50

HISTOEY OP ENGLAND.

CHAP.

XVIII.

1692 .

the white flag, and began to draw ofF. But by this time thewind had veered, and w r as with the allies. They were now ableto avail themselves of their great superiority of force. Theycame on fast. The retreat of the French became a flight. Tour-ville fought his owm ship desperately. She vms named, in allu-sion to Leivis’s favourite emblem, the Royal Sun, and waswidely renovmed as the finest vessel in the world. It v'as re-ported among the English sailors that she was adorned with animage of the Great King, and that he appeared there, as he ap-peared in the Place of Victories, with vanquished nations inchains beneath his feet. The gallant ship, surrounded byenemies, lay like a great fortress on the sea, scattering deathon every side from her hundred and four portholes. She w T asso formidably manned that all attempts to board her failed.Long after sunset, she got clear of her assailants, and, with allher scuppers spouting blood, made for the coast of Normandy.She had suffered so much that Tourville hastily removed his flagto a ship of ninety guns which was named the Ambitious. Bythis time his fleet was scattered far over the sea. About twentyof his smallest ships made their escape by a road which was tooperilous for any courage but the courage of despair. In thedouble darkness of night and of a thick sea fog, they ran, withall their sails spread, through the boiling waves and treacherousrocks of the Race of Alderney, and, by a strange good fortune,arrived without a single disaster at Saint Maloes. The pursuersdid not venture to follow the fugitives into that terrible strait,the place of innumerable shipwrecks.*

Those French vessels which were too bulky to venture into

* Russell’s Letter to Nottingham, May 20. 1692, in the London Gazetteof May 23.; Particulars of Another Letter from the Fleet published byauthority; Burchett; Burnet, ii. 93.; Life of James, ii, 493, 494.; NarcissusLuttrell’s Diary; Mdmoires de Berwick. See also the contemporary balladon the battle, one of the best specimens of English street poetry, and theAdvice to a Painter, 1692.