In other words, men’s minds were breaking away from, but had not thrown off completely, the tyranny of the Order of Battle,—­one of the worst of tyrannies, because founded on truth.  Absolute error, like a whole lie, is open to speedy detection; half-truths are troublesome.  The Order of Battle[50] was an admirable servant and a most objectionable despot.  Mathews, in despair over a recalcitrant second, cast off the yoke, engaged with part of his force, was ill supported and censured; Lestock escaping.  Byng, considering this, and being a pedant by nature, would not break his line; the enemy slipped away, Minorca surrendered, and he was shot.  In Keppel’s court-martial, twenty-eight out of the thirty captains who had been in the line were summoned as witnesses.  Most of them swore that if Keppel had chased in line of battle that day, there could have been no action, and the majority of them cordially approved his course; but there was evidently an undercurrent still of dissent, and especially in the rear ships, where there had been some of the straggling inevitable in such movements.  Their commanders therefore had uncomfortable experience of the lack of mutual support, which the line of battle was meant to insure.

Another indication of still surviving pedantry was the obligation felt in the rear ships to take post about their own admiral, and to remain there when the signals for the line of battle, and to bear down in the admiral’s wake, were flying.  Thus Palliser’s own inaction, to whatever cause due, paralysed the six or eight sail with him; but it appears to the writer that Keppel was seriously remiss in not summoning those ships by their own pennants, as soon as he began to distrust the purposes of the Vice-Admiral, instead of delaying doing so till 7 P.M., as he did.  It is a curious picture presented to us by the evidence.  The Commander-in-Chief, with his staff and the captain of the ship, fretting and fuming on the Victory’s quarter-deck; the signals flying which have been mentioned; Harland’s division getting into line ahead; and four points on the weather quarter, only two miles distant, so that “every gun and port could be counted,” a group of seven or eight sail, among them the flag of the third in command, apparently indifferent spectators.  The Formidable’s only sign of disability was the foretopsail unbent for four hours,—­a delay which, being unexplained, rather increased than relieved suspicion, rife then throughout the Navy.  Palliser was a Tory, and had left the Board of Admiralty to take his command.  Keppel was so strong a Whig that he would not serve against the Americans; and he evidently feared that he was to be betrayed to his ruin.