been added in manuscript two comparatively unimportant articles relating to captured chases and the call for lieutenants.  These may have been either mere ‘expeditional’ orders, as they were called, issued by Boscawen in virtue of his general authority as commander-in-chief on the station, or possibly recent official additions.  More probably they were Boscawen’s own, for, strictly speaking, they should not appear as ‘Additional Fighting Instructions’ at all.  From the series of signal books and other sources we know there already existed a special set of ‘Chasing Instructions,’ and yet another set in which officers’ calls and the like were dealt with, and both of Boscawen’s articles were subsequently incorporated into these sets.  The printed articles to which Boscawen attached them were certainly not new.  Either wholly or in part they had been used by Byng in 1756, for at his court-martial he referred to the ’First article of the Additional Fighting Instructions as given to the fleet by me at the beginning of the expedition,’ and this article is identical with No. 1 of Boscawen’s set.

How much older the articles were, or, indeed, whether any were issued before the Seven Years’ War, has never yet been determined.  From the illogical order in which they succeed one another it would appear that they were the result of a gradual development, during which one or more orders were added from time to time by the incorporation of ‘expeditional’ orders of various admirals, as experience suggested their desirability.  Thus Article I. provides, in the case of the enemy being inferior in number, for our superfluous ships to fall out of the line and form a reserve, but it is not till Article VIII. that we have a scientific rule laid down for the method in which the reserve is to employ itself.  Still, whatever may have been the exact process by which these Additional Instructions grew up, evidence is in existence which enables us to trace the system to its source with exactitude, and there is no room for doubt that it originated in certain expeditional orders issued by Admiral Vernon when he was in command of the expedition against the Spanish Main in 1739-40.  Amongst the ‘Mathews and Lestock’ pamphlets is one sometimes attributed to Lestock himself, but perhaps more probably inspired by him.  It is dedicated to the first lord of the admiralty, and entitled A Narrative of the Proceedings of his majesty’s fleet in the Mediterranean, 1741-4, including, amongst other matter relating to Mathews’s action, ‘some signals greatly wanted on the late occasion.’  At p. 108 are some ’Additional signals made use of by our fleet in the West Indies,’ meaning that of Admiral Vernon, which Lestock had recently left.  These signals relate to sailing directions by day and by night, to ‘seeing ships in the night’ and to ’engaging an enemy in the night,’ and immediately following them are two ’Additional Instructions to be added to the Fighting Instructions.’  The inference is