The author’s obligations to the recent campaigns of Rodney and Hood are equally clear.  Signal 236 is, ’For ships to steer for independent of each other and engage respectively the ships opposed to them in the enemy’s line,’ and this was a new form of the signal, which, according to the MS. Signal Book of 1782, was introduced by Hood.[6] Still more significant is Signal 235, ’when fetching up with the enemy to leeward, and on the contrary tack, to break through their line and endeavour to cut off part of their van or rear.’  This is clearly the outcome of Rodney’s famous manoeuvre, and is adopted word for word from the signification of the signal that Hood added.  Pigot, it will be remembered, on succeeding Rodney, added two more on the same subject, viz. (1) ’For the leading ship to cut through the enemy’s line of battle,’ and (2) ’For a particular ship specified to cut through the enemy’s line of battle, and for all the other ships to follow her in close order to support each other.’  Neither of these later signals is in the code we are considering, and the presumption is that it was drawn up very soon after Rodney’s victory and before Pigot’s signals were known at home.

Finally there is a MS. note added by Sir Charles H. Knowles to his ‘Fighting and Sailing Instructions,’ to the effect that in the instructions issued by Howe in 1782 he modified Article XXI. of the old Fighting Instructions (i.e. Article XX. of Russell’s).  ‘His lordship in 1782,’ it says, ’directed by his instructions that the line [i.e. his own line] should not be broken until all the enemy’s ships gave way and were beaten.’  And this is practically the effect of Article XIV. of the set we are considering.  In the absence of contrary evidence, therefore, there seems good ground for calling these folio volumes ‘Howe’s First Signal Book, 1782,’ and with this tentative attribution the Explanatory Instructions are printed below.

As has been already said, these instructions, divorced as they now were from the signals, give but a very inadequate idea of the tactics in vogue.  For this we must go to the tactical signals themselves.  In the present case the more important ones (besides those given above) are as follows: 

’No. 218.  To attack the enemy’s rear in succession by ranging up with and opening upon the sternmost of their ships; then to tack or veer, as being to windward or to leeward of the enemy, and form again in the rear.’  This signal, which at first sight looks like a curious reversion to the primitive Elizabethan method of attack, immediately follows the signals for engaging at anchor, and may have been the outcome of Hood’s experience with De Grasse in 1782.

’No. 232.  In working to gain the wind of the enemy, for the headmost and sternmost ships to signify when they can weather them by Signal 17, p. 66; or if to windward of the enemy and on the contrary tack, for the sternmost ship to signify when she is far enough astern of their rear to be able to lead down out of their line of fire.’