gnals 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.

[4] Hoste, the author of the first great treatise on Naval Tactics,
quotes Tromp's formation as a typical method of retreat; but his account
is vitiated by what seems a curious mistake. He says: 'Il rangea son
armee en demi-lune et il mit son convoi au milieu: c'est a dire que son
vaisseau faisait au vent l'angle obtus de la demi-lune, et les autres
s'etendoient de part (_sic_) et d'autre _sur les deux lignes du plus-
pres_ pour former les faces de la demi-lune qui couvroient le convoi. Ce
fut en cet ordre qu'il fit vent arriere, foudroiant a droite et a gauche
tous les anglois qui s'approchent' But if with the wind aft his two
quarter lines bore from the flagship seven points from the wind, the
formation would have been concave to the enemy and the convoy could not
have been _au milieu_. (_Evolutions Navales_, pp. 90, 95, and plate 29,
p. 91.) The passage is in any case interesting, as showing that what was
then called the crescent or half-moon formation was nothing but our own
'order of retreat,' or 'order of retreat reverted,' of Rodney's time. As
define