ing ship so closely and so exactly that bowsprit
and stern almost touched, while an air-line drawn from the foremast of
the leading ship to the mizzenmast of the last ship in each column
would have touched almost every mast betwixt. Stately, measured,
threatening, in perfect fighting order, the compact line of the British
bore down on the Spaniards.

[Illustration: THE BATTLE OFF CAPE ST. VINCENT. Cutting the Spanish
Line. From Allen's "Battles of the British Navy."]

Nothing is more striking in the battle of St. Vincent than the swift
and resolute fashion in which Sir John Jervis leaped, so to speak, at
his enemy's throat, with the silent but deadly leap of a bulldog. As
the fog lifted, about nine o'clock, with the suddenness and dramatic
effect of the lifting of a curtain in a great theatre, it revealed to
the British admiral a great opportunity. The weather division of the
Spanish fleet, twenty-one gigantic ships, resembled nothing so much as
a confused and swaying forest of masts; the leeward division--six ships
in a cluster, almost as confused--was parted by an interval of nearly
three miles from the main body of the fleet, and into that fatal gap,
as with the swift and deadly thrust of a rapier, Jervis drove his fleet
in one unswerving line, the two columns melting into one, ship
following hard on ship. The Spaniards strove furiously to close their
line, the twenty-one huge ships bearing down from the windward, the
smaller squadron clawing desperately up from the leeward. But the
British fleet--a long line of gliding pyramids of sails, leaning over
to the pressure of the wind, with "the meteor flag" flying from the
peak of each vessel, and the curving lines of guns awaiting grim and
silent beneath--was too swift. As it swept through the gap, the
Spanish vice-admiral, in the _Principe de Asturias_, a great
three-decker of 112 guns, tried the daring feat of breaking through the
British line to join the severed squadron. He struck the English fleet
almost exactly at the flagship, the _Victory_. The _Victory_ was
thrown into stays to meet her, the Spaniard swung round in response,
and, exactly as her quarter was exposed to the broadside of the
_Victory_, the thunder of a tremendous broadside rolled from that ship.
The unfortunate Spaniard was smitten as with a tempest of iron, and the
next moment, with sails torn, topmasts hanging to leeward, ropes
hanging loose in every direction, and her decks splashed re