Redoutable had come up alongside Victory and swept her decks with musket fire and grenades. A large party of Frenchmen now gathered on her decks ready to board Victory. Temeraire was brought around; appearing suddenly out of the smoke of the battle and slipping across Redoutables stern, Temeraire discharged a double-shotted broadside into her. Jean Jacques Étienne Lucas, captain of Redoutable, recorded that "... the three-decker [Temeraire]who had doubtless perceived that the Victory had ceased fire and would inevitably be takenran foul of the Redoutable to starboard and overwhelmed us with the point-blank fire of all her guns. It would be impossible to describe the horrible carnage produced by the murderous broadside of this ship. More than two hundred of our brave lads were killed or wounded by it." Temeraire and Redoutable Temeraire then rammed into Redoutable, dismounting many of the French ship's guns, and worked her way alongside, after which her crew lashed the two ships together. Temeraire now poured continuous broadsides into the French ship, taking fire as she did so from the 112-gun Spanish ship lying off her stern, and from the 74-gun French ship , which came up on Temeraires un-engaged starboard side. Harvey ordered his gun crews to hold fire until Fougueux came within point blank range. Temeraires first broadside against Fougueux at a range of caused considerable damage to the Frenchman's rigging, and she drifted into Temeraire, whose crew promptly lashed her to the side. Temeraire was now lying between two French 74-gun ships. As Harvey later recalled in a letter to his wife "Perhaps never was a ship so circumstanced as mine, to have for more than three hours two of the enemy's line of battle ships lashed to her." Redoutable, sandwiched between Victory and Temeraire, suffered heavy casualties, reported by Captain Lucas as amounting to 300 dead and 222 wounded. During the fight grenades thrown from the decks and topmasts of Redoutable killed and wounded a number of Temeraires crew and set her starboard rigging and foresail on fire. There was a brief pause in the fighting while both sides worked to douse the flames. Temeraire narrowly escaped destruction when a grenade thrown from Redoutable exploded on her maindeck, nearly igniting the after-magazine. Master-At-Arms John Toohig prevented the fire from spreading and saved not only Temeraire, but the surrounding ships, which would have been caught in the explosion. After twenty minutes' fighting