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The suggestion that its strength must be affected by the need of the army for the men of the fleet or its boats, which imply its men as well, will appear heretical. A battle-squadron, we say, is intended to deal with the enemy's battle-squadron and its men to fight the ships, and the mind revolts at the idea of the strength of a squadron being fixed by any other standard.
Thus our various expeditions for the assistance of Portugal were treated exactly like commercial convoys, but in such cases as Wolfe's expedition to Quebec or Amherst's to Louisburg, or indeed any of those which were continually launched against the West Indies, a battle-squadron was always provided as an integral part in the theatre of operations.
A blockade of this nature will correspond in principle to a close blockade of the old type; nor in practice, as was proved in the Japanese blockade of Port Arthur, will its incidents be materially different. The distance at which the battle-squadron must keep will seem at first sight to deny it certainty of immediate contact the essence of close blockade.
Such cases occurred at Quebec in 1759, where Saunders took his covering battle-squadron right up the St.
But where a convoy of transports forming part of a combined expedition was destined for an enemy's country and would have to overcome resistance by true combined operations, a covering battle-squadron was always provided.
Broadly speaking, that system was to hold the terminals in strength, and in important cases the focal points as well. By means of a battle-squadron with a full complement of cruisers they were constituted defended areas, or "tracts" as the old term was, and the trade was regarded as safe when it entered them. The intervening trade-routes were left as a rule undefended.
Consequently, in spite of what the strategical conditions dictated, the covering squadron was more or less continuously forced back upon the army and its supporting force, even when the support of the battle-squadron was no longer required. In the conditions that existed nothing was lost.
We have seen how in 1744 Norris was prepared to follow the French transports if necessary with his whole force, and how in 1798 Nelson organised his fleet in such a way as to contain rather than destroy the enemy's battle-squadron, so that he might provide for an overwhelming attack upon the transports. Exceptions to this as to all strategical rules may be conceived.
In Nelson's practice at least their paramount function was to exercise the control which he was securing with his battle-squadron. Nothing is more familiar in naval history than his incessant cry from the Mediterranean for more cruisers, but the significance of that cry has become obscured.
We may watch them as they descend to their flying-field, dropping down to earth, one by one. We may learn, then, of their adventures on that flight of death: how, far back of the German lines, they encountered a formidable battle-squadron of the enemy, vastly superior to their own in numbers. Heedless of the risk they swooped down upon their foe.
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