of them folding. Light browning, endpapers a little discoloured, hinges professionally repaired and the spine relined, a very nice copy.
