Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 eBook

Julian Corbett
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 368 pages of information about Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816.

Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 eBook

Julian Corbett
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 368 pages of information about Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816.

[24] The Admiralty MS. has the Observation:  ’By reason that guns are not so well to be distinguished at the latter end of a battle from chose of the enemy, sky-rockets would be proper signals.’  This appears to be the earliest recorded suggestion for the use of rockets for naval signalling.

II

MEDITERRANEAN ORDERS, 1678

INTRODUCTORY

In 1677 Narbrough had been sent for the second time as commander-in-chief to the Mediterranean, to deal with the Barbary corsairs.  To enable him to operate more effectively against Tripoli, arrangements were on foot to establish a base for him at Malta, and meanwhile he had been using the Venetian port of Zante.  It was at this time that Charles II, in a last effort to throw off the yoke of Louis XIV, had married his eldest niece, the Princess Mary, to the French king’s arch-enemy William of Orange, and relations between France and England were at the highest tension.  Preparations were set on foot in the British dockyards for equipping a ‘grand fleet’ of eighty sail; on February 15 was issued a new and enlarged commission to Narbrough making him ‘admiral of his majesty’s fleet in the Straits’; Sicily, which the French had occupied, was hurriedly evacuated; Duquesne, who commanded the Toulon squadron, was expecting to be attacked at any moment, and Colbert gave him strict orders to keep out of the British admiral’s way.[1]

It will be seen that it was in virtue of his new commission, and in expectation of encountering a superior French force, that Narbrough issued his orders, and they may be profitably compared with those of Lord Sandwich on the eve of the Second Dutch War as the typical Fighting Instructions for a small British fleet.  No collision however occurred; for Louis could not face the threatened coalition between Spain, Holland, and England, and was forced to assent to a general peace, which was signed at Nymwegen in the following September.

FOOTNOTE: 

[1] Corbett, England in the Mediterranean, ii. 97-104.  The official correspondence will be found in Mr. Tanner’s Calendar of the Pepys MSS., vol. i., and in the Lettres de Colbert, vol. iii.

SIR JOHN NARBROUGH, 1678.

[+Egerton MSS. 2543, f. 839+.]

Sir John Narbrough, Knight, admiral of his majesty’s fleet in the Mediterranean seas for this expedition.

Instructions for all commanders to place their ships for their better fighting and securing the whole fleet if a powerful enemy sets upon us_.

When I hoist my union flag at the mizen peak, I would have every commander in this fleet place himself in order of sailing and battle as prescribed, observing his starboard and larboard ship and leader, either sailing before or by the wind, and so continue sailing in order so long as the signal is abroad.

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Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.