[Illustration]

The attack thus became a mere rough and tumble, in which the two seventy-fours alone sustained the French side.  After three quarters of an hour, Suffren, seeing that the attempt had failed, slipped his cable and put to sea.  The Annibal followed, but she had been so damaged that all her masts went overboard; fortunately, not until her head was pointed out of the harbour.  Johnstone, thus luckily escaping the consequences of his neglect, now called his captains together to learn the condition of their ships, and then ordered them to cut their cables and pursue.  All obeyed except Captain Sutton of the Isis, who represented that the spars and rigging of his ship could not bear sail at once.  Johnstone then ordered him to come out anyhow, which he did, and his fore topmast shortly went overboard.  The disability of this ship so weighed upon the Commodore that his pursuit was exceedingly sluggish; and the French kept drawing him away to leeward, the Annibal having got a bit of canvas on a jury foremast.  Night, therefore, was falling as Johnstone came near them; the Isis and Monmouth were two or three miles astern; the sea was increasing; if he got much further to leeward, he could not get back; he had forgotten to appoint a rendezvous where the convoy might rejoin; a night action, he considered, was not to be thought of.  Yet, if he let the enemy go, they might anticipate him at the Cape.  In short, Johnstone underwent the “anguish” of an undecided man in a “cruel situation,"[141] and of course decided to run no risks.  He returned therefore to Porto Praya, put the captain of the Isis under arrest, and remained in port for a fortnight.  Suffren hurried on to the Cape, got there first, landed his troops, and secured the colony against attack.  Johnstone arrived in the neighbourhood some time later, and, finding himself anticipated, turned aside to Saldanha Bay, where he captured five Dutch East Indiamen.  He then sent the Hero, Monmouth, and Isis on to India, to reinforce Hughes, and himself went back to England.

No accusation of misbehavior lies against any of the British subordinates in this affair of Porto Praya.  The captain of the Isis was brought to a court-martial, and honourably acquitted of all the charges.  The discredit of the surprise was not redeemed by any exhibition of intelligence, energy, or professional capacity, on the part of the officer in charge.  It has been said that he never had commanded a post-ship[142] before he was intrusted with this very important mission, and it is reasonably sure that his selection for it was due to attacks made by him upon the professional conduct of Keppel and Howe, when those admirals were at variance with the administration.[143] His preposterous mismanagement, therefore, was probably not wholly bitter to the Navy at large.  In the British ships of war, the entire loss in men, as reported, was only