ABSTRACT
Contemporaries critical of the navy's failure to defend its own back-yard were apt to view the malaise in terms of gross negligence. the navy's inability to prevent the merchant marine's devastation by enemy units operating out of Dunkirk was a commonly voiced grievance in the lower House in 1628. This chapter discusses two, seemingly incompatible, images of naval strength. It attempts to square a die circle. The navy 's pursuit or die frigate through the sixteen-twenties and thirties was undertaken with a sluggishness typical of most of its ships, and with the same lack of substantial results. Parliamentary suspicions about the adequate size of the forces detailed to secure merchant shippping were, in August 1625 at least, matched by the fear, both inside and outside parliament, that commitment to large-scale offensive naval activity directly contradicted the needs of defence, and that offensive operations would always take precedence.
