to theirs, but has likewise their shot which cross in her favour.’[8] No signal was provided for ‘doubling’ in Lord Howe’s or the later signal books, though Nelson certainly executed the manoeuvre at the Nile.  It survived however in the French service, and the English books provided a signal for preventing its execution by a numerically superior enemy.  Sir Alexander Cochrane also revived it after Trafalgar.

Knowles’s objection to the manoeuvre makes it easy to understand that, however well it suited the French tactics of long bowls or boarding, it was not well adapted to the English method of close action with the guns.  With the French service it certainly continued in favour, and the whole of Hoste’s rules were reproduced by the famous naval expert Sebastien-Francois Bigot, Vicomte de Morogues—­in his elaborate Tactique navale, ou traits des evolutions et des signaux, which appeared in 1763, and was republished at Amsterdam in 1779.  Not only was he the highest French authority on naval science of his time, but a fine seaman as well, as he proved when in command of the Magnifique on the disastrous day at Quiberon.[9]

The remainder of the new instructions, though less important than the expansion of the Duke of York’s third article, all tend in the same direction.  So far from insisting on a rigid observance of the single line ahead in all circumstances, the new system seems to aim at securing flexibility, and the power of concentration by independent action of squadrons.  This is to be specially noted in the new article, No. 30, in which signals are provided for particular squadrons and particular divisions forming line of battle abreast.  It is true that the old rigid form of an attack from windward is retained, but, ineffective as the system proved, it was certainly not inspired, as is so often said, by a mediaeval conception of naval battle as a series of single ship actions.  From what has been already said, the well-considered tactical idea that underlay it is obvious.  The injunction to range the length of the enemy’s line van to van, and rear to rear, or vice versa, was aimed at avoiding being doubled at either end of the line; while the injunction to bear down together was obviously the quickest mode of bringing the whole fleet into action without giving the enemy a chance of weathering any part of it by ‘gaining its wake.’  That it was inadequate for this purpose is well known.  It would only work when the two fleets were exactly parallel at the moment of bearing down—­as was made apparent at the battle of Malaga, where the French from leeward almost succeeded in dividing Rooke’s fleet as it bore down.  Still the idea was sound enough.  The trouble was that it did not make sufficient allowance for the unhandiness of ships of the line in those days, and their difficulty in taking up or preserving exact formations.