Note 38 — CHAP. XXVI. A NAVAL STUDY—(continued).

This reply is very characteristic. He knew, as Stokes swore, that the “enemy’s ships were aground with their sterns to the westward,” and that not only could they not return a fire, but that a broadside from a British ship must have gone clean through them from stern to bow; but, unlike Stokes, he would not swear that ships in such a position could have “annoyed and raked the king’s ships.” The enemy’s ships were merely “in a favourable place for it!!” And so they were, had they been afloat instead of helplessly ashore, heeling over at an angle of thirty degrees.