[24] It extends sometimes to as far as six or seven miles seaward.—West India Pilot.
[25] 'De Grasse's action,' says Captain Mahan (The Influence of Sea Power upon History, p. 290), 'was justified by the court which tried him, in which were many officers of high rank and doubtless of distinction, as being "an act of prudence on the part of the admiral dictated to him by the ulterior projects of the cruise." Three days later he was signally beaten by the fleet he had failed to attack at disadvantage, and all the ulterior projects of the cruise went down with him.'
[26] Annual Register, 1782 (History of Europe), p. 206.
[27] Mundy's Life of Rodney, vol. ii. p. 251.
[28] United Service Journal, 1833, part i. p. 512, Sir C. Douglas's narrative.
[29] Imagine this page the surface of the sea, the top being north, the foot south, and so on. The wind would be blowing diagonally across from the right-hand corner at the foot of the page. Rodney's ships would be approaching slantwise towards the centre of the page from near the left-hand lower corner. De Grasse's fleet would be coming down to meet them near the centre from a point at the top of the page about two inches from the left-hand corner.
[30] To make sure that they saw the signal and obeyed it without delay, De Grasse kept firing gun after gun to enforce it, until all had answered.
[31] Captain Mahan in The Royal Navy: A History, vol. iii. p. 528.
[32] Mundy's Life of Rodney, vol. ii. pp. 235-236.
[33] British flag-officers were at this time still divided, for purposes of promotion, into groups and subdivisions, as Admirals, Vice-Admirals, and Rear-Admirals of the Red, White, and Blue (except that there was no Admiral of the Red), which had existed since the middle of the seventeenth century, although the original purpose of the arrangement, in accordance with the tactical formations of fleets for battle, had long ceased to exist. The French, on the other hand, had no permanent subsidiary gradations in their flag-officers' list, and held to their original tactical distribution of squadrons; the senior officer commanding the Escadre Blanche, the second the Escadre Blanche et Bleue, the third the Escadre Bleue.