pened in the case of the Armada and the French attempt of 1744.

In the latter case the invading army, whose objective was unknown, was at
Dunkirk, and a French fleet was coming up the Channel to cover the passage.
Sir John Norris, in command of the home fleet, was in the Downs. Though his
name is now almost forgotten, he was one of the great founders of our naval
tradition, and a strategist of the first order. In informing the Government
of his plan of operations, he said he intended to proceed with his whole
squadron off Dunkirk to prevent the transports sailing. "But," he says, "if
they should unfortunately get out and pass us in the night and go
northward, I intend to detach a superior force to endeavour to overtake and
destroy them; and with the remainder of my squadron either to fight the
French fleet now in the Channel, or observe them and cover the country as
our circumstances will admit of; or I shall pursue the embarkation with all
my strength." In this case there had been no time to organise a special
squadron or flotilla, in the usual way, to bar the line of passage, and the
battle-fleet had to be used for the purpose. This being so, Norris was not
going to allow the presence of an enemy's battle-fleet to entice him away
from his grip on the invading army, and so resolutely did he hold to the
principle, that he meant if the transports put to sea to direct his
offensive against them, while he merely contained the enemy's battle-fleet
by defensive observation.

In the Egyptian case there was no distinction between the two objectives at
all. Napoleon's expedition sailed in one mass. Yet in the handling of his
fleet Nelson preserved the essential idea. He organised it into three
"sub-squadrons," one of six sail and two of four each. "Two of these
sub-squadrons," says Berry, his flag-captain, "were to attack the ships of
war, while the third was to pursue the transports and to sink and destroy
as many as it could"; that is, he intended, in order to make sure of
Napoleon's army, to use no more than ten, and possibly only eight, of his
own battleships against the eleven of the enemy.

Many other examples could be given of British insistence on making the
enemy's army the primary objective and not his fleet in cases of invasion.
No point in the old tradition was more firmly established. Its value was of
course more strongly marked where the army and the fleet of the enemy
endeavoured to act on separate lines of oper