Lord Howe, however, having once more made sail on his ship, wore round, followed by several other ships, to her rescue. The Montague, though she had suffered so much in her hull and had lost so many men, had her masts and rigging entire; and this enabled her to make sail ahead, followed by other ships which had in the same way escaped with their rigging uninjured. Twelve French ships, however, were by half-past eleven almost totally dismasted, while eleven of the British were in little better condition; but then the Frenchmen had suffered in addition far more severely in their hulls.
The proceedings of the line-of-battle ships had been viewed at a distance by the eager crew of the Ruby. As one ship after the other was dismasted, their enthusiasm knew no bounds.
“Oh, Paul, I wish I was there!” cried True Blue vehemently. “There!—there!—another Frenchman is getting it! Down comes her foremast!—see!—her mainmast and mizen-mast follow! Oh, what a crash there must be! That’s the eighth Frenchman without a lower mast standing. Hurrah! we shall have them all!”
“Not quite so sure of that, boy,” observed Peter Ogle, who had come upon the forecastle. “Two of our own ships, you see, are no better off; and several have lost their topmasts and topgallant-masts. Still they are right bravely doing their duty. I’ve never seen warmer work in my day. Have you, Paul?”
“No. With Lord Rodney we have had hot work enough; but the Frenchmen didn’t fight as well as they do to-day, I must say that for them,” observed Paul. “See now that Admiral of theirs; he is bearing down once more to help some of his disabled ships. See, his division seems to have four or five of them under their lee; but there are a good many more left to our share.”
“Hurrah!” cried True Blue, who had been watching an action briskly carried on in another direction. “There’s one more Frenchman will be ours before long. That’s a tremendous drubbing the Brunswick has given her.”
No ship’s company displayed more determined gallantry during that eventful day than did the Brunswick, commanded by the brave Captain Harvey. Being prevented from passing between the Achille and Vengeur, in consequence of the latter shooting ahead and filling up the intervening space, she ran foul of the Vengeur, her own starboard anchors hooking on the Frenchman’s larboard foreshrouds and fore-channels.
“Shall we cut away the anchor, sir?” inquired the master, Mr Stewart, of the Captain.
“No, no. We have got her, and we will keep her,” replied Captain Harvey.
The two ships on this swung close to each other, and, paying off before the wind with their heads to the northward, with their yards squared, and with a considerable way on them, they speedily ran out of the line, commencing a furious engagement. The British crew, unable to open the eight lower-deck starboard ports from the third abaft, blew them off. The Vengeur’s musketry, meantime, and her poop carronades, soon played havoc on the Brunswick’s quarterdeck, killing several officers and men, and wounding others, among whom was Captain Harvey, three of his fingers being torn away by a musket-shot, though he refused to leave the deck.