It will be instructive to a professional reader to compare the dispositions of Admiral Brueys, in Aboukir Bay, with those adopted by Lord Hood in 1782, at St. Kitt's Island, when expecting an attack at anchor from a very superior force.[186] The comparison is historically interesting as well as instructive; for it has been said that Nelson framed his own plan, in the cogitations of his long chase, upon Hood's scheme for attacking the French fleet under Admiral DeGrasse while lying at the anchorage from which he first drove it, before occupying it himself. The parallel is quite complete, for neither at St. Kitt's nor Aboukir was the anchored fleet able to get substantial assistance from batteries. The decisively important points in such a disposition, as in any order of battle, land or sea, are—(1) that the line cannot be pierced, and (2) that the flanks cannot be turned. Hood thrust one flank ship so close to the shore that the enemy could not pass round her, and closed up his intervals.[187] Brueys left the same flank—for in both cases it was the van and weather ship—open to turning, with long spaces between the vessels. In his arrangement for the other flank, for the lee ships, Brueys was equally inferior. Hood threw his eight lee ships at right angles to the rest of the fleet, so that their broadsides completely protected the latter from enfilading fire. Brueys simply bent his line a little, with a view of approaching the rear to shoal water. Failing thus to obtain a fire at right angles to the principal line of battle, the rear did not contribute to strengthen that; while, not actually reaching to shoal water, it remained itself in the air, if attacked by the enemy in preference. This was the more singular, as Brueys had expected the rear to be the object of the British efforts. "I have asked," he wrote, "for two mortars to place upon the shoal on which I have rested the head of my line; but I have much less to fear for that part than for the rear, upon which the enemy will probably bring to bear all their effort."[188] Nelson, however, whether illumined by Hood's example, through that historical study of tactics for which he was noted, or inspired only by his own genius, had well understood beforehand that, if he found the French in such order as they were, the van and centre were at his mercy; and he had clearly imparted this view to his captains. Hence, when the enemy were seen, he needed only to signal "his intention was to attack the van and centre as they lay at anchor, according to the plan before developed,"[189] and could leave the details of execution to his subordinates.