ience
that they could always count, was in drawing up their line parallel to
the enemy, or nearly so, and then keeping away all together to attack,
ship for ship, each its opposite in the hostile line. By standing down
in this manner the assailant lost the use of most of his artillery,
while exposed to the full fire of his opponent, and invariably came up
in confusion, because the order of attack was one difficult to
maintain at any time, and much more so in the smoke under fire, with
torn sails and falling masts. This was precisely the attack made by
Duquesne at Stromboli, and it there had precisely the consequences
Clerk points out,--confusion in the line, the van arriving first and
getting the brunt of the fire of the defence, disabled ships in the
van causing confusion in the rear, etc. Clerk further asserts, and he
seems to be right, that as the action grew warm, the French, by
running off to leeward, in their turn, led the English to repeat the
same mode of attack;[61] and so we find, at Stromboli, Ruyter giving
ground in the same way, though his motive does not appear. Clerk also
points out that a necessary corollary of the lee-gage, assumed for
tactical reasons, is to aim at the assailant's spars, his motive
power, so that his attack cannot be pushed farther than the defendant
chooses, and at Stromboli the crippled condition of the French is
evident; for after Ruyter had fallen to leeward, and could no longer
help his separated rear, it was practically unmolested by the French,
although none of these had been sunk. While therefore there cannot
with certainty be attributed to Ruyter the deliberate choice of the
lee-gage, for which there was as yet no precedent, it is evident that
he reaped all its benefits, and that the character of the French
officers of his day, inexperienced as seamen and of impetuous valor,
offered just the conditions that gave most advantage to an inferior
force standing on the defensive. The qualities and characteristics of
the enemy are among the principal factors which a man of genius
considers, and it was to this as much as to any other one trait that
Nelson owed his dazzling successes. On the other hand, the French
admiral attacked in a wholly unscientific manner, ship against ship,
without an attempt to concentrate on a part of the enemy, or even
trying to keep him in play until the French squadron of eight
ships-of-the-line in Messina, near by, could join. Such tactics cannot
be named