On the 20th of June, the wind holding at west with unexpected constancy, Hughes decided to accept the attack which Suffren evidently intended.  The latter, being distinctly inferior in force,—­fifteen to eighteen,—­probably contemplated an action that should be decisive only as regarded the fate of Cuddalore; that is, one which, while not resulting in the capture or destruction of ships, should compel his opponent to leave the neighbourhood to repair damages.  The British formed line on the port tack, heading to the northward.  Suffren ranged his fleet in the same manner, parallel to the enemy, and was careful to see the order exact before bearing down.  When the signal to attack was given, the French kept away together, and brought-to again on the weather beam of the British, just within point-blank range.  The action lasted from shortly after 4 P.M. to nearly 7, and was general throughout both lines; but, as always experienced, the rears were less engaged than the centres and vans.  No ship was taken; no very important spars seem to have been shot away.  The loss of the British was 99 killed, 434 wounded; of the French, 102 killed, 386 wounded.

As the ships’ heads were north, the course of the action carried them in that direction.  Suffren anchored next morning twenty-five miles north of Cuddalore.  There he was sighted on the 22d by Hughes, who had remained lying-to the day after the fight.  The British Vice-Admiral reported several ships much disabled, a great number of his men—­1,121—­down with scurvy, and the water of the fleet very short.  He therefore thought it necessary to go to Madras, where he anchored on the 25th.  Suffren regained Cuddalore on the afternoon of the 23d.  His return and Hughes’s departure completely changed the military situation.  The supply-ships, upon which the British scheme of operations depended, had been forced to take flight when Suffren first approached, and of course could not come back now.  “My mind is on the rack without a moment’s rest since the departure of the fleet,” wrote the commanding general on the 25th, “considering the character of M. de Suffren, and the infinite superiority on the part of the French now that we are left to ourselves.”

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The battle of June 20th, 1783, off Cuddalore, was the last of the maritime war of 1778.  It was fought, actually, exactly five months after the preliminaries of peace had been signed on January 20th, 1783.  Although the relative force of the two fleets remained unchanged, it was a French victory, both tactically and strategically:  tactically, because the inferior fleet held its ground, and remained in possession of the field; strategically, because it decided the object immediately at stake, the fate of Cuddalore, and with it, momentarily at least, the issue of the campaign.  It was, however, the triumph of one commander-in-chief over another; of the greater man over the lesser.  Hughes’s reasons for quitting