e in, they were also the van, and a concentration on the van is
theoretically unsound, owing to the fact that the centre and rear came
up naturally to its relief. To this objection he appears to attach no
weight, partly because no doubt he was still influenced by the old
intention of throwing the enemy into confusion.[3] For since the
line ahead had taken the place of the old close formations it seemed
that to disable the leading ships came to the same thing as disabling
the weathermost. The solution eventually arrived at was of course a
concentration on the rear, but to this at the time there were
insuperable objections. The rear was normally the most leewardly end
of the line, and an oblique attack on it could be parried by wearing
together. The rear then became the van, and the attack if persisted in
would fall on the leading squadron with the rest of the fleet to
windward--the worst of all forms of attack. The only possible way
therefore of concentrating on the rear was to isolate it and contain
the van by cutting the line. But in the eyes of our author and his
school cutting the line stood condemned by the experience of war.[4]

In his 'Observations' he clearly indicates the reasons. He would
indeed forbid the manoeuvre altogether except when your own line
outstretches that of the enemy, or when you are forced to pass through
the enemy's fleet to save yourself from being pressed on a lee
shore. The reasons given are the disorder it generally causes, the
ease with which it is parried, and the danger of your own ships firing
on each other when as the natural consequence of the manoeuvre they
proceed to double on the enemy. The fact is that fleet evolutions were
still in too immature a condition for so difficult a manoeuvre to be
admissible. Presumably therefore our author chose the attack on the
weathermost ships, although they were also the van, as the lesser evil
in spite of its serious drawbacks.

The whole question of the principles involved in his suggestion is
worthy of the closest consideration. For the difficulty it reveals of
effecting a sound form of concentration without breaking the line as
well as of adopting any form that involved breaking the line gives us
the key of that alleged reaction of tactics in the eighteenth century
which has been so widely ridiculed.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The original draft corrected by Lord Addington, principal
secretary of state, is in _S.P. Domestic_, Car. II, 158.

[2] S