And they would hardly have been induced to agree had they not felt that the new instructions were calculated to bring out the best of the methods which they had empirically practised.
How far the new orders were carried out during the rest of the war is difficult to say.

In both official and unofficial reports of the actions of this time an almost superstitious reverence is shown in avoiding tactical details.

Nevertheless that a substantial improvement was the result seems clear, and further the new tactics appear to have made a marked impression upon the Dutch.

Of the very next action, that off the Gabbard on June 2, when Monck was left in sole command, we have a report from the Hague that the English 'having the wind, they stayed on a tack for half an hour until they put themselves into the order in which they meant to fight, which was in file at half cannon-shot,' and the suggestion is that this was something new to the Dutch.

'Our fleet,' says an English report by an eye-witness, 'did work together in better order than before and seconded one another.' Then there is the important testimony of a Royalist intelligencer who got his information at the Hague on June 9, from the man who had brought ashore the despatches from the defeated Dutch fleet.