to this very day. If ever there was an admiral who was opposed
to an unthinking, headlong rush at an enemy, it was he. Yet this
is the character that he still bears in the conception of many.
He was, in truth, an industrious and patient student of tactics,
having studied them, in what in these days we should call a
scientific spirit, at an early period, when there was but little
reason to expect that he would ever be in a position to put to a
practical test the knowledge that he had acquired and the ideas
that he had formed. He saw that the old battle formation in single
line-ahead was insufficient if you wanted--as he himself always
did--to gain an overwhelming victory. He also saw that, though
an improvement on the old formation, Lord Howe's method of the
single line-abreast was still a good deal short of tactical
perfection. Therefore, he devised what he called, with pardonable
elation, the 'Nelson touch,' the attack in successive lines so
directed as to overwhelm one part of the enemy's fleet, whilst
the other part was prevented from coming to the assistance of the
first, and was in its turn overwhelmed or broken up. His object
was to bring a larger number of his own ships against a smaller
number of the enemy's. He would by this method destroy the part
attacked, suffering in the process so little damage himself that
with his whole force he would be able to deal effectively with the
hostile remnant if it ventured to try conclusions with him. It
is of the utmost importance that we should thoroughly understand
Nelson's fundamental tactical principle, viz. the bringing of
a larger number of ships to fight against a smaller number of
the enemy's. There is not, I believe, in the whole of the records
of Nelson's opinions and actions a single expression tending to
show that tactical efficiency was considered by him to be due
to superiority in size of individual ships of the same class
or--as far as _materiel_ was concerned--to anything but superior
numbers, of course at the critical point. He did not require,
and did not have, more ships in his own fleet than the whole of
those in the fleet of the enemy. What he wanted was to bring to
the point of impact, when the fight began, a larger number of
ships than were to be found in that part of the enemy's line.

I believe that I am right in saying that, from the date of Salamis
downwards, history records no decisive naval victory in which the
victorious fleet has not succeede