All that night Boscawen chased, keeping the enemy well in sight, although, as on the night before, they showed no lights.
Early next morning only four French ships were to be seen. The Souverain and the Guerrière, the two headmost of the enemy, had altered course after dark. Being far ahead already, they managed to slip off unobserved and got clear away. The four ships still before Boscawen were in themselves, however, sufficient prize. These were now heading in directly for the land, and were only a short way ahead of the British Fleet.
De la Clue was about to make his second mistake. Admiral Boscawen, he apparently imagined, would think twice about following him into neutral waters and attacking him there. But the neutrality of Portugal was of little account at such a moment. Might was right that August day for “Old Dreadnought.” International proprieties notwithstanding, the British Admiral “in a very Roman style made free with the coast of Portugal,” as Horace Walpole put it. Boscawen swept straight down after de la Clue, with his men at quarters and his guns run out.
The final phase opened about eight o’clock on the 19th of August, Monday morning, when the French flagship L’Océan was seen to run heavily aground. She brought up hard and fast, and the next moment her three masts went crashing over the side. Boscawen instantly signalled to the leading British ship, a seventy-four, the America, to deal with the French flagship. The order was carried out promptly. The America closed nearly alongside the wrecked three-decker and opened fire on her; whereupon the doomed L’Océan lowered her flag. In the brief interval before the America’s boats, sent off to take possession of the prize, could board the French flagship, M. de la Clue himself, mortally wounded and with one leg broken, was hastily got away and rowed ashore, to die there a little later. Almost at the same time that L’Océan wrecked herself, the Redoutable ran on shore close by, breaking her back.
ADMIRAL BOSCAWEN’S VICTORY
Painted by Swaine. Engraved and Published in 1760.
In the foreground to the right is seen the “Warspite” attacking the “Téméraire.” Boscawen’s flagship the “Namur” is in the centre flying the Admiral’s Blue Flag at the main; and at the fore the red battle-flag,—the “Bloody Flag” of the Old Navy.
There remained the Téméraire and the Modeste, which two ships, for their part, let go anchor close under the guns of a Portuguese fort on shore. The Warspite, a seventy-four of equal strength with the bigger French ship, was told off to deal with the Téméraire. She closed on her antagonist forthwith, in spite of warning shots from the Portuguese fort, and attacked at pistol-shot range. Hopeless as his case was, with no possibility of escape open to him, for upwards of an hour M. de Chastillon, the Téméraire’s captain, made a fight of it. Then having done all he could he gave up his ship. The Modeste surrendered not long afterwards, and so Boscawen’s battle ended.