in company with a consort of the same type
it can hold the terminal and focal points of any such line against
almost any number of hostile cruisers inferior in defensive and
offensive powers to itself. Such are its powers and capacities when
acting as a cruiser proper. But it may be thought that in the stress of
conflict it will have very little opportunity of displaying these very
exceptional powers because an admiral in command of a fighting fleet
will never, when anticipating an engagement with the enemy, consent to
weaken his fighting line by detaching so powerful a unit for scouting or
other cruising purposes. That is as it may be. It will depend on many
circumstances of the moment not to be clearly anticipated or defined
beforehand; on the strength of the enemy's force, on the personality,
sagacity, and fortitude of the admiral--whether he is or is not a man of
the mettle and temper ascribed to Nelson by Admiral Mahan in a passage
already quoted--on the comparative need as determined by the
circumstances of the moment of scouting for information, of cruising
for the defence of trade, or of strengthening the battle line for a
decisive conflict to the uttermost extent of the nation's resources. It
is unbecoming to assume that in the crisis of his country's fate an
admiral will act either as a fool or as a poltroon. It is the country's
fault if a man capable of so acting is placed in supreme command, and
for that there is no remedy. But it is sounder to assume that the
admiral selected for command is a man not incapable of disposing his
force to the best advantage. "We must," said Lord Goschen, on one
occasion, "put our trust in Providence and a good admiral." If a nation
cannot find a good admiral in its need it is idle to trust in
Providence.

It remains to consider the function of the battle-cruiser in the line of
battle. The lines of battle in former times were often composed of ships
of varying size and power. There was a legitimate prejudice against
ships of excessive size, although their superior power in action was
recognized--we have the unimpeachable testimony on that point of
Nelson's Hardy, a man of unrivalled fighting experience to whom Nelson
himself attributed "an intuitive right judgment"--because they were
unhandy in manoeuvre and slow in sailing as compared with ships of more
moderate dimensions. But except for difficulties of docking--a very
serious consideration from the financial point of view--h