For readers new to the Research in Maritime History reprint series, I should point out that the book has been completely re-typeset to conform to our standard format. While the content is the same, in the interests of scholarly precision it should be noted that we have introduced a few editorial changes. We have standardized the text to accord with the house style of Research in Maritime History. As well, the text has been edited slightly to remove insofar as possible any typographical errors in the original. But the three most obvious differences in the body of the book are in the footnotes and the index. In addition to redoing the notes to fit our house style, we have added information on reprints and new editions which have appeared over the past half century to assist interested readers in finding cited works. While we have followed the original schema for the index, we have redone it completely so that the page references accord with this edition. To avoid confusion, readers who cite page references in this edition should use the designation “New edition” to distinguish it from the original publication. Finally, for reasons having more to do with production than anything else, this edition does not contain the illustrations in the original volume.

I would like to conclude by thanking David Williams for his assistance with this project. David has been a friend for thirty-five years, but he has been a scholar I have admired for even longer. He and I share the same sense of excitement at having this groundbreaking monograph back in print.