miles. Both formed line of battle, and an engagement appeared imminent; but as D'Orvilliers made out the numbers of the English, he acted more cautiously, and, aided by a slight shift of wind, while Keppel was lying to for the night, succeeded in passing ahead of the English line and obtaining the weathergage, though in the manœuvre two of his ships were partially dismasted and obliged to return to Brest. At daybreak on the 24th the fleets were still in sight of each other; but Keppel being now to leeward was unable to bring on the engagement which D'Orvilliers no longer offered. And thus in foggy, squally, unsettled weather the fleets continued in presence of each other till the forenoon of the 27th, when a sudden shift of wind enabled Keppel to lie up for the French line and to engage it, as the two fleets passed each other on opposite tacks. ‘Our van,’ wrote Jervis, who commanded the Foudroyant, next astern of the Victory, Keppel's flagship, ‘passed the French line without receiving heavy damage; but this firing brought the enemy down so much that most of their centre and rear passed the greatest part of our centre and rear within musket shot, and the wind having been quite abated by the concussion of the air, a very sharp cannonade continued on the centre till near one o'clock, and on the rear till forty minutes after one, when the firing ceased.’
As the two lines drew clear of each other D'Orvilliers made the signal to wear in succession. The signal was not obeyed, a blunder which popular report attributed to the cowardice of the Duc de Chartres, who commanded the van. On the side of the English a part of the van, under Sir Robert Harland, had tacked at once, and was standing towards the enemy; the rest of it was too much disabled, and dropped to leeward. The ships of the centre also were much disabled, those of the rear perhaps still more so; and though both Keppel in the Victory, and Sir Hugh Palliser [q. v.], who commanded the rear, in the Formidable, wore as soon as they were well clear of the enemy's line, it was at once apparent that the fleet could not be got together for an immediate renewal of the action, and they wore back again.
About three o'clock the French fleet had got round, and was standing to the south, with the apparent intention of cutting off five ships much disabled, which had fallen to leeward. Keppel, seeing the danger, hastily formed so much of his line as he could, and stood towards them, a manœuvre which was afterwards described as flying before the French. The action was not renewed, for the French bore away to leeward and formed their line, waiting for the attack which was not made. It was in vain that Keppel made the signal for the line of battle, and for ships to windward to come into the admiral's wake. Palliser did not obey. The Fox frigate was sent with a distinct message to Palliser that the admiral was only waiting for him to renew the attack, but it was not till after dark that Palliser and his division bore down. The next morning, 28 July, the fleet was in line of battle, but the French were no longer there. They could only be seen from the masthead, hull down to the eastward. It was clearly useless to follow them, for Brest was under their lee and offered them a ready shelter; while in the uncertain and squally weather it might be dangerous to take so many crippled ships near a hostile lee shore. On the 29th the French went into Brest, and Keppel, leaving a few ships to cruise for the protection of trade, drew back to Plymouth, where he anchored on the 31st.
The fleet was ordered to refit without delay. Keppel was deeply hurt by the conduct of Palliser on the 27th, but the emergency called for haste, and he conceived that to institute an inquiry or to hold a court-martial would destroy the possibility of unanimous exertion. He therefore expressed no dissatisfaction, and even wrote to the admiralty in praise of ‘the spirited conduct of Vice-admiral Sir Hugh Palliser.’ ‘I do not conceive,’ he said afterwards in his defence, ‘that a commander-in-chief is bound to disclose to all Europe, in the midst of a critical service, the real state of his fleet, or his opinion of any of his officers.’ There can, however, be no doubt that he ought to have referred the matter at once to the admiralty, and his failure to do so was mainly, if not entirely, due to his distrust of Lord Sandwich.
But the real circumstances were known to too many to admit of any possibility of concealment. On 23 Aug. the fleet put to sea, cruised vainly off Ushant for a couple of months, and anchored at Spithead on 28 Oct., when Palliser, learning that a full statement of the case had appeared in a London paper, wrote to Keppel, ‘requiring’ him to contradict the ‘scandalous report;’ and as he received no reply he called on him to insist on his doing so. An angry quarrel was the result; other letters appeared in the papers; the subject was mentioned in the House of Commons; and Palliser applied for a court-martial on Keppel on a charge of misconduct and neglect of duty. Palliser was one of the lords of the admiralty, and his colleagues had no hesitation in complying with his request. His official letter was dated 9 Dec., and the very same day the secretary of the admiralty notified the deci-
