When Burrish received his message, he sent for his lieutenants on the quarter-deck, and spoke to them words which doubtless reflect the reasoning upon which he was justifying to himself his most culpable inaction.  “Gentlemen, I sent for you to show you the position of our ships to windward,” (i.e. the ships of the centre division behind him, and Lestock’s division), “likewise those five sail [Spanish] of the enemy that are astern of us.  I have my orders to engage the Real, and you see I am bearing down for that purpose.”  The lieutenants remarked that he could do so with safety.  To this he rejoined, with a curtness that testifies to the uneasiness of his mind, “I did not send for you to ask your opinions, but only to observe that not one of our ships is coming down to my assistance, in order to cut those five sail off, and in case those five sail should oblige me to haul my wind again, and leave the Marlborough, that you may be able to indemnify my conduct, if called in question.”  One witness also testified that he “was angry that Admiral Lestock’s division did not bear down,”—­which was just enough,—­and that “he thought it most advisable to keep his station;” meaning by this, apparently, to remain where he was.  His cross-examination of the evidence was directed to prove the danger to his ship from these remaining Spaniards.  This anxiety was wholly misplaced, and professionally unworthy.  Quite independent of orders by signal and message, he was bound, in view of the condition of the Marlborough, to go to her relief, and to assume that the three English ships of the centre division, in his rear, would surely sustain him.  To base contrary action upon a doubt of their faithfulness was to condemn himself.  Four ships to five under such conditions should be rather a spur than a deterrent to an officer of spirit, who understands the obligation of his calling.

Till this, the Dorsetshire had been under her three topsails only.  She appears then to have stood down under more sail, but very slowly, and here occurred another disaster which was largely chargeable to her being out of her station.  Seeing the desperate state of the Marlborough, Mathews, who throughout managed blunderingly, with the single exception of the original attack, had thought to aid her and divert the fire of the Real by sending against the latter a fire-ship.  It was elementary that vessels of this class needed energetic support and cover in their desperate work.  Small in size, of no battery-force except against boat attacks, loaded with combustibles and powder, success in the use of them under an enemy’s guns required not only imperturbable coolness and nerve, but the utmost attainable immunity from the attention of the enemy.  This could be secured only by a heavy and sustained fire from their own fleet.  With the Norfolk, Namur, Marlborough, and Dorsetshire in close line, as they should have been, and heavily engaged,