Luckily for the allies the wind fell calm; and while Tourville himself and other French ships got out their boats to tow into action again, the allies were shrewd enough to drop anchor with all sail set, and before Tourville took in the situation the ebb-tide, setting southwest, had carried his fleet out of action.

He finally anchored a league from his enemy.
At nine P.M., when the tide changed, the allies weighed and stood to the eastward.

So badly had many of them been mauled, that, by English accounts, it was decided rather to destroy the disabled ships than to risk a general engagement to preserve them.
Tourville pursued; but instead of ordering a general chase, he kept the line-of-battle, reducing the speed of the fleet to that of the slower ships.

The occasion was precisely one of those in which a _melee_ is permissible, indeed, obligatory.

An enemy beaten and in flight should be pursued with ardor, and with only so much regard to order as will prevent the chasing vessels from losing mutual support,--a condition which by no means implies such relative bearings and distances as are required in the beginning or middle of a well-contested action.