seen, the duty of the captain to
his own ship and to the fleet at large will be complicated by his duty
to observe certain relations to particular ships; which particular
ships must in time come to have undue prominence in his views. The
group formation had its day of trial in old times, and disappeared
before the test of experience; whether in its restored form it will
survive, time will show. It may be said, before quitting the subject,
that as an order of sailing, corresponding to the route-step of an
army in march, a loose group formation has some advantages;
maintaining some order without requiring that rigid exactness of
position, to observe which by day and night must be a severe strain on
captain and deck-officers. Such a route-order should not, however, be
permitted until a fleet has reached high tactical precision.

To return to the question of fire-ships and torpedo-boats, the role of
the latter, it is often said, is to be found in that _melee_ which is
always to succeed a couple of headlong passes between the opposing
fleets. In the smoke and confusion of that hour is the opportunity of
the torpedo-boat. This certainly sounds plausible, and the torpedo
vessel certainly has a power of movement not possessed by the
fire-ship. A _melee_ of the two fleets, however, was not the condition
most favorable for the fire-ship. I shall quote here from another
French officer, whose discussion of these Anglo-Dutch sea-fights, in a
late periodical, is singularly clear and suggestive. He says:

"Far from impeding the direct action of the fire-ship, which was
naught or nearly so during the confused battles of the war of
1652, the regularity and _ensemble_ newly attained in the
movements of squadrons seem rather to favor it. The fire-ships
played a very important part at the battles of Lowestoft, Pas de
Calais, and the North Foreland. Thanks to the good order
preserved by the ships-of-the-line, these incendiary ships can
indeed be better protected by the artillery; much more
efficiently directed than before toward a distinct and
determined end."[22]

In the midst of the confused _melees_ of 1652 the fire-ship "acted, so
to speak, alone, seeking by chance an enemy to grapple, running the
risk of a mistake, without protection against the guns of the enemy,
nearly sure to be sunk by him or else burned uselessly. All now, in
1665, has become different. Its prey is clearly pointed out; i