This work helps to round out our knowledge of the revolutionary period by contributing a more adequate treatment of the maritime events of the war. The author, after a most careful collection of materials from practically all available sources, has organized them into two well-balanced volumes which adequately and without flourish chronicle the naval events of the period from 1776-1783. In addition to important aid rendered to the land forces in the movements of the later years of the war, the military strength of the patriotic cause was from the beginning materially increased by the valuable cargoes of munitions of war brought in as prizes by the daring captains of the revolutionary navy. The reader of this work, therefore, cannot fail to appreciate the significance of even the more obscure maritime episodes that the author has thought fit to include.The narrative is filled with generous quotations from contemporary documents, often from parallel accounts, in a way that should simplify the problems of the general reader in understanding the more critical points made by the author. These sources do not always, however, add to the attractiveness of the narrative. The appendix includes a bibliography of the subjects, reprints of a few documents, and lists of vessels and officers in the continental service.