commanded by their own Captains and Lieutenants, as far as is possible.  The number of Flat Boats is unknown to me, as also the other means of defence in Small Craft; but I am clearly of opinion that a proportion of the small force should be kept to watch the Flat-Boats from Boulogne, and the others in the way I have presumed to suggest.  These are offered as merely the rude ideas of the moment, and are only meant as a Sea plan of defence for the City of London; but I believe other parts may likewise be menaced, if the Brest fleet, and those from Rochfort and Holland put to sea; although I feel confident that the Fleets of the Enemy will meet the same fate which has always attended them, yet their sailing will facilitate the coming over of their Flotilla, as they will naturally suppose our attention will be called only to the Fleets.”

Coming by water, the expectation seems to have been that the enemy might proceed up the river, or to a landing on some of the flats at the mouth of the Thames.  Nelson says expressly that he does not think those alone are the points to be guarded; but he characterizes his paper as being “only meant as a sea plan of defence for the city of London,” and the suggestion already noticed, that the enemy’s fleet will support the attack by diversions, is merely mentioned casually.  London being the supposed object, and the Thames the highway, the purely defensive force is to be concentrated there; the Channel coasts, though not excluded, are secondary.  “As many gun-vessels as can be spared from the very necessary protection of the coast of Sussex, and of Kent to the westward of Dover, should be collected between the North Foreland and Orfordness, for this part of the coast must be seriously attended to.”

The attack is expected in this quarter, because from Flanders and Flushing it is the most accessible.  The object, Nelson thinks, will be to get on shore as speedily as possible, and therefore somewhere within one hundred miles of London.  Anywhere from the westward of Dover round to Solebay—­“not an improbable place”—­must be looked upon as a possible landing.  If there are forty thousand men coming, he regards it as certain that they will come in two principal bodies, of twenty thousand each—­“they are too knowing to let us have but one point of alarm for London.”  “From Boulogne, Calais, and even Havre, the enemy will try and land in Sussex, or the lower part of Kent; and from Dunkirk, Ostend, and the other ports of Flanders, to land on the coast of Essex or Suffolk.”  “In very calm weather, they might row over from Boulogne, supposing no impediment, in twelve hours; at the same instant, by telegraph, the same number of troops would be rowed out of Dunkirk, Ostend, &c. &c.  Added to this, the enemy will create a powerful diversion by the sailing of the combined fleet, and either the sailing, or creating such an appearance of sailing, of the Dutch fleet, as will prevent Admiral Dickson [commander-in-chief in the North Sea] from sending anything from off the great Dutch ports, whilst the smaller ports will spew forth its flotilla—­viz, Flushing &c. &c.”