e hazard of
being surrounded by the vanguard of the English, which had the wind of
them; but _as soon as the English left me_ I drew together all the ships
of both squadrons, and sailed immediately to the assistance of the _Real
Felipe_, in doing which I was exposed to the fire of the whole English
line; but happily the English did not punish my _rashness_ as it
deserved." Evidently De Court shared to the full the professional
caution which marked the French naval officers, with all their personal
courage; for if it was rash to pass the hostile line after it wore, it
would be reckless to do so before.

Considered simply as a tactical situation, or problem, quite independent
of any tactical forethought or insight on the part of the
commander-in-chief,--of which there is little indication,--the
conditions resulting from his attack were well summed up in a
contemporary publication, wholly adverse to Mathews in tone, and
saturated with the professional prepossessions embodied in the Fighting
Instructions. This writer, who claims to be a naval officer, says:

"The whole amount of this fight is that the centre, consisting of
eleven ships-of-the-line, together with two of-the-line and two
fifty-gun ships of the Rear-Admiral's division [the van], _were
able to destroy_ the whole Spanish squadron, much more so as three
of those ships went on with the French [the allied van], and four
of the sternmost did not get up with their admiral before it was
darkish, long after the fire-ship's misfortune, so that the whole
afternoon there were only five, out of which the _Constante_ was
beat away in less than an hour; what then fifteen ships could be
doing from half an hour past one till past five, no less than four
hours, and these ships not taken, burnt, and destroyed, is the
question which behooves them to answer."

In brief, then, Mathews's attack was so delivered that the weight of
thirteen of-the-line fell upon five Spanish of the same class, the
discomfiture of which, actually accomplished even under the misbehavior
of several British ships, separated the extreme rear, five other Spanish
vessels, from the rest of the allies. Whatever the personal merit or
lack of merit on the part of the commander-in-chief, such an
opportunity, pushed home by a "band of brothers," would at the least
have wiped out these rear ten ships of the allies; nor could the
remainder in the van