THE BATTLE OF SARDINIA. THE RAMMING OF THE ‘AMIRAL BAUDIN.’ It was just after daylight on the morning of the fourth day that a sort of cheering cry of ‘The enemy are at sea!’ ran all through the ships. Up went the simple signal, ‘Weigh,’ and there was really a horrible contrast between our anxiety and eagerness and the unmoved grind and crunch as link by link the cables came slowly in. But this was soon over, and we were at sea, forming at once in two lines ahead, as before arranged. The report was that the French had left Toulon twelve hours before, steering about S.E., but it had not been possible to count their numbers owing to the darkness. We steamed due east at half-speed; but it was plain to us all that if the French passed through the Straits of Bonifacio we might easily miss them, even though our cruisers were well spread out both ahead and astern. While we were in the middle of debate, down there rolled upon us as dense a fog as ever I saw in the Mediterranean. The Admiral had provided for this as for everything else, and we knew that we must preserve order with the steam syrens only, without the aid of guns; but as it was no use keeping speed, we slowed down. We were like this all day and all night, and at daylight it seemed as thick as ever. The ships had of course been all cleared for action, and we were ready to open fire in a minute, though one naturally prayed that the fog would lift before the enemy appeared. At 8 A.M. it began to clear, and at 9 we distinctly counted twenty-one steam-ships to the south of us. The flag-ship immediately made the signal for eight knots, and gradually altered course towards the strange fleet. We were soon able to make them out as sixteen French battle-ships, in the indented line abreast, steering south, with five cruisers in front of them. They were smoking up a good deal, but at ten or twelve miles distance we could not tell whether they were going at speed. We soon found they were not, for we began to gain on them, and the signal was made for ten knots. We could tell by the position of the steam cones, that every ship had steam to spare, and I suppose it was the desire of making sure of a compact fleet which kept us at comparatively low speed. Even at ten knots we continued to gain considerably. We were quite two miles off when the French began to open fire from their stern guns, and I am bound to say we were all very much surprised at the bad shots. They fell short and over, right and left, but after quite an hour few ships apparently had been badly hit.