the Dutch and British fleets away. But
they thought these fleets had not joined company and that the British
fleet would be so full of Jacobites as to be easily defeated again. At
the first streak of dawn on the 19th of May Admiral Russell was off
Harfleur, at the north-east corner of the Normandy peninsula. His own
British ships of the line (that is, the ships of the biggest and
strongest kind) numbered sixty-three; while his Dutch allies had
thirty-six. Against these ninety-nine Tourville had only forty-four.
Yet, having been ordered to attack, and not getting the counter-order
till after the battle was over, he made for the overwhelming Dutch and
British with a skill and gallantry beyond all praise.

[Illustration: LA HOGUE, 1692.]

The fury of the fight centred round the _Soleil Royal_, Tourville's
flagship, which at last had to be turned out of the line. Then, as at
Jutland in the Great War, mist veiled the fleets, so that friend and
foe were mixed together. But the battle went on here and there between
different parts of the fleets; while a hot action was fought after dark
by Admiral Carter, who, though a Jacobite, was determined that no
foreign army should ever set foot in England. Mortally wounded, he
called to his flag captain, "Fight the ship as long as she swims," and
then fell dead. All through the foggy 20th the battle was continued
whenever the French and Allies could see each other. Next morning the
_Soleil Royal_ became so disabled that she drifted ashore near
Cherbourg. But Tourville had meanwhile shifted his flag to another
ship and fought his way into La Hogue with twelve of his best
men-of-war. Some of the other French ships escaped by reaching St.
Malo through the dangerous channel between La Hogue and the island of
Alderney. Five others escaped to the eastward, and four went so far
that they rounded Scotland before getting home.

On the 23rd and 24th Admiral Rooke, the future hero of Gibraltar,
sailed up the bay of La Hogue with his lighter vessels; then took to
his boats and burnt Tourville's men-of-war, supply ships, and even
rowboats, in full view of King Louis and King James and of their whole
army of invasion. No other navy has seen so many strange sights,
afloat and ashore, as have been seen by the British. Yet even the
British never saw a stranger sight than when the French cavalry charged
into the shallow water where the Dutch and British sailors were
finishing their work.