Side by side with this new element in the organisation of a battle-fleet, which perhaps is best designated as a “Light Division,” we have another significant fact.  Not only was it not always composed entirely of ships-of-the-line, especially in the French service, but in 1805, the year of the full development, we have Sir Richard Strachan using the heavy frigates attached to his battle-squadron as a “Light Division,” and giving them a definite tactical function.  The collapse of the French Navy put a stop to further developments of either idea.  Whither they would have led we cannot tell.  But it is impossible to shut our eyes to the indication of a growing tendency towards the system that exists at present.  It is difficult at least to ignore the fact that both Nelson and Strachan in that culminating year found the actuality of war calling for something for which there was then no provision in the constitution of the fleet, but which it does contain to-day.  What Nelson felt for was a battleship of cruiser speed.  What Strachan desired was a cruiser fit to take a tactical part in a fleet action.  We have them both, but with what result?  Anson’s specialisation of types has almost disappeared, and our present fleet constitution is scarcely to be distinguished from that of the seventeenth century.  We retain the three-fold nomenclature, but the system itself has really gone.  Battleships grade into armoured cruisers, armoured cruisers into protected cruisers.  We can scarcely detect any real distinction except a twofold one between vessels whose primary armament is the gun and vessels whose primary armament is the torpedo.  But even here the existence of a type of cruiser designed to act with flotillas blurs the outline, while, as we have seen, the larger units of the flotilla are grading up to cruiser level.

We are thus face to face with a situation which has its closest counterpart in the structureless fleets of the seventeenth century.  That naval thought should have so nearly retraced its steps in the course of two centuries is curious enough, but it is still more striking when we consider how widely the underlying causes differ in each case.  The pressure which has forced the present situation is due most obviously to two causes.  One is the excessive development of the “intermediate” ship originally devised for purposes of commerce protection, and dictated by a menace which the experience of the American War had taught us to respect.  The other is the introduction of the torpedo, and the consequent vulnerability of battle-squadrons that are not securely screened.  Nothing of the kind had any influence on the fleet constitution of the seventeenth century.  But if we seek deeper, there is a less obvious consideration which for what it is worth is too striking to be ignored.