Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 | Page 2

place in a volume issued by the Society in the centenary year.
As to the general results, perhaps the most striking feature which the collection brings out is that sailing tactics was a purely English art. The idea that we borrowed originally from the Dutch is no longer tenable. The Dutch themselves do not even claim the invention of the line. Indeed in no foreign authority, either Dutch, French or Spanish, have I been able to discover a claim to the invention of any device in sailing tactics that had permanent value. Even the famous tactical school which was established in France at the close of the Seven Years' War, and by which the French service so brilliantly profited in the War of American Independence, was worked on the old lines of Hoste's treatise. Morogues' Tactique Navale was its text-book, and his own teaching was but a scientific and intelligent elaboration of a system from which the British service under the impulse of Anson, Hawke, and Boscawen was already shaking itself free.
Much of the old learning which the volume contains is of course of little more than antiquarian interest, but the bulk of it in the opinion of those best able to judge should be found of living value. All systems of tactics must rest ultimately on the dominant weapon in use, and throughout the sailing period the dominant weapon was, as now, the gun. In face of so fundamental a resemblance no tactician can afford to ignore the sailing system merely because the method of propulsion and the nature of the material have changed. It is not the principles of tactics that such changes affect, but merely the method of applying them.
Of even higher present value is the process of thought, the line of argument by which the old tacticians arrived at their conclusions good and bad. In studying the long series of Instructions we are able to detach certain attitudes of mind which led to the atrophy of principles essentially good, and others which pushed the system forward on healthy lines and flung off obsolete restraints. In an art so shifting and amorphous as naval tactics, the difference between health and disease must always lie in a certain vitality of mind with which it must be approached and practised. It is only in the history of tactics, under all conditions of weapons, movement and material, that the conditions of that vitality can be studied.
For a civilian to approach the elucidation of such points without professional assistance would be the height of temerity, and my thanks therefore are particularly due for advice and encouragement to Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge, Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald Custance, Rear-Admiral H.S.H. Prince Louis of Battenberg, and to Captain Slade, Captain of the Royal Naval College. To Sir Reginald Custance and Professor Laughton I am under a special obligation, for not only have they been kind enough to read the proofs of the work, but they have been indefatigable in offering suggestions, the one from his high professional knowledge and the other from his unrivalled learning in naval history. Any value indeed the work may be found to possess must in a large measure be attributed to them. Nor can I omit to mention the valuable assistance which I have received from Mr. Ferdinand Brand and Captain Garbett, R.N., in unearthing forgotten material in the Libraries of the Admiralty and the United Service Institution.
I have also the pleasure of expressing my obligations to the Earl of Dartmouth, the Earl of St. Germans, and Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Knowles, Bart., for the use of the documents in their possession, as well as to many others whose benefits to the Society will be found duly noted in the body of the work.

CONTENTS

PART I.--EARLY TUDOR PERIOD
1. INTRODUCTORY. ALONSO DE CHAVES ON SAILING TACTICS 3 Espejo de Navegantes, circa 1530 6
2. INTRODUCTORY. AUDLEY'S FLEET ORDERS, circa 1530 14 Orders to be used by the King's Majesty's Navy by the Sea 15
3. INTRODUCTORY. THE ADOPTION OF SPANISH TACTICS BY HENRY VIII 18 Lord Lisle, 1545, No. 1 20 " " No. 2 23

PART II.--ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN
INTRODUCTORY. THE ELIZABETHAN ORIGIN OF RALEGH'S INSTRUCTIONS 27 Sir Walter Ralegh, 1617 36

PART III.--CAROLINGIAN
1. INTRODUCTORY. THE ATTEMPT TO APPLY LAND FORMATIONS TO THE FLEET 49 Lord Wimbledon, 1625. No. 1 52 " " No. 2 61 " " No. 3 63
2. INTRODUCTORY. THE SHIP-MONEY FLEETS, circa 1635 73 The Earl of Lindsey, 1635 77

PART IV.--THE FIRST DUTCH WAR
1. INTRODUCTORY. ENGLISH AND DUTCH ORDERS ON THE EVE OF THE WAR, 1648-53 81 Parliamentary Orders, 1648 87 Supplementary Instructions, circa 1650 88 Marten Tromp, 1652 91
2. INTRODUCTORY. ORDERS ISSUED DURING THE WAR, 1653 and 1654 92 Commonwealth Orders, 1653 99

PART V.--THE SECOND DUTCH WAR
1. INTRODUCTORY. ORDERS OF THE RESTORATION 107 The Earl of Sandwich, 1665 108
2. INTRODUCTORY. MONCK, PRINCE RUPERT,