an of defence for the City of London;
but I believe other parts may likewise be menaced, if the Brest
fleet, and those from Rochfort and Holland put to sea; although
I feel confident that the Fleets of the Enemy will meet the same
fate which has always attended them, yet their sailing will
facilitate the coming over of their Flotilla, as they will
naturally suppose our attention will be called only to the
Fleets."

Coming by water, the expectation seems to have been that the enemy
might proceed up the river, or to a landing on some of the flats at
the mouth of the Thames. Nelson says expressly that he does not think
those alone are the points to be guarded; but he characterizes his
paper as being "only meant as a sea plan of defence for the city of
London," and the suggestion already noticed, that the enemy's fleet
will support the attack by diversions, is merely mentioned casually.
London being the supposed object, and the Thames the highway, the
purely defensive force is to be concentrated there; the Channel
coasts, though not excluded, are secondary. "As many gun-vessels as
can be spared from the very necessary protection of the coast of
Sussex, and of Kent to the westward of Dover, should be collected
between the North Foreland and Orfordness, for this part of the coast
must be seriously attended to."

The attack is expected in this quarter, because from Flanders and
Flushing it is the most accessible. The object, Nelson thinks, will be
to get on shore as speedily as possible, and therefore somewhere
within one hundred miles of London. Anywhere from the westward of
Dover round to Solebay--"not an improbable place"--must be looked upon
as a possible landing. If there are forty thousand men coming, he
regards it as certain that they will come in two principal bodies, of
twenty thousand each--"they are too knowing to let us have but one
point of alarm for London." "From Boulogne, Calais, and even Havre,
the enemy will try and land in Sussex, or the lower part of Kent; and
from Dunkirk, Ostend, and the other ports of Flanders, to land on the
coast of Essex or Suffolk." "In very calm weather, they might row over
from Boulogne, supposing no impediment, in twelve hours; at the same
instant, by telegraph, the same number of troops would be rowed out of
Dunkirk, Ostend, &c. &c. Added to this, the enemy will create a
powerful diversion by the sailing of the combined fleet, and either
the sailing