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 to this very day.  If ever there was an admiral who was opposed to an unthinking, headlong rush at an enemy, it was he.  Yet this is the character that he still bears in the conception of many.  He was, in truth, an industrious and patient student of tactics, having studied them, in what in these days we should call a scientific spirit, at an early period, when there was but little reason to expect that he would ever be in a position to put to a practical test the knowledge that he had acquired and the ideas that he had formed.  He saw that the old battle formation in single line-ahead was insufficient if you wanted—­as he himself always did—­to gain an overwhelming victory.  He also saw that, though an improvement on the old formation, Lord Howe’s method of the single line-abreast was still a good deal short of tactical perfection.  Therefore, he devised what he called, with pardonable elation, the ‘Nelson touch,’ the attack in successive lines so directed as to overwhelm one part of the enemy’s fleet, whilst the other part was prevented from coming to the assistance of the first, and was in its turn overwhelmed or broken up.  His object was to bring a larger number of his own ships against a smaller number of the enemy’s.  He would by this method destroy the part attacked, suffering in the process so little damage himself that with his whole force he would be able to deal effectively with the hostile remnant if it ventured to try conclusions with him.  It is of the utmost importance that we should thoroughly understand Nelson’s fundamental tactical principle, viz. the bringing of a larger number of ships to fight against a smaller number of the enemy’s.  There is not, I believe, in the whole of the records of Nelson’s opinions and actions a single expression tending to show that tactical efficiency was considered by him to be due to superiority in size of individual ships of the same class or—­as far as materiel was concerned—­to anything but superior numbers, of course at the critical point.  He did not require, and did not have, more ships in his own fleet than the whole of those in the fleet of the enemy.  What he wanted was to bring to the point of impact, when the fight began, a larger number of ships than were to be found in that part of the enemy’s line.