Did Beaufort Really Use the Beaufort Cipher?

I uploaded a new article: "Did Beaufort Really Use the Beaufort Cipher?".
The Beaufort cipher is a variant of the Vigenere cipher, so called because it was invented by Admiral Francis Beaufort. But it appears that Beaufort himself never used the cipher himself. The cipher Beaufort used in letters to his brother or his secret diary was more primitive.
The article also discusses when the Beaufort cipher was published. (I was induced to check this when I read Lewis Carroll may have known of the Beaufort cipher.) Some say it was published in 1857, but considering that Beaufort died on 17 December 1857, this dating does not seem to refer to an actual date of publication. Maybe, some writers simply quoted the year of the admiral's death. At least, it was only after the (re?)publication in 1870 that the Beaufort cipher became widely known. (The version published in 1855 on a magazine was actually the conventional Vigenere cipher, as pointed out by Franksen.)