As the _Sceptre_ went astern, Rodney, with Blane at his elbow, walked out from the quarter-deck on to the starboard gangway at the side of the ship to get a better view. As he got there he saw another French ship nearing them. It was the _Glorieux_, reeling under the terrific punishment she had just undergone from the _Duke's_ guns. Her captain, D'Escars, had been struck down, and the ship wrecked from end to end; left lying a log on the water, 'shorn,' in Blane's words, 'of all her masts, bowsprit, and ensign staff, but with the white flag nailed to the stump of one of the masts, breathing defiance as it were in her last moments.' According to the French accounts they nailed their colours to the mast as the _Glorieux_ was approaching the _Formidable_, the operation affording opportunity for a fine little bit of heroic by-play. While they were nailing up the flag a sergeant of the Auxerrois regiment (a company of which was on board), Choissat by name, fastened a white cloth to his halberd and sprang on the bulwark rail and held it up, waving it defiantly. A bullet from either the _Formidable_ or the _Duke_ broke Choissat's right arm, whereupon the brave fellow caught the halberd with his left hand and held it up until the ship's flag had been secured. He lived through the fight and was given a commission for his heroism. Rodney marked the oncoming of the _Glorieux_ as the stricken vessel dropped slowly down on them. Then, a second later, seeing that the French seventy-four was drifting in such a way that she would brush close past them and almost collide, he turned abruptly to Dr. Blane. Both the Admiral's aides-de-camp were out of the way. 'Run down,' he told the doctor, 'and tell them to elevate their metal.' Blane went. He guessed the Admiral's meaning, thanks to _Hudibras_, a couplet from which came opportunely into his mind. Thus cannon shoot the higher pitches, The lower you let down their breeches. 'If this holds true,' says Dr. Blane, telling the story for himself, 'so must the converse of it, that is the muzzles must be lower by the elevation of the breeches. The Admiral's meaning could be no other than that of taking the enemy between wind and water.'[37] Blane hurried down and gave the order. In the interests of historic truth, in view of what immediately followed, it would have been well if he had not left the deck.