It must be remembered also that in all probability, we should not have detailed information as to the number of vessels coming, and should not really know whether it was superior to ours or not: though we should be justified in assuming that the coming fleet believed itself to be superior to ours in actual fighting power.
Absence of trustworthy information on such points is usual in warfare, and is one of the elements that is the most difficult to handle.
The Navy Department would be more able to form a correct estimate on this point than the commander-in-chief until such time as our scouts might come into absolute contact with the enemy's main body; but, until then, all that the department and fleet would know would be that a large hostile force had left Europe.

They would not know its size or destination.
Clearly, the first thing we should need would be information.

To get this after war has broken out, the only means is scouts.
_Scouting and Screening_ .-- Scouts are needed by every navy; but they are most needed by a navy that has a very long coast-line to protect.

If the great commercial centres and the positions that an enemy would desire for advanced bases along the coast, have local defenses adequate to keep off a hostile fleet for, say, two weeks, the urgency of scouts is not quite so absolute; since, even if the hostile fleet evades our scouts and our fleet, and reaches our shores, our fleet will have two weeks in which to get to the place attacked.

But if the coast is not only long but also unguarded by shore defenses, the urgency is of the highest order.
If we knew our fleet to be the weaker, but if we did not believe it to be so much the weaker as to force it to seek safety in flight, our natural plan would be that of Napoleon's in Italy in 1797--to keep our force together, and to hurl it against detached parts of the enemy's force, whenever possible.