The activity of the Royal Navy in the Baltic Sea is at variance with the myth of the all-conquering sea violence that is too often propagated as the definitive history of the Navy, and indeed is generally supposed to be the purpose of its existence. Beginning with the appearance of the Commonwealth ships at Denmark in 1652, no British naval vessels indulged in violence in Baltic waters until 1801 (assuming that Danish waters count as Baltic). From then until 1920 any European war involving Britain brought ships of the Royal Navy to fight in the Baltic, but in no case (except perhaps that of Copenhagen in 1801) was there anything approaching a serious or major naval battle; at Copenhagen in 1807 the operation was a combined operation to land the army, with the Navy taking only a relatively minor role; in 1854–1855 Bomarsund was a similar operation, Sveaborg only a bombardment; in the Gulf of Finland in 1919 and 1920 the attack on Kronstadt had major results, but cannot be regarded as a major operation. And from 1920 to the present the Royal Navy has been effectively absent from the Baltic, except for ‘courtesy’ visits, though these are exercises in power, of course.

This circumstance only emphasizes that a navy is not necessarily always a fighting force; it is a projection of its country’s power, which is all the more effective if it is not used. Sir John Norris, Nelson at Reval, Sir James Saumarez, and even before them Edward Mountagu, clearly understood this, even though Saumarez hungered for the opportunity to defeat the Russian fleet; Sinclair and Cowan, like Gambier and Dundas, were more a hovering menace to the enemy than an actively hostile force. Fisher had the same attitude.

When fighting did occur the actual violence perpetrated by naval ships was usually less than decisive, and frequently it was either unsuccessful or counter-productive. In the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars there were mere episodes, as at Danzig in 1807 and 1812, or in the Sound or the Great Belt in the face of the Danish gunboats, none of which would have any serious effect on the outcome of the wars.