The East Indiamen's size and two-deck profiles gave carpenters and painters a plausible foundation for false gunports and warship silhouettes. Similar tactics had already discouraged a French squadron in 1797 and helped repel a Franco-Spanish force during the 1799 Macau Incident. In those precedents, real frigates reinforced the illusion by repeating signals as if they served an admiral commanding ships of the line. Dance could therefore build his 1804 bluff from a tested visual and signaling vocabulary rather than inventing the entire method under fire.
Notable Point · 55:35-57:44
Pulo Aura builds on earlier convoy bluffs
Paint, carpentry, blue ensigns, and frigate-style signal repeating draw on East Indiaman deceptions that had already deterred French and Franco-Spanish squadrons in 1797 and 1799.