and rearmost of the van, the _Intrepid_, lost her foretopmast, which
crippled her.

The seventh ship, which was the leader of the rear, Byng's own division,
got out of his hands before he could hold her. Her captain, Frederick
Cornwall, was nephew to the gallant fellow who fell backing Mathews so
nobly off Toulon, and had then succeeded to the command of the
_Marlborough_, fighting her till himself disabled. He had to bring the
wind on the starboard quarter of his little sixty-four, in order to
reach the seventh in the enemy's line, which was an eighty-gun ship,
carrying the flag of the French admiral. This post, by professional
etiquette, as by evident military considerations, Byng owed to his own
flag-ship, of equal force.

The rest of the rear division the commander-in-chief attempted to carry
with himself, slanting down; or, as the naval term then had it,
"lasking" towards the enemy. The flag-ship kept away four
points--forty-five degrees; but hardly had she started, under the very
moderate canvas of topsails and foresail, to cover the much greater
distance to be travelled, in order to support the van by engaging the
enemy's rear, when Byng observed that the two ships on his left--towards
the van--were not keeping pace with him. He ordered the main and mizzen
topsails to be backed to wait for them. Gardiner, the captain, "took the
liberty of offering the opinion" that, if sail were increased instead of
reduced, the ships concerned would take the hint, that they would all be
sooner alongside the enemy, and probably receive less damage in going
down. It was a question of example. The admiral replied, "You see that
the signal for the line is out, and I am ahead of those two ships; and
you would not have me, as admiral of the fleet, run down as if I was
going to engage a single ship. It was Mr. Mathews's misfortune to be