But the unprincipled conduct of Dumanoir, who escaped from Nelson to be captured shortly after, as has been mentioned, by Strachan, at once brought out the different feelings under which the two allied fleets had been acting.

This French officer, retreating with his four ships, which had had no part in the battle, discharged his broadsides, as he passed, into English vessels no longer capable of pursuit,--conduct which, as the victory was complete, could have no object but that of carnage.

Nay, such was the ruffian nature of this man's soul, he fired into the Spanish ships which had yielded to the English, thus, for the sake of trivially injuring his enemy, sacrificing without scruple the blood of his own unfortunate friends.
The Spanish prisoners, in their indignation at this brutality, asked their English captors to permit them to man their guns against the retreating French; and such was the earnestness of their entreaty, and the confidence of Englishmen in the honour of Spaniards, that these men actually were permitted to do as they had requested.

A mutual interchange of good offices ensued.

In the evening after the battle a gale sprung up, and some of the captured vessels drifting on shore, a number of British seamen fell into the hands of the garrison of Cadiz.
They were received as friends: for the accommodation of their wounded the Spanish soldiers gave up their own beds.