The 17th Article read thus:  “If the admiral see the enemy standing towards him, and he has the wind of them, the van of the fleet is to make sail till they come the length of the enemy’s rear, and our rear abreast of the enemy’s van; then he that is in the rear of our fleet is to tack first, and every ship one after another as fast as they can throughout the whole line; and if the admiral will have the whole fleet to tack together, the sooner to put them in a posture of engaging the enemy, he will hoist” a prescribed signal, “and fire a gun; and whilst they are in fight with the enemy the ships will keep at half a cable’s length—­one hundred yards—­one of the other.”  All this Byng aimed to do.  The conditions exactly fitted, and he exactly followed the rules, with one or two slight exceptions, which will appear, and for which the Court duly censured him.

When thus much had been done, the 19th Article in turn found its postulate realized, and laid down its corresponding instruction:  “If the admiral and his fleet have the wind of the enemy, and they have stretched themselves in a line of battle, the van of the admiral’s fleet is to steer with the van of the enemy’s, and there to engage with them.”  The precise force of “steer with” is not immediately apparent to us to-day, nor does it seem to have been perfectly clear then; for the question was put to the captain of the flag-ship,—­the heroic Gardiner, —­“You have been asked if the admiral did not express some uneasiness at Captain Andrews”—­of the van ship in the action—­“not seeming to understand the 19th Article of the Fighting Instructions; Do not you understand that article to relate to our van particularly when the two fleets are [already] in a parallel line of battle to each other?” (As TT, F3). Answer:  “I apprehended it in the situation” [not parallel] “we were in[1] if the word For were instead of the word With, he would, I apprehend, have steered directly for the van ship of the Enemy.” Question.  “As the 19th Article expresses to steer with the van of the enemy, if the leading ship had done so, in the oblique line we were in with the enemy, and every ship had observed it the same, would it not have prevented our rear coming to action at all, at least within a proper distance?” Answer:  “Rear, and van too.”  “Steer with” therefore meant, to the Court and to Gardiner, to steer parallel to the enemy,—­possibly likewise abreast,—­and if the fleets were already parallel the instruction would work; but neither the articles themselves, nor Byng by his signals, did anything to effect parallelism before making the signal to engage.