On the other hand we have Captain Moorsom, of the Revenge, who was in Collingwood’s division, saying exactly the opposite.  Writing to his father on December 4, he says, ’I have seen several plans of the action, but none to answer my ideas of it.  A regular plan was laid down by Lord Nelson some time before the action but not acted on.  His great anxiety seemed to be to get to leeward of them lest they should make off to Cadiz before he could get near them.’  And on November 1, to the same correspondent he had written, ’I am not certain that our mode of attack was the best:  however, it succeeded.’  Here then we have two of Nelson’s most able captains entirely disagreeing as to whether or not the attack was carried out in accordance with any plan which Nelson laid down.

Captain Moorsom’s view may be further followed in a tactical study written by his son, Vice-Admiral Constantine Moorsom.[20] His remarks on Trafalgar were presumably largely inspired by his father, who lived till 1835.  In his view there was ’an entire alteration both of the scientific principle and of the tactical movements,’ both of which he thinks were due to what he calls the morale of the enemy’s attitude—­that is, that Nelson was afraid they were going to slip through his fingers into Cadiz.  The change of plan—­meaning presumably the change from the triple to the dual organisation—­he thinks was not due to the reduced numbers which Nelson actually had under his flag, for the ratio between the two fleets remained much about the same as that of his hypothesis.

The interesting testimony of Lieutenant G.L.  Browne, who, as Admiral Jackson informs us, was assistant flag-lieutenant in the Victory and had every means of knowing, endorses the view of the Moorsoms.[21] After explaining to his parents the delay caused by the established method of forming the fleets in two parallel lines so that each had an opposite number, as set forth in the opening words of the memorandum, he says, ’but by his lordship’s mode of attack you will clearly perceive not an instant of time could be lost.  The frequent communications he had with his admirals and captains put them in possession of all his plans, so that his mode of attack was well known to every officer of the fleet.  Some will not fail to attribute rashness to the conduct of Lord Nelson.  But he well considered the importance of a decisive naval victory at this time, and has frequently said since we left England that, should he be so fortunate as to fall in with the enemy, a total defeat should be the result on the one side or the other.’

Next we have what is probably the most acute and illuminating criticism of the battle that exists, from the pen of ’an officer who was present.’  Sir Charles Ekin quotes it anonymously; but from internal evidence there is little difficulty in assigning it to an officer of the Conqueror, though clearly not her captain, Israel Pellew, in whose justification the concluding part was written.  Whoever he was