The British flagship swept through the gap, pouring a broadside into the _Glorieux_ to the right and the _Diademe_ to the left. The _Glorieux_ was at that moment 'close to our starboard side and almost in contact therewith, about a ship's breadth from us.' On the larboard side, eye-witnesses related, the _Formidable's_ three tiers of guns went off with 'one platoon report.' After it the _Diademe_ had vanished. She was seen no more from the _Formidable_, nor apparently by any other ship of the British fleet. Rodney himself believed--and reported to the Admiralty in his official despatch--that she had been sent to the bottom, with all hands there and then.[40] [Illustration: THE _FORMIDABLE_ BREAKING THE LINE. April 12, 1782 After J.C. Schetky. [The original water-colour was painted for the Duke of Rutland (elder brother of Captain Lord Robert Manners, mortally wounded in the battle), and is at Belvoir Castle.]] Immediately after that, as the smoke cleared off, a group of three or four French ships were made out near at hand, all huddled together in a mass. They were the ships that had been following the _Diademe_. Thrown aback by the shift of wind, and further disordered by the sudden turning round of the _Diademe_ herself right across their bows, they had got jammed together in confusion, 'almost, if not quite, in contact with each other.' They were full in the path of the _Formidable_ as she went through the line. She had to pass quite close to them. At the same instant the _Duke_ was about to pass on the farther side of the group. Captain Gardner had seen the admiral, astern of him, swing round suddenly to break through the enemy's line, and guessing what was intended, had of his own accord followed suit, forcing his way through between the two Frenchmen nearest himself at the moment. Thus the hapless group of French ships found itself all at once placed under fire on two sides from the most powerful three-deckers in the British fleet, they themselves also at that moment being hardly able to fire a shot in reply. It was a shattering and an overwhelming stroke. It practically crushed the French centre out of existence as a fighting entity. Rodney's men had only to fire 'into the brown.' Dr. Blane, who was watching it all from the _Formidable's_ gangway, by Rodney's side, describes what he saw. 'The unfortunate group, composing now only one large single object to fire at, was attacked ... all at once, receiving several broadsides from each ship, not a single shot missing, and dreadful must have been the slaughter.'