The rest of the ships will be prepared to act as the occasion may require, either by bearing up and attacking the enemy's centre and rear, or tacking or wearing to cut off the van of the enemy from passing round the rear of the fleet to rejoin their centre.

And on this service, it is probable, should the enemy's ships bear up, that some of the rear ships will be employed--the signal No.

21 will be made accompanied with the number or pennants of the headmost ship--upon which she, with the ships in her rear, will proceed to the attack of the enemy.
When an attack is likely to be made by an enemy's squadron, by forcing the fleet from to-leeward, Signal 109 will be made with a blue pennant where best seen;[4] upon which each ship will luff up upon the weather quarter of her second ahead, so as to leave no opening for the leading ship of the enemy to pass through: this movement will expose them to the collected fire of all that part of the fleet they intended to force.[5] It has been often remarked that Nelson founded no school of tactics, and the instructions which were issued with the new Signal Book immediately after the war entirely endorse the remark.

They can be called nothing else but reactionary.

Nelson's drastic attempt to break up the old rigid formation into active divisions independently commanded seems to have come to nothing, and the new instructions are based with almost all the old pedantry on the single line of battle.