fleet in inactivity is too often permitting the enemy to
carry on operations which tend to exhaust the resources of its own country.

For a maritime Power, then, a naval defensive means nothing but keeping the
fleet actively in being-not merely in existence, but in active and vigorous
life. No phrase can better express the full significance of the idea than
"A fleet in being," if it be rightly understood. Unfortunately it has come
to be restricted, by a misunderstanding of the circumstances in which it
was first invented, to one special class of defence. We speak of it as
though it were essentially a method of defence against invasion, and so
miss its fuller meaning. If, however, it be extended to express defence
against any kind of maritime attack, whether against territory or sea
communications, its broad truth will become apparent, and it will give us
the true conception of the idea as held in the British service.

The occasion on which it was first used was one that well exhibits the
special possibilities of a naval defensive. It was in the year 1690, when,
in alliance with the Dutch, we were at war with France, and though really
superior, had been caught in a situation which placed us temporarily at a
great disadvantage in home waters. The French by a surprising rapidity of
mobilisation and concentration had stolen a march on us before either our
mobilisation or our concentration was complete. King William, with the best
of the army, was in Ireland dealing with a French invasion in support of
James, and a squadron of seven sail under Sir Cloudesley Shovel had been
detached into the Irish Sea to guard his communications. Another squadron,
consisting of sixteen of the line, British and Dutch, had been sent to
Gibraltar under Admiral Killigrew to take down the trade and to keep an eye
on Chateaurenault, who with a slightly inferior squadron was at Toulon. It
was assumed he would probably make a push for Brest, where the French main
fleet was mobilising under the Comte de Tourville, and Killigrew had orders
to follow him if he got through the Straits. Chateaurenault did get
through; Killigrew failed to bring him to action, and instead of following
him immediately, he went into Cadiz to complete his arrangements for
forwarding his outward-bound convoy and escorting the one he was to bring
home. What of course he should have done, according to the practice of more
experienced times, was to have left this work to a cruiser