No finer manoeuvre was ever designed.  In the first place it developed the utmost fire-face by bringing both broadsides into play.  Secondly, by breaking up the enemy’s line into fragments it deprived their admiral of any shadow of control over the part attacked.  Thirdly, by seizing the leeward position (the essential postulate of the French method of fighting) it prevented individual captains making good their escape independently to leeward and ensured a decisive melee, such as Nelson aimed at.  And, fourthly, it permitted a concentration on any part of the enemy’s line, since it actually severed it at any desired point quite as effectually as did Rodney’s method.  Whether Howe ever appreciated the importance of concentration to the extent it was felt by Nelson, Hood and Rodney is doubtful.  Yet his invention did provide the best possible form of concentrated attack.  It had over Rodney’s imperfect manoeuvre this inestimable advantage, that by the very act of breaking the line you threw upon the severed portion an overwhelming attack of the most violent kind, and with the utmost development of fire-surface.  Finally it could not be parried as Rodney’s usually could in Hoste’s orthodox way by the enemy’s standing away together upon the same tack.  By superior gunnery Howe’s attack might be stopped, but by no possibility could it be avoided except by flight.  It was no wonder then that Howe’s invention was received with enthusiasm by such men as Nelson.

Still it is clear that in certain cases, and especially in making an attack from the leeward, as Clerk of Eldin had pointed out, and where it was desirable to preserve your own line intact, Rodney’s manoeuvre might still be the best.  Howe’s manoeuvre moreover supplied its chief imperfection, for it provided a method of dealing drastically with the portion of the enemy’s line that had been cut off.  Thus, although it is not traceable in the Signal Book, it was really reintroduced in Howe’s third code.  This is clear from the last article of the Explanatory Instructions of 1799 which distinguishes between the two manoeuvres; but whether or not this article was in the Instructions of 1790 we cannot tell.  The probability is that it was not, for in the Signal Book of 1790 there is no reference to a modifying instruction.  Further, we know that in the code proposed by Sir Charles H. Knowles the only signal for breaking the line was word for word the same as Howe’s.  This code he drew up in its final form in 1794, but it was not printed till 1798.  The presumption is therefore that until the code of 1799 was issued Howe’s method of breaking the line was the only one recognised.  In that code the primary intention of Signal 27 ’for breaking through the enemy’s line in all parts’ is still for Howe’s manoeuvre, but the instruction provides that it could be modified by a red pennant over, and in that case it meant ’that the fleet is to preserve the line of battle as it passes through