bestow everything handsomely there and to remove anything that may be
troublesome.'--_Dialogues_, 283.



THE SHIP-MONEY FLEETS,
_circa_ 1635

INTRODUCTORY


That Cecil's unconfirmed orders produced some impression beyond the
circle of the military flag-officers is clear. Captain Nathaniel
Boteler, in the work already cited,[1] quotes the system they
enjoined as the one he would himself adopt if he were to command a
large fleet in action. In his sixth dialogue on the 'Ordering of
Fleets,' after recommending the division of all fleets of eighty sail
and upwards into five squadrons, an organisation that was subsequently
adopted by the Dutch, he proceeds to explain his system of signals,
and the advantages of scout vessels being attached to every squadron,
especially, he says, the 'van and wings,' which looks as though the
ideas of De Chaves were still alive. Boteler's work is cast in the
form of a conversation between a landsman admiral and an experienced
sea captain, who is supposed to be instructing him. In reply to the
admiral's query about battle formations, the captain says that
'neither the whole present age [_i.e._ century] with the half of
the last have afforded any one thorough example of this kind.' In the
few actions between sailing fleets that had taken place in the
previous seventy-five years he says 'we find little or nothing as
touching the form of these fights.' Being pressed for his own ideas on