Here we have something roughly on all-fours with the methods of the First Dutch War. There are the three squadrons, the headlong 'charge' and the mêlée. The reserve squadron to windward goes even further back, to the treatise of De Chaves and the Instructions of Lord Lisle in 1545. It was no wonder it took away Keats's breath. The return to primitive methods was probably unconscious, but what was obviously uppermost in Nelson's mind was the breaking up of the established order in single line, leading by surprise and concealment to a decisive mêlée. He seems to insist not so much upon defeating the enemy by concentration as by throwing him into confusion, upsetting his mental equilibrium in accordance with the primitive idea. The notion of concentration is at any rate secondary, while the subtle scheme for 'containing' as perfected in the memorandum is not yet developed. As he explained his plan to Keats, he meant to attack at once with both his main divisions, using the reserve squadron as a general support. There is no clear statement that he meant it as a 'containing' force, though possibly it was in his mind.[14]
There is one more piece of evidence relating to this time when he was still in England. According to this story Lord Hill, about 1840, when still Commander-in-Chief, was paying a visit to Lord Sidmouth. His host, who, better known as Addington, had been prime minister till 1804, and was in Pitt's new cabinet till July 1805, showed him a table bearing a Nelson inscription. He told him that shortly before leaving England to join the fleet Nelson had drawn upon it after dinner a plan of his intended attack, and had explained it as follows: 'I shall attack in two lines, led by myself and Collingwood, and I am confident I shall capture their van and centre or their centre and rear.' 'Those,' concluded Sidmouth, 'were his very words,' and remarked how wonderfully they had been fulfilled.[15] Hill and Sidmouth at the time were both old men and the authority is not high, but so far as it goes it would tend to show that an attack in two lines instead of one was still Nelson's dominant idea. It cannot however safely be taken as evidence that he ever intended a concentration on the van, though in view of the memorandum of 1803 this is quite possible.
Finally, there is the statement of Clarke and McArthur that Nelson before leaving England deposited a copy of his plan with Lord Barham, the new first lord of the admiralty. This however is very doubtful. The Barham papers have recently been placed at the disposal of the Society, in the hands of Professor Laughton, and the only copy of the memorandum he has been able to find is an incomplete one containing several errors of transcription, and dated the Victory, October 11, 1805. In the absence of further evidence therefore no weight can be attached to the oft-repeated assertion that Nelson had actually drawn up his memorandum before he left England.
Coming now to the time when he had joined the fleet off Cadiz, the first light we have is the well-known letter of October 1 to Lady Hamilton. In this letter, after telling her that he had joined on September 28, but had not been able to communicate with the fleet till the 29th, he says, 'When I came to explain to them the Nelson touch it was like an electric shock. Some shed tears and all approved. It was new—it was singular—it was simple.' What he meant exactly by the 'Nelson touch' has never been clearly explained, but he could not possibly have meant either concentration or the attack on the enemy's rear, for neither of these ideas was either new or singular.
On October 3 he writes to her again: 'The reception I met with on joining the fleet caused the sweetest sensation of my life…. As soon as these emotions were past I laid before them the plan I had previously arranged for attacking the enemy, and it was not only my pleasure to find it generally approved, but clearly perceived and understood.'[16]
The next point to notice is the 'Order of Battle and Sailing' given by Nicolas. It is without date, but almost certainly must have been drawn up before Nelson joined. It does not contain the Belleisle, which Nelson knew on October 4 was to join him.[17] It also does include the name of Sir Robert Calder and his flagship, and on September 30 Nelson had decided to send both him and his ship home.[18]
The order is for a fleet of forty sail, but the names of only thirty-three are given, which were all Nelson really expected to get in time. The remarkable feature of this order is that it contains no trace of the triple organisation of the memorandum. The 'advanced squadron' is absent, and the order is based on two equal divisions only.
Then on October 9, after Calder had gone, there is this entry in Nelson's private diary: 'Sent Admiral Collingwood the Nelson touch.' It was enclosed in a letter in which Nelson says: 'I send you my Plan of Attack, as far as a man dare venture to guess at the very uncertain position the enemy may be found in. But, my dear friend, it is to place you perfectly at your ease respecting my intentions and to give full scope to your judgment for carrying them into effect.' The same day Collingwood replies, 'I have a just sense of your lordship's kindness to me, and the full confidence you have reposed in me inspires me with the most lively gratitude. I hope it will not be long before there is an opportunity of showing your lordship that it has not been misplaced.' On these two letters there can be little doubt that the 'Plan of Attack' which Nelson enclosed was that of the memorandum. The draft from which Nicolas printed appears to have been dated October 9, and originally had in one passage 'you' and 'your' for the 'second in command,' showing that Nelson in his mind was addressing his remarks to Collingwood, though subsequently he altered the sentence into the third person. Only one other copy was known to Nicolas, and that was issued in the altered form to Captain Hope, of the Defence, a ship which in the order of battle was in Collingwood s squadron, but Codrington tells us it was certainly issued to all the captains.[19]
So far, then, we have the case thus—that whatever Nelson may have really told Lord Sidmouth, and whatever may have been in his mind when he drew up the dual order of battle and sailing, he had by October 9 reverted to the triple idea which he had explained to Keats. Meanwhile, however, his conception had ripened. There are marked changes in organisation, method and intention. In organisation the reserve squadron is reduced from the original twelve or fourteen to eight, or one fifth of his hypothetical fleet instead of about one third—reduced, that is, to a strength at which it was much less capable of important independent action. In method we have, instead of an attack with the two main divisions, an attack with one only, with the other covering it. In intention we have as the primary function of the reserve squadron, its attachment to one or other of the other two main divisions as circumstances may dictate.
The natural inference from these important changes is that Nelson's conception was now an attack in two divisions of different strength, the stronger of which, as the memorandum subsequently explains, was to be used as a containing force to cover the attack of the other, and except that the balance of the two divisions was reversed, this is practically just what Clerk of Eldin had recommended and what actually happened in the battle. It is a clear advance upon the original idea as explained to Keats, in which the third squadron was to be used on the primitive and indefinite plan of De Chaves and Lord Lisle as a general reserve. It also explains Nelson's covering letter to Collingwood, in which he seems to convey to his colleague that the pith of his plan was an attack in two divisions, and, within the general lines of the design, complete freedom of action for the second in command. How largely this idea of independent control entered into the 'Nelson touch' we may judge from the fact that it is emphasised in no less than three distinct paragraphs of the memorandum.