receive our trade. It kept guard, in fact, not only over the French naval
ports, but over the approaches to the Channel, where were the home
terminals of the great southern and western trade-routes. A third
concentration was in the Mediterranean, whose centre under Nelson was at
Sardinia. It had outlying sub-centres at Malta and Gibraltar, and covered
the whole ground from Cape St. Vincent outside the Straits to Toulon,
Trieste, and the Dardanelles. When war broke out with Spain in 1804, it was
considered advisable to divide this command, and Spanish waters outside the
Straits were held by a fourth concentration, whose centre was off Cadiz,
and whose northern limit was Cape Finisterre, where it joined the Ushant
concentration. For reasons which were personal rather than strategical this
arrangement was not continued long, nor indeed after a few months was there
the same need for it, for the Toulon squadron had changed its base to
Cadiz. By this comprehensive system the whole of the European seas were
controlled both for military and trade purposes. In the distant terminal
areas, like the East and West Indies, there were nucleus concentrations
with the necessary connective machinery permanently established, and to
render them effective, provision was made by which the various European
squadrons could throw off detachments to bring up their force to any
strength which the movements of the enemy might render necessary.

Wide as was this distribution, and great as its reach, a high degree of
cohesion was maintained not only between the parts of each concentration,
but between the several concentrations themselves. By means of a minor
cruiser centre at the Channel Islands, the Downs and Ushant concentrations
could rapidly cohere. Similarly the Cadiz concentration was linked up with
that of Ushant at Finisterre, and but for personal friction and repulsion,
the cohesion between the Mediterranean and Cadiz concentrations would have
been equally strong. Finally, there was a masterly provision made for all
the concentrations to condense into one great mass at the crucial point off