28. Item none of the galleys shall face one another before they shall see a banner on my Lord's galley pointed from the poop towards the prow, and immediately each of the galleys, under the penalty named, shall face one another[347].
29. Item if it has happened that one of the galleys has lost the others and then returns to them to make a recognition signal by day, that one which shall be to leeward, either that one or the one which is at anchor, shall raise the standard of its Commune amidships of the galley and the other galley shall return the signal and raise the standard of its Commune in the prow. Each one shall (then) carry its standard to its place on the poop[348]. Then they will know which are friends, and this under the penalty aforesaid.
It will be seen that both these sets of instructions give prominence to a signal for calling a Council and both, curiously enough, betray the same confusion of thought. From the opening sentence it would be supposed that the captains of the ships are assembled to advise the Admiral in Council; from the closing sentence it would appear that they are only called to hear the result of the council's deliberations. The "etc." in the English Instructions and the repetition at the end of Article 10 in the Savoy Instructions seem, however, to indicate that the texts have not reached us in their original state. In the English fleet the "Banner of Council" signal remained in use until the close of the eighteenth century[349]. As a rule this signal was made with the royal standard, though in 1369 a special gonfanon was provided and in the reign of Henry V the "Trinity Royal" had a banner of council containing the royal arms and the cross of St George[350]. When the fleet was large, as in the Cadiz Expedition of 1596, the royal standard was hoisted for the "selected" or inner council while the flag of St George called the captain and the master of every ship to the flagship for a general council.
But while in the English fleet the Banner of Council signal underwent no development until the end of the sixteenth century, the Mediterranean instructions of 1366 contain three signals of this nature: one to call the council, another to call all the ships when some order had to be communicated, and a third to call one or more particular vessels. These, with the addition of one signal for calling aid, one manoeuvring signal, and a recognition signal, to which were added signals by sails and, at night, by lanterns, contain the germ of a complete system of signalling.
