the enemy’s line, and to preserve it in very close order, that such of the enemy’s ships as are cut off may not find an opportunity of passing through it to rejoin their fleet.’  This was precisely Rodney’s manoeuvre with the proviso for close order introduced by Pigot.  The instruction also provided for the combining of a numeral to indicate at which number in the enemy’s line the attempt was to be made.  No doubt the distinction between manoeuvres so essentially different might have been more logically made by entirely different signals.[6] But in practice it was all that was wanted.  It is only posterity that suffers, for in studying the actions of that time it is generally impossible to tell from the signal logs or the tactical memoranda which movement the admiral had in mind.  Not only do we never find it specified whether the signal was made simply or with the pennant over, but admirals seem to have used the expressions ‘breaking’ and ‘cutting’ the line, and ‘breaking through,’ ‘cutting through,’ ‘passing through,’ and ’leading through,’ as well as others, quite indiscriminately of both forms of the manoeuvre.  Thus in Nelson’s first, or Toulon, memorandum he speaks of ‘passing through the line’ from to-windward, meaning presumably Howe’s manoeuvre, and of ‘cutting through’ their fleet from to-leeward when presumably he means Rodney’s.  In the Trafalgar memorandum he speaks of ‘leading through’ and ‘cutting’ the line from to-leeward, and of ‘cutting through’ from to-windward, when he certainly meant to perform Howe’s manoeuvre.  Whereas Howe, in his Instruction XXXI. of 1799, uses ‘breaking the line’ and ‘passing through it’ indifferently of both forms.

All we can do is generally to assume that when the attack was to be made from to-windward Howe’s manoeuvre was intended, and Rodney’s when it was made from to-leeward.  Yet this is far from being safe ground.  For the signification of the plain signal without the red pennant over—­i.e. ’to break through ... and engage on the other side’—­seems to contemplate Howe’s manoeuvre being made both from to-leeward and from to-windward.

The only notable disappearances in Howe’s second code (1790) are the signals for ‘doubling,’ probably as a corollary of the new manoeuvre.  For, until this device was hit upon, Rodney’s method of breaking the line apparently could only be made effective as a means of concentration by doubling on the part cut off in accordance with Hoste’s method.  This at least is what Clerk of Eldin seems to imply in some of his diagrams, in so far as he suggests any method of dealing with the part cut off.  Yet in spite of this disappearance Nelson certainly doubled at the Nile, and according to Captain Edward Berry, who was captain of his flagship, he did it deliberately.  ’It is almost unnecessary,’ he wrote in his narrative, ’to explain his projected mode of attack at anchor, as that was minutely and precisely executed in the action....  These plans however