This is the first known instance of a Dutch fleet forming in single line, and, so far as it goes, would tend to show they adopted it in imitation of the English formation.[7] At any rate, so far as we have gone, the evidence tends to show that the English finally adopted the regular line-ahead formation in consequence of the orders of March 29, 1653, and there is no indication of the current belief that they borrowed it from the Dutch.
By the English admirals the new system must have been regarded as a success.

For the Fighting Instructions of 1653 were reissued with nothing but a few alterations of signals and verbal changes by Blake, Monck, Disbrowe, and Penn, the new 'admirals and generals of the fleet of the Commonwealth of England,' appointed in December 1653, when the war was practically over.

They are printed by Granville Penn (_Memorials of Penn_, ii.

76), under date March 31, 1655, but that cannot be the actual date of their issue, for Blake was then in the Mediterranean, Penn in the West Indies, and Monck busy with his pacification of the Highlands.

We must suspect here then another confusion between old and new styles, and conjecture the true date to be March 31, 1654, that is just before Monck left for Scotland, and a few days before the peace was signed.