[4] The earliest known use of the word 'jack' for a flag in an official document occurs in an order issued by Sir John Pennington to his pinnace captains in 1633. He was in command of the Channel guard in search of pirates, particularly 'The Seahorse lately commanded by Captain Quaile' and 'Christopher Megges, who had lately committed some outrage upon the Isle of Lundy, and other places.' The pinnaces were to work inshore of the admiral and to endeavour to entrap the piratical ships, and to this end he said, 'You are also for this present service to keep in your Jack at your boultsprit end and your pendant and your ordnance.' (Sloane MSS. 2682, f. 51.) The object of the order evidently was that they should conceal their character from the pirates, and at this time therefore the 'jack' carried at the end of the bowsprit and the pennant must have been the sign of a navy ship. Boteler however, who wrote his Sea Dialogues about 1625, does not mention the jack in his remarks about flags (pp. 327-334). The etymology is uncertain. The new Oxford Dictionary inclines to the simple explanation that 'jack' was used in this case in its common diminutive sense, and that 'jack-flag' was merely a small flag.
[5] I.e. his cruisers.
[6] In the Report of the Historical MSS. Commission it is stated that the position of the ships is shown in a diagram, but I have been unable to obtain access to the document.
II
MONCK, PRINCE RUPERT AND THE DUKE OF YORK
INTRODUCTORY
It has hitherto been universally supposed that the Dutch Wars of the Restoration were fought under the set of orders printed as an appendix to Granville Penn's Memorials of Penn. Mr. Penn believed them to belong to the year 1665, but recent research shows conclusively that these often-quoted orders, which have been the source of so much misapprehension, are really much later and represent not the ideas under which those wars were fought, but the experience that was gained from them.
This new light is mainly derived from a hitherto unknown collection of naval manuscripts belonging to the Earl of Dartmouth, which he has generously placed at the disposal of the Society. The invaluable material they contain enables us to say with certainty that the orders which the Duke of York issued as lord high admiral and commander-in-chief at the outbreak of the war were nothing but a slight modification of those of 1654, with a few but not unimportant additions. Amongst the manuscripts, most of which relate to the first Lord Dartmouth's cousin and first commander, Sir Edward Spragge, is a 'Sea Book' that must have once belonged to that admiral. It is a kind of commonplace book, the greater part unused, in which Spragge appears to have begun to enter various important orders and other matter of naval interest with which he had been officially concerned, by way of forming a collection of precedents.[1] Amongst these is a copy of the orders set out below, dated from the Royal Charles, the Duke of York's flagship, 'the 10th of April, 1665,' by command of his royal highness, and signed 'Wm. Coventry.' This was the well-known politician Sir William Coventry, the model, if not the author, of the Character of a Trimmer, who had been made private secretary to the duke on the eve of the Restoration, and was now a commissioner of the navy and acting as secretary on the duke's staff. So closely it will be seen do they follow the Commonwealth orders of 1653, as modified in the following year, that it would be scarcely worth while setting them out in full, but for the importance of finally establishing their true origin. The scarcely concealed doubts which many writers have felt as to whether the new system of tactics can have been due to the Duke of York may now be laid at rest, and henceforth the great reform must be credited not to him, but to Cromwell's 'generals-at-sea.'
Nevertheless the credit of certain developments which were introduced at this time must still remain with the duke and his advisers: Rupert, Sandwich, Lawson, and probably above all Penn, his flag captain. For instance, differences will be found in Articles 2 and 3, where, instead of merely enjoining the line, the duke refers to a regular 'order of battle,' which has not come down to us, but which no doubt gave every ship her station in the line, like those which Sandwich had prepared for his squadron a few months earlier, and which Monck and Rupert certainly drew up in the following year.[2] Then again the truculent Article 10 of 1653 and 1654 ordering the immediate destruction of disabled ships of the enemy after saving the crews if possible, which contemporary authorities put down to Monck, is reversed. At the end, moreover, two articles are added; one, numbered 15, embodying numbers 2 and 3 of Sandwich's orders of the previous year, with such modifications as were necessary to adapt them to a large fleet, and another numbered 16 enjoining 'close action.' Nor is this all. Spragge's 'Sea Book' contains also a set of ten 'additional instructions' all of which are new. They are undated, but from another copy in Capt. Robert Moulton's 'Sea Book' we can fix them to April 18th, 1665.[3] Their whole tenour suggests that they were the outcome of prolonged discussions in the council of war; and in the variously dated copies which exist of sections of the orders we have evidence that between the last week in March, when the duke hoisted his flag, and April 21st, when he put to sea, much time must have been spent upon the consideration of the tactical problem.[4]
The result was a marked advance. In these ten 'additional instructions,' for instance, we have for the first time a clear distinction drawn between attacks from windward and attacks from leeward. We have also the first appearance of the close-hauled line ahead, and it is enjoined as a defensive formation when the enemy attacks from windward. A method of attack from windward is also provided for the case where the enemy stays to receive it. Amongst less important developments we have an article making the half-cable's length, originally enjoined under the Commonwealth, the regular interval between ships, and others to prevent the line being broken for the sake of chasing or taking possession of beaten ships. Finally there are signals for tacking in succession either from the van or the rear, which must have given the fleet a quite unprecedented increase of tactical mobility. Nor are we without evidence that increased mobility was actually exhibited when the new instructions were put to a practical test.