f contact. For by adopting the principle of open blockade we
shall have, in accordance with the theory of defence, the further
advantages of being able the better to conceal our dispositions, and
consequently to lay traps for our enemy, such as that which Nelson prepared
for Villeneuve in the Gulf of Lyons in 1805.

The objection to such a course which appears to have the most weight with
current opinion is the moral one, which is inseparable from all deliberate
choices of the defensive. If the watching fleet remains in a home fortified
base, it may be assumed that the usual moral degradation will set in. But
the method does not entail the inglorious security of such a base. A sound
position may well be found at a spot such as Admiral Togo occupied while
waiting for the Baltic fleet, and in that case there was no observable
degradation of any kind. Nor is there much evidence that this objection
weighed materially with the opponents of Howe's view. Their objection was
of a purely physical kind. Open blockade left the enemy too much freedom to
raid our trade routes. The watching system might be sufficient to keep an
unwilling battle-fleet in port or to bring a more adventurous one to
action, but it could not control raiding squadrons. This was certainly
Barham's objection. "If," he wrote to Pitt in 1794, "the French should have
any intention of sending their fleet to sea with this easterly wind, and
Lord Howe continues at Torbay, our Mediterranean and Jamaica convoys are in
a very critical situation. Both fleets must by this time be drawing near
the Channel, and cannot enter it while the easterly wind holds." This
danger must always be with us, especially in narrow waters such as the
North Sea. In more open theatres the difficulty is not so obtrusive, for
with sufficient sea room trade may take naturally or by direction a course
which our watching dispositions will cover. Thus with Nelson in the case of
Toulon, his normal positions on the Sardinian coast covered effectually the
flow of our trade to the Levant and the Two Sicilies, which was all there
was at the time.

The truth is, that in endeavouring to decide between open and close
blockade we find ourselves confronted with those special difficulties which
so sharply distinguish naval warfare from warfare on land. We cannot choose
on purely naval considerations. In naval warfare, however great may be our
desire to concentrate our effort on the enemy's main forces, the u