the French fleet
left Brest to protect them. Howe divided his force. He sent Montagu to
watch for the merchantmen, and led the remainder of his squadron
against Villaret Joyeuse. After a brush on May 28, they met, in equal
force, on the 1st of June, 400 miles from land. The French admiral had
an unfrocked Huguenot divine on board, who had been to sea in his
youth, and was now infusing the revolutionary ardour into the fleet,
as St. Just did with the army. The fight lasted three hours and then
ceased. Villaret waited until evening, but Lord Howe had several ships
disabled, and would neither renew the battle nor pursue the enemy. The
French had lost seven ships out of twenty-six. The most famous of
these is the _Vengeur du Peuple_. It engaged the _Brunswick_, and the
rigging of one ship became so entangled with the anchors of the other
that they were locked together, and drifted away from the line. They
were so close that the French could not fire their lower deck guns,
having no space to ram the charge. The English were provided for this
very emergency with flexible rammers of rope and went on firing into
the portholes of the enemy, while the French captain, calling up his
men from below, had the advantage on the upper deck. At last the
rolling of the sea forced the unconquered enemies to part. The
_Brunswick_ had lost 158 out of a crew of 600 and 23 of her guns out
of 74 were dismounted. She withdrew out of action disabled, and went
home to refit. The _Vengeur_ remained on the ground, with all her
masts gone. Presently it was seen that she had been hit below the
water-line. The guns were thrown overboard, but after some hours the
_Vengeur_ made signals that she was sinking. English boats came and
rescued about 400 men out of 723. Those of the survivors who were not
wounded were seen standing by the broken mast, and cried "Vive la
republique," as the ship went down. That is the history, not the
legend, of the loss of the _Vengeur_, and no exaggeration and no
contradiction can mar the dramatic grandeur of the scene.

The battle of the 1st of June is the one event by land or sea that was
glorious to British arms in the war of the first Coalition. The
ascendancy then acquired was never lost. Our failures in the West
Indies, at Cape Verde Islands, in the Mediterranean, and on the coasts
of France, and even the defection of our maritime allies, did not
impair it. And later on, when all were against us, admirals more
original