The results were very much such as Clerk pointed out to the English in his celebrated work on naval tactics, the accounts here followed being entirely French.[60] The two fleets being drawn up in line-of-battle on the starboard tack, heading south, as has been said, De Ruyter awaited the attack which he had refused to make.

Being between the French and their port, he felt they must fight.

At nine A.M.the French line kept away all together and ran down obliquely upon the Dutch, a manoeuvre difficult to be performed with accuracy, and during which the assailant receives his enemy's fire at disadvantage (A', A'', A''').

In doing this, two ships in the French van were seriously disabled.

"M.