15.
[60] Lapeyrouse-Bonfils: Hist.

de la Marine Francaise.
[61] This movement, according to Clerk, was not made by the whole of a French line together, but in a way much more scientific and military.
A group of two or three ships withdrew at a time, being covered by the smoke and the continued fire of the rest of their line.

In time a second line was partly formed, which in its turn protected the ships which had remained on the first, as they executed the somewhat exposed movement of falling back.

In Plan V., Dutch ships at b, b, b, are represented as thus withdrawing.

English official reports of the eighteenth century often speak of French ships acting thus; the English officers attributing to their superior valor a movement which Clerk more plausibly considers a skilful military manoeuvre, well calculated to give the defence several opportunities of disabling the assailants as they bore down on a course which impeded the use of their artillery.