eat divisions of the fleet, each of
which, in plan at least, has its own part, subordinate but contributory
to the general whole.

The results, though not unimportant, were not satisfactory, for men
were compelled to see that from various causes the huge numbers brought
upon the field lapsed into confusion, and that battle, however well
planned in large outline, resolved itself into a mere mass of warring
units incoherently struggling one with another. There was lack of
proportion between effort exerted and effect achieved. A period of
systematization and organization set in. Unwieldy numbers were reduced
to more manageable dimensions by excluding ships whose size and strength
did not add to the efficiency of the order of battle; the powers and
limitations of those which remained were studied, and certain simple
tactical dispositions, fitted to particular emergencies, were recognized
and adopted,--all tending to impart unity of movement and action, and to
keep the whole in regulated order under the hand of the
commander-in-chief, free from confusion.

To this point there was improvement; but reaction, as often, went too
far. The change in accepted ideas is emphatically shown by a comparison
of the Fighting Instructions of 1740 and 1756, when the crystallization
of the system was complete but disintegration had not yet begun, with
those issued in 1665 by the Duke of York, afterwards James II., at the
beginning of the second of the three Anglo-Dutch Wars. His in turn are
directly deducible from others framed shortly after the first war, in
1652-1654, when sail tactics had not passed the stage of infancy, and
were still strongly affected by the galley tradition. There is here
found, on the one hand, the prescription of the line of battle,--a
single column of ships formed in each other's wake,--with the provision
that if the enemy is to leeward, and awaits attack, the headmost
squadron of the British shall steer for the headmost of the enemy's
ships. This accords with the general tenor of the later Instructions;
but there occurs elsewhere, and previously, the direction that, when the
enemy is to windward, if the leading British Squadron finds it can
weather any considerable part of them, it is to "tack and stand in, and
strive to divide the enemy's body," and that, "being got to windward, is
to bear down on those ships to leeward of them," which have thus been
cut off.

The thing to be observed here is the separate, but