Having been present at all of the races for the America's Cup, with the exception of the first ones at Cowes, and having witnessed nearly all of the important yachting contests in this country for the past twenty years, which my previous twenty-five years of "tall water sailing," as a sailor would say, enabled me to thoroughly enjoy and appreciate, I thought that perhaps I, to a greater degree than some others, was most competent to give, not only to the yachting public, but to the public generally, a detailed and correct history of the America's Cup, and of the contests for it up to the present time.