I believe that I am right in saying that, from the date of Salamis downwards, history records no decisive naval victory in which the victorious fleet has not succeeded in concentrating against a relatively weak point in its enemy’s formation a greater number of its own ships.  I know of nothing to show that this has not been the rule throughout the ages of which detailed history furnishes us with any memorial—­no matter what the class of ship, what the type of weapon, what the mode of propulsion.  The rule certainly prevailed in the battle of the 10th August 1904 off Port Arthur, though it was not so overwhelmingly decisive as some others.  We may not even yet know enough of the sea fight in the Straits of Tsushima to be able to describe it in detail; but we do know that at least some of the Russian ships were defeated or destroyed by a combination of Japanese ships against them.

Looking back at the tactics of the Trafalgar epoch, we may see that the history of them confirms the experience of earlier wars, viz. that victory does not necessarily fall to the side which has the biggest ships.  It is a well-known fact of naval history that generally the French ships were larger and the Spanish much larger than the British ships of corresponding classes.  This superiority in size certainly did not carry with it victory in action.  On the other hand, British ships were generally bigger than the Dutch ships with which they fought; and it is of great significance that at Camperdown the victory was due, not to superiority in the size of individual ships, but, as shown by the different lists of killed and wounded, to the act of bringing a larger number against a smaller.  All that we have been able to learn of the occurrences in the battle of the japan Sea supports instead of being opposed to this conclusion; and it may be said that there is nothing tending to upset it in the previous history of the present war in the Far East.

I do not know how far I am justified in expatiating on this point; but, as it may help to bring the strategy and tactics of the Trafalgar epoch into practical relation with the stately science of which in our day this Institution is, as it were, the mother-shrine and metropolitical temple, I may be allowed to dwell upon it a little longer.  The object aimed at by those who favour great size of individual ships is not, of course, magnitude alone.  It is to turn out a ship which shall be more powerful than an individual antagonist.  All recent development of man-of-war construction has taken the form of producing, or at any rate trying to produce, a more powerful ship than those of earlier date, or belonging to a rival navy.  I know the issues that such statements are likely to raise; and I ask you, as naval architects, to bear with me patiently when I say what I am going to say.  It is this:  If you devise for the ship so produced the tactical system for which she is specially adapted you must, in order to be logical,