profession he had embraced so
late, always had with him obscure counsellors, in order to appropriate
the opinions they gave him so as to blind the ship's company as to his
capacity."[65] D'Estrees had been made vice-admiral two years after he
first went aboard ship.

FOOTNOTES:

[45] Martin: History of France.

[46] Martin: History of France.

[47] Ledyard, vol ii. p. 599; Campbell: Lives of the Admirals. See
also letter of Sir Richard Haddock, Naval Chronicle, vol. xvii. p.
121.

[48] Hoste: Naval Tactics.

[49] See Map, p. 107.

[50] Martin: History of France.

[51] Brandt: Life of De Ruyter.

[52] Campbell: Lives of the Admirals.

[53] Troude: Batailles Navales de la France, year 1673.

[54] Ibid.

[55] Troude: Batailles Navales de la France, year 1673.

[56] Chabaud-Arnault: Revue Mar. et Col. July, 1885.

[57] Jurien de la Graviere: Guerres Maritimes.

[58] Memoires.

[59] See Map of Mediterranean, p. 15.

[60] Lapeyrouse-Bonfils: Hist. de la Marine Francaise.

[61] This movement, according to Clerk, was not made by the whole of a
French line together, but in a way much more scientific and military.
A group of two or three ships withdrew at a time, being covered by the
smoke and the continued fire of the rest of their line. In time a
second line was partly formed, which in its turn protected the ships
which had remained on the first, as they executed the somewhat exposed
movement of falling back. In Plan V., Dutch ships at b, b, b, are
represented as thus withdrawing. English official reports of the
eighteenth century often speak of French ships acting thus; the
English officers attributing to their superior valor a movement which
Clerk more plausibly considers a skilful military manoeuvre, well
calculated to give the defence several opportunities of disabling the
assailants as they bore down on a course which impeded the use of
their artillery. In 1812 the frigate "United States," commanded by
Decatur, employed the same tactics in her fight with the "Macedonian;"
and the Confederate gunboats at Mobile by the same means inflicted on
Farragut's flag-ship the greater part of the heavy loss which she
sustained. In its essential features the same line of action can now
be followed by a defendant, having greater speed, when the ardor of
the attack, or the necessities of the case, force the assailant to a
direct approach. An indirect cause of a lee line falling farther to
leeward has never been