The extracts from admirals' despatches and contemporary treatises, and the remarks of officers and officials concerned with the preparation or the execution of the Instructions, were for the most part too fragmentary to be treated as separate documents, or too long or otherwise unsuitable for foot-notes.

The only adequate way therefore was to embody them in Introductory Notes, and this it is hoped will be found to justify their bulk.
A special apology is, however, due for the Introductory Note on Nelson's memoranda.

For this I can only plead their great importance, and the amount of illustrative matter that exists from the pens of Nelson's officers and opponents.

For no other naval battle have we so much invaluable comment from men of the highest capacity who were present.

The living interest of it all is unsurpassed, and I have therefore been tempted to include all that came to hand, encouraged by the belief that the fullest material for the study of Nelson's tactics at the battle of Trafalgar could not be out of place in a volume issued by the Society in the centenary year.
As to the general results, perhaps the most striking feature which the collection brings out is that sailing tactics was a purely English art.