to port,—­towards the enemy.  As this followed immediately upon that to prepare for battle, it indicated almost beyond question, that Rodney wished, for reasons of the moment, to run down at first in a slanting direction,—­not in line abreast, as before,—­ships taking course and interval from the flagship.  Later again, at 11.50, the signal was made, “agreeable to the 21st Article of the Additional Fighting Instructions, for every ship to steer for her opposite in the enemy’s line;” and here the trouble began.  Rodney meant the ship opposite when the signal was hauled down.  He had steered slanting, till he had gained as nearly as possible the position he wanted, probably till within long range; then it was desirable to cover the remaining ground as rapidly and orderly as possible, for which purpose the enemy’s ship then abreast gave each of his fleet its convenient point of direction.  He conceived that his signalled purpose to attack the enemy’s rear, never having been altered, remained imperative; and further, that the signal for two cables’ length interval should govern all ships, and would tie them to him, and to his movements, in the centre.  Carkett construed “opposite” to mean opposite in numerical order, British van ship against French van ship, wherever the latter was.  Rodney states—­in his letter to Carkett—­that the French van was then two leagues away.  “You led to the van ship, notwithstanding you had answered my signals signifying that it was my intention to attack the enemy’s rear; which signal I had never altered....  Your leading in the manner you did, induced others to follow so bad an example; and thereby, forgetting that the signal for the line was only at two cables’ length distance from each other, the van division was led by you to more than two leagues’ distance from the centre division, which was thereby not properly supported."[84]

Carkett was the oldest captain in the fleet, his post commission being dated March 12th, 1758.  How far he may have been excusable in construing as he did Fighting Instructions, which originated in the inane conception that the supreme duty of a Commander-in-Chief was to oppose ship to ship, and that a fleet action was only an agglomeration of naval duels, is not very material, though historically interesting.  There certainly was that in the past history of the British Navy which extenuated the offence of a man who must have been well on in middle life.  But since the Fighting Instructions had been first issued there had been the courts-martial, also instructive, on Mathews, Lestock, Byng, Keppel, and Palliser, all of which turned more or less on the constraint of the line of battle, and the duty of supporting ships engaged,—­above all, an engaged Commander-in-Chief.  Rodney perhaps underestimated the weight of the Fighting Instructions upon a dull man; but he was justified in claiming that his previous signals, and the prescription of distance, created at the least a conflict of orders,