IX. is 'If from any cause
whatever a ship should find it impossible to keep her station in any
line or order of sailing, she is not to break the line or order by
persisting too long in endeavouring to preserve it; but she is to quit
the line and form in the rear, doing everything she can to keep up with
the fleet.'

[4] See at p. 235, as to the new sailing formation in three columns.

[5] It should be noted that this is an important advance on the
corresponding Article IX. of the previous instructions, and that it
contains a germ of the organisation of Nelson's Trafalgar memorandum.

[6] The continued insistence on fireship tactics in this and Articles
XX. and XXI. should again be noted, although from 1793 to 1802 the
number of fireships on the Navy List averaged under four out of a total
that increased from 304 to 517.

[7] It should be remembered that at this time there were no davits and
no boats hoisted up. They were all carried in-board.

[8] This is a considerable modification of the signification of the
signal; see _supra_, p. 263.

NELSON'S TACTICAL MEMORANDA

INTRODUCTORY

The first of these often quoted memoranda is the 'Plan of Attack,'
usually assigned to May 1805, when Nelson was in pursuit of
Villeneuve, and it is generally accompanied by two erroneous diagrams
based on the number of ships which he then had under his command. But,
as Professor Laughton has ingeniously conjectured, it must really
belong to a time two years earlier, when Nelson was off Toulon in
constant hope of the French coming out to engage him.[1] The
strength and organisation of Nelson's fleet at that time, as well as
the numbers of the French fleet, exactly correspond to the data of the
memorandum. To Professor Laughton's argument may be added another,
which goes far actually to fix the date. The principal signal which
Nelson's second method of attack required was 'to engage to leeward.'
Now this signal as it stood in the Signal Book of 1799 was to some
extent ambiguous. It was No. 37, and the signification was 'to engage
the enemy on their larboard side, or to leeward if by the wind,' while
No. 36 was 'to engage the enemy on their starboard side if going
before the wind, or to windward if by the wind.' Accordingly we find
Nelson issuing a general order, with the object apparently of removing
the ambiguity, and of rendering any confusion between starboard and
larboard and leeward and windward impossible. It is in Nelson