proportion of force was much greater, even after
allowance made for the British three-deckers; and we know, from other
contemporary remarks of Nelson, that his object here was not so much a
crushing defeat of the enemy--"only numbers can annihilate"--as the
disorganization and neutralization of a particular detachment, as the
result of which the greater combination of the enemy would fall to
pieces. "After they have beaten our fleet soundly, they will do us no
more harm this summer."[124] Consequently, he relies much upon the
confusion introduced into the enemy's movements by an attack, which,
though of much inferior force, should be sudden in character,
developing only at the last moment, into which the enemy should be
precipitated unawares, while the British should encounter it, or
rather should enter it, with minds fully prepared,--not only for the
immediate manoeuvre, but for all probable consequences.

In accordance with the same general object--confusion--he directs his
assault upon the van, instead of, as at Trafalgar, upon the rear;
according to his saying in the Baltic, recorded by Stewart,[125]
"Close with a Frenchman, but out-manoeuvre a Russian," for which
purpose he would throw his own force, preferably, upon the van of the
latter. The reason is obvious, upon reflection; for in attacking and
cutting off the head--van and centre--of a column of ships, the rear,
coming up under full way, has _immediate_ action forced upon it. There
is no time for deliberation. The van is already engaged, and access to
it more or less impeded, by the hostile dispositions. The decision
must be instant--to the right hand, or to the left, to windward, or to
leeward--and there is at least an even chance that the wrong thing
will be done, as well as a probability, falling little short of
certainty, that all the ships of the rear will _not_ do the same
thing; that is, they will be thrown into confusion with all its dire
train of evils, doubt, hesitancy, faltering, and inconsequent action.
It is hard work to knit again a shattered line under the unremittent
assault of hardened veterans, such as Nelson's Mediterranean ships.

The method employed in the second of these instructions, the
celebrated Memorandum, differs essentially from that of the Plan of
Attack, though both are simply developments of the one idea of
concentration. It is unfortunate for us that Nelson, like most men of
action, reveals his reasoning processes, not in ord