In November, 1805, as a special compliment to the navy, the rank of Admiral of the Red was created. As this introduced three red flags in place of two, the boats' flags of the Vice- and Rear-Admiral of the Red were altered so as to have the same number of balls as the other Vice- and Rear-Admirals. No further alteration took place in the Admirals' flags until 1864, when the division of Flag Officers into the three categories "of the Red," "of the White," and "of the Blue" was abolished and the squadronal colours discontinued. The reason for this change will be discussed in dealing with "Flags of Distinction," and it will therefore be sufficient to note here that the white colours were retained for the navy, red balls being substituted for blue in the "boat" flags. The invention of the modern battleship, with only two masts (one of which was often unfitted for the display of the Admiral's flag owing to the presence of a masthead semaphore) had caused the general adoption by Vice- and Rear-Admirals of the "boat" form of their flags instead of the plain flag at the fore or mizen respectively, and this led to the question being raised in 1898 of a suitable flag for Vice- and Rear-Admirals, who often found the main masthead alone available for their flag, while on the contrary an Admiral was, in other ships, often obliged to hoist his on the foremast. In view of the fact that many of the great maritime nations had adopted the British method of differencing by balls (or stars) it was not thought desirable to abandon this method, but to make the flags more easily distinguishable the balls were increased in size to one-half of the depth of the canton, which necessitated placing the second ball of the Rear-Admiral in the lower canton next the staff, instead of in the upper one. With the arrangement then adopted, which clearly distinguishes the flags of the three grades in all conceivable circumstances, we may assume that finality has been reached. (iv) PENDANTS OF COMMAND (_a_) _The Commodore's Broad Pendant_ Although the use of a specially large pendant to denote the presence of the officer in command of a squadron was not unknown in early days[283], the custom was not adopted in the English fleet until the latter part of the seventeenth century. Introduced first in 1674 simply to denote the ship of the officer in command for the time being of that important roadstead the Downs, the natural rendezvous of all ships going to and from the Thames and Medway, the custom was extended in 1690 to embrace the case in which a small squadron was sent abroad under a captain for whom there was no room on a Flag List which had become restricted to the nine admirals of the red, white, and blue colours.