Note 72 — Chapter IV

The author is keenly aware that this policy, of garrisoning several somewhat separated ports, is seemingly inconsistent with sound military principles as to concentration, as well as with what he himself has elsewhere said about the proper dispositions for maintaining military control of a maritime region. It is, therefore, well to explain that those principles and dispositions apply where the belligerent navies are so far equal as to create a real struggle. This was not the case in the French Revolution. Great Britain had undisputed naval supremacy in the West Indies, and the question before her was, not to beat the enemy's fleet, but to secure her own commercial routes. To this end it was necessary to disseminate, not concentrate her ships, and to provide them with convenient centres of refuge and supply along the routes. The case was analogous to the police arrangements of a city. In ordinary quiet times the police are distributed to cope with individual offenders; when a mob gathers and threatens the peace they are concentrated in large bodies.