The allied van and rear came to close action (Plate VI., A).

Paul Hoste's[70] account of this manoeuvre of the allies is that the admiral intended to fall mainly on the French rear.

To that end he closed the centre to the rear and kept it to windward at long cannon-shot (refused it), so as to prevent the French from tacking and doubling on the rear.

If that were his purpose, his plan, though tolerably conceived in the main, was faulty in detail, for this manoeuvre of the centre left a great gap between it and the van.

He should rather have attacked, as Ruyter did at the Texel, as many of the rear ships as he thought he could deal with, and refused his van, assigning to it the part of checking the French van.