During the forenoon of the latter day the combined squadron was seen getting under way.  The wind, being easterly, was fair for the British, and, besides, compelled the enemy to make some tacks to clear the land.  This delay was invaluable to Saumarez, whose preparations, rapid as they had been, were still far from complete.  Not till one in the afternoon did the headmost Spaniards reach the straits, and there they had to await their companions.  The Hannibal was unable to join them, and reanchored at Algeciras.  At half-past two the Caesar hauled out from Gibraltar mole, her band playing, “Cheer up, my lads, ’t is to glory we steer!” which was answered from the mole-head with “Britons, strike home!” At the same moment Saumarez’s flag, provisionally shifted to another vessel, was rehoisted at her masthead.  The rugged flanks of the rock and the shores of Algeciras were crowded with eager and cheering sight-seers, whose shouts echoed back the hurrahs of the seamen.  Rarely, indeed, is so much of the pride and circumstance, if not of the pomp, of war rehearsed before an audience which, breathless with expectation, has in it no part save to admire and applaud.

Off Europa Point, on the Gibraltar side, there clustered round the Caesar her four consorts, all but one bearing, like herself, the still fresh wounds of the recent conflict.  Four miles away, off Cabrita Point, assembled the three French of Linois’s division, having like honorable marks, together with the six new unscarred arrivals.  At 8 P.M. of the summer evening the allies kept away for Cadiz; Linois’s division leading, the other six interposing between them and the five ships of Saumarez, which followed at once.  It was a singular sight, this pursuit of nine ships by five, suggestive of much of the fatal difference, in ideals and efficiency, between the navies concerned.  Towards nine o’clock Saumarez ordered the Superb, whose condition alone was unimpaired by battle, to press ahead and bring the rear of the enemy to action.  The wind was blowing strong from the east, with a heavy sea.  At half-past eleven the Superb overtook the Real Carlos, and opened fire.  Abreast the Spanish vessel, on her other side, was the Hermenegildo.  The latter, probably through receiving some of the Superb’s shot, fancied the ship nearest her to be an enemy, and replied.  In the confusion, one of them caught fire, the other ran on board her, and in a few moments there was presented to the oncoming British the tremendous sight of these two huge ships, with their twenty hundred men, locked in a fast embrace and blazing together.  At half-past two in the morning, having by that time drifted apart, they blew up in quick succession.

Leaving them to their fate, the hostile squadron passed on.  The Superb next encountered the St. Antoine, and forced her to strike.  Soon afterwards the wind died away, and both fleets were much scattered.  A British ship brought to action one of the French which had been in the first battle; indeed, the French accounts say that the latter had fought three enemies.  However that may be, she was again severely mauled; but the English vessel opposed to her ran on a shoal, and lost all her masts.  With this ended the events of that awful night.