leaving only the queen in London. The urgency of the case was such
that the council decided the French fleet must be fought, and orders
to that effect were sent to the English admiral, Herbert. In obedience
to his instructions he went out, and on the 10th of July, being to
windward, with the wind at northeast, formed his line-of-battle, and
then stood down to attack the French, who waited for him, with their
foretopsails aback[69] on the starboard tack, heading to the northward
and westward.

The fight that followed is known as the battle of Beachy Head. The
ships engaged were, French seventy, English and Dutch according to
their own account fifty-six, according to the French sixty. In the
allied line of battle the Dutch were in the van; the English,
commanded in person by Herbert, in the centre; and the rear was made
up partly of English and partly of Dutch ships. The stages of the
battle were as follows:--

1. The allies, being to windward, bore down together in line abreast.
As usual, this manoeuvre was ill performed, and as also generally
happens, the van came under fire before the centre and rear, and bore
the brunt of the injury.

2. Admiral Herbert, though commander-in-chief, failed to attack
vigorously with the centre, keeping it at long range. The allied van
and rear came to close action (Plate VI., A). Paul Hoste's[70] account
of this manoeuvre of the allies is that the admiral intended to fall
mainly on the French rear. To that end he closed the centre to the
rear and kept it to windward at long cannon-shot (refused it), so as
to prevent the French from tacking and doubling on the rear. If that
were his purpose, his plan, though tolerably conceived in the main,
was faulty in detail, for this manoeuvre of the centre left a great
gap between it and the van. He should rather have attacked, as Ruyter
did at the Texel, as many of the rear ships as he thought he could
deal with, and refused his van, assigning to it the part of checking
the French van. It may be conceded that an admiral who, from inferior
numbers, cannot spread as long and close a line as his enemy, should
not let the latter overlap the extremities of his fleet; but he should
attain his end not, as Herbert did, by leaving a great opening in the
centre, but by increasing each interval between the ships refused. The
allied fleet was thus exposed to be doubled on at two points, both van
and centre; and both points were attacked.

3. The commander