On the first point there can be little doubt.  Sir Charles H. Knowles gives us to understand that Howe still had Hoste’s Treatise at his elbow, and with Hoste for his mentor we may be sure that, in common with other tactical students of his time, he soon convinced himself that Rodney’s manoeuvre was usually dangerous and always imperfect.  Knowles himself in his old age, though a devout admirer of Rodney, denounced it in language of characteristic violence, and maintained to the last that Rodney never intended it, as every one now agrees was the truth.  Nelson presumably also approved Howe’s cardinal improvement, or even in his most impulsive mood he would hardly have called him ’the first and greatest sea officer the world has ever produced.’[5]

As to the second point—­the fundamental intention of the new manoeuvre—­we get again a valuable hint from Knowles.  Upon his second visit to the admiralty, after Howe had succeeded Keppel at the end of 1783, Knowles brought with him by request a tactical treatise written by his father, as well as certain of his own tactical studies, and discussed with Howe a certain manoeuvre which he believed the French employed for avoiding decisive actions.  He showed that when engaged to leeward they fell off by alternate ships as soon as they were hard pressed, and kept reforming their line to leeward, so that the British had continually to bear up, and expose themselves to be raked aloft in order to close again.  In this way, as he pointed out, the French were always able to clip the British wings without receiving any decisive injury themselves.  In a MS. note to his ’Fighting and Sailing Instructions,’ he puts the matter quite clearly.  ’In the battle off Granada,’ he says, ’in the year 1779 the French ships partially executed this manoeuvre, and Sir Charles [H.] Knowles (then 5th lieutenant of the Prince of Wales of 74 guns, the flagship of the Hon. Admiral Barrington) drew this manoeuvre, and which he showed Admiral Lord Howe, when first lord of the admiralty, during the peace.  His lordship established a signal to break through the enemy’s line and engage on the other side to leeward, and which he executed himself in the battle of the 1st of June, 1794.’  The note adds that before Knowles drew Howe’s attention to the supposed French manoeuvre he had been content with his original Article XIV., modifying Article XXI. of the old Fighting Instructions as already explained.  Whether therefore Knowles’s account is precisely accurate or not, we may take it as certain that it was to baffle the French practice of avoiding close action by falling away to leeward that Howe hit on his brilliant conception of breaking through their line in all parts.