Palliser’s defence rested upon three principal points:  (1), that the signal for the line of battle was not seen on board the Formidable; (2), that the signal to get into the Admiral’s wake was repeated by himself; (3), that his foremast was wounded, and, moreover, found to be in such bad condition that he feared to carry sail on it.  As regards the first, the signal was seen on board the Ocean, next astern of and “not far from"[51] the Formidable; for the second, the Admiral should have been informed of a disability by which a single ship was neutralizing a division.  The frigate that brought Keppel’s message could have carried back this.  Thirdly, the most damaging feature to Palliser’s case was that he asserted that, after coming out from under fire, he wore at once towards the enemy; afterwards he wore back again.  A ship that thus wore twice before three o’clock, might have displayed zeal and efficiency enough to run two miles, off the wind,[52] at five, to support a fight.  Deliberate treachery is impossible.  To this writer the Vice-Admiral’s behaviour seems that of a man in a sulk, who will do only that which he can find no excuses for neglecting.  In such cases of sailing close, men generally slip over the line into grievous wrong.

Keppel was cleared of all the charges preferred against him; the accuser had not thought best to embody among them the delay to recall the ships which his own example was detaining.  Against Palliser no specific charge was preferred, but the Admiralty directed a general inquiry into his course on the 27th of July.  The court found his conduct “in many instances highly exemplary and meritorious,”—­he had fought well,—­“but reprehensible in not having acquainted the Commander-in-Chief of his distress, which he might have done either by the Fox, or other means which he had in his power.”  Public opinion running strongly for Keppel, his acquittal was celebrated with bonfires and illuminations in London; the mob got drunk, smashed the windows of Palliser’s friends, wrecked Palliser’s own house, and came near to killing Palliser himself.  The Admiralty, in 1780, made him Governor of Greenwich Hospital.

On the 28th of July, the British and French being no longer in sight of each other, Keppel, considering his fleet too injured aloft to cruise near the French coast, kept away for Plymouth, where he arrived on the 31st.  Before putting to sea again, he provided against a recurrence of the misdemeanor of the 27th by a general order, that “in future the Line is always to be taken from the Centre.”  Had this been in force before, Palliser’s captains would have taken station by the Commander-in-Chief, and the Formidable would have been left to windward by herself.  At the same time Howe was closing his squadron upon the centre in America; and Rodney, two years later, experienced the ill-effects of distance taken from the next ahead, when the leading ship of a fleet disregarded an order.