[3] Harleian MSS. 1247. It contains orders addressed to Moulton and returns for the Centurion, Vanguard and Anne, the ships he commanded in 1664-6. At p. 52 it has a copy of the above 'Additional Instructions,' but numbered 1 to 6, articles 1 to 5 of the Dartmouth copy being in one long article. At p. 50 it has the original articles as far as No. 6. Then come two articles numbered as 7 and 8, giving signals for a squadron 'to draw up in line' and to come near the admiral. They are subscribed 'Royal James, Admiral.' The Royal James was Rupert's flagship in 1665, and the two articles may be squadronal orders of his. Then, numbered 9 to 12, come four 'additional instructions for sailing' by the Duke of York, relating to chasing, and dated April 24, 1665.
[4] Some of these articles are dated even as late as April 27, See in the Penn Tracts, Sloane MSS. 3232, f. 33, infra, p. 128.
[5] See post, p. 177. For the despatches, &c., see G. Penn, Memorials of Penn, II. 322-333, 344-350. He also quotes a work published at Amsterdam in 1668 which says: 'Le Comte de Sandwich sépara la flotte Hollandaise en deux vers l'une heure du midi.' He explains that by the order for the rear to tack first, Sandwich was leading, forgetting Coventry's despatch (ibid. p. 328), which tells how by that time the duke had taken Sandwich's place and was leading the line himself, and that it was he, not Sandwich, who led the movement upon Opdam's ship in the centre of the Dutch line.
[6] Charnock, Biographia Navalis, i. 65.
[7] Pepys, it must be said, persuaded himself that this order was suggested and approved by the admirals. He traced it to Spragge's desire to get away with his chief on a separate command. Pepys however was clearly not sure about it, and he almost certainly would have been if the Duke of York was really innocent of the blunder. The truth probably can never be known.
[8] Vice-Admiral Jordan to Penn, June 5, Memorials of Penn, II. 389. This is the first known instance of the use of the term 'line abreast.' In the published account a different term is used. 'By 3 or 4 in the morning,' it says, 'a small breeze sprang up at N.E. and at a council of flag officers, his grace the lord general resolved to draw the fleet into a "rear line of battle" and make a fair retreat of it.' (Brit. Museum, 816, m. 23(13), p. 5, and S.P. Dom. Car. II, vol. 158.) The French and Dutch called it the 'crescent' formation. See note, p. 94.
[9] See post, pp. 136-7.
[10] Mémoires d'Armand de Gramont, Comte de Guiche, concernant les Provinces Unis des Pays-Bas servant de supplément et de confirmation à ceux d'Aubrey du Maurier et du Comte d'Estrades. Londres, chez Philippe Changuion, 1744. (The italics are not in the original.) Cf. the similar French account quoted by Mahan, Sea Power, 117 et seq.
[11] Cf. a similar conversation that Pepys had on October 28 with a certain Captain Guy, who had been in command of a small fourth-rate of thirty-eight guns in Holmes's attack on the shipping at Vlie and Shelling after the 'St. James's Fight' and of a company of the force that landed to destroy Bandaris. The prejudice of both Pepys and Penn comes out still more strongly in their remarks on Monck's and Rupert's great victory of July 25, and their efforts to make out it was no victory at all. The somewhat meagre accounts we have of this action all point as before to the superiority of the English manoeuvring, and to the inability or unwillingness of the Dutch, and especially of Tromp, to preserve the line.
THE DUKE OF YORK, April 10, 1665.