On the 24th, about two in the morning, they came up within call of the sternmost, there being then very little wind. The admiral fired a broadside with double round below, and round and cartridge aloft. At three o'clock the admiral's right leg was shattered to pieces by a chain-shot, and he was carried below; but he presently ordered his cradle to be carried to the quarter-deck, and continued the fight till day. Then appeared the ruins of the enemy's ship of about seventy guns; her main yard down and shot to pieces, her foretop-sail yard shot away, her mizen-mast shot by the board, all her rigging gone, and her sides bored to pieces. The admiral soon after discovered the enemy standing toward him with a strong gale of wind. The _Windsor_, _Pendennis_, and _Greenwich_, ahead of the enemy, came to the leeward of the disabled ship, fired their broadsides, passed her, and stood to the southward; then came the _Defiance_, fired part of her broadside, when the disabled ship returning about twenty guns, the _Defiance_ put her helm a-weather, and ran away right before the wind, lowered both her top-sails, and ran to the leeward of the _Falmouth_ without any regard to the signal of battle. The enemy seeing the other two ships stand to the southward, expected they would have tacked and stood towards them, and therefore they brought their heads to the northward. But when they saw these ships did not tack, they immediately bore down upon the admiral, and ran between their disabled ship and him, and poured in all their shot, by which they brought down his maintop-sail yard, and shattered his rigging very much; none of the other ships being near him or taking the least notice of his signals, though Captain Fog ordered two guns to be fired at the ships ahead in order to put them in mind of their duty. The French, seeing things in this confusion, brought to and lay by their own disabled ship, re-manned and took her into tow. The _Breda's_ rigging being much shattered she was forced to lie by till ten o'clock; and, being by that time refitted, the admiral ordered his captain to pursue the enemy, then about three miles to the leeward, his line-of-battle signal out all the while; and Captain Fog, by the admiral's orders, sent to the other captains, to order them to keep the line and behave like men. Upon this Captain Kirby came on board the admiral, and told him that "he had better desist; that the French were very strong; and that from what was past he might guess he could make nothing of it."