his Institution--told Pitt of the belief held abroad that
'the fountains of British wealth are in India and China.' In the
great scheme of naval concentration which the Emperor devised,
seizure of British Colonies in the West Indies had a definite
place. We kept in that quarter, and varied as necessary, a force
capable of dealing with a naval raid as well as guarding the
neighbouring lines of communication. In 1803 we had four ships
of the line in the West Indian area. In 1804 we had six of the
same class; and in 1805, while the line-of-battle ships were
reduced to four, the number of frigates was increased from nine
to twenty-five. Whether our Government divined Napoleon's designs
on India or not, it took measures to protect our interests there.
In January 1804 we had on the Cape of Good Hope and the East Indies
stations, both together, six sail of the line, three smaller
two-deckers, six frigates, and six sloops, or twenty-one ships of
war in all. This would have been sufficient to repel a raiding
attack made in some strength. By the beginning of 1805 our East
Indies force had been increased; and in the year 1805 itself we
raised it to a strength of forty-one ships in all, of which nine
were of the line and seventeen were frigates. Had, therefore, any
of the hostile ships managed to get to the East Indies from the
Atlantic or the Mediterranean ports, in which they were being
watched by our navy, their chances of succeeding in their object
would have been small indeed.

When we enter the domain of tactics strictly so-called, that is
to say, when we discuss the proceedings of naval forces--whether
single ships, squadrons, or fleets--in hostile contact with one
another, we find the time of Trafalgar full of instructive episodes.
Even with the most recent experience of naval warfare vividly
present to our minds, we can still regard Nelson as the greatest
of tacticians. Naval tactics may be roughly divided into two great
classes or sections, viz. the tactics of groups of ships, that
is to say, fleet actions; and the tactics of what the historian
James calls 'single ship actions,' that is to say, fights between
two individual ships. In the former the achievements of Nelson
stand out with incomparable brilliancy. It would be impossible
to describe his method fully in such a paper as this. We may,
however, say that Nelson was an innovator, and that his tactical
principles and methods have been generally misunderstood down