The influence of the Royal Navy on the development of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest was both extensive and effective. Yet all too frequently, its impact has been ignored by historians, who instead focus on the influence of explorers, fur traders, settlers, and railway builders. In this thoroughly revised and expanded edition of his classic 1972 work, naval historian Barry Gough examines the contest for the Columbia country during the War of 1812, the 1844 British response to the aggressive American agenda of President Polk's Manifest Destiny and cries of Fifty-four forty or fight, the gold-rush invasion of 30,000 outsiders, and the jurisdictional dispute in the San Juan Islands that spawned the so-called Pig War. The author also looks at the Esquimalt-based fleet in the decade before British Columbia joined Canada and the Navy's relationship with coastal indigenous peoples over the five decades that preceded the Great War.

What did it take—logistically and operationally—for the small and underfunded US Navy to face the battle-hardened Royal Navy in the War of 1812? Find out in this book, the magnum opus of one of the deans of American naval history. When the War of 1812 broke out, the newly formed and cash-strapped United States faced Great Britain, the world's foremost sea power, with a navy that had largely fallen into disrepair and neglect. In this riveting book, William S. Dudley presents the most complete history of the inner workings of the US Navy Department during the conflict, which lasted until 1815. What did it take, he asks, for the US Navy to build, fit-out, man, provision, and send fighting ships to sea for extended periods of time during the War of 1812? When the British blockade of 1813–14 severely constrained American sea trade, reducing the government's income and closing down access to American seaports, the navy was forced to innovate: to make improvements through reforms, to redeploy personnel, and to strengthen its industrial capacity. Highlighting matters of supply, construction, recruitment, discipline, medical care, shipbuilding, and innovation, Dudley helps readers understand the navy's successes and failures in the war and beyond. He also presents the logistics of the war in relation to fleet actions on the lakes and selected ship actions on the oceans, stresses the importance of administration in warfighting, and shows how reforms and innovations in those areas led to a stronger, more efficient navy. Refuting the idea that the United States "won" the war, Dudley argues that the conflict was at best a stalemate. Drawing on twenty-five years of archival research around the world, Inside the US Navy of 1812–1815 will leave readers with a better appreciation of how the navy contributed strategic value to the nation's survival in the conflict and assisted in bringing the war to an honorable end. This book will appeal to scholars and students of naval and military history, veterans, current officers, and maritime-oriented history buffs.

Provides a comprehensive overview of the activities of the British navy in the Indian and Pacific Oceans from the earliest times to the present. This book outlines the early voyages of the English East India Company, its building of its own naval forces and its conflicts with Indian states. It examines the opening up of the Pacific Ocean, the wars with the French in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and the activities of the British navy in the later nineteenth century, both off the coasts of China and Japan, and also in the many other places to which the navy's very great power extended. It goes on to consider the wars of the twentieth century, Britain's withdrawal from east of Suez, and Britain's continuing relative decline. Throughout, the book provides accounts of battles and other actions, and relates the activities of the British navy to the wider political situation and to the activities of other European and Asian navies.

Celebrated historian Barry Gough brings a defining era of Pacific Northwest history into focus in this biography of Richard Blanshard, the first governor of Vancouver Island—illuminating with intriguing detail the genesis and early days of Canada's westernmost province. Early one wintry day in March 1850, after seven weary weeks out of sight of land, a well-dressed Londoner, a bachelor aged thirty-two, stood at the ship’s rail taking in the immensity of the unfolding scene. From Her Britannic Majesty’s paddlewheel sloop-of-war Driver, steadily thumping forth on Imperial purpose, all that Richard Blanshard could make out to port, in reflected purple light upon the northern side, was a forested, rock-clad island rising to considerable height. Vancouver’s Island they called it in those far-off days. This was his destination. Richard Blanshard was only governor of the young colony for three short, unhappy years—only one and a half of which were spent in the colony itself. From the very beginning he was at odds with the vastly influential Hudson’s Bay Company, run by its Chief Factor James Douglas, who succeeded Blanshard as governor of the colony of Vancouver Island and later became the first governor of the colony of British Columbia. While James Douglas is remembered, for better or worse, as a founding father of British Columbia, Richard Blanshard’s name is now largely forgotten, despite his vitally important role in warning London of American cross-border aggressions, including a planned takeover of Haida Gwaii. However, his failures highlight the fascinating struggles of the time—the supreme influence of commerce, the disparity between expectations and reality, and the bewildering collision of European and Pacific Northwest culture.

This is a case study of possibly the most complex defensive system in Australia between 1803 and 1945. Defending Victoria was such a wide ranging and demanding task that the colony, and later the state, of Victoria was known as the Gibraltar of the South. This book fills a major gap in Australian military and naval history. Using Victoria as a case study, the book shows how defence developed from the idea of a basic sand fort emanating from a fear of French invasion during the early 19th century, into a complex, modern three-dimensional defensive system incorporating air, land and sea defences as well as radar and secret defence technology by the 1940s. The book is not a simple narration of facts and events, but a substantial addition to Australian military history, on account of its extensive analysis of the political, social, economic and technological factors which impacted defence over many decades of the 19th century.

In the spring of 1870 an Anglo-Canadian military force embarked on a 1,200 mile journey, half of which would be through the wilderness, bound for the Red River Settlement, the site of present day Winnipeg. At the time the settlement was part of the vast Hudson's Bay Company controlled territories which Canada was in the process of purchasing. Today Canada is the second largest country in the world, but at the time it was a recent creation made up of three British North American colonies. The British government of the day, focussed on financial retrenchment and anchored on anti-imperialist values, would have happily severed its ties with its North American colonies. The dynamic American republic, resurgent after the cataclysm of the Civil War, aspired to take control of all of the British North American territories, including Canada and the Hudson's Bay Company lands. Canadian Prime Minister John A. Macdonald knew that for his new country to survive and prosper it would have to expand across the continent and incorporate the Hudson's Bay Company's lands, and ultimately the colony of British Columbia on the Pacific Ocean as well. The HBC was in decline and wanted to give up the responsibility for its vast territories. Macdonald would have preferred Britain to take on this responsibility until Canada was ready, but Westminster was unwilling. Ready or not, Canada would have to act or risk the United States getting in ahead of them. In all of this, the interests of the indigenous people received scant consideration, and this included the residents of the Red River Settlement. The population here, about 14,000 strong, was mostly comprised of the descendants of the Kildonan Scots, farmers who had arrived under the auspices Lord Selkirk earlier in the century, the mixed race descendants of English speaking HBC workers and First Nations women, and the mixed race descendants of French speaking North West Company workers and First Nations women. The latter group, known as the Métis, had long before the time of Canada's pending takeover developed a distinct cultural identity, referring to themselves as "A New Nation". In 1869 the Métis were nervous of the pending Canadian takeover. They feared their property rights, the most tenuous in the community, would not be respected. They also worried that their culture would be overwhelmed by an influx of English speaking settlers. Their concerns were reinforced when Canadian surveyors and road builders arrived in the community. The Canadians behaved exactly as the Métis had feared prompting the beginning of an opposition with demands for guarantees. The man who rose to lead the Métis opposition was Louis Riel, and while his demands were just, during the winter of 1869/70, supported by the organized military power of the buffalo hunt, he rode roughshod over the views of the other communities in residence at Red River. These included not only the Kildonan Scots and English-speaking mixed race people, but also Métis opponents and the much smaller and troublesome Canadian Party. Prime Minister Macdonald had been lax in acting to accommodate the interests of the Red River residents, but there was in fact little interest in Canada for the events unfolding there. Matters were transformed when Riel approved the execution of a member of the Canadian Party in March of 1870. Much of English speaking Canada found its voice and demanded a vigorous response. Macdonald, under considerable pressure, wanted a military expedition dispatched and he was adamant that the British should lead it. Even after a deal was completed, resulting in the creation of the new province of Manitoba, he remained firm in his belief that a force should be sent to assume control. Despite having already announced the withdrawal of its Canadian garrison, the British government reluctantly agreed to commit imperial troops to the venture. The completion of the deal between Canada and the Red River settlement was in fact a precondition of British involvement in the affair. It was also critical that the British troops get to the settlement and back again before the winter set in. Colonel Garnet Wolseley was chosen to lead the expedition, and as such, though in many respects an obscure and minor operation, it is an important subject of study given that it was his first independent command and he would rise to become Commander in Chief of the British Army. It demonstrated an attention to detail that would be fundamental to his rise up through the army hierarchy and utilized a transportation technique that he would attempt to replicate in his more famous Gordon Relief Expedition of 1884/1885. It also introduced a number of the personalities who would later become firmly entrenched as members of the Wolseley Ring. There was no good route from Canada to the Red River Settlement. The expedition, comprised of British regulars and Canadian militia, travelled first by steamer to Thunder Bay on Lake Superior and then by an incomplete road to Shebandowan Lake. The state of the road would become one of the major talking points of the whole affair. From Shebandowan Lake they went by row boat utilizing the old North West Company's canoe highway, carrying all the supplies they would need for the journey. They suffered the challenges of having to cross 47 portages, run multiple river rapids, and weather significant storms on some of the larger lakes of the interior. It rained, frequently torrentially, for roughly half of the days between their arrival at Thunder Bay and their reaching of Fort Garry at the Red River Settlement. On the days it didn't rain, they were feasted upon by the billions of insects resident in the woods of the Canadian Shield. Many historians have written on the events of the troubles at Red River in 1869/70, but the expedition itself is usually treated as a footnote and given a few lines or at most a paragraph. The author has found only one relatively recent account (published in the 1980s) that dealt with the expedition in detail and he has frequently, though respectfully, disagreed with many of the assertions and conclusions found therein. Consequently, it has been found necessary to go to the expeditionary force documents and first hand accounts of the men who took part, to properly understand exactly what the Red River Expedition was about and what the men who made up the force actually went through. By doing this author believes he has come up with a lively and original recounting of this little known story in British Imperial and Canadian history.

An annual biographical dictionary, with which is incorporated "Men and women of the time."