Coventry.' This was the well-known politician Sir William Coventry, the model, if not the author, of the _Character of a Trimmer_, who had been made private secretary to the duke on the eve of the Restoration, and was now a commissioner of the navy and acting as secretary on the duke's staff.

So closely it will be seen do they follow the Commonwealth orders of 1653, as modified in the following year, that it would be scarcely worth while setting them out in full, but for the importance of finally establishing their true origin.

The scarcely concealed doubts which many writers have felt as to whether the new system of tactics can have been due to the Duke of York may now be laid at rest, and henceforth the great reform must be credited not to him, but to Cromwell's 'generals-at-sea.' Nevertheless the credit of certain developments which were introduced at this time must still remain with the duke and his advisers: Rupert, Sandwich, Lawson, and probably above all Penn, his flag captain.

For instance, differences will be found in Articles 2 and 3, where, instead of merely enjoining the line, the duke refers to a regular 'order of battle,' which has not come down to us, but which no doubt gave every ship her station in the line, like those which Sandwich had prepared for his squadron a few months earlier, and which Monck and Rupert certainly drew up in the following year.[2] Then again the truculent Article 10 of 1653 and 1654 ordering the immediate destruction of disabled ships of the enemy after saving the crews if possible, which contemporary authorities put down to Monck, is reversed.

At the end, moreover, two articles are added; one, numbered 15, embodying numbers 2 and 3 of Sandwich's orders of the previous year, with such modifications as were necessary to adapt them to a large fleet, and another numbered 16 enjoining 'close action.' Nor is this all.