This again led to a disastrous mistake on the part of the French Admiral. De la Clue, when about seven o’clock he first sighted the leading ships of Boscawen’s fleet in the distance, coming up astern, took them for his own missing five, and hove-to his whole fleet to give them time to join. Worse still: after waiting awhile for them he went about and actually stood back slowly to meet them—seven French men-of-war in war time bearing up for fourteen English! He refused to believe that Boscawen could possibly have got out of Gibraltar so quickly. The French Admiral, in fact, held on towards the advancing enemy until, when escape had become impossible, on finding his private signals unanswered, the horrifying truth of the situation dawned on the unfortunate de la Clue.
It was then too late.
He turned and ran for it. He would try and outsail his pursuers if he could; if not he would seek a refuge and shelter in some neutral Portuguese port. Boscawen followed promptly, clearing for action as he neared, and catching up the enemy all the morning hand over hand.
At noon, a fresh gale helping Boscawen along, he was almost within gunshot of the French. At two in the afternoon his headmost ships were near enough to open a long-range fire.
All that Sunday afternoon a running fight went on, protracted by the wind suddenly dying away to nearly a calm. The rearmost of the French squadron, the Centaure, a ship of seventy-four guns, practically held the leading pursuers in check during most of that time. Nothing could be more courageous than the Centaure’s defence, regardless of the odds against her. Until nearly nightfall she kept Boscawen’s leading ships from closing on her and her consorts. The Centaure, under orders to cover the retreat, exchanged a never-ceasing cannonade with the ships of the English van for five hours, the fight becoming hotter and ever closer until just before sunset. Then at length, with her three topmasts and the mizen-mast shot away, and the ship herself so shattered and holed between wind and water that she was with difficulty kept afloat, the well-fought Centaure had to lower her colours. She had played her part. She had gained time for her Admiral to seek the shelter of Lagos Bay. In so doing the Centaure had lost over two hundred men in killed alone, including her gallant captain, de Sabran. Although he had received no fewer than eleven wounds, he still kept the quarter-deck until he received his twelfth, and death wound.
A little ahead of the Centaure was Admiral de la Clue’s flagship L’Océan, with the Téméraire, and the Redoutable and the Modeste near by, sailing in a cluster just ahead of her. All four had every now and then been assisting the Centaure, as now one, now another, of the English ships came within range of their guns. Away in the van of the French squadron were two more ships, the Souverain and the Guerrière, which were pushing on at some distance ahead of all.
To escape into neutral waters was the only course practicable to the French ships, and all they now aimed at, as they held on during the afternoon, crowding canvas to make land—the coast of Portugal near Cape St. Vincent—which soon began to rise ahead of them more and more distinctly.
A few minutes before the Centaure surrendered there was a sharp interchange of broadsides between the two flagships, Boscawen’s Namur and de la Clue’s Océan, both three-deckers. The Namur pushed past the Centaure, then plainly in extremis, within gunshot of his chief antagonist. Boscawen fastened on his chosen opponent and engaged the French Admiral hotly, until a series of mishaps for the Namur, lucky hits on the part of the French gunners, temporarily disabled the British flagship by shooting down her mizen-mast and main-topsail yard. That forced the Namur to drop back out of action.
Admiral Boscawen, the story goes, at once quitted his crippled ship to go on board the Newark, a seventy-four, the nearest ship among the leaders in the British van, and had a narrow escape from drowning in his passage from ship to ship; through a cannon-ball which struck his barge and smashed a hole in it. The Admiral saved his own life and those of the men with him, as it is related, by his presence of mind. The barge began to fill and would have sunk under them, had not Boscawen smartly whipped off his wig and stuffing it into the hole stopped the inrush of water, enabling them to keep afloat until they could get alongside the Newark.
There was little more firing that evening after the Centaure had made her submission, but the pursuit of the Téméraire and the other French ships coastwise went steadily on.