"I have twenty-three sail with me," he wrote a fortnight before Trafalgar, "and should they come out I will immediately bring them to battle; ...
but I am _very, very, very_ anxious for the arrival of the force which is intended.

It is, as Mr.Pitt knows, annihilation that the country wants, and not merely a splendid victory of twenty-three to thirty-six.

Numbers only can annihilate." The assumption that Bonaparte's plan would be such as he mentioned, naturally controlled Nelson in the dispositions he sketched for the local defence of the shore lines.

The invasion being in two bodies, the defence was to be in two bodies also; nor is there any suggestion of a possibility that these two might be united against one of the enemy's.

The whole scheme is dual; yet, although the chance of either division of the British being largely inferior to the enemy opposed to it is recognized, the adoption of a central position, or concentration upon either of the enemy's flotillas, apparently is not contemplated.
Such uncertainty of touch, when not corrected by training, is the natural characteristic of a defence essentially passive; that is, of a defence which proposes to await the approach of the enemy to its own frontier, be that land or water.