ons in Nelson's memoranda, a degradation due to time, to
superficial study, and the contemptuous confidence of years of
undisputed mastery at sea.

The conditions which brought about this attitude to tactics are
clearly seen in the way others saw us. Shortly after Trafalgar a
veteran French officer of the war of American Independence wrote some
_Reflections_ on the battle, which contain much to the point. 'It
is a noteworthy thing,' he says in dealing with the defects of the
single-line formation, 'that the English, who formerly used to employ
all the resources of tactics against our fleets, now hardly use them
at all, since our scientific tacticians have disappeared. It may
almost be said that they no longer have any regular order of sailing
or battle: they attack our ships of the line just as they used to
attack a convoy.'[6] But here the old tactician was not holding up
English methods as an example. He was citing them to show to what
easy victories a navy exposed itself in which, by neglect of
scientific study and alert observation, tactics had sunk into a mere
senile formula. 'They know,' he continues, 'that we are in no state to
oppose them with well-combined movements so as to profit by the kind
of disorder which is the natural result of this kind of attack. They
know if they throw their attack on one part of a much extended line,
that part is soon destroyed.' Thus he arrives at two fundamental laws:
'1. That our system of a long line of battle is worthless in face of
an enemy who attacks with his ships formed in groups (_reunis en
pelotons_), and told off to engage a small number of ships at
different points in our line. 2. That the only tactical system to
oppose to theirs is to have at least a double line, with reserve
squadrons on the wings stationed in such a manner as to bear down most
easily upon the points too vigorously attacked.' The whole of his
far-sighted paper is in fact an admirable study of the conditions
under which impetuous attacks and elaborate combinations are
respectively called for. But from both points of view the single line
for a large fleet is emphatically condemned, while in our instructions
of 1816 not a hint of its weakness appears. They resume practically
the same standpoint which the Duke of York had reached a century and a
half before.

Spanish tacticians seem also to have shared the opinion that Trafalgar
had really done nothing to dethrone the line. One of the highest
reputati