Two Navies Come Together!

In the three dimensional vastness of the Atlantic Ocean it seems incredible that the most sophisticated weaponry known to mankind on board the pride of the fleets of the Royal and French Navies could so come together at this particular moment of peril. In earlier more superstitious times such an event might be taken as a sign by our forebears, particularly by one such as a distant ancestor of mine who had the honour to rise to the rank of Admiral. He commanded the Leeward Island and later the North American Squadrons, on board the 84 gun HMS Salisbury, (captained by a less distant ancestor and husband of the Admiral's daughter) named after that splendid Cathedral City, now twinned with a French Cathedral City, namely, Saintes, (lying on the Charente River, upstream from Rochefort, home of the French Navy) in the ancient region of the Saintonge, from whence my ancestor's own family on his mother's side had come. Myself as a product of the modern age must doubt such portents, but coincidentally having watched the First Lord of the Admiralty on television both yesterday and the day before and having recently finished reading the brilliant book, "To Rule the Waves- How the British Navy shaped the Modern World" (here), it strikes me that the First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Jonathan Band, might himself see something odd about this event, coming as it does as the Royal Navy's creation, as described in Arthur Herman's carefully researched book, seems on the point of collapse.