[Footnote 56:  See ante, Sea-Power, p. 50.]

In 1782 a greatly superior Franco-Spanish fleet was covering the siege of Gibraltar.  Had this fleet succeeded in preventing the revictualling of the fortress the garrison would have been starved into surrender.  A British fleet under Lord Howe, though much weaker in numbers, had not been defeated and was still at large.  Howe, in spite of the odds against him, managed to get his supply-ships in to the anchorage and to fight a partial action, in which he did the allies as much damage as he received.  There has never been a display of higher tactical skill than this operation of Howe’s, though, it may be said, he owes his fame much more to his less meritorious performance on the first of June.  The revictualling of Gibraltar surpassed even Suffren’s feat of the capture of Trincomalee in the same year.  In 1798 the French, assuming that a temporary superiority in the Mediterranean had given them a free hand on the water, sent a great expedition to Egypt.  Though the army which was carried succeeded in landing there, the covering fleet was destroyed by Nelson at the Nile, and the army itself was eventually forced to surrender.  The French had not perceived that, except for a short time and for minor operations, you cannot separate the command of the Mediterranean or of any particular area of water from that of the sea in general.  Local command of the sea may enable a belligerent to make a hasty raid, seize a relatively insignificant port, or cut out a vessel; but it will not ensure his being able to effect anything requiring considerable time for its execution, or, in other words, anything likely to have an important influence on the course of the war.  If Great Britain has not naval force enough to retain command of the Mediterranean, she will certainly not have force enough to retain command of the English Channel.  It can be easily shown why it should be so.  In war danger comes less from conditions of locality than from the enemy’s power to hurt.  Taking up a weak position when confronting an enemy may help him in the exercise of his power, but it does not constitute it.[57] A maritime enemy’s power to hurt resides in his fleet.  If that can be neutralised his power disappears.  It is in the highest degree improbable that this end can be attained by splitting up our own fleet into fragments so as to have a part of it in nearly every quarter in which the enemy may try to do us mischief.  The most promising plan—­as experience has often proved—­is to meet the enemy, when he shows himself, with a force sufficiently strong to defeat him.  The proper station of the British fleet in war should, accordingly, be the nearest possible point to the enemy’s force.  This was the fundamental principle of Nelson’s strategy, and it is as valid now as ever it was.  If we succeed in getting into close proximity to the hostile fleet with an adequate force of our own, our foe cannot obtain command of the sea, or of any part of it, whether that part be the Mediterranean or the English Channel, at any rate until he has defeated us.  If he is strong enough to defeat our fleet he obtains the command of the sea in general; and it is for him to decide whether he shall show the effectiveness of that command in the Mediterranean or in the Channel.