The ostensible reason for this distinction in flags--to enable the "number and goodnesse" of the ships of the two nations to be more readily discerned--is obviously an afterthought[156]; a sugar coating to the pill. The customs officers of the various ports could, of course, have provided any information desired relative to the shipping, and were not dependent on the flags for their knowledge of the ships' nationalities. The point is of some interest as it marks a distinct step in the exaltation of the Navy Royal and its officers into a position of superiority over the mercantile marine. It will also be observed that the proclamation of 1634 does not require the flags to be hoisted at the masthead as did that of 1606. Probably this was no accidental omission but was the outcome of the general introduction of the "Jack" on the bowsprit a year or two before. Flags had no doubt been occasionally carried on the bowsprit from the time when that spar was first invented, but the practice had been exceptional, at any rate in the English navy. An early instance was depicted in a contemporary picture in Cowdray Castle, since destroyed by fire, which represented "the encampment of the English forces near Portsmouth, together with a view of the English and French fleets at the commencement of the action between them on the 19th of July, 1545." In this picture, which fortunately was reproduced in an engraving by the Society of Antiquaries in 1780, the Lord Admiral's ship, the 'Henri Grace à Dieu,' was seen flying a royal standard on the bowsprit. Drake, also, had flown a striped flag in this position in that last voyage which ended for him in his death at sea in January, 1596[157]. Yet when Captain Young submitted his "Noates for Sea Service" to the Earl of Essex[158] he wrote as though the idea were unusual: and that the cullers maye bee the better knowne from those of the enemies and yf they chance to have the like it shalbe then convenient that upon o^r misson flagge-staves or th ende of o^r bowlesprits and that theare bee but a smawle litle flagge with a red Crosse yt being but a litle bigger than a vaine of a great Catche[159]. As remarked by Admiral Sir Massie Blomfield[160], this "jack" is not shown in the "illustrations of the flagships of the Expedition of 1596 reproduced in the 'Naval Miscellany,'[161]" so that the suggestion was probably not received with favour. There is no mention of, or provision for, "jacks" in the inventories which accompanied the report of the committee that inquired into the state of the navy in 1618. Sir Julian Corbett has pointed out[162] that the earliest instance of the use of the word "jack" to denote a flag occurs in the orders issued by Sir John Pennington to one of his captains on 3rd July, 1633. The original has not survived, but the copy[163] is in a contemporary hand and is corroborated by Pennington's Journal, now among the MSS. of Lord Muncaster.