Comment by thaumasiotes

> Of course these are ultimately related facts - the same package of technology that allowed the British to produce people like John Harrison who were capable of innovating a marine chronometer also allowed them to produce ocean-going ships that could conquer a global maritime colonial empire (and that had a use for marine chronometers).

The causality you gloss over seems to be more important than the causality you'd like us to focus on. The ships came first.

Empire -> need for chronometers -> chronometers.