As a fact, to make things worse still for the enemy, De Grasse's line had been broken through in yet another place. At the same moment that Rodney's ships were crossing the French line at the centre, Hood's division was breaking through it in the rear. It was quite unintentional with Hood and his captains, a blunder in the smoke fog; but it had a most telling effect on the fortunes of the day. It completed the ruin of De Grasse's array. The same southerly shift of the wind which had caused the gap in the centre was the cause primarily of Hood's going through farther along the line. The _Bedford_, Commodore Affleck, the rear ship of Rodney's centre squadron, was following in her place, astern of the _Ajax_, when she suddenly lost her leader in the smoke. At that instant the shift of wind broke up the French. Unaware of what she was doing, the _Bedford_, keeping her helm steady and holding straight ahead, pushed through the nearest gap in the enemy's line. So little, in fact, was the _Bedford's_ captain aware of what was happening, that the first intimation he had of what he had done was the sudden discovery that he had no enemy to starboard to fire at. As the best thing to be done he ported helm and stood on along the larboard side of the enemy's ships ahead, which belonged to De Grasse's _corps de bataille_, the French centre squadron. Hood's leading ships, the _Prince William_ and the _Magnificent_, followed the _Bedford_, and in the wake of them, through the widening gap, poured the rest of Hood's ships, ten in number. They pressed in, sweeping across the stern of the _Hector_, the rear ship of the French van, and between her and the _Cesar_, the leader of De Grasse's squadron. Thus at one stroke were the ships of the French van cut off _en bloc_ from the centre and the rear. One after the other, as they passed, Hood's twelve ships (or thirteen counting in the _Bedford_ as one) cannonaded the _Cesar_ and the _Hector_, crippling both hopelessly, and reducing them to a state little better than that in which Rodney's five followers had left the _Glorieux_. To give an idea of the wide expanse over which the battle was at this moment raging, it should be said that Hood's _Barfleur_, when she broke the line, was 2-1/4 miles from the _Formidable_. The _Marlborough_, away in the van, was 3-1/2 miles off, and had already come out of action, having ceased firing after passing the French rearmost ships. Hood's rear ship, the _Royal Oak_, fired her parting broadside into the stern of the ill-starred _Cesar_ a few minutes after eleven, with which the first stage of the battle came to an end. The _Formidable_ had ceased firing more than an hour before.