So far shell fire had developed on land. In sea warfare the solid cannon ball remained the orthodox missile; the use of explosive or incendiary shells was deemed so dangerous a practice as to forbid its acceptance by the great maritime powers, save in exceptional cases, until the nineteenth century. Toward the end of the eighteenth century serious consideration was given, by France especially, to the possibilities of shell fire. Frenchmen felt restless and dissatisfied with the conditions in which they were waging war with England. Sea ordnance, which in the past had wrought so much by the destruction of personnel, was becoming increasingly impotent, not only against personnel but against ships themselves. Trafalgar came as a proof of this, when not a single ship was sunk by gunfire. Sea fighting was again resolving itself into a straightforward physical struggle between the guns’ crews of the opposing fleets, in which struggle the victory went by attrition to the side which plied its guns with the greatest rapidity and perseverance. Élan, enthusiasm, science, the mental alertness of the individual, were bound to be overborne in such a case by superior endurance, physique, coolness, and sound workmanship. Both sides had a profound belief in the superiority of their personnel in hand-to-hand conflict. Where fighting was, as in the earliest days of the rival navies, “man to man, lance to lance, arrow to arrow, stone to stone,” success depended entirely upon courage and physical strength; and in such cases, says Nicolas, the English were almost always victorious. If, stated a French writer, sea actions could be decided by hand-to-hand combat the arms of France would triumph. But sea fights were in fact almost solely a matter of artillery. If only the conditions of battle could be altered; if only the forces of incendiarism or explosion could be summoned to put the enemy ships-of-the-line in jeopardy, a short cut to victory might be found or, at any rate, the superiority of England in material might be seriously depreciated. [Illustration] Some time was to elapse, however, before France was to see even the partial consummation of this fervent desire.