melee a great consensus of respectable, even eminent, naval opinion of
the present day finds the necessary outcome of modern naval weapons,--
a kind of Donnybrook Fair, in which, as the history of melees shows,
it will be hard to know friend from foe. Whatever may prove to be the
worth of this opinion, it cannot claim an historical basis in the sole
fact that galley and steamship can move at any moment directly upon
the enemy, and carry a beak upon their prow, regardless of the points
in which galley and steamship differ. As yet this opinion is only a
presumption, upon which final judgment may well be deferred until the
trial of battle has given further light. Until that time there is room
for the opposite view,--that a melee between numerically equal
fleets, in which skill is reduced to a minimum, is not the best that
can be done with the elaborate and mighty weapons of this age. The
surer of himself an admiral is, the finer the tactical development of
his fleet, the better his captains, the more reluctant must he
necessarily be to enter into a melee with equal forces, in which all
these advantages will be thrown away, chance reign supreme, and his
fleet he placed on terms of equality with an assemblage of ships which
have never before acted together.(2) History has lessons as to when
melees are, or are not, in order.

The galley, then, has one striking resemblance to the steamer, but
differs in other important features which are not so immediately
apparent and are therefore less accounted of. In the sailing-ship, on
the contrary, the striking feature is the difference between it and
the more modern vessel; the points of resemblance, though existing and
easy to find, are not so obvious, and therefore are less heeded. This
impression is enhanced by the sense of utter weakness in the
sailing-ship as compared with the steamer, owing to its dependence
upon the wind; forgetting that, as the former fought with its equals,