Of anything like mutually supporting movements there is only a single trace.

It is in Article XIV., and that is only a resurrection of the time-honoured _corps de reserve_, formed of superfluous ships after your line has been equalised with that of a numerically inferior enemy.

The whole document, in fact, is a consecration of the fetters which had been forged in the worst days of the seventeenth century, and which Nelson had so resolutely set himself to break.
The new Signal Book in which the instructions appear was founded on the code elaborated by Sir Home Riggs Popham, but there is nothing to show whether or not he was the author of the instructions.

He was an officer of high scientific attainments, but although he had won considerable distinction during the war, his service had been entirely of an amphibious character in connection with military operations ashore, and he had never seen a fleet action at sea.

He reached flag rank in 1814, and was one of the men who received a K.C.B.on the reconstitution of the order in 1815.