Yet, notwithstanding the great and essential difference which we have pointed out between the French navy and their land forces, and that the former was even more inferior to that of England than the continental troops in general were to the French soldiers, it is evident that Buonaparte, when talking of ships of the line, was always thinking of battalions. Thus he imagines that the defeat of the Nile might have been prevented, had the headmost vessels of the French line, instead of remaining at anchor, slipped their cables, and borne down to the assistance of those which were first attacked by the British. But in urging this, the leading principle of the manœuvre of breaking the line had totally escaped the French Emperor. It was the boast of the patriotic sage,[181] who illustrated and recommended this most important system of naval tactics, that it could serve the purpose of a British fleet only. The general principle is briefly this: By breaking through the line, a certain number of ships are separated from the rest, which the remainder must either abandon to their fate by sailing away, or endeavour to save by bearing down, or doubling as it were, upon the assailants, and engaging in a close and general engagement. Now, this last alternative is what Buonaparte recommends,--what he would certainly have practised on land,--and what he did practise, in order to extricate his right wing, at Marengo. But the relative superiority of the English navy is so great, that, while it is maintained, a close engagement with an enemy in the least approaching to equality, is equivalent to a victory; and to recommend a plan of tactics which should render such a battle inevitable, would be, in other words, advising a French admiral to lose his whole fleet, instead of sacrificing those ships which the English manœuvre had cut off, and crowding sail to save such as were yet unengaged.[182] Under this consciousness of inferiority, the escape of a Spanish or French squadron, when a gale of wind forced, from the port in which they lay, the British blockading vessels, was a matter, the ultimate success of which depended not alone on the winds and waves, but still more upon the chance of their escaping any part of the hostile navy, with whom battle, except with the most exorbitant superiority on their side, was certain and unavoidable defeat. Their efforts to comply with the wishes of the Emperor of France, were therefore so partially conducted, so insulated, and so ineffectual, that they rather resembled the children's game of hide and seek, than any thing like a system of regular combination. A more hasty and less cautious compliance with Napoleon's earnest wishes to assemble a predominant naval force, would have only occasioned the total destruction of the combined fleets at an earlier period than when it actually took place. [Sidenote: ROCHEFORT SQUADRON.]