"Signal the _Alexander_ and _Swiftsure_," said the Admiral; his quick eye had seen that Troubridge had already divined and cast off the wine brig. "Signal, 'Prepare for battle--attack the van and centre.'" Every captain knew that the Admiral's idea was to crush the enemy's van and centre as they lay at anchor, according to the oft-discussed plan, and then make the best use he could of the victory. Each ship got a bower cable out abaft and bent it forward. We stood in close line of battle, every ship sounding all the time carefully. There was not a chart of the Bay in the whole fleet, except a rude sketch taken by Captain Hallowell in a prize. The French were lying under the shelter of the cape, and with the head of their van up to the island, which had a battery of guns and mortars, and they were flanked by numerous gunboats and four frigates. "Stiff work, sir," said the Captain, eyeing the formidable array with its communications to the land secured at either end. "Might be worse, Berry," replied the Admiral, looking at them with the eye of a seaman determined on attack. And as ideas began to chase through his eager and penetrating mind, he jerked out, "They can't get away anyhow, they're anchored,--and where there's room for an enemy's ship to swing there is room for one of ours to anchor." "Are you going to force the passage, sir, and take them on the inside?" "Of course: they're so strongly secured on the outside that the guns won't be manned on the inside. If I know the French they won't even be cleared for action, for they didn't expect us, Berry. You can wager that they felt sure of having till to-morrow, even after they saw us coming in. Who leads, Berry?" "The _Goliath_." "Foley won't want any telling. It was this plan which took his imagination so that night, in case we had an enemy supported by the shore. See, there he goes, brave fellow!" he shouted, as Foley, coming up to the leading French vessel, the _Guerrier_, and receiving her fire at considerable disadvantage while half her men were aloft preparing to furl sail, swung round her, and to the vast astonishment of her company tried to bring up on her inner side. In this he failed, in spite of all his precautions: the anchor hung, and he found himself on the inner quarter of the _Conquérant_, the second ship. The _Zealous_, which was close behind him, anchored abreast of the _Guerrier_; and the _Orion_, _Theseus_, and _Audacious_, the next three ships, followed them inside; the _Audacious_ bringing up on the bow of the _Conquérant_; the _Theseus_ abreast of the _Spartiate_, but dividing her fire between the hapless _Conquérant_ and the _Aquilon_; and the _Orion_ dividing hers between the _Peuple Souverain_ and the _Franklin_.