In accordance with the same general object—­confusion—­he directs his assault upon the van, instead of, as at Trafalgar, upon the rear; according to his saying in the Baltic, recorded by Stewart,[125] “Close with a Frenchman, but out-manoeuvre a Russian,” for which purpose he would throw his own force, preferably, upon the van of the latter.  The reason is obvious, upon reflection; for in attacking and cutting off the head—­van and centre—­of a column of ships, the rear, coming up under full way, has immediate action forced upon it.  There is no time for deliberation.  The van is already engaged, and access to it more or less impeded, by the hostile dispositions.  The decision must be instant—­to the right hand, or to the left, to windward, or to leeward—­and there is at least an even chance that the wrong thing will be done, as well as a probability, falling little short of certainty, that all the ships of the rear will not do the same thing; that is, they will be thrown into confusion with all its dire train of evils, doubt, hesitancy, faltering, and inconsequent action.  It is hard work to knit again a shattered line under the unremittent assault of hardened veterans, such as Nelson’s Mediterranean ships.

The method employed in the second of these instructions, the celebrated Memorandum, differs essentially from that of the Plan of Attack, though both are simply developments of the one idea of concentration.  It is unfortunate for us that Nelson, like most men of action, reveals his reasoning processes, not in ordered discussion, but by stray gleams of expression, too often unrecorded, from which we can infer only the general tenor of his thought.  It is in the chance phrase, transmitted by Stewart, coupled with the change of object, so definitely announced in the second instance,—­the crushing, namely, of the enemy’s great fleet, and not the mere crippling of a detachment such as went to the West Indies,—­that the author thinks to find the clew to the difference of dispositions, in the first case, from those prescribed and followed for Trafalgar—­the “Nelson touch” that thrilled the captains.  There is again, indeed, in the latter, the distinct reliance upon confusion, for the line of the foe is to be broken in two places; but now the confusion introduced is in the part of the enemy that is assailed, not, as before, in that which is left out of action.  Confusion, in short, is now imposed by external force, rather than induced by internal perplexity,—­a condition surer, and therefore more liable to result in a crushing victory, for it depends upon the vigor of the offensive, and not on the weakness of the defensive, which may prove a deceitful reliance.  Moreover, effectual crushing requires time, even when, as in the final memorandum, a great concentration of superiority is intended on part of an enemy’s order.  Now, when the van and centre are attacked, the rear is pointed fair, and, if it does not lose its head,