and sometimes an independent organisation.  The area of the Western Squadron in the French wars extended, as we have seen, over the whole Bay of Biscay, with the double function, so far as commerce was concerned, of preventing the issue of raiding squadrons from the enemy’s ports, and acting offensively against his Atlantic trade.  That of the North Sea squadron extended to the mouth of the Baltic and the north-about passage.  Its main function during the great naval coalitions against us was to check the operations of Dutch squadrons or to prevent the intrusion of French ones north-about against our Baltic trade.  Like the Western Squadron, it threw out divisions usually located at Yarmouth and Leith for the protection of our coastwise trade from privateers and sporadic cruisers acting from ports within the defended area.  Similarly, between the Downs and the Western Squadron was usually one or more smaller squadrons, mainly cruisers, and generally located about Havre and the Channel Islands, which served the same purpose for the Norman and North Breton ports.  To complete the system there were flotilla patrols acting under the port admirals and doing their best to police the routes of the coastwise and local traffic, which then had an importance long since lost.  The home system of course differed at different times, but it was always on these general lines.  The naval defence was supplemented by defended ports of refuge, the principal ones being on the coast of Ireland to shelter the ocean trade, but others in great numbers were provided within the defended areas against the operations of privateers, and the ruins of batteries all round the British shores testify how complete was the organisation.

A similar system prevailed in the colonial areas, but there the naval defence consisted normally of cruiser squadrons stiffened with one or two ships-of-the-line mainly for the purpose of carrying the flag.  They were only occupied by battle-squadrons when the enemy threatened operations with a similar force.  The minor or interior defence against local privateers was to a large extent local; that is, the great part of the flotilla was furnished by sloops built or hired on the spot, as being best adapted for the service.

Focal points were not then so numerous as they have become since the development of the Far Eastern trade.  The most important of them, the Straits of Gibraltar, was treated as a defended area.  From the point of view of commerce-protection it was held by the Mediterranean squadron.  By keeping watch on Toulon that squadron covered not only the Straits, but also the focal points within the sea.  It too had its extended divisions, sometimes as many as four, one about the approaches to Leghorn, one in the Adriatic, a third at Malta, and the fourth at Gibraltar.  In cases of war with Spain the latter was very strong, so as to secure the focal area against Cartagena and Cadiz.  On one occasion indeed, in 1804-5, as we have seen, it was constituted for a short time an independent area with a special squadron.  But in any case the Gibraltar area had its own internal flotilla guard under the direction of the port admiral as a defence against local privateers and pirates.