Ushant instead of entering the Straits. "I dare believe," he wrote, "Lord Nelson will be found in condition with his twelve of the line and numerous frigates to act on the defensive without loss and even to hang on to the skirts of the enemy's fleet should it attempt any material service, especially when encumbered with troops."
In all this consideration of the potentialities of "a fleet in being" operating defensively it must never be forgotten that we are dealing with its possibilities in relation to a general command of the sea—to its general power of holding such command in dispute, as Torrington used it. Its power of preventing a particular operation, such as oversea invasion, is another matter, which will always depend upon the local conditions. If the "fleet in being" can be contained in such a way that it is impossible for it to reach the invading line of passage, it will be no bar to invasion. In 1690, so far as Torrington's fleet was concerned, the French, had they been so minded, might have made a descent, say, at Portsmouth while Torrington was at the Nore. But Torrington's fleet was not the only factor. His retreat forced Tourville to leave behind him unfought the squadrons of Shovel and Killigrew, and so far as commanding a line of invasion passage was concerned Tourville was himself as well contained as Torrington. The conditions of naval defence against invasion are in fact so complex compared with those of general naval defence that they must be treated later as a special branch of the subject.
The doctrine of the "Fleet in being" as formulated and practised by Torrington and developed by Kempenfelt goes no further than this, that where the enemy regards the general command of a sea area as necessary to his offensive purposes, you may be able to prevent his gaining such command by using your fleet defensively, refusing what Nelson
called a regular battle, and seizing every opportunity for a counterstroke. To use it as it was used by the French in the case of Tourville's famous deterrent cruise, where the whole object of the French was offensive and could not be obtained except by offence, is quite another thing.
It is indeed difficult to understand the admiration with which his campagne au large has been treated in France. He kept the sea off the mouth of the Channel for fifty days in the summer of 1691, and for forty of those days our Channel fleet was making no systematic effort to seek him out. He had been sent to sea in hope of intercepting our great "Smyrna convoy," which was then the backbone of our oversea trade. Russell with the British main fleet simply took positions to cover its approach until it was safe, knowing presumably that Tourville must come to him if he wished to accomplish his purpose. When the convoy was safe Russell proceeded off Ushant, that is, between the enemy and his base. Tourville's communications were thus cut, his line of retreat threatened, and he seized the first opportunity to elude Russell and to return into port. Beyond taking a few ships from one of the West India convoys, he accomplished nothing. The central French offensive in Ireland was broken at the battle of the Boyne, and the prestige of England at sea was restored. It is true our trade suffered in the North Sea, but this was not directly due to the concentration which Tourville's cruise forced upon us, but rather to the failure of the Dutch—apparently by a misunderstanding-to provide for an effective blockade of Dunkirk.
To British eyes it will seem that the heresy which was latent in Tourville's instructions was a seed that choked all the finer aspirations of the French navy. In 1691 the plan of his cruise may possibly be defended as sufficiently aggressive, since, seeing how unstable was William's new throne, a resounding blow at British trade, combined with an expected victory in Ireland, might have been enough to upset it. But afterwards the idea was stretched to occasions it would not fit. It seems to have bred a belief that where the object of the war plainly depended on winning a real command of the sea, that object could yet be attained by naval defensive operations. Many times it is true a policy which had starved the navy of France left no other course open to her seamen, and had they in their inferiority attempted the offensive, the end must have been swifter if not more certain. In criticising the maritime history of France we must be careful to distinguish policy from strategy. It was not always the defensive strategy that was bad, but the policy that condemned her admirals to negative operations. Seeing that she was a continental Power with continental aspirations, it was often a policy from which her military exigencies permitted no escape. Nevertheless the policy was twice accursed: it cursed her when she was weak, and cursed her when she was strong. The prolonged use of the defensive bred a habit of mind which seems to have rendered her incapable of striking hard when she had the strength. In no other way at least can we account for the behaviour of so high-spirited a nation when her chance of revenge came in the War of American Independence.
It is here in its moral reactions lies the danger of the defensive, a danger so insidious in its working as to tempt us never to utter the word. Yet with the voice of Torrington, Kempenfelt, and Nelson in our ears, it would be folly to ignore it for ourselves, and still more to ignore the exhausting strain its use by our enemy may impose upon us. It must be studied, if for no other reasons than to learn how to break it down. Nor
will the study have danger, if only we keep well in view the spirit of restless and vigilant counter-attack which Kempenfelt and Nelson regarded as its essence. True, some of the conditions which in the days of sails made for opportunity have passed away, but many still remain. Shifts of wind and calms will no longer bring them, but weather thick or violent can yet make seamanship, nimbleness, and cohesion tell as it always did; and there is no reason to doubt that it is still possible for hard sea-training to make "the activity and spirit of our officers and seamen" give the results which Nelson so confidently expected.