The British were the first to feel the breeze as it came again after mid-day, and every captain began to cast his ship's head round to follow in the direction of the enemy. Hood, who at the outset remained becalmed after Rodney and Drake had begun to move again, was seen getting out his boats to tow the Barfleur round into the breeze. To over-take the French as soon as possible was the business of the afternoon for Rodney's captains.
De Grasse's business, on the other hand, was to get away without further fighting if he could, or at least to try and re-form. It was not an easy task, in the scattered state of his fleet and in the presence of an enemy who had the weather-gage. The Ville de Paris signalled for all to re-form line on the ships farthest to leeward, at the point farthest off from the British, and she headed in that direction herself. It was 'playing for safety,' so to speak, at the cost of abandoning some of his ships. What the rally so far to leeward would inevitably mean for certain of De Grasse's worst-damaged ships was soon seen. The more manageable of the French ships were able to make their way to leeward; but it was another matter for the cripples—in especial for the shattered trio—for the dismasted Glorieux and the partially wrecked César and Hector. For them it meant that they were to be left to their fate, left lying, between the two fleets, hardly able to move at all, full in the way of the advancing British. And so it proved in the result. On the hapless three, in due course, on each in her turn, fell the first blows of the reopening battle.
The Glorieux was the first of the French to yield, in spite of an extremely gallant effort to save her. About one o'clock, as the breeze began to freshen, the French frigate Richmond was ordered to close the Glorieux and pass a towing cable on board. The effort was made under fire, for Rodney's nearest ships were already within range of the Glorieux. Midshipman Denis Decrès, aspirant de marine of the Richmond, had charge of the boat, round which the English cannon-balls splashed on all sides. He did his work, despite its difficulties, and won widespread fame and promotion for his gallantry. He lived to become an admiral, Napoleon's favourite Minister of Marine and a Peer of France, Duc Decrès. On his grand monument in Père la Chaise is a sculptured panel in relief, to commemorate this particular incident in Admiral Decrès' career. It is elaborately carved, and represents a naval battle in grey marble, smoke-clouds, cannon firing, and so forth, with, in the centre, a small boat with a rope, a boy standing up at the stern, and near by a big dismasted man-of-war. Over the panel is the legend—'Remorque portèe au Glorieux: 1782.' The attempt, however, was palpably a hopeless one. The stricken seventy-four was water-logged and could hardly stir. The officers of the Glorieux recognised the state of things at once. They hailed across to the frigate to cast off the tow and shift for herself. De Mortemart, the captain of the Richmond, however, was not inclined to abandon a consort in distress. Although some of the British ships were already threatening to cut him off, as well as the Glorieux, he flatly refused to leave her. After that, as the only thing to be done, the hopeless ship's company of the Glorieux cut the rope. So the two ships parted. The Richmond had to move away, and in the end she only saved herself with difficulty. Another French ship that tried at the last moment to create a forlorn-hope diversion in favour of the Glorieux, was De Glandevé's Souverain, but she in turn had to give up the attempt, and, hunted like a hare among hounds, was hard put to it in the end to get clear. Now, without further respite, the British dogs of war ran in and closed on the doomed Glorieux. Trogoff de Kerlessi, her first lieutenant, and the senior surviving officer on board, could do no more. As the first British ship came up, he with his own hand stripped away the tattered shreds of the Glorieux' ensign, that still remained nailed to the stump of the mizen mast, and called across to the British to take possession. There was no other course left. The decks of the Glorieux were shambles from end to end—'a scene of complete horror,' in the words of Dr. Blane. 'The numbers killed were so great, that the surviving, either from want of leisure or through dismay, had not thrown the bodies of the killed overboard, so that the decks were covered with blood and mangled limbs of the dead, as well as wounded and dying.' Baron d'Escars, the captain, had fallen some time previously, about nine o'clock,—one of the victims of the Formidable's awful first broadside. 'On boarding her,' adds Blane, 'our officers ... were shown the stains of blood on the gunnel where his body was thrown overboard.'
The Royal Oak, one of Hood's squadron, was ordered to take the Glorieux in tow. Captain Burnett had almost exhausted his ammunition, and he utilised the opportunity to ransack the prize's magazines and transfer on board his own ship all the powder barrels the Glorieux had left, to fight any further Frenchmen he might encounter with their own powder. Several others of Rodney's ships, indeed, were equally short of powder after their morning's work, and another of Hood's squadron, the Monarch, was at that very moment alongside the Andromache, lifting forty barrels out of the frigate to enable herself to continue in action.
The César was the second French ship to meet her fate. She was the next to drop astern, and the Centaur and the Bedford went at her together as they came up. Though little better than a wreck, the César made a heroic defence for nearly half-an-hour. Hailed by the Centaur to surrender, the Comte de Marigny, the César's captain, replied by nailing his colours to the mast with his own hand and opening fire. De Marigny fell dangerously wounded within the first five minutes, but Captain Paul, his commander, took charge and made a desperate defence. He held out until, one after the other, his masts had gone overboard, the mizen carrying the ensign staff with it. After that, no rescue being possible, with six feet of water in the hold, and with only thirty-six rounds for her guns left in the magazine, the César surrendered to the Centaur.
Elsewhere at this time, towards four o'clock, there was a good deal of 'partial and desultory' firing, to use Dr. Blane's term, going on here and there, principally in the direction of De Grasse's squadron. The French admiral's attempt to rally and re-form line had failed. Bougainville's ships kept away in a body, apparently too much occupied in repairing their own damages to pay attention to their commander-in-chief. Many of De Vaudreuil's seemed equally shy, although De Vaudreuil himself, with two or three of his command, gallantly beat to windward and joined the Ville de Paris, making up a forlorn-hope band round De Grasse that comprised the rearmost formed group of the French fleet. They moved away at the best speed they were capable of, but owing to the state of the Ville de Paris's masts and spars, the rate of sailing was dangerously slow.
De Grasse's group, numbering, with De Vaudreuil's accession and others, nine ships in all, formed, as it were, a lodestone to the British captains. It drew towards it all who could possibly make for the spot. The great French flagship in the centre, with the commander-in-chief's flag at the mast-head, was for all eyes the supreme attraction. Each followed as well as the wind, which was variable and at times very light, and the state of his own masts and spars, would let him.
The French Hector was their first victim, between five and six o'clock in the evening,—the third Frenchman to surrender. She had been badly hammered by Hood's squadron when it broke the line, losing so many men that to supply the main and upper deck batteries the quarter-deck and forecastle guns had to be abandoned, but had been able to keep up with the Ville de Paris for most of the afternoon. For the last two and a half hours, according to a letter from one of the Hector's officers, they had been firing their stern chasers to try and keep the advancing British back, but in vain. Then, towards the end of the time, two British seventy-fours drew out and ranged alongside the Hector. They were the Canada and the Alcide. The two pushed up abreast and came to close quarters. Their attack was met by the Hector in a spirit worthy of her heroic name. She struck out right and left like a wounded tigress at bay. She looked, in the words of an eye-witness, 'like a blazing furnace vomiting fire and iron.' The display was brilliant, but it could not last. De la Vicomté, the gallant captain of the Hector, was struck down, mortally wounded, and with his fall the spirit of the defence flickered out. 'Some men on the main deck having run from their quarters,' says the letter just referred to, 'the captain was putting his foot on the ladder to go below to kill with his own hand the dastards, when a cannon-ball smashed his thigh.' He was carried to the cockpit, and a few minutes later De Beaumanoir, the first lieutenant, 'seeing the ship being knocked to pieces and powder running short,' after a hasty consultation with the other surviving officers, hauled the ensign down and hailed the Alcide that they had surrendered.
A fourth ship, the Ardent, was taken about the same time. She was one of Bougainville's squadron, and the only ship of all the French van that, on seeing how things were likely to fare with the commander-in-chief, had turned back to lend him a hand. In so doing she met her fate. The Ardent was intercepted and cut off by the British Belliqueux and the Prince William, who brought her to close action, and after a sharp set-to of a quarter of an hour, made her lower her colours. Some English prisoners, taken a few weeks before out of a merchantman prize, happened to be on board, and their red ensign was hoisted in token of surrender. The taking of the Ardent was peculiarly gratifying to the British fleet. In point of fact it was a recapture. The Ardent was a British-built man-of-war which had fallen into the hands of the enemy in very discreditable circumstances earlier in the war. It was this same ship that the Franco-Spanish combined fleet had snapped up, practically without her firing a shot, off Plymouth Sound three years before, when they were parading the English Channel in triumph at the time they compelled the Channel Fleet to retreat before them to Spithead. It was a satisfactory stroke of retaliation, although if it had taken place six weeks earlier it would have been still more satisfactory. Then the Vicomte de Marigny—Charles Réné Louis, of an old Norman family, elder brother to Comte Bernard, the captain of the César—the officer who had been the original captor of the Ardent, would have been on board. In honour of his capture of a British man-of-war, 'si vaillamment,' Charles de Marigny had been posted to the prize by the King of France's special command, his commission being accompanied by a picture in oils representing his feat, painted at the instance of His Most Christian Majesty, and sent by the King's order to be hung in the cabin of the Ardent, with the legend over it: 'Donné par le Roi au brave Vicomte de Marigny.'[41] The Vicomte, unfortunately for the dramatic completeness of the situation, had been sent home with De Grasse's despatch after the capture of St. Kitts, and he had taken the oil-painting with him. Still, though, even without De Marigny, it was a good thing to have the Ardent back under her old flag once more.
We now come to the closing fight of the day, to the story of the fate of the noblest victim of all. It was next the turn of the Ville de Paris herself. Between half-past five and six o'clock the course of the pursuit had brought the headmost of Rodney's ships well up with the rearmost group of the enemy, close astern of De Grasse himself and the little group of ships that kept company with the Ville de Paris. There were ships both of Rodney's own squadron and of Hood's squadron among the British at that point, although most of them were Hood's, hustled forward in chase by their chief's incessant signals during the afternoon. The Barfleur herself, with every inch of canvas set and stu'ns'ls out aloft and alow, was following among the foremost and eagerly pressing on. The Formidable and great part of Rodney's squadron were in rear, a little way off. As they neared the enemy the headmost ships came streaming on and firing briskly, steering to overlap the French on either side.