[2] The original has here the following erasure: 'The same is to be understood of the bearing indicated, though the admiral should shape his course from the wind originally when the signal for forming upon a line of bearing is made.'
[3] It was Nelson's improvement on this unscientific method of attack that is the conspicuous feature of his Memorandum, 1803, but it must be remembered that Howe had not yet devised the manoeuvre of breaking the line in all parts on which Nelson's improvement was founded.
[4] Cf. note 1, p. 224.
[5] Howe's insistence on these points both here and in Articles XXII.-XXV. is curious in view of the fact that the use of fireships in action had gone out of fashion. From 1714 to 1763 only one English fireship is known to have been 'expended,' and that was by Commander Callis when he destroyed the Spanish galleys at St. Tropez in 1742. At the peace of 1783 the Navy List contained only 17 fireships out of a total of 468 sail. Howe had two fireships on the First of June, 1794, but did not use them.
THE SIGNAL BOOKS OF THE GREAT WAR
INTRODUCTORY
The second form in which the new Fighting Instructions, originated by Lord Howe, have come down to us, is that which became fixed in the service after 1790; that is, instead of two folio volumes with the Signals in one and the Explanatory Instructions in the other, we have, at least after 1799, one small quarto containing both, and entitled 'Signal Book for Ships of War.' The earliest known example, however, of the new quarto form is a Signal Book only, which refers to a set of Instructions apparently similar to those of 1799. These have not been found, but presumably they were in a separate volume. The Signal Book is in the Admiralty Library labelled in manuscript '1792-3(?),' but, as before, no date or signature appears in the body of it. From internal evidence, however, as well as from collateral testimony, there is little difficulty in identifying it as Lord Howe's second code issued in 1790.
The feature of the book that first strikes us is that, though the bulk of it is printed, all the most important battle signals, as well as many others, have been added in MS., while at the end are the words, 'Given on board the Queen Charlotte, to Capt. ——, commander of his majesty's ship the ——, by command of the admiral.' It is thus obvious that the original printed form, which contains many further unfilled blanks for additional signals, was used as a draft for a later edition. No such edition is known to exist in print, but both the original signals and the additions correspond exactly with the MS. code which was used by Lord Howe in his campaign of 1794. In editing this code for the Society in his Logs of the Great Sea Fights, Admiral Sturges Jackson hazarded the conjecture that it had not then been printed, but was supplied to each ship in the fleet in MS. The admiralty volume goes far to support his conjecture, and it is quite possible that we have here the final draft from which the MS. copies were made.
As to the actual date at which the code was completed there is not much difficulty. The Queen Charlotte was Howe's flagship in the Channel fleet from 1792-4, but it was also his flagship in 1790 at the time of the 'Spanish Armament,' when he put to sea in immediate expectation of war with Spain. While the tension lasted he is known to have used the critical period in exercising his fleet in tactical evolutions, in order to perfect it in a new code of signals which he had been elaborating for several years.[1] It is probable therefore that this Signal Book belongs to that year, and that it is one of several copies which Howe had printed with the battle signals blank for his own use while he was elaborating his system by practical experiment. This conjecture is brought to practical certainty by a rough and much-worn copy of it in the United Service Institution. It was made by Lieut. John Walsh, of H.M.S. Marlborough, one of Howe's fleet, and inside the cover he has written 'Earl Howe's signals by which the Grand Fleet was governed 1790, 1791, and 1794.'
It was upon the tactical system contained in this book that all the great actions of the Nelson period were fought. The alterations which took place during the war were slight. The codes used by Howe himself in 1794, and by Duncan at Camperdown in 1797, follow it exactly. A slightly modified form was issued by Jervis to the Mediterranean fleet, and was used by him at St. Vincent in 1797. No copy of this is known to exist, but from the logs of the ships there engaged it would appear that, though the numbering of the code had been changed, the principal battle signals remained the same. In 1799 a new edition was printed in the small quarto form. In this the Signal Book and the Instructions were bound together, and were issued to the whole navy, but here again, though the numbers were changed, the alterations were of no great importance.[2] Reprints appeared in 1806 and 1808, but the code itself continued in use till 1816. In that year an entirely new Signal Book based on Sir Home Popham's code was issued with a fresh set of Explanatory Instructions, or, as they had come to be called, 'Instructions relating to the line of battle and the conduct of the fleet preparatory to their engaging and when engaged with an enemy.'[3] Both these sets of 'Explanatory Instructions' are printed below, but, as we have seen, they throw but little light by themselves on the progress of tactical thought during the great period they covered. They were no longer 'Fighting Instructions' in the old sense, unless read with the principal battle signals, and to these we have to go to get at the ideas that underlay the tactics of Nelson and his contemporaries.