Again, for the next battle—­that of the Texel—­fought on July 31 in the same year, we have the statement of Hoste’s informant, who was present as a spectator, that at the opening of the action the English, but not the Dutch, were formed in a single line close-hauled.  ’Le 7 Aoust’ [i.e. N.S.], the French gentleman says, ’je decouvris l’armee de l’amiral composee de plus de cent vaisseaux de guerre.  Elle etait rangee en trois escadrons et elle faisoit vent-arriere pour aller tomber sur les Anglois, qu’elle rencontra le meme jour a peu pres en pareil nombre rangez [sic] sur une ligne qui tenoit plus de quatre lieues Nord-Nord-Est et Sud-Sud-Ouest, le vent etant Nord-Ouest.  Le 8 et le 9 se passerent en des escarmouches, mais le 10 on en [sic] vint a une bataille decisive.  Les Anglois avoient essaie de gagner le vent:  mais l’amiral Tromp en aiant toujours conserve l’avantage, et l’etant range sur une ligne parallele a celle des Anglois arriva sur eux,’ &c.  This is the first known instance of a Dutch fleet forming in single line, and, so far as it goes, would tend to show they adopted it in imitation of the English formation.[7] At any rate, so far as we have gone, the evidence tends to show that the English finally adopted the regular line-ahead formation in consequence of the orders of March 29, 1653, and there is no indication of the current belief that they borrowed it from the Dutch.

By the English admirals the new system must have been regarded as a success.  For the Fighting Instructions of 1653 were reissued with nothing but a few alterations of signals and verbal changes by Blake, Monck, Disbrowe, and Penn, the new ’admirals and generals of the fleet of the Commonwealth of England,’ appointed in December 1653, when the war was practically over.  They are printed by Granville Penn (Memorials of Penn, ii. 76), under date March 31, 1655, but that cannot be the actual date of their issue, for Blake was then in the Mediterranean, Penn in the West Indies, and Monck busy with his pacification of the Highlands.  We must suspect here then another confusion between old and new styles, and conjecture the true date to be March 31, 1654, that is just before Monck left for Scotland, and a few days before the peace was signed.  So that these would be the orders under which Blake conducted his famous campaign in the Mediterranean, Penn and Venables captured Jamaica, and the whole of Cromwell’s Spanish war was fought.

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] Hist.  MSS.  Com. XIII. ii. 85.  It is from a transcript of this copy made for Dr. Gardiner that I have been permitted to take the text below.  A set of ‘Instructions for the better ordering of the fleet in Sailing’ accompanies them.

[2] British Museum, Shane MSS. 3232, f. 81.

[3] The Sloane copy is not quite identical with that in the Portland MSS.  The variations, however, are merely verbal and in a few signals, and are of such a nature as to be accounted for by careless transcription.