NAVAL SIGNAL BOOK Manuscript signal book for the Royal Navy compiled by Lieutenant William Patey, bearing ownership inscription and date ("W Patey/ 1786/ Crown/ - in Hamoaze"), illustrated with some 22 pages of finely drawn signals and decorative headings, including "Numerary Signals", "Compass", "Horary", "Day Signals", "General Orders", "Guardships Pendants", "Lord Hoods Signals to private ships", "Commodore Goodalls Night Signals", "Numerary Signals from Private Ships to the Admiral", "Carnatic Commodore Goodalls Signals 20th July 1789", "Fighting Signals by Day", "Signals to be made occasionally at the Posts along the Coast", etc., c.59 leaves, pen, ink and watercolour, dust-staining and marks, brown calf gilt, worn and marked, spine worn with loss, upper cover detached, 8vo (162 x 95mm.), Plymouth, 1786-1789 'LORD HOODS SIGNALS TO PRIVATE SHIPS': AN ATTRACTIVE ROYAL NAVAL SIGNAL BOOK. The compiler of our notebook, Lieutenant William Patey, entered the service in 1782, the year that HMS Crown was launched, and his signal book dates from 1786 whilst aboard the Crown in the Hamoaze estuary, Plymouth. According to Naval records, and contrary to the accompanying letter of provenance (see below), it was he, rather than his son, who went on to serve on the Mars at Trafalgar, as his son, George Edward Patey did not join the service until 1813. William Patey served on the Saint George, and was Lieutenant and Commanding Officer of the Nymphe, Grappler and Basilisk, until he joined the Mars as Lieutenant in 1805. A standard printed signal code system, The Signal Book for the Ships of War, was introduced by the Admiralty in 1799. See the National Maritime Museum blog entry for signal book HOL/17: 'Signal books were much prized by their authors and were kept secret, to be destroyed rather than fall into enemy hands. Many signal books have been kept over the years as prized family heirlooms, evidence of an ancestor's careful preparation for battle, and deserve more study'. Provenance: According to a late nineteenth-century accompanying letter "This code of Naval Signals was my dear Fathers' Father who died off Cadiz on the 10th October 1810 when in command of a [...] ship conveying Spanish Troops... cause of death... was cholera & at this, William Patey's death, this code of signals became my father's George Edward Patey afterwards Captain R.N., who served on board the HMS Mars at the Battle of Trafalgar under Nelson. This book became my property after my dear parent's death..."; thence by descent (see also lot 159).