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of the Spanish weather division, the Culloden, by signal (No. 5) from the admiral, commenced a cannonade with her starboard guns, and received a fire in return from such ships of the Spanish weather division, as could open their batteries without firing into a friend. This engagement between the two vans, we have endeavoured to illustrate by the following diagram;.
About the time that the British van-ship opened her fire in the manner above stated, two Spanish three-deckers and a two-decker, from the weather division, stood across the head of the British line, and joined the one three, and four two deckers on the starboard tack ; thus augmenting the Spanish lee division (excluding the fugitive ship) to eight, and reducing the weather division to 16 sail of the line. At 8 m. past noon, having passed the sternmost of the Spanish weather ships, the Culloden, by signal No. 80, tacked, and in six minutes was followed by the Blenheim, who, like her leader, had been distantly engaged on the starboard side. In ten minutes afterwards the Prince-George tacked, but had fallen so much to leeward as to point nearly towards the centre of the remainder of her fleet, as it kept advancing on the starboard tack. A little before the Prince-George tacked, the Spanish lee division, as if it had received some directions from the two three, and one two decker that were then joining it from to-windward, and which we take to have been the Principe-de-Asturias, Conde-de ^ back to top ^ |