[382] Possibly because with a "table" of 16 squares a side he was enabled to make 256 signals, with two flags only to each "hoist," whereas by the simple numerary method he could of course only make 99 with less than three flags. [383] J. K. Laughton, _Letters and Papers of Lord Barham_ (N. R. S.), I, 340. [384] Hitherto the official books of Instructions and Signals had been of folio size. [385] A "cornet" is a swallow-tailed flag. [386] According to present practice no signal made with more than one flag is obeyed until the officer making it hauls it down. [387] Nicholas, _Letters and Dispatches of Lord Nelson_, III, 230. [388] Richard Hall Gower, an officer of the East India Company's fleet, suggested in the 2nd edition of his _Treatise on Seamanship_, 1796, the use of a dictionary with the words numbered consecutively from 1 upwards under each letter of the alphabet. The letter and number were to be shown on a large board. [389] The hoists were: Telegraph flag; 253 (England); 269 (expects); 863 (that); 261 (every); 471 (man); 958 (will); 220 (do); 370 (his); 4, 21, 19, 24 (duty). In the hoist for 220 the second flag was the "substitute," duplicating the numeral "2." [390] See the last column of Plate XIII. [391] In 1808 the 1799 book was reprinted, and the manuscript additions incorporated, but its form was not changed. [392] He produced in 1804 a signal code for the East India Company's ships. [393] During the war this flag was altered to one divided vertically yellow, red yellow, in order to obviate the use of the Pilot Jack as an ordinary signal flag. [394] _Parl. Paper_ C 8354 of 1897. Chapter VII _Ceremonial and other Usages_ The student who has wandered along the by-paths of early military and naval history may perhaps have been struck by the fact that although he met not infrequently with instances of the devotion and respect with which the soldier regarded his military ensigns he met with no similar examples in naval affairs. He might at first be disposed to attribute this to the fact that the histories he had read were not the work of professed seamen, but upon reflexion he would more probably be disposed to infer that, except in the ship of the Commander-in-Chief, there was at sea nothing to correspond to the military insignia. The examination into the early history of the flag which we have endeavoured to carry out in the first chapter of this book leads us to the conclusion that until the thirteenth century there was no equivalent of the military ensign in use at sea, and the early history of the salute at sea tends to confirm this view.