The real fighting was done by the long guns and carronades disposed in the broadsides. Besides rapidity and precision of fire, always invaluable, the two opponents sought advantage of position by manœuvring. They closed, or they kept apart, according to their understanding of the other’s weight and kind of battery. Each tried, when possible, to lie across the bow or the stern of the enemy, for then his guns ranged from end to end of the hostile ship, while the latter’s broadside could not reply. Failing this extreme advantage of position, the effort was made so to place one’s self that the opponent’s guns could not bear—for they swept only a few degrees before and abaft the broadside—while your own could. If this also was impossible, the contestants lay side to side at a greater or less distance, and the affair became an artillery duel. BRITISH AND FRENCH STYLES OF FIGHTING Besides these recognized advantages of position, there was also a question upon what part of the enemy the fire should be directed. In this there were two principal schools of tactics, one of which aimed at the hull, to break down the fire of the hostile ship and destroy her fighting men, while the other sought, by pointing higher, to cut away the sails, rigging, and masts, rendering the foe helpless. The latter, in general, was the policy of the French; the former, and, it may be affirmed, the more surely successful, was the practice of the British. The two schools find their counterpart in the tactical considerations which now affect the question of rapid-fire and of heavy guns, each of which has its appropriate target, covering in the latter case the motive power, in the former the personnel.