NAVAL SIGNALS.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

General Signals, for the Use of His Majesty's Fleet; A rare complete set of Admiralty signal instructions issued in 1827. All editions of these official communications manuals are rare, and of this edition just single copies of each volume have been traced institutionally, the first at the National Maritime Museum, the second at the Australian Defence Force Library, the last in BL.The telegraphic system adopted by the Royal Navy in the late eighteenth century was continually refined during the following century. "Even before Trafalgar, in 1803, Captain Sir Home Popham, who introduced the vocabulary code, had increased the vocabulary from 1,000 to 2,000 words and added 1,000 useful sentences... He was a man dedicated to flag signalling, almost obsessed by it. In 1812 he again increased the vocabulary to nearly 6,000 words and nearly 6,000 sentences with tables for geographical signals, technical terms, stores, and provisions... he had to use more flags, so he designed flags for the letters A to O, this gave him up to 11,000 combinations using up to three flags, and a total of 223,675 using four. In 1827, the letters P, Q, R, S. T, V, and Y were added." (Nicolls, p. 221)That few copies survive is inevitable due to their confidentiality; each volume commences with the usual strongly worded caveat from the Admiralty ordering that: "You are to use every possible precaution to prevent their falling into the Hands of any improper person; and if the loss of your Ship, by Capture or W

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