A little ahead of the _Centaure_ was Admiral de la Clue’s flagship _L’Océan_, with the _Téméraire_, and the _Redoutable_ and the _Modeste_ near by, sailing in a cluster just ahead of her. All four had every now and then been assisting the _Centaure_, as now one, now another, of the English ships came within range of their guns. Away in the van of the French squadron were two more ships, the _Souverain_ and the _Guerrière_, which were pushing on at some distance ahead of all.
To escape into neutral waters was the only course practicable to the French ships, and all they now aimed at, as they held on during the afternoon, crowding canvas to make land—the coast of Portugal near Cape St. Vincent—which soon began to rise ahead of them more and more distinctly.
A few minutes before the _Centaure_ surrendered there was a sharp interchange of broadsides between the two flagships, Boscawen’s _Namur_ and de la Clue’s _Océan_, both three-deckers. The _Namur_ pushed past the _Centaure_, then plainly _in extremis_, within gunshot of his chief antagonist. Boscawen fastened on his chosen opponent and engaged the French Admiral hotly, until a series of mishaps for the _Namur_, lucky hits on the part of the French gunners, temporarily disabled the British flagship by shooting down her mizen-mast and main-topsail yard. That forced the _Namur_ to drop back out of action.
Admiral Boscawen, the story goes, at once quitted his crippled ship to go on board the _Newark_, a seventy-four, the nearest ship among the leaders in the British van, and had a narrow escape from drowning in his passage from ship to ship; through a cannon-ball which struck his barge and smashed a hole in it. The Admiral saved his own life and those of the men with him, as it is related, by his presence of mind. The barge began to fill and would have sunk under them, had not Boscawen smartly whipped off his wig and stuffing it into the hole stopped the inrush of water, enabling them to keep afloat until they could get alongside the _Newark_.
There was little more firing that evening after the _Centaure_ had made her submission, but the pursuit of the _Téméraire_ and the other French ships coastwise went steadily on.
All that night Boscawen chased, keeping the enemy well in sight, although, as on the night before, they showed no lights.