[8] Vice-Admiral Jordan to Penn, June 5, Memorials of Penn, II. 389.  This is the first known instance of the use of the term ‘line abreast.’  In the published account a different term is used.  ’By 3 or 4 in the morning,’ it says, ’a small breeze sprang up at N.E. and at a council of flag officers, his grace the lord general resolved to draw the fleet into a “rear line of battle” and make a fair retreat of it.’ (Brit.  Museum, 816, m. 23(13), p. 5, and S.P.  Dom.  Car.  II, vol. 158.) The French and Dutch called it the ‘crescent’ formation.  See note, p. 94.

[9] See post, pp. 136-7.

[10] Memoires d’Armand de Gramont, Comte de Guiche, concernant les Provinces Unis des Pays-Bas servant de supplement et de confirmation a ceux d’Aubrey du Maurier et du Comte d’Estrades.  Londres, chez Philippe Changuion, 1744. (The italics are not in the original.) Cf. the similar French account quoted by Mahan, Sea Power, 117 et seq.

[11] Cf. a similar conversation that Pepys had on October 28 with a certain Captain Guy, who had been in command of a small fourth-rate of thirty-eight guns in Holmes’s attack on the shipping at Vlie and Shelling after the ‘St. James’s Fight’ and of a company of the force that landed to destroy Bandaris.  The prejudice of both Pepys and Penn comes out still more strongly in their remarks on Monck’s and Rupert’s great victory of July 25, and their efforts to make out it was no victory at all.  The somewhat meagre accounts we have of this action all point as before to the superiority of the English manoeuvring, and to the inability or unwillingness of the Dutch, and especially of Tromp, to preserve the line.

THE DUKE OF YORK, April 10, 1665.

[+Sir Edward Spragge’s Sea Book.  The Earl of Dartmouth MSS.+]

James, Duke of York and Albany, Earl of Ulster, Lord High Admiral of England and Ireland, &c, Constable of Dover Castle, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and Governor of Portsmouth.

Instructions for the better ordering his majesty’s fleet in time of fighting_.

Upon discovery of a fleet receiving a sign from the admiral, which is to be striking of the admiral’s ensign, and making a weft, one frigate appointed out of each squadron are to make sail and stand in with them so nigh as conveniently they may, the better to gain a knowledge of what they are and what quality, how many fireships and others, and in what posture the fleet is; which being done the frigates are to meet together and conclude on the report they are to give, and accordingly to repair to their respective squadrons and commanders-in-chief, and not engage if the enemy’s ships exceed them in number, except it shall appear to them on the place that they have an advantage.

2.  At the sight of the said fleet the vice-admiral, or he that commands in chief in the second place, and his squadron, and the rear-admiral, or he that commands in chief in the third place, and his squadron are to make what sail they can to come up and put themselves into the place and order which shall have been directed them before in the order of battle.