right and rear, and hence too distant from the
enemy, and that it was his duty first to get into his station and then
to bring-to. To this the vice-admiral on his trial replied, first, that
he was not out of his station; and, second, that if he were, the later
signal, to bring-to, suspended the earlier, to form line abreast, and
that it was therefore his business, without any discretion, to stop
where he was. Concerning the first plea, a number of witnesses, very
respectable in point of rank and opportunity for seeing, testified that
the vice-admiral did bring-to three or four miles to the right and rear
of his place in the line abreast, reckoning his station from the
admiral's ship; yet, as the Court peremptorily rejected their evidence,
it is probably proper to accept the contemporary decision as to this
matter of fact.

But as regards the second plea, being a matter of military correctness,
a difference of opinion is allowable. The Court adopted as its own the
argument of the vice-admiral. Without entering here into a technical
discussion, the Court's ruling, briefly stated, was that the second
signal superseded the first, so that, if the vice-admiral was in the
wrong place, it was not his duty to get into the right before stopping;
and that this was doubly the case because an article of the Night
Signals (7) prescribed that, under the conditions of the alleged
offence, "a fleet sailing before the wind, or nearly so, if the admiral
made the signal for the fleet to bring-to, the windward ships should
bring-to first." Therefore, if Lestock was to windward, as the charge
read, it was his duty to bring-to first and at once. It is evident,
however, that even the Sailing Instructions, cast-iron as they were,
contemplated a fleet in order, not one in process of forming order; and
that to bring-to helter-skelter, regardless of order, was to obey the
letter rather than the spirit. Muddle-headed as Mathews seems to have
been, what he was trying to do was clear enough; and the duty of a
subordinate was to carry out his evident aim. An order does not
necessarily supersede its predecessor, unless the two are incompatible.
The whole incident, from Lestock's act to the Court's finding, is
instructive as showing the slavish submission to the letter of the
Instructions; a submission traceable not to the law merely, but to the
added tradition that had then fast hold of men's minds. It is most
interesting to note that the unfortunate