from the van in consequence of injuries received on the 9th.  The British column was then standing east-northeast, closehauled on the starboard tack, the crippled vessel under its lee, but the French of the main body well to windward.  To draw them within reach, Rodney signalled Hood to send chasers after the Zele.  De Grasse took the bait and ran down to her support, ordering his ships to form line-of-battle on the port tack, which was done hastily and tumultuously.  The two lines on which the antagonists were respectively advancing now pointed to a common and not distant point of intersection, which the French, despite the loss of ground already undergone, reached first, passing in front and to windward of the head of the British column.  Eight ships thus went by clear, but the ninth arrived at the same moment with the leading British vessel, which put her helm up and ran along close to leeward of the French line towards its rear, followed in so doing by the rest of her fleet.

The battle thus assumed the phase of two fleets passing each other in opposite directions, on parallel lines; a condition usually unproductive of results, and amounting to little more than a brush, as had been the case in two rencounters between Rodney and De Guichen in the prolonged chase of May, 1780.  Chance permitted a different issue on this occasion.  The wind at the moment of first collision, shortly before 8 A.M., was east, and so continued till five minutes past nine, when it shifted suddenly to the southeastward, ahead for the French, abaft for the British.  The former, being already close to the wind, could keep their sails full only by bearing away, which broke up their line ahead, the order of battle as ranged for mutual support; while the British being able to luff could stand into the enemy’s line.  Rodney’s flag-ship, the Formidable, 90, was just drawing up with the Glorieux, 74, nineteenth from the van in the French order and fourth astern of the Ville de Paris, De Grasse’s flag-ship.  Luffing to the new wind, she passed through the French line at this point, followed by the five ships astern of her; while the sixth astern, the Bedford, 74, luffing on her own account, broke also through the French astern of the Cesar and the Hector, 74’s, eleventh and twelfth in their order.  The twelve British vessels in rear of the Bedford followed in her wake.  Hood was in one of these, the Barfleur, 90.  Of the ships ahead of Rodney the nearest one imitated his example instantly and went through the line; the remainder, sixteen in all, continued northward for a space.