Bellerophon were opened upon the Eole at 8.45, and
battered her severely. The British vessel was subjected in turn, however,
not only to the fire of her chosen victim, but also to that of the
Trajan. At ten minutes to eleven o'clock a shot from the Eole took off
Pasley's leg, and he was carried down to the cockpit, whereupon the
command devolved upon Captain William Hope. It must have been a
distressing moment for Flinders, despite the intense excitement of
action, when his friend and commander fell; it was indeed, as will be
seen, a crucial moment in his career. A doggerel bard of the time
enshrined the event in a verse as badly in need of surgical aid as were
the heroes whom it celebrates:

"Bravo, Bowyer, Pasley, Captain Hutt,
Each lost a leg, being sorely hurt;
Their lives they valued but as dirt,
When that their country called them!"*

(* Naval Songs and Ballads, Publications of the Navy Record Society,
Volume 33 270.)

The fight was continued with unflagging vigour, in the absence of the
gallant rear-admiral, who, as another lyrist of the event informs us,
smiled and said:

"Fight on my lads and try
To make these rebel Frenchmen know
That British courage still will flow
To make them strike or die."

At a quarter before noon the Eole had received such a hammering that she
endeavoured to wear round under shelter of her leader; but in doing so
she lost mainmast and foretopmast. The Bellerophon, too, had by this time
been sufficiently hard hit to cause Hope to signal to the Latona for
assistance. Her foretopmast and maintopmast had gone, and her mainmast
was so badly damaged as to be dangerous. Her rigging was cut to pieces,
all her boats were smashed, and she was practically as crippled as was
her brave commander, upon whom the surgeons had been operating down
below, amid the blood of the cockpit and the thunder and smoke of the
cannon.

The battle ended about 1 p.m. The French fleet was badly beaten, and
Villaret-Joyeuse at the end of the day drew back to Brest only a
battered, splintered and ragged remnant of the fine squadron which he had
commanded. Still, the French provision ships slipped by and arrived
safely in port. The squadron had been sent out to enable them to get in,
and in they were, though it had cost a fleet to get them in. Nelson used
the phrase "a Lord Howe victory" disparagingly. Nothing short of a
complete smashing of the enemy and the utter frustration of his purposes
would ever satisf