The official "Signal Book for the Ships of War," compiled by the Admiralty in 1799, and afterwards amplified in 1803 by Admiral Sir Hope Popham, is of immense interest, as it was introduced into the Navy for the first time in the fleet of Nelson, and it was therefore the code of Trafalgar. In the copy preserved in the Library of the Royal United Service Museum is written, "this is a copy of the signal book by means of which the battle of Trafalgar was fought." All signals are by numbers. In the book in question, those given have been pasted over others, but some of those underneath are still visible: thus the flag that once represented one here stands for five, and the flag that heretofore was three is now seven. "If the Admiral"--an instruction in the book says--"should have reason to believe that the enemy has got possession of these signals, he will make the signal for changing the figures of the flags. The figure, which by the new arrangement each flag is to represent, is to be immediately entered in every ship's signal-book," and it is {132} evident that one of these transpositions has been made here. The ten flags of the code are represented in Figs. 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, and 278. It is very difficult to say really how the flags were arranged for the world-famed "England expects that every man will do his duty," as the numerical significance of the ten flags was so often changed during the exigencies of war. The book we have referred to makes Fig. 270 stand for 1, Fig. 278 for 2, Fig. 275 for 3, Fig. 273 for 4, Fig. 269 for 5, etc.; and while it declares that it was by this code Trafalgar was fought, we have no evidence as to who wrote this statement. It may have been the authoritative statement of some one at the time in full possession of the facts, or a mere surmise added a dozen years afterwards by some irresponsible scribbler. On turning to the "Naval History" of James, Vol. IV., p. 34, we read "there is not, that we are aware of, a single publication which gives this message precisely as it was delivered. The following is a minute of the several flags, as noted down on board more than one ship in the fleet." He then proceeds to give them, and the arrangement that he follows is that of our illustration, his 1 being Fig. 269; 2, Fig. 270; 3, Fig. 271; 4, Fig. 272; 5, Fig. 273; 6, Fig. 274; 7, Fig. 275; 8, Fig. 276; 9, Fig. 277; and 0 Fig. 278. If he may be accepted as a reliable authority, "England" was expressed by the flags 2, 5, and 3; "expects," by 2, 6, and 9; "that," by flags 8, 6, and 3; "every," by flags 2, 6, and 1; "man," by 4, 7, and 1; "will," by 9, 5, and 8; "do," by 2, 2 and 0; and "his," by 3, 7, 0, those being the code numbers assigned to those words in the vocabulary. This necessitated eight distinct hoists, one group of flags for each word, but singularly enough the code contained no signal for "duty," so that it was necessary to spell this out letter by letter, making four hoists more, flag