Seeing that the van was failing him, Howe, whose flag-ship, the Queen Charlotte, was tenth from the head of his column, now took the lead himself, tacked his own vessel, though her turn was not yet come, and, accompanied by his next ahead and astern,—­another striking instance of the inspiring influence of a high example,—­stood straight for the hostile order.  The three broke through astern of the sixth ship from the French rear, and cut off two of the enemy, which were speedily surrounded by others of the British.  Villaret-Joyeuse then repeated his former evolution, and nothing could have saved a general engagement except the disorder into which the British had fallen, and Howe’s methodical abhorrence of attacks made in such confusion as prevailed.  Moreover, the decisive result of this last brush was that the French entirely lost the windward position, and the British admiral knew that he now had them where they could not escape; he could afford to postpone the issue.  Accordingly, fighting ceased for the day; but the French had been so mauled that three more ships had to go into port, leaving them but twenty-two to the enemy’s twenty-five.

To appreciate Howe’s personal merit as a tactician, reflection should be bestowed upon the particulars of his conduct on these two days, with which the First of June is not to be compared; for in them culminated, so to speak, a long course of preparation in the study of tactical possibilities, and of the system of signals needed to insure necessary evolutions.  His officers, as a body, do not appear to have deserved by their manoeuvring the encomium passed by Rodney upon his, during the long chase to windward in May, 1780; and, as Howe had now held command for a year, this failure may probably be assigned to lack of that punctilious severity to which Rodney attributed his own success.  But in the matter of personal acquirement Howe shows a distinct advance upon Rodney’s ideas and methods.  There is not to be noted in Rodney’s actions any foreshadowing of the judicious attack upon the enemy’s rear, on May 28th, by a smart flying squadron.  This doubtless presents some analogy to a general chase, but there is in it more of system and of regulated action; in short, there is development.  Again, although Rodney doubtless tacked in succession repeatedly, between May 9th and May 20th, in his efforts to reach the enemy to windward, there does not then appear, nor did there appear on either of the two occasions when he succeeded in striking their column from to leeward, any intention, such as Howe on the 29th communicated by signal and enforced by action, of breaking through the enemy’s line even at the cost of breaking his own.  Not even on April 12th had Rodney, as far as appears, any such formulated plan.  There is here, therefore, distinct progress, in the nature of reflective and reasoned development; for it is scarcely to be supposed that Howe’s assiduity and close contact with the navy had failed to note, for future application, the incidents of Rodney’s battles, which had been the subject of animated discussion and censure by eye-witnesses.