The captain of the ship sternmost in passing, which became the van when the fleet tacked together according to the Instructions and signals, evidently shared Gardiner’s impression; when about, he steered parallel to—­“with”—­the French, who had the wind nearly abeam.  The mischief was that the ships ahead of him in passing were successively more and more distant from the enemy, and if they too, after tacking, steered with the latter, they would never get any nearer.  The impasse is clear.  Other measures doubtless would enable an admiral to range his fleet parallel to the enemy at any chosen distance, by taking a position himself and forming the fleet on his ship; or, in this particular instance, Byng being with the van as it, on the starboard tack, was passing the enemy (B3 B3), could at any moment have brought his fleet parallel to the French by signalling the then van ship to keep away a certain amount, the rest following in her wake.  Nothing to that effect being in the Instructions, it seems not to have occurred to him.  His one idea was to conform to them, and he apprehended that after tacking, as they prescribed, the new van ship would bear down and engage without further orders, keeping parallel to the French when within point-blank, the others following her as they could; a process which, from the varying distances, would expose each to a concentrated fire as they successively approached.  Byng’s action is only explicable to the writer by supposing that he thus by “steer with” understood “steer for;” for when, after the fleet tacked together, the new van ship (formerly the rear) did not of her own motion head for the leading enemy, he signalled her to steer one point, and then two points, in that direction.  This, he explained in his defence, was “to put the leading captain in mind of his Instructions, who I perceived did not steer away with the enemy’s leading ship agreeable to the 19th Article of the Fighting Instructions.”  The results of these orders not answering his expectations, he then made the signal to engage, as the only remaining way perceptible to him for carrying out the Instructions.

To summarize the foregoing, up to the moment the signal for battle was made:  While the fleets were striving for the weather gage, the wind had shifted to the southwest.  The French, momentarily disordered by the change, had formed in line ahead about noon, heading northwest, westerly, so as just to keep their main topsails aback and the ships with bare steerage way, but under command (F3).  The British standing south-southeast, by the wind, were passing (B2-B3) across the head of the enemy’s fleet at a distance of from three to two miles—­the latter being the estimate by their ships then in the rear.  The French having twelve vessels in line and the British thirteen, the gradual progress of the latter should bring their then van “the length of the enemy’s rear,” about the time the rear came abreast of his van.  When this happened, the Instructions required that the fleet tack together, and then stand for the enemy, ship to ship, number one to number one, and so along the line till the number twelves met[2].