ats severely
injured. About noon we had still fine weather and the enemy standing away
from us, except one ship, which did not seem injured, and paraded to
windward, as if with the intention of giving some of us disabled ships a
brush. However, we were well prepared for him, having got tolerably clear
of the wreck, and he stood back again and out of sight, having spoken one
of their wrecks. Lord Howe made the signal to form the line as most
convenient, but it was a long time before that movement could be
effected."

Flinders wrote in his journal an estimate of the French sailors who were
put on board his ship as prisoners. It is of some historical value:

"Their seamen, if we may judge from our own prisoners, are in a very bad
state both with respect to discipline and knowledge of their profession;
both which were evidently shown by the condition we saw them in on the
31st, many of them being without topmasts and topsail yards, and nearly
in as bad a state as on the 29th after the action. 'Tis true they were
rather better when we saw them in the morning of June 1st. Out of our 198
prisoners there certainly cannot be above 15 or 20 seamen, and all
together were the dirtiest, laziest set of beings conceivable. How an
idea of liberty, and more so that of fighting for it, should enter into
their heads, I know not; but by their own confession it is not their wish
and pleasure, but that of those who sent them; and so little is it their
own that in the Brunswick (who was engaged yardarm and yardarm with the
Vengeur) they could see the French officers cutting down the men for
deserting their quarters. Indeed, in the instances of the Russell and
Thunderer when close to the Revolutionnaire, and ours when cutting the
line, the French do not like to come too close. A mile off they will
fight desperately."

Pasley's loss of a leg had a decisive effect upon the career of Matthew
Flinders. So fine a sailor and so tough a fighting man would
unquestionably, if not partially incapacitated, have had conferred upon
him during the following years of war commands that would have led to his
playing a very prominent part in fleet operations. As it was, he did not
go to sea again, though he was promoted through various ranks to that of
Admiral of the Blue (1801). He became commander in chief at the Nore in
1798, and at Plymouth in 1799. Had he received other sea commands, his
vigorous, alert young aide-de-camp might have continued to serve wi