Still, it is certain that she was the stoutest ship possessed by the French. From a French account of one of the attacks made on the English fleet before Portsmouth, we ascertain the character of the galleys employed by the French. We are told that they were worked by oars, and we read that so many galley-slaves were killed. It is said, also, that "the galleys had all the advantage of working that they could desire, to the great damage of the English, who, for want of wind, not being able to stir, lay exposed to the French cannon, and being so much higher and bulkier than their galleys, hardly a shot missed them; while the galleys, with the help of their oars, shifted at pleasure, and thereby avoided the danger of the enemy's artillery." The same writer says that, later in the day, "the violence of the wind, and the swelling of the sea, would deprive us of our galleys." We thus see at once that these galleys, though from their lightness easily manoeuvred in smooth water, were unfit to buffet with the winds and waves. They were probably similar to the galleys I have before described, and which for centuries were in use in the Mediterranean. Another writer says: "A gale arising, the French galleys were in danger, the English ships bearing down upon them with full sail, a danger from which they escaped purely by the skill and experience of their commanders, and the intrepidity of the _Prior of Capua_, who exposed his galley with undaunted courage, and freed himself from danger with equal address." The title of Prior of Capua sounds oddly enough when applied to a naval commander. From these accounts it would appear that the English ships were more powerful than those of the French, and were better calculated to stand the brunt of battle than to chase a nimble enemy, as the French seem to have been. The larger ships in the British navy were at that time fitted with four masts, like the _Henri Grace de Dieu_. Though the yards and sails were unwieldy, the rigging heavy, and the top hamper prodigious, we find that they were tending towards the form they had assumed when Howe, Jervis, and Nelson led our fleets to victory.