Instead of doing as the admiral wished, the leading ships (a) carried sail so as to reach their supposed station abreast their numerical opposite in the order.
Rodney stated afterward that when he bore down the second time, the French fleet was in a very extended line of battle; and that, had his orders been obeyed, the centre and rear must have been disabled before the van could have joined.
[Illustration: Pl.XI.RODNEY & GUICHEN APRIL 17, 1780.] There seems every reason to believe that Rodney's intentions throughout were to double on the French, as asserted.

The failure sprang from the signal-book and tactical inefficiency of the fleet; for which he, having lately joined, was not answerable.

But the ugliness of his fence was so apparent to De Guichen, that he exclaimed, when the English fleet kept away the first time, that six or seven of his ships were gone; and sent word to Rodney that if his signals had been obeyed he would have had him for his prisoner.[142] A more convincing proof that he recognized the dangerousness of his enemy is to be found in the fact that he took care not to have the lee-gage in their subsequent encounters.

Rodney's careful plans being upset, he showed that with them he carried all the stubborn courage of the most downright fighter; taking his own ship close to the enemy and ceasing only when the latter hauled off, her foremast and mainyard gone, and her hull so damaged that she could hardly be kept afloat.
An incident of this battle mentioned by French writers and by Botta,[143] who probably drew upon French authorities, but not found in the English accounts, shows the critical nature of the attack in the apprehension of the French.

According to them, Rodney, marking a gap in their order due to a ship in rear of the French admiral being out of station, tried to break through (b); but the captain of the "Destin," seventy-four, pressed up under more sail and threw himself across the path of the English ninety-gun ship.
"The action of the 'Destin' was justly praised," says Lapeyrouse-Bonfils.