Humanely, our vessel, the _Immortalité_ rescued the whole of her opponent's men ere she sank; but it was found that in the engagement her captain and half her crew had been killed. On every hand the fight continued with unabated fierceness; every gun was worked to its utmost capacity, and amid the smoke and din every vessel was swept from stem to stern. As morning wore on, the enemy met with one or two successes. Our two new cruisers _Terrible_ and _Powerful_ had been sunk by French torpedoes; the _Hood_ had been rammed by the _Amiral Baudin_, and gone to the bottom with nearly every soul on board; while the German despatch boat _Wacht_ had been captured, and seven of our torpedo boats had been destroyed. During the progress of the fight, the vessels came gradually nearer Dungeness, and at eleven o'clock they were still firing at each other, with appalling results on either side. At such close quarters did this great battle occur, that the loss of life was awful, and throughout the ships the destruction was widespread and frightful. About noon the enemy experienced two reverses. The French battleship _Formidable_ blew up with a terrific report, filling the air with débris, her magazine having exploded; while just at that moment the _Courbet_, whose 48-tonners had caused serious damage to the _Warspite_, was suddenly rammed and sunk by the _Empress of India_. This, the decisive battle, was the most vigorously contested naval fight during the whole of the hostilities. The scene was terrible. The steel leviathans of the sea were being rent asunder and pulverised by the terribly destructive modern arms, and amid the roar and crashing of the guns, shells were bursting everywhere, carrying away funnels, fighting tops, and superstructures, and wrecking the crowded spaces between the decks. Turrets and barbettes were torn away, guns dismounted by the enormous shells from heavy guns; steel armour was torn up and thrown aside like paper, and many shots entering broadsides, passed clean through and out at the other side. Whitehead torpedoes, carrying heavy charges of gun-cotton, exploded now and then under the enemy's ships; while both British and French torpedo boat "destroyers," running at the speed of an ordinary train, were sinking or capturing where they could. Through the dull, gloomy afternoon the battle continued. Time after time our ships met with serious reverses, for the _Anson_ was sunk by the Russian flagship _Alexander II._, assisted by two French cruisers, and this catastrophe was followed almost immediately by the torpedoing of the new British cruiser _Doris_, and the capture of the new German dynamite cruiser _Trier_. [Illustration: _H.M.S. Royal Sovereign._ _H.M.S. Camperdown._ _Amiral Baudin._ _Russian flagship blown up._ _H.M.S. Warspite._ _Cécille._ FINAL BATTLE OFF DUNGENESS: "THE SCENE OF DESTRUCTION WAS APPALLING."]