says: 'Our general was the foremost and so held his place until, by
order of fight, other ships were to have their turns according to his
former direction, who wisely and politicly had so ordered his vanguard
and rearward; and as the manner of it was altogether strange to the
Spaniard, so might they have been without hope of victory, if their
general had been a man of judgment in sea-fights.'

Here, then, if we may trust Savile, a definite battle order must have
been laid down beforehand on the new lines, and it is possible that in
the years which had elapsed since the Armada campaign the seamen had
been giving serious attention to a tactical system, which the absence
of naval actions prevented reaching any degree of development. Had
the idea been Baskerville's own it is very unlikely that the veteran
sea-captains on his council of war would have assented to its
adoption. At any rate we may assert that the idea of ships attacking
in succession so as to support one another without masking each
other's broadside fire (which is the essential germ of the true line
ahead) was in the air, and it is clearly on the principle that
underlay Baskerville's tactics that Ralegh's fighting instructions
were based twenty years later.[4]

These which are the first instructions known to have been issued to an
English fleet since Henry VIII's time were signed by Sir Walter Ralegh
on May 3, 1617, at Plymouth, on the eve of his sailing for his
ill-fated expedition to Guiana. Most of the articles are in the nature
of 'Articles of War' and 'Sailing Instructions' rather than 'Fighting
Instructions,' but the whole are printed below for their general
interest. A contemporary writer, quoted by Edwards in his _Life of
Ralegh_, says of them: 'There is no precedent of so godly, severe,
and martial government, fit to be written and engraven in every man's