The _Arrogant_, a veteran 74 of the Seven Years' War time, backed the _Marlborough_ up; an exceptionally ugly customer for an enemy to tackle, for her guns were fitted with all the newest improvements,--locks, tubes, and sweep-pieces,--and her men knew how to make the best of them. Captain Douglas, watching the _Arrogant_ from the _Formidable_, noted that he saw her firing three broadsides to the enemy's one--one broadside meeting the enemy as they came up; the second right into their ports as they passed; the third a slashing good-bye salute, training three-quarters aft into the Frenchmen's stern. Some of the enemy struck back savagely as the _Arrogant_ went by, but the tough Suffolk oak of the old ship's timbers could take hard knocks, and the Harwich dockyard-men's work came through the hammering little the worse. The _Alcide_, Captain Charles Thomson, followed next, a British-built model of one of old 'Dreadnought' Boscawen's prizes, whose French name she had also taken; then the _Nonsuch_, Captain Truscott; and the _Conqueror_, Captain George Balfour, a gallant Scot who had won post-rank for an act of exceptional daring in battle five-and-twenty years before. These five 74's headed the British fleet and 'broke the bowling.' They ranged forward alongside the French within pistol-shot, 'sliding down slowly,' as Captain Douglas, looking on from the _Formidable's_ quarter-deck, described it. They passed parallel to the French and to leeward, on the opposite tack, from the ninth ship of the enemy to their rear ship, exchanging fire with every ship of the enemy, one after the other as each came by, until they had passed and overlapped the end of the French line. Forward they went, ship following ship, keeping exact station and each lashing out, broadside after broadside, into the enemy as they swept along, as fast as the powder could be brought to the guns. Admiral Drake followed in the wake of the _Conqueror_, with the _Princessa_, an ex-Spanish two-decker, a 70-gun ship, but bigger than Hood's _Barfleur_, one of the prizes that Rodney had made in his moonlight battle with Langara off Cape St. Vincent that wild January midnight two years before when he was on his way to relieve Gibraltar. The big _Prince George_ (Captain Williams), a giant 98-gun three-decker, the hardest hitter of the van squadron in weight of metal, seconded Drake.