's, one 70, one 68, six 64's, one 50; French, four 74's, seven 64's,
one 60, two 50's. Suffren had also put into the line a 36-gun ship,
the _Consolante_.[146]

While the French were getting underway from Trincomalee, the British
fleet was standing south-south-east towards the entrance, close-hauled
on the starboard tack, a fresh south-west monsoon blowing. When
Hughes made out the hostile flags on the works, he kept away four
points,[147] and steered east-south-east, still in column, under short
canvas (A). Suffren pursued, being to windward yet astern, with his
fleet on a line of bearing; that is, the line on which the ships were
ranged was not the same as the course which they were steering. This
formation, (A), wherein the advance is oblique to the front, is
very difficult to maintain. Wishing to make the action, whatever the
immediate event, decisive in results, by drawing the French well to
leeward of the port, Hughes, who was a thorough seaman and had good
captains, played with his eager enemy. "He kept avoiding me without
taking flight," wrote Suffren; "or rather, he fled in good order,
regulating his canvas by his worst sailers; and, keeping off by
degrees, he steered from first to last ten or twelve different
courses." Hughes, on his part, while perfectly clear as to his
own object, was somewhat perplexed by the seeming indecision of an
adversary whose fighting purpose he knew by experience. "Sometimes
they edged down," he wrote; "sometimes they brought-to; in no regular
order, as if undetermined what to do." These apparent vacillations
were due to the difficulty of maintaining the line of bearing, which
was to be the line of battle; and this difficulty was the greater,
because Hughes was continually altering his course and Suffren's ships
were of unequal speed.

At length, at 2 P.M., being then twenty-five miles south-east of the
port, the French drew near enough to bear down. That this movement
might be carried out with precision, and all the vessels come into
action together, Suffren caused his fleet to haul to the wind, on the
starboard tack, to rectify the order. This also being done poorly and
slowly, he lost patience,--as Nelson afterwards said, "A day is soon
lost in manoeuvring,"--and at 2.30, to spur on the laggard ships,
the French admiral gave the signal to attack, (a), specifying
pistol-range. Even this not sufficing to fetch the delinquents
promptly into line with the flagship, the latter fired