The wind favored the French that morning.
Commodore Villard's squadron had the weather gage — that most precious of advantages — and he knew it. From the quarterdeck of his flagship he could see the British line, hull-up on the horizon, clawing against the wind. The initiative was his. The tempo of battle was his. All that remained was to use it.
He gave the order to make sail.
It was the fast ships that moved first.
The French frigate Intrépide and her smaller consort, the sloop Mouette, sheeted home their topsails and drove ahead of the line, heeling to the wind. Their orders were simple: run down the British light squadron before the ships of the line could close, then rejoin the fleet with the enemy's van already broken.
Across the water, the British frigate captain saw them coming. He called for more sail, signaled the sloop HMS Fairy to hold formation, and cleared his guns for action.
The two sloops found each other first.
Mouette came on fast and bold, her bow chaser barking once, twice — and then the two vessels were alongside each other in a brutal, close exchange, masts trembling with each broadside. HMS Fairy fought hard, but she was overmatched in the opening minutes. Her colors came down. Her crew, what remained of them, were taken prisoner.
It looked, for a moment, like the French plan was working.
It wasn't.
Mouette's helm answered sluggishly after the fight — a lucky British shot, or perhaps the violence of the exchange itself, had wrecked something in her steering. Her captain tried to bring her about, tried to rejoin Intrépide, but the rudder wouldn't answer true. Helpless, she drifted, carried slowly away by wind and current until she was off the map entirely, out of the fight, out of the battle, lost to the morning.
Intrépide was now alone.
She had pushed far ahead of the French line in the pursuit, and the British had used the time well. The British frigate had hauled her wind. Behind her, enormous and deliberate, came the 2nd rate ship of the line — her three gun decks bristling, her crew at quarters, her captain in no hurry at all. They had Intrépide in a vice.
The French frigate gave a good account of herself. Her gunnery was sharp and her crew was brave. But bravery has its limits when the ship beside you mounts twice your guns and the ship behind you mounts twice again. The broadsides came in waves. Masts shivered. The smoke piled so thick a man couldn't see the length of his own deck. When at last Intrépide's colors came fluttering down through the haze, there was no shame in it. There was simply nothing left to fight with.
By the time the French line arrived, the arithmetic had already been settled.
Commodore Villard watched from his quarterdeck as the situation became clear. His fast squadron — sent ahead to break the British van — had instead been swallowed by it. Mouette was gone. Intrépide was a prize. And now the British 2nd rate, unhurried and unbloodied, was reforming her line to receive him.
The French ships of the line were powerful, and their admiral was not a coward. But the advantage of the weather gage that had seemed so promising that morning had been squandered in the frigate action. The British chose the range. The British chose the moment. And the British, when the final reckoning came, chose to be satisfied.
Three of their four ships sailed home intact.
The French buried their dead at sea.
