Lord Howe was unable to follow with his own ship the comparatively rapid movements of the French commander-in-chief. At eleven o'clock, however, a signal was made for those that could to close around the admiral, and the "Queen Charlotte" was with difficulty put on the other tack. Howe then led the column thus formed (B' B') to the eastward, a step that was necessary not only in order to cover dismantled British ships and secure the prizes, but also to relieve the "Queen," which was threatened by Villaret and in a critical situation. This ship, which had behaved with so much forwardness and gallantry in the British van on the 29th of May, had on the First of June been stationed in the rear. The antagonist which she attacked went away rapidly to leeward; and the "Queen," following with unrelenting ardor, found herself at the end of the engagement again between the lines, with a dismantled enemy, indeed, near by, but with her own mainmast gone and other spars tottering. Eight of Villaret's column cannonaded her as they passed, but without doing much harm, and Howe's approach extricated her.
The escape of some of the French dismasted ships was severely criticised at the time, and there was also an opinion that Howe should have renewed the attack after gathering about him his less injured vessels. There can be little question that more promptitude and energy would have secured some of the French that got away; many competent eye-witnesses thought so, and much discontent was openly expressed in the fleet. It is more doubtful whether the admiral would have done well to order the attack renewed. Several captains had behaved indifferently, either through lack of judgment or lack of nerve, and the best were naturally among those whose ships, being well-placed and hard-fought, were now out of condition for fighting. A decisive practical reason for ceasing the action is to be found in Howe's physical condition. He was then sixty-eight years old; and, although possessed of the calm, unworrying temper which bears responsibility lightly, he had undergone great fatigue during the five days of battle and chase—his only resting-place from the time the enemy was encountered being an arm-chair. "When the report was brought to him," says the signal lieutenant, "that the French fleet showed every symptom of determination to sustain a battle, I watched his face when he came to the quarter-deck to look at them; it expressed an animation of which, at his age, and after such fatigue of mind and body, I had not thought it capable;" but the reaction came possibly a little too soon for reaping the full fruits of the victory. "He went to bed," wrote the same officer, "completely done up after the action of the First. We all got round him; indeed, I saved him from a tumble; he was so weak that from a roll of the ship he was nearly falling into the waist. 'Why, you hold me up as if I were a child,' he said good-humoredly." [87] It is not surprising that, under such circumstances, he could not do all that a younger man might, nor that he yielded to the influence of his chief-of-staff, Sir Roger Curtis, a distinguished and gallant officer, but who appears to have been more impressed than was his superior by the disadvantages under which the British fleet labored.
Many years later, Admiral Stopford, who commanded a frigate in the action, made the following statement, which he allowed to be published: "Having observed the 'Marlborough' dismasted and surrounded by enemy's ships, I bore down and took her in tow—which bringing me very near the 'Queen Charlotte,' I went on board for orders. The cool, collected manner in which I was received by Lord Howe, and the desire he expressed to get the ships set to rights to continue the action, showed that such was his intention; and for the purpose of exonerating Lord Howe's memory from the charges I have heard alleged against him for not following up his victory, I think it right to state that, when standing on the 'Queen Charlotte's' poop, close to Lord Howe, Sir Roger Curtis came up in haste and apparent perturbation, exclaiming, 'I declare to God, my Lord, if you don't assemble the fleet, they will turn the tables upon us.' I must confess that I did not see anything to warrant such an exclamation, except a French ship passing under the 'Queen Charlotte's' stern and firing a few guns into her. The admiral and Sir R. Curtis then retired to another part of the poop, and nothing more was done." [88]
The responsibility of a commander-in-chief is not affected by the advice given him by any subordinate, however high his reputation or confidential the relations between them; but in the state of bodily weakness from which Howe suffered, he must, for subsequent action, have depended largely upon Curtis, and it was probably well not to undertake an undeniable risk against the judgment of the officer who might be called upon to superintend the operation. The battle therefore terminated with the movement of the two commanders-in-chief, with their serviceable ships, to the eastward, through which three French vessels escaped, the "Queen" was extricated, and seven dismasted enemies were cut off by the British. At quarter past one the general firing ceased, though a few random shots continued to be exchanged by scattered vessels.
Such were the principal features of the battle of the First of June, 1794, which, being fought so far from any land, [89] has received no other distinctive name. It has not been thought desirable to attempt narrating, in words, the innumerable incidents of the fight. While avoiding a superfluity of details, however, a tactical analysis of the course of the action may be not uninteresting to the professional reader. The method of attack undertaken by Lord Howe, single ship against single ship, was identical with that employed on many previous occasions by British admirals, and is to be justified only by the evidence he had received, on the 28th and 29th of May, of the enemy's professional incompetency and indifferent gunnery. He was probably right in concluding, from the events of those days, as was decisively proved by the issue on June 1st, that the French line was at every point weaker than the ships he could thus bring against it. Under such conditions it may be permissible to the assailant to throw away the opportunity, which the offensive gives him, of combining an attack in superior force upon a part of the enemy's order. It is very possible that Howe might have reaped better results by making such a combination, for the tactical inefficiency of the French fleet, which he had observed, assured him that it could not, in the moment of action, remedy any disadvantage under which he might place it; but, on the other hand, the drill of his own captains was not yet very good, nor were they all tried men upon whom he could depend. It was, therefore, not improbable that an attempt to execute a combination would result in a muddle, whereas he could count upon superior seamanship and superior gunnery, ship to ship, and the movement of approach which he made, though somewhat difficult in execution, is perfectly simple in idea. Upon the whole, weighing the pros and cons, it is the opinion of the author that Howe judged soundly in directing the simple attack that he did. [90]
It is instructive to observe that the results of the movement, though far more decisive in this than in previous battles, are, upon dissection, found to be closely analogous. The British fleet, in running down together, was ranged on a line parallel to the French, but steering a course (north-west) that was oblique to its own front as well as to that of the enemy. The issue in every other instance had been indecisive—scarcely ever was a ship taken or sunk. But while in this respect different, the experience of previous engagements was otherwise repeated. That flank of the assailant which in column had been the van came, as a whole, promptly and orderly into action, while delay and disorder, attended with imperfect execution, ensued in the rear. This feature of simultaneous fleet attacks was emphasized by the strenuous and brilliant efforts of three of the rear division, which prevented indeed a general failure there, but brought out all the more clearly how great the shortcoming would have been but for their exertions, unparalleled in former battles. The proportion of loss undergone in the different parts of the British column gives a fair measure of the vigor displayed by each. This test is indeed most misleading as a means of comparison between any two single ships. Instances can readily be chosen, from this very case, in which vessels skilfully placed and vigorously fought received less injury than others, which were badly handled and did little harm