This was a pretty desperate state of affairs, but the gallant Frenchman would not yet acknowledge himself beaten. Seeing the English vessel so near, he conceived the idea of suddenly boarding her, and carrying her off. He sent his officers to call the crew on deck, got the grapnels ready, and ordered the helm to be put over. The two ships were rapidly closing when one of the lieutenants of the _Diligente_, looking through a port, and not imagining for a moment that his captain really contemplated such a desperate measure, ordered the quartermaster to reverse the helm. The ships fell apart, but Du Guay Trouin shouted to jam the helm over again. It was too late; the English captain, knowing that he and his consorts had the Frenchman secure, did not see the use of having a hundred and fifty desperate men jumping on board, so he set his courses, sheered off, and banged away again with his guns. The _Monk_, of 60 guns, now arrived, and the _Diligente_ was fairly surrounded, two more ships coming up shortly. Still the French flag was kept flying. The men, less heroic than their captain, began to run from their quarters. Du Guay Trouin cut down one, pistolled another, and was hustling them generally, when fire broke out below. He rushed down and had it extinguished, then provided himself with a tub of grenades, which he began throwing down into the hold, so that his crew found it too hot to remain below, and manned some of the guns. However, this could not go on against such fearful odds, and on gaining the deck once more he found that "some cowardly rascal" had lowered the colours. He ordered them up again, but his officers demurred; and then, with the last shot fired in the action, he was wounded severely in the groin and dropped senseless. When he came to himself the ship was in the possession of the English. He was taken on board the _Monk_, where Captain Warren treated him right well--"with as much care as though I had been his own son," says Du Guay Trouin--and he was probably quite old enough to have been father to the young French captain, who was then only one-and-twenty.