This book discusses how Britain's success in the Seven Years War (1756-63) was made possible by the creation of a superb victualling system for the British navy. It shows how this system had been developed over the preceding centuries, how it balanced carefully the advantages of state control with the flexibility of commercial contracting, and how the system was designed to mesh with and support British strategic ambitions. It provides rich detail on how the system worked, how it was administered, how key products were priced, bought, stored and transported, and how it compared, very favourably, to equivalent systems in France and elsewhere.