evidently shared Gardiner's impression; when about, he steered parallel
to--"with"--the French, who had the wind nearly abeam. The mischief was
that the ships ahead of him in passing were successively more and more
distant from the enemy, and if they too, after tacking, steered with the
latter, they would never get any nearer. The _impasse_ is clear. Other
measures doubtless would enable an admiral to range his fleet parallel
to the enemy at any chosen distance, by taking a position himself and
forming the fleet on his ship; or, in this particular instance, Byng
being with the van as it, on the starboard tack, was passing the enemy
(B3 B3), could at any moment have brought his fleet parallel to the
French by signalling the then van ship to keep away a certain amount,
the rest following in her wake. Nothing to that effect being in the
Instructions, it seems not to have occurred to him. His one idea was to
conform to them, and he apprehended that after tacking, as they
prescribed, the new van ship would bear down and engage without further
orders, keeping parallel to the French when within point-blank, the
others following her as they could; a process which, from the varying
distances, would expose each to a concentrated fire as they successively
approached. Byng's action is only explicable to the writer by supposing
that he thus by "steer with" understood "steer for;" for when, after the
fleet tacked together, the new van ship (formerly the rear) did not of
her own motion head for the leading enemy, he signalled her to steer one
point, and then two points, in that direction. This, he explained in his
defence, was "to put the leading captain in mind of his Instructions,
who I perceived did not steer away with the enemy's leading ship
agreeable to the 19th Article of the Fighting Instructions." The results
of these orders not answering his expectations, he then made the signal
to engage, as the only remaining way perceptible to him for carrying out
the Instructions.