Keppel did so immediately, and settled the fate of the hapless _Thesèe_, a seventy-four, the same size as his own ship, which went to the bottom with awful suddenness as they were fighting yard-arm to yard-arm, struck by a fierce squall that burst on her and heeled her over just as she had opened her lower-deck ports to leeward in order to give the _Torbay_ a broadside. Swamped by a tremendous sea, the luckless _Thesèe_ filled and sank like a stone. Out of eight hundred men on board, not twenty in all were saved, picked up from floating wreckage. The _Torbay_ herself narrowly escaped sharing the _Thesèe’s_ fate. Her lower-deck ports had just been opened too. “Keppel’s,” relates Horace Walpole, “was full of water, and he thought he was sinking; a sudden squall emptied his ship, but he was informed all his powder was wet. ‘Then,’ said he, ‘I am sorry I am safe.’ They came and told him a small quantity was undamaged. ‘Very well,’ said he, ‘then attack again.’” The _Resolution_ and _Swiftsure_ were in turn joined by the _Revenge_, and then the _Essex_ added herself to the long suffering _Formidable’s_ foes. Still, though, the _Formidable_ kept her colours flying, while shot after shot—at intervals—came sullenly from her tiers of ports. She was practically silenced, but not as Keppel had thought, absolutely. There was little satisfaction in such odds, and three of the British ships moved away, leaving the _Resolution_ to finish the business off. [Illustration: HAWKE’S VICTORY IN QUIBERON BAY _Painted by Swaine. Engraved and Published in 1760._ _The picture shows the “Royal George” (in the centre) sinking the “Superbe,” and the “Formidable” (immediately beyond the “Superbe” and in the background) lowering her colours to the “Resolution” (the ship coming up astern of the “Royal George”)_]