[360] See _Book of War by Sea and Land_, edited by Sir J. K. Laughton in vol. I of _The Naval Miscellany_ (Navy Records Society).
[362] "à moitie pendant." Presumably there was some difference in these two methods of tying a flag in a weft, but it is not known in what this difference consisted. Perhaps "a demy clouée" meant that the fly was gathered into the hoist, while the other expression denoted that the flag was gathered up horizontally in the middle, the normal method of making a weft.
[367] _Sic_; apparently the ship is to yaw, i.e. deviate from her course.
[369] _The Naval Miscellany_ (Navy Records Soc.), vol. I.
[371] The latest MS. appears to be Sloane MS. 2427; the earliest that the author has seen is in the Bodleian. It was from a MS. almost identical with the latter that the printed edition was published in 1685.
[373] "lesqueles banères sount appelés baucans et la gent d'Engleterre les appelent stremers et celes banères signefient mort sans remède et mortele guerre en tous les lious où mariners sont."
[374] "nous ne sums tenus faire restitution ne amende si nulle chose eit esté fait ou prise par nous en ladite guerre; quar il est usage et ley de meer que de choses faites ou prises sur meer en guerre meisement ou ledit baukan soit levée ne doit estre fait restitution n'amende d'une partie ne d'autre." 'Baucan,' cognate with 'beacon,' must not be confused with 'bauçan.'
[376] This and the two following sections are in substance a revision of a pamphlet _Nelson's Signals, The Evolution of the Signal Flags_, written by me in 1908 and published for the Admiralty by H.M. Stationery Office. I am indebted to the Controller of that Department for permission to make use of it in this work.
[377] Corbett, _Fighting Instructions_ (N. R. S.), p. 99.
[378] Possibly as a result of the first collision with the Dutch, Tromp appears to have been ahead of the English in the matter of signals.
[379] Shortly after 1756 the white balls disappear, and a white square takes their place, the flag thus becoming what is now familiarly called the Blue Peter. By Rodney's time this flag at the mainmast head had become the signal to recall everyone to his ship, whence its present use to denote that the ship is about to sail.