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NAVAL HISTORY of GREAT BRITAIN - Vol II
1798
LIGHT SQUADRONS AND SINGLE SHIPS
232


such of the great guns of both ships, as would bear, continued in full activity.

After an interval of calm, a light air sprang up, still from the southward; and the Généreux, being from her lofty sails the first to feel its effects, forged ahead, and disentangled herself from the Leander, now lying with her mizenmast over the starboard quarter, her fore topmast over the larboard bow, and both her lower yards on the booms. The Généreux, soon afterwards, coming up in the wind on the starboard tack, the Leander, who by the aid of her sprit-sail had succeeded in wearing, was enabled to luff under the stern of her antagonist. The opportunity was not lost, and the Leander deliberately discharged into the Généreux every gun upon her starboard broadside, which the wreck of her spars did not cover.

The breeze again died away, and the sea became as smooth as glass ; but no intermission took place in the mutual cannonade : it continued with unabated fury, until 3 h. 30 m. p.m. By this time the Généreux having, by the aid of a light breeze, paid round off upon her heel, stood athwart the hawse of the Leander, and stationed herself on the latter's larboard bow. * Here, unfortunately, the greater part of the guns, the foremost ones in particular, lay disabled with the wreck of the fallen spars. This gave a check to the Leander's firing, and the Généreux took that opportunity of hailing, to know if the British ship surrendered.

The Leander was now totally ungovernable, having her lower yards on the booms, and no stick standing, save the bowsprit and the shattered remains of the fore and main masts : the ship's hull was also cut to pieces, and her decks were strewed on every side with killed and wounded. The Généreux, on the other hand, having lost only her mizen topmast, was gradually passing along the Leander's larboard beam, as if intending to take up a position across her stern. In the defenceless state of the British ship, what other reply to the question of surrender could be given, than an affirmative ? It was given, by holding out a pike with a French jack at the end of it, and the Généreux took possession of her comparatively insignificant, but far from easily-won prize : not, however, by a boat, for the Leander had left the Généreux no boat in a situation to take the water, but by the French ship's boatswain, and one of her enseignes, or midshipmen, after they had swum on board.

An action so celebrated, and so truly creditable to the weaker party, we are happy to be able to illustrate with a diagram.

* "Starboard" in the Gazette, but we believe a misprint.

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