"The fleet ran the danger of almost certain defeat, but for the bravery of M.de Goimpy.

Such, after the affair, was the opinion of the whole French squadron.

Yet, admitting that our line was broken, what disasters then would necessarily threaten the fleet?
Would it not always have been easy for our rear to remedy the accident by promptly standing on to fill the place of the vessels cut off?
That movement would necessarily have brought about a _melee_, which would have turned to the advantage of the fleet having the bravest and most devoted captains.

But then, as under the empire, it was an acknowledged principle that ships cut off were ships taken, and the belief wrought its own fulfilment." The effect of breaking an enemy's line, or order-of-battle, depends upon several conditions.

The essential idea is to divide the opposing force by penetrating through an interval found, or made, in it, and then to concentrate upon that one of the fractions which can be least easily helped by the other.