hammocks, to be placed one inch higher than, to facilitate his view of objects around him, they were accustomed to be stowed. The Victory, meanwhile, was slowly advancing to a gun-shot distance from the enemy's line.

At 20 minutes past noon, which was about 20 minutes after the Fougueux had opened her fire upon the Royal-Sovereign, and about 10 after the latter had passed under the stern of the Santa-Ana, the Bucentaure fired a shot at the Victory, then, with studding-sails set on both sides, steering about east and going scarcely a knot and a half through the water. The shot fell short. Two or three minutes elapsed, and a second shot was fired ; which, the Victory then about a mile and a quarter distant, fell alongside. A third shot almost immediately followed, and that went over the ship. One or two others did the same, until, at length, a shot went through the Victory's main topgallantsail ; affording to the enemy the first visible proof that his shot would reach. A minute or two of awful silence ensued ; and then, as if by signal from the French admiral, the whole van, or at least seven or eight of the weathermost ships opened a fire upon the Victory, such a fire as had scarcely before been directed at a single ship. In a few minutes a round shot killed Mr. John Scott, Lord Nelson's public secretary, while he was conversing with Captain Hardy.

Since the commencement of the firing the wind had gradually died away to a mere breath. Still the Victory driven onward by the swell and the remains of her previous impetus, was going slowly ahead, in the direction, now, of the interval between the Santisima-Trinidad and Bucentaure : both of which ships, aided occasionally by the Redoutable astern of the latter, continued upon her a very heavy and destructive fire. To this heavy and unremitting cannonade the Victory neither did, nor from her position could, bestow any return. In a very few minutes, however, after the firing had opened upon her, one of the foremost guns on the starboard side went off by accident. In a private ship this would scarcely have been noticed ; but, as happening on board the ship of the commander-in-chief it excited the attention of the fleet, and was minuted down in the log of one ship, the Polyphemus, as a real commencement of the action by the Victory ; thus: " About 20 m. past 12 Victory fired upon by the enemy's van, which was returned with a few of her foremost guns on the starboard side. "

Seeing, by the direction of her course, that the Victory was about to follow the example of the Royal-Sovereign, the French and Spanish ships ahead of the British weather column closed like a forest. This movement, headed by the stoppage in the headway of the Santa-Ana and by the bearing up of the two Spanish ships ahead of her in the manner already related, divided the combined line nearly in the centre, leaving, including the Redoutable from her station astern of the San-Leandro, 14 ships

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