retreat.

The English, in the period of reaction which succeeded the Dutch wars,
produced their own caricature of systematized tactics. Even under its
influence, up to 1715, it is only just to say they did not construe
naval skill to mean anxious care to keep one's own ships intact. Rooke,
off Malaga, in 1704, illustrated professional fearlessness of
consequences as conspicuously as he had shown personal daring in the
boat attack at La Hougue; but his plans of battle exemplified the
particularly British form of inefficient naval action. There was no
great difference in aggregate force between the French fleet and that of
the combined Anglo-Dutch under his orders. The former, drawing up in the
accustomed line of battle, ship following ship in a single column,
awaited attack. Rooke, having the advantage of the wind, and therefore
the power of engaging at will, formed his command in a similar and
parallel line a few miles off, and thus all stood down together, the
ships maintaining their line parallel to that of the enemy, and coming
into action at practically the same moment, van to van, centre to
centre, rear to rear. This ignored wholly the essential maxim of all
intelligent warfare, which is so to engage as markedly to outnumber the
enemy at a point of main collision. If he be broken there, before the
remainder of his force come up, the chances all are that a decisive
superiority will be established by this alone, not to mention the moral
effect of partial defeat and disorder. Instead of this, the impact at
Malaga was so distributed as to produce a substantial equality from one
end to the other of the opposing fronts. The French, indeed, by
strengthening their centre relatively to the van and rear, to some
extent modified this condition in the particular instance; but the fact
does not seem to have induced any alteration in Rooke's dispositions.
Barring mere accident, nothing conclusive can issue from such