If we turn for a moment from this aspect of naval warfare to the actual conduct of hostilities at sea, the desire to obtain forcible possession of an enemy’s vessels must clearly have had a beneficial effect in rendering the loss of life less extensive than it was in battles on land. To capture a ship, it was desirable, if possible, to disable without destroying it; so that the fire of each side was more generally directed against the masts and rigging than against the hull or lower parts of the vessel. In the case of the ‘Berwick,’ an English 74-gun ship, which struck her colours to the French frigate, the ‘Alceste,’ only four sailors were wounded, and the captain, whose head was taken off by a bar-shot, was the only person slain; and ‘so small a loss was attributed to the high firing of the French, who, making sure of the ‘Berwick’s’ capture, and wanting such a ship entire in their fleet, were wise enough to do as little injury as possible to her hull.’[88] The great battle between the English and Dutch fleets off Camperdown (1795) was exceptional both for the damage inflicted by both on the hulls of their adversaries, and consequently for the heavy loss of life on either side. ‘The appearance of the British ships at the close of the action was very unlike what it generally is when the French or Spaniards have been the opponents of the former. Not a single mast nor even a top-mast was shot away; nor were the rigging and sails of the ships in their usual tattered state. It was at the hulls of their adversaries that the Dutchmen had directed their shot.’[89] As the English naturally retaliated, though ‘as trophies the appearance of the Dutch prizes was gratifying,’ as ships of war ‘they were not the slightest acquisition to the navy of England.’[90] When this happened, as it could not but often do in pitched naval battles, the Government sometimes made good to the captors the value of the prizes that the serious nature of the conflict had caused them to lose. Thus in the case of the six French prizes made at the Battle of the Nile, only three of which ever reached Plymouth, the Government, ‘in order that the captors might not suffer for the prowess they had displayed in riddling the hulls of the captured ships, paid for each of the destroyed 74s, the “Guerrier,” “Heureux,” and “Mercure,” the sum of 20,000_l._, which was as much as the least valuable of the remaining 74s had been valued at.’