263.
NELSON'S TACTICAL MEMORANDA INTRODUCTORY The first of these often quoted memoranda is the 'Plan of Attack,' usually assigned to May 1805, when Nelson was in pursuit of Villeneuve, and it is generally accompanied by two erroneous diagrams based on the number of ships which he then had under his command.

But, as Professor Laughton has ingeniously conjectured, it must really belong to a time two years earlier, when Nelson was off Toulon in constant hope of the French coming out to engage him.[1] The strength and organisation of Nelson's fleet at that time, as well as the numbers of the French fleet, exactly correspond to the data of the memorandum.

To Professor Laughton's argument may be added another, which goes far actually to fix the date.

The principal signal which Nelson's second method of attack required was 'to engage to leeward.' Now this signal as it stood in the Signal Book of 1799 was to some extent ambiguous.

It was No.