Backed up by the _Augusta_ and the _Edinburgh_, the _Dreadnought_ was able to overwhelm the French commodore with her fire, and force the crippled _Intrépide_ back on the next ship, the _Opiniâtre_. That vessel in turn backed into the fourth French ship, and she into another, the _Sceptre_. The four big ships of the enemy were accounted for. Our three ships seized the opportunity. Well in hand themselves, they pounded away, broadside after broadside, into the hapless Frenchmen, who were too much occupied in trying to disentangle themselves to do more than make a feeble and ineffective reply. By the time that they got clear the British squadron had so far got the upper hand that the French drew off, leaving the British squadron masters of the field. All of our three ships suffered severely, the _Dreadnought_ most of all. In Nelson’s lifetime the day was always observed by the family at Burnham Thorpe with special festivities, and Nelson himself often called it, it is on record, “the happiest day of the year.” More than that too, Nelson himself more than once half playfully expressed his conviction that he too might some time fight a battle on another 21st of October, and make the day for the family even more of a red-letter day. As a fact, during the last three weeks of his life on board the _Victory_ off Cadiz, in October, 1805, Nelson, with a prescience that the event justified, used these words both to Captain Hardy and to Dr. Beatty the surgeon of the flagship: “The 21st of October will be our day!” Captain Maurice Suckling’s “Dreadnought” sword was bequeathed to Nelson and was ever kept by him as his most treasured possession. He always wore it in battle, it is said; notably at St. Vincent, when he boarded and took the two great Spanish ships the _San Nicolas_ and the _San Josef_; and his right hand was grasping it when the grape shot shattered his arm at Teneriffe. The _Dreadnought_ of Boscawen and Maurice Suckling ended her days at perhaps England’s darkest hour of national trial—at the time of the American War. She was doing harbour duty at Portsmouth at the time, as a guard and receiving ship. At no period, perhaps in all our history did the future and the prospects of the British Empire seem so absolutely hopeless. We were fighting for existence against France and Spain, the two chief maritime Powers of Europe; and at the same time the vitality of the nation was being sapped by the never-ceasing struggle with the American colonists, now in its seventh year. Holland had added herself to our foes; Russia and the Baltic Powers were banded together in a league of “armed neutrality,” and stood by sullen and menacing. That, however, was not the worst. The price of naval impotence had to be paid. Great Britain was no longer mistress of the sea. She had lost command of the sea, and was drinking the bitter cup of consequent humiliation to the dregs.