nce of the
man who three years before had made the desperate attacks of Solebay
and the Texel? His reasons have not been handed down; it may be that
the defensive advantages of the lee-gage had been recognized by this
thoughtful seaman, especially when preparing to meet, with inferior
forces, an enemy of impetuous gallantry and imperfect seamanship. If
any such ideas did influence him they were justified by the result.
The battle of Stromboli presents a partial anticipation of the tactics
of the French and English a hundred years later; but in this case it
is the French who seek the weather-gage and attack with fury, while
the Dutch take the defensive. The results were very much such as Clerk
pointed out to the English in his celebrated work on naval tactics,
the accounts here followed being entirely French.[60]

The two fleets being drawn up in line-of-battle on the starboard tack,
heading south, as has been said, De Ruyter awaited the attack which he
had refused to make. Being between the French and their port, he felt
they must fight. At nine A.M. the French line kept away all together
and ran down obliquely upon the Dutch, a manoeuvre difficult to be
performed with accuracy, and during which the assailant receives his
enemy's fire at disadvantage (A', A'', A'''). In doing this, two ships
in the French van were seriously disabled. "M. de la Fayette, in the
'Prudente,' began the action; but having rashly thrown himself into
the midst of the enemy's van, he was dismantled and forced to haul
off" (a). Confusion ensued in the French line, from the difficult
character of the manoeuvre. "Vice-Admiral de Preuilli, commanding the
van, in keeping away took too little room, so that in coming to the
wind again, the ships, in too close order, lapped and interfered with
one another's fire [A']. The absence of M. de la Fayette from the line
threw the 'Parfait' into peril. Attacked by two ships, she lost her
maintopmast and had also to haul off for repairs." Again, the French
came into action in succession instead of all together, a usual and
almost inevitable result of the manoeuvre in question. "In the _midst_
of a terrible cannonade," that is, after part of his ships were
engaged, "Duquesne, commanding the centre, took post on the beam of
Ruyter's division." The French rear came into action still later,
after the centre (A'', A'''). "Langeron and Bethune, commanding
leading ships of the French centre, are crushed by superior for