pecially adapted for fighting.
But here arises a correlative difficulty. In so far as we give our battle
units fighting power we deny them scouting power, and scouting is essential
to their effective operation. The battle-fleet must have eyes. Now, vessels
adapted for control of communications are also well adapted for "eyes." It
becomes the practice, therefore, to withdraw from control operations a
sufficient number of units to enable the battle-fleet to cover effectively
the operations of those that remain.

Such were the broad principles on which the inevitable dilemma always had
to be solved, and on which Anson's organisation was based. They flow
naturally from the communication theory of maritime war, and it was this
theory which then dominated naval thought, as is apparent from the
technical use of such phrases as "lines of passage and communication." The
war plans of the great strategists from Anson and Barham can always be
resolved into these simple elements, and where we find the Admiralty grip
of them loosened, we have the confusion and quite unnecessary failures of
the War of American Independence. In that mismanaged contest the cardinal
mistake was that we suffered the enemy's battle-fleets to get upon and
occupy the vital lines of "passage and communication" without first
bringing them to action, an error partly due to the unreadiness of a weak
administration, and partly to an insufficient allocation of cruisers to
secure contact at the right places.

So far, then, the principles on which our naval supremacy was built up are
clear. For the enemies with whom we had to deal Anson's system was
admirably conceived. Both Spain and France held the communication theory so
strongly, that they were content to count as success the power of
continually disturbing our control without any real attempt to secure it
for themselves. To defeat such a policy Anson's constitution and the
strategy it connoted were thoroughly well adapted and easy to work. But it
by no means follows that his doctrine is the last word. Even in his own
time complications had begun to develop which tended to confuse the
precision of his system. By the culminating year of Trafalgar there were
indications that it was getting worn out, while the new methods and
material used by the Americans in 1812 made a serious rent in it. The
disturbances then inaugurated have continued to develop, and it is
necessary to consider how seriously they have confused