This method of securing a decision was not lost sight of; Anson tried to use it in the Seven Years’ War.  For two years every attempt to seek out the enemy’s fleet had led to nothing but the exhaustion of our own.  But when Pitt began his raids on the French coast, Anson, who had little faith in their value for military purposes, thought he saw in them definite naval possibilities.  Accordingly when, in 1758, he was placed in command of the Channel Fleet to cover the expedition against St. Malo, he raised the blockade of Brest, and took up a position near the Isle of Batz between the enemy’s main fleet and the army’s line of passage.  The Brest fleet, however, was in no condition to move, and again there was no result.  It was not till 1805 that there was any clear case of the device succeeding, and then it was not used deliberately.  It was a joint Anglo-Russian expedition in the Mediterranean that forced from Napoleon his reckless order for Villeneuve to put to sea from Cadiz, and so solved the problem out of which Nelson had seen no issue.  Lissa may be taken as an analogous case.  But there the Italians, treating the territorial attack as a real attack instead of as a strategical device, suffered themselves to be surprised by the Austrian fleet and defeated.

This instance serves well to introduce the important fact, that although our own military expeditions have seldom succeeded in leading to a naval decision, the converse was almost always true.  The attempt of the enemy to use his army against our territory has been the most fertile source of our great naval victories.  The knowledge that our enemy intends to invade these shores, or to make some serious expedition against our oversea dominions or interests, should always be welcomed.  Unless History belie herself, we know that such attempts are the surest means of securing what we want.  We have the memories of La Hogue, Quiberon, and the Nile to assure us that sooner or later they must lead to a naval decision, and the chance of a real decision is all we can ask of the Fortune of War.

Enough has now been said to show that “seeking out the enemy’s fleet” is not in itself sufficient to secure such a decision.  What the maxim really means is that we should endeavour from the first to secure contact in the best position for bringing about a complete decision in our favour, and as soon as the other parts of our war plan, military or political, will permit.  If the main offensive is military, as it was in the Japanese and American cases, then if possible the effort to secure such control must be subordinated to the movement of the army, otherwise we give the defensive precedence of the offensive.  If, however, the military offensive cannot be ensured until the naval defensive is perfected, as will be the case if the enemy brings a fleet up to our army’s line of passage, then our first move must be to secure naval contact.