s.'

It is this last addition to the Duke of York's sixteenth article that
contains the pith of the author's ideas. All his examples are chosen
to show that the system of bearing down together from windward in a
line parallel to that of the enemy is radically defective, even if all
the advantages of position and superior force are with you, and for
this reason--that if you succeed in defeating part of the enemy's line
you cannot follow up your success with the victorious part of your own
without sacrificing your advantage of position, and giving the enemy a
chance of turning the tables on you. Thus, if your rear defeats the
enemy's rear and follows it up, your own line will be broken, and as
your rear in pressing its beaten opponents falls to leeward of the
enemy's centre and van it will expose itself to a fatal
concentration. His own view of the proper form of attack from windward
is to bear down upon the van or weathermost ships of the enemy in line
ahead on a course oblique to the enemy's line. In this way, he points
out, you can concentrate on the ships attacked, and as they are beaten
you can deal with the next in order. For so long as you keep your own
line intact and in good order, regardless of your rear being at first
too distant to engage, you will always have fresh ships coming into
action at the vital point, and will thus be able gradually to roll up
the enemy's line without ever disturbing your own order. Fortifying
himself with the reflection that 'there can be no greater
justification than matter of fact,' he proceeds to instance various
battles in the late wars to show that this oblique form of attack
always led to a real victory, whereas whenever the parallel form was
adopted, though in some cases we had everything in our favour and had
fairly beaten the Dutch, yet no decisive result was obtained.

From several points of view these observations are of high
interest. Not only do they contain the earliest known attempt to get
away from the unsatisfactory method of engaging in parallel lines ship
to ship, but in seeking a substitute for it they seem to foreshadow
the transition from the Elizabethan idea of throwing the enemy into
confusion to the eighteenth century idea of concentration on his most
vulnerable part. In so far as the author recommends a concentration on
the weathermost ships his idea is sound, as they were the most
difficult for the enemy to support; but since the close-hauled line
had com