It is submitted that the best principle in practice is the consecutive silencing of individual batteries, and not a general, and so to speak collective, bombardment. In support of this principle it may be mentioned that from the time of the adoption of the second plan the fire of the ships improved very much in accuracy. This also had the further advantage of being accompanied by a simultaneous diminution in the accuracy of the fire of the enemy: as is shown by the circumstance that the majority of the hits received by the _Sultan_, _Superb_, and _Alexandra_ were sustained before 9.40--the time when these vessels came to an anchor and adopted the concentration principle. That the fire of the ships would improve as soon as the vessels became stationary is intelligible enough, and is accounted for by the exact range being then attainable, but that the enemy should have made worse practice against a fixed than against a moving target appears a little difficult to understand. The naval officers engaged have, with some sense of humour, suggested that the vessels in manoeuvring from time to time steamed across the line of the Egyptian fire and so got struck. The explanation, however, is probably to be found in the increased state of demoralization of the artillerymen as soon as the ships anchored and made more accurate practice. In the inshore squadron the flag-ship _Invincible_ was anchored for the most part 1,300 yards from Mex, and was kept broadside to the wind on one side, and to the batteries on the other, by a kedge carried out to windward. The _Monarch_ and _Penelope_ remained under way, passing and repassing the forts. The _Penelope_ adopted the plan of steaming out three-quarters of a mile towards the reef, and then drifting towards the shore broadside on until within about 700 yards, whilst the _Monarch_ kept more way on, moving in a line parallel with the shore. The fire from these two ships was throughout less effective than that from the _Invincible_, which was at anchor. The range at which the fleet generally engaged seems to have been needlessly great. The outside squadron could have got to within 1,000 yards of the Lighthouse Fort and 800 yards abreast of the Ras-el-Tin lines, to within 500 yards of Fort Adda and 200 yards of Fort Pharos, whilst the inshore division could easily have got within 400 yards of all the batteries in the neighbourhood of Mex. It can hardly be doubted that the boldness of this move would have been rewarded by the more speedy and extensive dismounting of the guns, which was confessedly the chief object of the attack, and would have allowed the machine guns in the vessels' tops to be used with greater effect.