Nevertheless, the
English succeeded in boarding, forcing their way in through port-holes and
windows, clambering up the bows by the carved work, or running out on
their yards and swinging themselves by ropes on to the enemy's deck, while
the cannon plied them with shot close to the water-line.
Most of the ships were taken by boarding, some were sunk with all on
board, a few only escaped by cutting their cables and running up the Seine
into shallow water. The loss of life on the part of the French and their
allies in this brilliant British victory was enormous. With the exception
of those on board the few ships which escaped, and the men sent off in the
boats by Guy, the whole of the crews of the French, Genoese, and
Spaniards, save only the nobles and knights put to ransom, were killed,
drowned, or taken prisoners, and during the three weeks that the English
fleet remained off Harfleur, the sailors were horrified by the immense
number of dead bodies that were carried up and down by the tide. Harfleur
was revictualled and put into a state of defence, and the Duke of Bedford
then sailed with his fleet to England, having achieved the greatest naval
victory that England had ever won save when Edward the Third, with the
Black Prince, completely defeated a great Spanish fleet off the coast of
Sussex, with a squadron composed of ships vastly inferior both in size and
number to those of the Spaniards, which contained fully ten times the
number of fighting men carried by the English vessels.
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