[3] MS. has ‘to the leading ships as after their broadside,’ &c.

[4] MS. ‘a’

[5] MS. ‘with.’

[6] Spanish ’sereno,’ the cold evening air.

[7] The ‘council of war’ was composed of the flag officers and the colonels of regiments.  Sir Thos.  Love was also a member of it, but probably as treasurer of the expedition and not as flag captain.  The ‘general council’ included besides all captains of ships and the masters.

LORD WIMBLEDON, 1625, No. 2, October 11.

[+State Papers Domestic, Charles I, xi.+]

Instructions when we come to fight with an enemy, sent by the Lieutenant-General unto the Earl of Essex.

1.  That you shall see the admiral make way to the admiral enemy, so likewise the vice-admiral and the rear-admiral, and then every ship [is] to set upon the next according to his order, yet to have such a care that those that come after may be ready to second one another after the manner here following.

2.  If we happen to be encountered by an enemy at sea, you shall then appoint a sufficient company to assist the gunners.  You shall pull down all the cabins betwixt the decks and use the beds and sacks for bulwarks, and shall appoint your muskets to several officers, some to make good the forecastle, some the waist, and others abaft the mast, from whence they shall not stir till they be otherwise directed, neither shall they or the gunners shoot a shot till they be commanded by the captain.

3.  You shall appoint a certain number of mariners to stand by sails and maintops, that every of them knowing his place and duty there be no confusion or disorder in the command; and shall divide carpenters some in hold, some betwixt the decks, with plates of lead, plugs and other things necessary for stopping up breaches made with great shot; and saw divers hogsheads in halves and set them upon the deck full of water, with wet blankets by them to cloak and quench any fire that shall happen in the fight.

4.  No man shall board any enemy’s ships without special order, but every ship if we be to leeward shall labour to recover the wind.  If we be to windward of them, then shall the whole fleet, or so many of them as shall be appointed, follow the leading ship within musket-shot of the enemy, and give them first the chase pieces, then the broadside, afterwards a volley of small shot; and when the headmost ship hath done, the next ship shall observe the same course, and so every ship in order, that the headmost may be ready to renew the fight against such time as the sternmost hath made an end; by that means keeping the weather of the enemy and in continual fight till they be sunk in the sea, or forced by bearing up to entangle themselves, and to come [foul] one of another to their utter confusion.

LORD WIMBLEDON, 1625, No. 3.

[+The Earl of St. Germans’s MS. Extract+.[1]]