Besides being difficult, the manoeuvre had no promise of success. For if
two fleets of equal numbers are in this way matched ship against ship,
neither side has any advantage except what may be derived from the
superior skill of its gunners. So long as these conditions prevailed,
no great decisive victory of the kind for which we are seeking was
gained. It was during this period that Nelson received such training as
the navy could give him, and added to it the necessary finishing touch
by never-ceasing effort to find out for himself the way in which he
could strike a decisive blow. His daring was always deliberate, never
rash, and this is the right frame of mind for a commander. "You may be
assured," he writes to Lord Hood, March 11, 1794, "I shall undertake
nothing but what I have moral certainty of succeeding in."
His fierce determination to get at the ultimate secrets of his trade led
him to use every means that would help him to think out his problem, and
among these means was reading. In 1780 appeared Clerk's "Essay on Naval
Tactics." Clerk pointed out the weakness of the method of fighting in
two parallel lines and suggested and discussed a number of plans by
which one fleet with the bulk of its force could attack and destroy a
portion of the other.
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