ssel fell far _outside_ them. "The effect," says
Cochrane, who, like Caesar, could write history as well as make it,
"constituted one of the grandest artificial spectacles imaginable. For
a moment the sky was red with the lurid glare arising from the
simultaneous ignition of 1500 barrels of powder. On this gigantic
flash subsiding the air seemed alive with shells, grenades, rockets,
and masses of timber, the wreck of the shattered vessel." Then came
blackness, punctuated in flame by the explosion of the next floating
mine. Then, through sea-wrack and night, came the squadron of
fire-ships, each one a pyramid of kindling flame. But the first
explosion had achieved all that Cochrane expected. It dismissed the
huge boom into chips, and the French fleet lay open to attack. The
captain of the second explosion vessel was so determined to do his work
effectually that the entire crew was actually blown out of the vessel
and one member of the party killed, while the toil of the boats in
which, after the fire-ships had been abandoned, they and their crews
had to fight their way back in the teeth of the gale, was so severe
that several men died of mere fatigue. The physical effects of the
floating mines and the drifting fire-ships, as a matter of fact, were
not very great. The boom, indeed, was destroyed, but out of twenty
fire-ships only four actually reached the enemy's position, and not one
did any damage. Cochrane's explosion vessels, however, were addressed
not so much to the French ships as to the alarmed imagination of French
sailors, and the effect achieved was overwhelming. All the French
ships save one cut or slipped their cables, and ran ashore in wild
confusion. Cochrane cut the moorings of his explosion vessel at
half-past eight o'clock; by midnight, or in less than four hours, the
boom had been destroyed, and thirteen French ships--the solitary fleet
that remained to France--were lying helplessly ashore. Never, perhaps,
was a result so great achieved in a time so brief, in a fashion so
dramatic, or with a loss so trifling.

When the grey morning broke, with the exception of two vessels, the
whole French fleet was lying helplessly aground on the Palles shoal.
Some were lying on their bilge with the keel exposed, others were
frantically casting their guns overboard and trying to get afloat
again. Meanwhile Gambier and the British fleet were lying fourteen
miles distant in the Basque Roads, and Cochrane i