As we have said, while the Victory was engaging the Redoutable on one side, the Temeraire was tackling her on the other, the three ships hugging each other with muzzles touching muzzles. Soon after the attempt to board the Victory, the Temeraire lashed her bowsprit to the gangway of the Redoutable so that she could not escape. Then she poured in a raking fire until the Frenchman was compelled to surrender, though not before she had twice been on fire, and more than five hundred of her crew had been killed or wounded.
Some of the Temeraire men then turned to deal with the Fougueux, which had attacked her during the fight with the Redoutable.
Captain Hardy was too busy with the Redoutable to do much; but Lieutenant Kennedy quickly set a party to man the starboard batteries. With these they opened fire at about one hundred yards, and crash! the Fougueux’s masts fell, her wheel was smashed, her rigging shattered, and she was so crippled that she ran foul of the Temeraire, whose crew lashed their foe to them, and Kennedy, with a couple of middies and fewer than thirty seamen and marines, rushed aboard her.
Five hundred Frenchmen were still fresh for battle on the Fougueux, but the Britishers did not hesitate. With a bound they were on the enemy’s deck, and, slashing and hacking at the crowd that came up against them, drove them back and still back. Dozens were killed and others leapt overboard to escape the whirlwind that had fallen upon them. The remainder scuttled away below, the English clapped the hatches on them, and the ship was won.
“Kennedy, with a couple of middies and fewer than thirty men, rushed aboard”
Meanwhile the Victory had been pouring a heavy fire into the Santissima Trinidad on one side and the Redoutable on the other. Through and through the former was raked, her deck swept clear of men, until the Spaniards dived overboard and swam off to the Victory, whose crew helped them aboard.
The Belleisle, which had hurled her broadside into the Santa Anna early in the conflict, had been pounced upon by about half a dozen ships of the enemy, which poured in a deadly fire, battering her sides, tearing her rigging to pieces, and twisting her mizzen-mast over the aft guns, putting them out of action. Sixty men also had been sent to their account, but the rest fought on with British courage.
The Achille bore down upon her and attacked her aft, the Aigle, assisted by the Neptune, fell on her starboard, aiming at her remaining masts and bringing them down.
“Crippled, but unconquered,” masts gone by the board, nearly all the guns useless, men mostly killed or wounded, the Belleisle’s few remaining men stood to their three or four guns and hurled defiance at the foe. Pounding away for all they were worth, not a man flinched—except at the thought that the flag had been shot away. They fastened a Union Jack to a pikehead, waved it defiantly, yelled out a cheer of determination, and fought on again, keeping their ship in action throughout the battle, refusing to strike the pikehead flag.