destroyed the French fleet in Quiberon Bay. But this was hardly a
stand-up fight. The French fleet was running away, and Hawke's
achievement was that, in spite of the difficulties of weather on an
extremely dangerous coast, he was able to consummate its destruction.
The real decision was the work of Nelson, and its principal cause was
Nelson himself.

The British navy had discovered in its conflicts with the Dutch during
the seventeenth century that the object of naval warfare was the command
of the sea, which must be won by breaking the enemy's force in battle.
This was also perfectly understood by the Dutch admirals, and in those
wars was begun the development of the art of fighting battles with
sailing vessels. A formation, the line of battle, in which one ship
sails in the track of the ship before her, was found to be appropriate
to the weapon used, the broadside of artillery; and a type of ship
suitable to this formation, the line-of-battle ship, established itself.
These were the elements with which the British and French navies entered
into their long eighteenth century struggle. The French, however, had
not grasped the principle that the object of naval warfare was to obtain
the command of the sea. They did not consciously and primarily aim, as
did their British rivals, at the destruction of the enemy's fleet. They
were more concerned with the preservation of their own fleet than with
the destruction of the enemy's, and were ready rather to accept battle
than to bring it about. The British admirals were eager for battle, but
had a difficulty in finding out how a decisive blow could be struck. The
orthodox and accepted doctrine of the British navy was that the British
fleet should be brought alongside the enemy's fleet, the two lines of
battleships being parallel to one another, so that each ship in the
British fleet should engage a corresponding ship in the French fleet. It
was a manoeuvre difficult of execution, because, in order to approach