Devert.

[5] MS. 'loofe.'

[6] Corporal of the field meant the equivalent of an A.D.C. or orderly.

[7] This appears to be the first known mention of a court-martial being
provided for officially at sea.

[8] This passage is corrupt in the MS. and is restored from Wimbledon's
Article 32, _post_, p. 58.

[9] This was the Spanish practice. There is no known mention of it
earlier in the English service.

[10] Gorges's article about 'Musket-arrows' is here omitted by Ralegh.

[11] _I.e._ 'noisy confusion.' Shakspeare has 'I heard a bustling rumour
like a fray.'

[12] The corresponding article in Gorges's set (_Stowe MSS._ 426) is as
follows:--

'No man shall board any enemy's ship but by order from a principal
commander, as the admiral, vice-admiral or rear-admiral, for that by one
ship's boarding all the fleet may be engaged to their dishonour or loss.
But every ship that is under the lee of an enemy shall labour to recover
the wind if the admiral endeavour it. But if we find an enemy to leeward
of us the whole fleet shall follow the admiral, vice-admiral or other
leading ship within musket-shot of the enemy, giving so much liberty to
the leading ship, as after her broadside is delivered she may stay and
trim her sails. Then is the second ship to give her side and the third,
fourth, and rest, which done they shall all tack as the first ship and
give the other side, keeping the enemy under a perpetual volley. This
you must do upon the windermost ship or ships of the enemy, which you
shall either batter in pieces, or force him or them to bear up and so
entangle them, and drive them foul one of another to their utter
confusion.' For the evidence that this may have been drawn up and used
as early as 1578, and consequently in the Armada campaign, see
Introductory Note, _supra_, pp. 34-5.

[13] 'Sergeant-major' at this time was the equivalent to our 'chief of
the staff' or 'adjutant-general.' In the fleet orders issued by the Earl
of Essex for the Azores expedition in 1597 there was a similar article,
which Ralegh was accused of violating by landing at Fayal without
authority; it ran as follows:--'No captain of any ship nor captain of
any company if he be severed from the fleet shall land without direction
from the general or some other principal commander upon pain of death,'
&c. Ralegh met the charge by pleading he was himself a 'principal
commander.'--Purchas, iv. 1941.

[14] This expression has not been found