Debt, Admiralty courts, and convoys sustain Royal Navy power

Britain's naval superiority rested on a fiscal and commercial system as well as its warship numbers. The government was willing to carry heavy debt and pour resources into operations after decades of war. Admiralty courts converted captured or detained shipping into economic returns, while protected convoys connected Britain to China, India, and South America. Those flows helped reward the same maritime power that protected them. Finance, law, and trade sustained a fleet whose scale dwarfed the early US Navy.