tendency of the French to adopt this mode of warfare is usually set down to some constitutional ineptitude that is outside strategical theory, but this view is due rather to the irritation which the method caused us, than to sober reasoning.  For a comparatively weak belligerent sporadic action was better than nothing, and the only other alternative was for him to play into our hands by hazarding the decision which it was our paramount interest to obtain.  Sporadic action alone could never give our enemy command of the sea, but it could do us injury and embarrass our plans, and there was always hope it might so much loosen our concentration as to give him a fair chance of obtaining a series of successful minor decisions.

Take, now, the leading case of 1805.  In that campaign our distribution was very wide, and was based on several concentrations.  The first had its centre in the Downs, and extended not only athwart the invading army’s line of passage, but also over the whole North Sea, so as to prevent interference with our trade or our system of coast defence either from the Dutch in the Texel or from French squadrons arriving north-about.  The second, which was known as the Western Squadron, had its centre off Ushant, and was spread over the whole Bay of Biscay by means of advanced squadrons before Ferrol and Rochefort.  With a further squadron off the coast of Ireland, it was able also to reach far out into the Atlantic in order to receive our trade.  It kept guard, in fact, not only over the French naval ports, but over the approaches to the Channel, where were the home terminals of the great southern and western trade-routes.  A third concentration was in the Mediterranean, whose centre under Nelson was at Sardinia.  It had outlying sub-centres at Malta and Gibraltar, and covered the whole ground from Cape St. Vincent outside the Straits to Toulon, Trieste, and the Dardanelles.  When war broke out with Spain in 1804, it was considered advisable to divide this command, and Spanish waters outside the Straits were held by a fourth concentration, whose centre was off Cadiz, and whose northern limit was Cape Finisterre, where it joined the Ushant concentration.  For reasons which were personal rather than strategical this arrangement was not continued long, nor indeed after a few months was there the same need for it, for the Toulon squadron had changed its base to Cadiz.  By this comprehensive system the whole of the European seas were controlled both for military and trade purposes.  In the distant terminal areas, like the East and West Indies, there were nucleus concentrations with the necessary connective machinery permanently established, and to render them effective, provision was made by which the various European squadrons could throw off detachments to bring up their force to any strength which the movements of the enemy might render necessary.