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Preface.

The following tale was written between the beginning of February and the 9th of June, 1865, and is now given from the original manuscript, without addition or alterations (save grammatical and trifling verbal). The writer makes this statement in order to account for those discrepancies which the reader will observe between the course of events as therein detailed and the actual. Also in order to claim any small merit there may be in any agreements of the same.

The results of the battle of Lissa have doubly confirmed him in the idea, to illustrate which was the sole purpose of the plot developed in the following pages. Some day two nations, both rich, may go to war with each other, and then execution mast, and will be forced to its limits. In such a case it will be unfortunate for that one of the two countries which at that time shall have suffered itself to be left much behind, for the first start may be everything.

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