at La Hougue; but his plans of battle exemplified the particularly British form of inefficient naval action.  There was no great difference in aggregate force between the French fleet and that of the combined Anglo-Dutch under his orders.  The former, drawing up in the accustomed line of battle, ship following ship in a single column, awaited attack.  Rooke, having the advantage of the wind, and therefore the power of engaging at will, formed his command in a similar and parallel line a few miles off, and thus all stood down together, the ships maintaining their line parallel to that of the enemy, and coming into action at practically the same moment, van to van, centre to centre, rear to rear.  This ignored wholly the essential maxim of all intelligent warfare, which is so to engage as markedly to outnumber the enemy at a point of main collision.  If he be broken there, before the remainder of his force come up, the chances all are that a decisive superiority will be established by this alone, not to mention the moral effect of partial defeat and disorder.  Instead of this, the impact at Malaga was so distributed as to produce a substantial equality from one end to the other of the opposing fronts.  The French, indeed, by strengthening their centre relatively to the van and rear, to some extent modified this condition in the particular instance; but the fact does not seem to have induced any alteration in Rooke’s dispositions.  Barring mere accident, nothing conclusive can issue from such arrangements.  The result accordingly was a drawn battle, although Rooke says that the fight, which was maintained on both sides “with great fury for three hours, ... was the sharpest day’s service that I ever saw;” and he had seen much,—­Beachy Head, La Hougue, Vigo Bay, not to mention his own great achievement in the capture of Gibraltar.

This method of attack remained the ideal—­if such a word is not a misnomer in such a case—­of the British Navy, not merely as a matter of irreflective professional acceptance, but laid down in the official “Fighting Instructions.”  It cannot be said that these err on the side of lucidity; but their meaning to contemporaries in this particular respect is ascertained, not only by fair inference from their contents, but by the practical commentary of numerous actions under commonplace commanders-in-chief.  It further received authoritative formulation in the specific finding of the Court-Martial upon Admiral Byng, which was signed by thirteen experienced officers.  “Admiral Byng should have caused his ships to tack together, and should immediately have borne down upon the enemy; his van steering for the enemy’s van, his rear for its rear, each ship making for the one opposite to her in the enemy’s line, under such sail as would have enabled the worst sailer to preserve her station in the line of battle.”  Each phrase of this opinion is a reflection of an article in the Instructions.  The line of battle was the naval fetich of the day; and, be it remarked,