For the understanding whereof suppose that a fleet of his majesty's consisting of twenty or thirty sail were bound for serving on the west part of Ireland, as Kinsale haven for example.' The words 'his majesty' show the Appendix was penned under James I; but why did Gorges select this curious example for explaining his orders?
We can only remember that it was exactly upon such an occasion that he had served with his father in 1578.

There is therefore at least a possibility that the orders in question may be a copy or an adaptation of some which Sir William Gorges had issued ten years before the Armada.

Certainly no situation had arisen since Elizabeth's death to put such an idea into the writer's head, and the points of rendezvous mentioned in Gorges's first article are exactly those which Sir William would naturally have given.
On evidence so inconclusive no certainty can be attained.

All we can say is that Gorges's Appendix points to a possibility that Ralegh's remarkable twenty-ninth article may have been as old as the middle of Elizabeth's reign, and that the reason why it has not survived in the writings of any of the great Elizabethan admirals is either that the tactics it enjoins were regarded as a secret of the seamen's 'mystery' or were too trite or commonplace to need enunciation.

At any rate in the face of the Gorges precedent it cannot be said, without reservation, that this rudimentary form of line ahead or attack in succession was invented by Ralegh, or that it was not known to the men who fought the Armada.
Amongst other articles of special interest, as showing how firmly the English naval tradition was already fixed, should be noticed the twenty-fifth, relating to seamen gunners, the twenty-sixth, forbidding action at more than point-blank range, and above all the fifth and sixth, aimed at obliterating all distinction between soldiers and sailors aboard ship, and at securing that unity of service between the land and sea forces which has been the peculiar distinction of the national instinct for war.
As to the tactical principle upon which the Elizabethan form of attack was based, it must be noted that was to demoralise the enemy--to drive him into 'utter confusion.' The point is important, for this conception of tactics held its place till it was ultimately supplanted by the idea of concentrating on part of his fleet.
FOOTNOTES: [1] Hakluyt printed several sets of instructions issued to armed fleets intended for discovery, viz.: 1.