In this manner the two fleets passed through one another several times, which exposed them to be cut off, taken, and mutually to lose several ships.

_Remark_ .-- This manoeuvre is as bold as it is delicate, and consummate technical skill is necessary for it to succeed as happily as it did with the Comte d'Estrees ...

in the battle of the Texel, in the year 1673, for he passed through the Zealand squadron, weathered it, broke it up, and put the enemy into so great a disorder that it settled the victory which was still in the balance.'[5] After pointing out by diagrams various methods of parrying the manoeuvre, he proceeds: 'I do not see, then, that we need greatly fear the enemy's passing through us; and I do not even think that this manoeuvre ought ever to be performed except under one of the three following conditions: (1) If you are compelled to do it in order to avoid a greater evil; (2) If the enemy by leaving a great gap in the midst of his squadrons renders a part of his fleet useless; (3) If several of his ships are disabled....
'Sometimes you are compelled to pass through the enemy's fleet to rescue ships that the enemy has cut off, and in this case you must risk something, but you should observe several precautions: (1) You should close up to the utmost; (2) You should carry a press of sail without troubling to fight in passing through the enemy; (3) The ships that have passed ought to tack the moment they can to prevent the enemy standing off on the same tack as the fleet that passes through them.' It is clear, then, that in the eyes of perhaps the finest fleet leader of his time, and one of the finest France ever had, a man who thoroughly understood the value of concentration, the method of securing it by breaking the line was dangerous and unsound.

In this he thoroughly endorses the views contained in the 'Observations' of the _Admiralty MS._ and the modifications of the standing order which they suggest.

Indeed, Hoste's remarks on breaking the line are, in effect, little more than a logical elaboration of those ideas and suggestions.