The _Formidable_ kept her mizzen topsail aback much of the time, to deaden her way, to make the needed room ahead for the _Ocean_, and also to allow the rear ships to close.

"At a quarter past one," testified Captain Maitland of the _Elizabeth_, 74, "we were very close behind the _Formidable_, and a midshipman upon the poop called out that there was a ship coming on board on the weatherbow.

I put the helm up,...

and found, when the smoke cleared away, I was shot up under the _Formidable's_ lee.

She was then engaged with the two last ships in the French fleet, and, as I could not fire at them without firing through the _Formidable_, I was obliged to shoot on."[47] Captain Bazely, of the _Formidable_, says of the same incident, "The _Formidable_ did at the time of action bear up to one of the enemy's ships, to avoid being aboard of her, whose jib boom nearly touched the main topsail weather leech of the _Formidable_.