der midshipmen being usually with him. "Well I remember,"
writes one of his officers, "that on being one day relieved to go down
to my dinner, I was obliged to have some of the main-top-men to help me
down the rigging, I was so benumbed with the intense cold: yet the
captain was there six or seven hours at a time, without complaining, or
taking any refreshment."

On the 16th, the wind being from the eastward, the French fleet,
forty-four ships, of which seventeen were of the line and thirteen
frigates, got finally under way, not waiting the arrival of Villeneuve.
The Admiral purposed leaving Brest by the southern entrance, the Passage
du Raz, between the Bec du Raz and the Saintes. By taking this course,
and by so timing his departure as to clear the land just at nightfall,
he hoped to elude the vigilance of the British fleet off Ushant, whose
usual cruising ground was not more than six or seven leagues to leeward.
But through the delays inseparable from getting a large and encumbered
fleet to sea, it was four o'clock before all the ships were under sail;
and as night was fast closing in, and the wind becoming variable, the
Admiral determined not to attempt the narrow and dangerous passage he
had fixed on, but to steer for the open entrance in front of the
harbour, the Passage d'Iroise. Accordingly, he altered his own course,
and made signal for the fleet to follow; but neither was generally
observed, and the greater part of the ships, as previously directed,
entered the Passage du Raz. The Admiral, therefore, sent a corvette into
the midst of them, to call their attention to his own ship, which
continued to fire guns, and display lights to mark the change in her
course. By this time, it was quite dark, and many circumstances
increased the enemy's confusion. The _Seduisant_, seventy-four, ran on
the Grand Stevenet, a rock at the entrance of the Passage du Raz, where
she was totally lost that night, with nearly seven hundred of her
people. Her guns, and other signals, prevented those of the corvette
from being attended to; and the _Indefatigable_, which kept close to the
French Admiral, made his signals unintelligible to the fleet.

Sir E. Pellew had stood in that morning with the _Indefatigable_ and
_Revolutionaire_, and at noon came in sight of the enemy. At a quarter
before five, when they had all got underway, he sent off Captain Cole to
the Admiral, and remained with his own ship to observe and embarrass
their move