d seamen acting with the army is necessary to give it the
amphibious tactical mobility which it would otherwise lack. Such cases
occurred at Quebec in 1759, where Saunders took his covering
battle-squadron right up the St. Lawrence, although its covering functions
could have been discharged even better by a position several hundreds of
miles away from the objective; and again in 1800 at Alexandria, where Lord
Keith ran the extremest hazard to his covering functions in order to
undertake the supply of General Abercromby's army by inland waters and give
him the mobility he required.

If, on the other hand, the transport squadron is able to furnish all the
support necessary, the covering squadron will take station as close as
possible to the enemy's naval base, and there it will operate according to
the ordinary laws of blockade. If nothing is desired but to prevent
interference, its guard will take the form of a close blockade. But if
there be a subsidiary purpose of using the expedition as a means of forcing
the enemy to sea, the open form will be employed; as, for instance, in
Anson's case above cited, when he covered the St. Malo expedition not by
closely blockading Brest, but by taking a position to the eastward at the
Isle de Batz.

In the Japanese operations against Manchuria and the Kuantung Peninsula
these old principles displayed themselves in undiminished vitality. In the
surprise descents against Seoul and at Takusan the work of support was left
entirely with the transport squadron, while Admiral Togo took up a covering
position far away at Port Arthur. The two elements of the fleet were kept
separate all through. But in the operations for the isolation and
subsequent siege of Port Arthur they were so closely united as to appear
frequently indistinguishable. Still, so far as the closeness of the landing
place to the objective permitted, the two acted independently. For the
actual landing of the Second Army the boats of the covering squadron were
used, but it remained a live naval unit all through, and was never
organically mingled with the transport squadron. Its operations throughout
were, so far as modern conditions permit, on the lines of a close blockade.
To prevent interference was its paramount function, undisturbed, so far as
we are able to judge, by any subsidiary purpose of bringing the enemy to
decisive action.

All through the operations, however, there was a new influence which tended
to confuse t