ez in 1742. At
the peace of 1783 the Navy List contained only 17 fireships out of a
total of 468 sail. Howe had two fireships on the First of June, 1794,
but did not use them.

THE SIGNAL BOOKS OF THE GREAT WAR

INTRODUCTORY

The second form in which the new Fighting Instructions, originated by
Lord Howe, have come down to us, is that which became fixed in the
service after 1790; that is, instead of two folio volumes with the
Signals in one and the Explanatory Instructions in the other, we have,
at least after 1799, one small quarto containing both, and entitled
'Signal Book for Ships of War.' The earliest known example, however,
of the new quarto form is a Signal Book only, which refers to a set of
Instructions apparently similar to those of 1799. These have not been
found, but presumably they were in a separate volume. The Signal Book
is in the Admiralty Library labelled in manuscript '1792-3(?),' but,
as before, no date or signature appears in the body of it. From
internal evidence, however, as well as from collateral testimony,
there is little difficulty in identifying it as Lord Howe's second
code issued in 1790.

The feature of the book that first strikes us is that, though the bulk
of it is printed, all the most important battle signals, as well as
many others, have been added in MS., while at the end are the words,
'Given on board the Queen Charlotte, to Capt. ----, commander of his
majesty's ship the ----, by command of the admiral.' It is thus
obvious that the original printed form, which contains many further
unfilled blanks for additional signals, was used as a draft for a
later edition. No such edition is known to exist in print, but both
the original signals and the additions correspond exactly with the
MS. code which was used by Lord Howe in his campaign of 1794. In
editing this code for the Society in his _Logs of the Great Sea
Fights_, Admiral Sturges Jackson hazarded the conjecture that it
had not then been printed, but was supplied to each ship in the fleet
in MS. The admiralty volume goes far to support his conjecture, and it
is quite possible that we have here the final draft from which the
MS. copies were made.

As to the actual date at which the code was completed there is not
much difficulty. The Queen Charlotte was Howe's flagship in the
Channel fleet from 1792-4, but it was also his flagship in 1790 at the
time of the 'Spanish Armament,' when he put to sea in immediate
expectation