Support for this came initially from a journalist and naval historian William Laird Clowes who suggested that Queen's Regulations required "If two ships under steam are crossing so as to involve risk of collision, the ship which has the other on its starboard side shall keep out of the way of the other," which would place the onus upon "Camperdown" to take avoiding action. Clowes also maintained that in any contention between a ship carrying the commander and another, it was the responsibility of the other ship to keep clear from the path of his commander. Although this particular form of turn was not included in the official manoeuvering book, it was mentioned in other standard texts of seamanship. This view has been taken by others, who have added to the argument Tryon's behaviour, which was consistent with his having set a TA problem for his subordinate to solve and therefore followed his normal habit of not explaining his intentions or intervening until afterwards. Others have argued that the witnesses' accounts suggest Tryon accepted having made a mistake, and that had one column of ships passed outside the other instead of both turning inwards, they would then have been in the wrong formation to approach their normal positions at the anchorage. Debate has also centred upon whether the flag signals instructions "...preserving the order of the fleet" imply that afterwards the ships should be in two columns as before (i.e. "Camperdown" in the starboard column) or whether the signals only meant that each division should still be in one column with the same order of ships, but that it could have swapped sides with the other column.