How would a warship signal surrender?

What was the most common way for a warship to signal surrender in this era?

Lower the ship's flags and hoist white flags, although those signals could be difficult to see at long range.

Lowering the national colors remained the basic surrender signal, supplemented by displaying white flags. Such signals could be hard to identify across the distances of a capital-ship engagement. Warships of the period did not commonly surrender in this fashion, so the convention did not guarantee an easy or timely response under fire.