Focus on this artwork and explain the Description.
In the centre are the two flagships are depicted fighting each other; HMS Queen Charlotte is to the left and Montagne to the right, with bodies falling from the gunports of the latter.  The pair did engage during the battle, but never in the broadside position shown in the painting, and Queen Charlotte only lost her fore-topmast whilst already well astern of the Montagne, rather than during a broadside engagement shown here.  This wrongly makes it appear that Queen Charlotte dropped behind Montagne due to the loss of this mast and thus failed to capture her, and led to criticism of the painting by Lord Howe and by James Bowen (Howe's Master of the Fleet, and a hero of the battle) - Bowen commented that Queen Charlotte would have captured Montagne if such a broadside engagement as shown had occurred in reality and that the painting was thus a slur on the Queen Charlotte's honour.
In the extreme right is the port bow of an English ship (probably HMS Brunswick), behind which is another French ship (flying, like the Montagne, the signal flag S from one of her masts), whilst in the left foreground is shown the port side of the 74 gun Vengeur du Peuple, sinking after a long and fatal duel with the Brunswick, and beyond Vengeur are other ships' topsails, just showing above the smoke of battle. The French ships are shown flying the early Revolutionary naval ensign (with the French tricolour added to the upper quadrant of the Bourbon white naval ensign), the only major action the French fleet fought under it.  It had officially been replaced by the new (and current) tricolour in May 1794, but the new pattern had not arrived when Villaret-Joyeuse's ships sailed.
signal flag right Lord Howe left James Bowen naval ensign Vengeur du Peuple Master of the Fleet