Turning then again to the windward attack, we see at once its superficial resemblance to Nelson’s, but so entirely superficial is it that it is impossible to believe Collingwood ever penetrated the subtleties of his great chiefs design.  The dual organisation is there and the independent divisional control, but nothing else.  The advance squadron has gone, and with it all trace of a containing movement.  There is not even the feint—­the mystification of the van.  Concentration too has gone, and instead of the sound main attack on the rear, he is most concerned with attacking the van.  True, he may have meant what Nelson meant, but if he had really grasped his fine intention he surely must have let some hint of it escape him in his memorandum.  But for the windward attack at least there is no trace of these things, and Nelson’s masterly conception sinks in Collingwood’s hands into a mere device for expediting the old parallel attack in single line—­that is to say, the line is to be formed in bearing down instead of waiting to bear down till the line was complete.  We can only conclude, then, that both Collingwood and Gambier could see nothing in the ‘Nelson touch’ but the swift attack, the dual organisation, and independent divisional control.

There is a third document, however, which confirms us in the impression already formed that there were officers who saw more deeply.  It is a tactical memorandum issued by Admiral the Hon. Sir Alexander Forrester Inglis Cochrane, Bart., G.C.B., uncle of the more famous Earl of Dundonald.  It is printed by Sir Charles Ekin, in his Naval Battles, from a paper which he found at the end of a book in his possession containing ‘Additional Signals, Instructions, &c.,’ issued by Sir A.I.  Cochrane to the squadron under his command upon the Leeward Islands station.’  He commanded in chief on this station from 1805 to 1814, but appears never to have been directly under Nelson’s influence except for a few weeks, when Nelson came out in pursuit of Villeneuve and attached him to his squadron.  He was rather one of Rodney’s men, under whom he had served in his last campaigns, and this may explain the special note of his tactical system.  His partiality for Rodney’s manoeuvre is obvious, and the interesting feature of his plan of attack is the manner in which he grafts it on Nelson’s system of mutually supporting squadrons.  He does not even shrink from a very free use of doubling which his old chiefs system entailed, and he provides a special signal of his own for directing the execution of the discarded manoeuvre.  The ‘explanation’ of another of his new signals for running aboard an enemy ’so as to disable her from getting away’ is also worthy of remark, as a recognition of Nelson’s favourite practice disapproved by Collingwood.