Battle
The two fleets manoeuvred during shifting winds and a heavy rain squall until a battle became inevitable with the British more or less in column and the French in some confusion. However, the French managed to pass along the British line to windward with their most advanced ships. At around noon, HMS Victory opened fire on Bretagne, 110 guns, followed by Ville de Paris, 90 guns. The British van escaped with little loss but Sir Hugh Palliser's rear division suffered considerably. Keppel made the signal to wear and follow the French, but Palliser did not conform and the action was not resumed.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Ushant (1778)
Famous quotes containing the word battle:
“Fold up the banners! Smelt the guns!
Love rules, Her gentler purpose runs.
A mighty mother turns in tears
The pages of her battle years,
Lamenting all her fallen sons!”
—Will Henry Thompson (1848–1918)
“For WAR, consisteth not in Battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the Will to content by Battle is sufficiently known.... So the nature of War, consisteth not in actual fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is PEACE.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“Forty years after a battle it is easy for a noncombatant to reason about how it ought to have been fought. It is another thing personally and under fire to have to direct the fighting while involved in the obscuring smoke of it.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)