from the
moment of its starting, across the Atlantic and back to the shores of
Europe. It was long before they came to blows, before strategy stepped
aside and tactics completed the work at Trafalgar; but step by step
and point by point the rugged but disciplined seamen, the rusty and
battered but well-handled ships, blocked each move of their
unpractised opponents. Disposed in force before each arsenal of the
enemy, and linked together by chains of smaller vessels, they might
fail now and again to check a raid, but they effectually stopped all
grand combinations of the enemy's squadrons.

The ships of 1805 were essentially the same as those of 1780. There
had doubtless been progress and improvement; but the changes were in
degree, not in kind. Not only so, but the fleets of twenty years
earlier, under Hawke and his fellows, had dared the winters of the Bay
of Biscay. "There is not in Hawke's correspondence," says his
biographer, "the slightest indication that he himself doubted for a
moment that it was not only possible, but his duty, to keep the sea,
even through the storms of winter, and that he should soon be able to
'make downright work of it.'"[239] If it be urged that the condition
of the French navy was better, the character and training of its
officers higher, than in the days of Hawke and Nelson, the fact must
be admitted; nevertheless, the admiralty could not long have been
ignorant that the number of such officers was still so deficient as
seriously to affect the quality of the deck service, and the lack of
seamen so great as to necessitate filling up the complements with
soldiers. As for the _personnel_ of the Spanish navy, there is no
reason to believe it better than fifteen years later, when Nelson,
speaking of Spain giving certain ships to France, said, "I take it for
granted not manned [by Spaniards], as that would be the readiest way
to lose them again."

In truth, however, it is too evident to need much arguing, that the
surest way for the weaker party to neutralize the enemy's ships was to
watch them in their harbors and fight them if they started. The only
serious objection to doing this, in Europe, was the violence of the
weather off the coasts of France and Spain, especially during the long
nights of winter. This brought with it not only risk of immediate
disaster, which strong, well-managed ships would rarely undergo, but a
continual strain which no skill could prevent, and which therefore
ca