[292] Admiralty 2/11. Orders of 31st March and 1st May, 1693.
[293] Admiralty 2/23, 15th March, 1697.
[294] Pepys MS. 2867.
[295] Pepys MSS. Miscellanea, ix.
[296] Admiralty 2/9.
[Chapter V]
Colours of Distinction
Boteler, in his Dialogues, reminds us that "Flaggs (to speake properly) are only those which are borne out in the Topps of Shyps, and they serve as Badges, and that as well for the distinguishing of Nations as Commanders ... the others are named the Colours or Ensigns and Pendants." To these was added in 1633, while he was writing these Dialogues, the jack, or small Union flag flown at the bowsprit, which, with the ensign and pendant, completed the "suit of colours" for a ship of war. The differentiation by this means of the various classes of public and private ships reached its culminating point by the middle of the nineteenth century. At that period British ships were divided into five categories, each with its own special flags of distinction, according to their employment, as: