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'Shoreward, then; eastward, every ship! became, ultimately, Conflans's plan. On the whole, it was 2 in the afternoon before Hawke, with those vanward Eight, could get clutch of Conflans. And truly he did then strike his claws into him in a thunderously fervid manner, he and all hands, in spite of the roaring weather: a man of falcon, or accipitral, nature as well as name.
The French Navy did not again lift up its head during the three years of war that remained. Balked in their expectation that the foe's fear of the beach would give them refuge, harried and worried by the chase, harnessed to no fixed plan of action, Conflans's fleet broke apart and fled. Seven went north, and ran ashore at the mouth of the little river Vilaine which empties into Quiberon Bay.
But on this terrible plunge-home of the SUPERBE, the rest all made for the shore; and escaped into the rocky intricacies and the darkness. Four of Conflans's ships were already gone, struck, sunk, or otherwise extinct, when darkness fell, and veiled Conflans and his distresses. It was such a night as men never witnessed before.
SUPERBE, sunk: 4. Invasion had been fully intended, and even, in these final days, considerably expected. In the old London Newspapers we read this notice: MONDAY, NOVEMBER 19th: "To-day there came Three Expresses," Three Expresses, with what haste in their eyes, testifying successively of Conflans's whereabouts. But it was believed that Hawke would still manage.
Eight stood south, and succeeded in reaching Rochefort. The fate of four has been told. Conflans's flag-ship anchored after night among the British, but at daybreak next morning cut her cables, ran ashore, and was burned by the French. One other, wrecked on a shoal in the bay, makes up the tale of twenty-one.
Walpole says: "The roaring of the elements was redoubled by the thunder from our ships; and both concurred in that scene of horror to put a period to the Navy and hopes of France. "Conflans's own ship and another were run on shore, and burnt. One we took." Two, with their crews, had gone to the bottom; one under Hawke's cannon; one partly by its own mismanagement.
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