ery man to take his bird." This is a
very inaccurate and even more unintelligent account of the tactics
pursued at Trafalgar; but it might very well stand for a picturesque
summary of the tactical confusion which prevailed at the period of the
Armada and for half a century afterwards.

Gradually, however, order was again evolved out of the prevailing chaos.
But it was not the old order. It was a new order based on the
predominance of the gun and its disposition on board the ship. To go
down in no order and for each man to take his bird would mean that each
ship, whether large or small, would be free as far as circumstances
permitted to select an adversary not disproportioned in strength to
herself, so that there was no very pressing need for the fleet to
consist of homogeneous units, nor for the elimination of comparatively
small craft from a general engagement. But in the course of the Dutch
Wars the practice was slowly evolved of fighting in a compact or
close-hauled line, the ships being ranged in a line ahead--that is, each
succeeding ship following in the wake of her next ahead--in order to
give free play to the guns disposed mainly on the broadside, and being,
for purposes of mutual support, disposed as closely to each other as was
compatible with individual freedom of evolution and manoeuvre. This
disposition necessarily involved the exclusion from the line of battle
of all vessels below a certain average or standard of fighting strength,
since it was no longer possible for "every man to take his bird" and a
weak ship might find herself in conflict with an adversary of
overpowering strength in the enemy's line. Hence the main fighting
forces of naval belligerents came in time to be composed entirely of
"ships fit to lie in a line," as Torrington phrased it, of "capital
ships," as they were frequently called in former days, of "line of
battle ships" or "ships of the line," as afterwards they were more
commonly called, or of "battleships" as is nowadays the accepted
appellation. Other elements of naval force not "fit to lie in a line"
were also required, as I am about to show, and took different forms at
different times, but the root of the whole evolution lies in the
elimination of the non-capital ship from the main fighting line. In a
very instructive chapter of his _Naval Warfare_, Admiral Colomb has
traced the whole course of this gradual "Differentiation of Naval
Force." But for my purpose it suffices to cite