[162] Beatson gives quite at length (vol. v. p. 395) the debate in the allied council of war. The customary hesitation of such councils, in face of the difficulties of the situation, was increased by an appeal to the delusion of commerce-destroying as a decisive mode of warfare. M. de Beausset urged that "the allied fleets should direct their whole attention to that great and attainable object, the intercepting of the British homeward-bound West India fleets. This was a measure which, as they were now masters of the sea, could scarcely fail of success; and it would prove a blow so fatal to that nation, that she could not recover it during the whole course of the war." The French account of Lapeyrouse-Bonfils is essentially the same. Chevalier, who is silent as to details, justly remarks: "The cruise just made by the allied fleet was such as to injure the reputation of France and Spain. These two powers had made a great display of force which had produced no result." The English trade also received little injury. Guichen wrote home: "I have returned from a cruise fatiguing but not glorious."
[163] This mishap of the French was largely due to mismanagement by De Guichen, a skilful and usually a careful admiral. When Kempenfeldt fell in with him, all the French ships-of-war were to leeward of their convoy, while the English were to windward of it. The former, therefore, were unable to interpose in time; and the alternative remedy, of the convoy running down to leeward of their escort, could not be applied by all the merchant-ships in so large a body.
[164] "In the spring of 1780 the British admiralty had assembled in the Channel ports forty-five ships-of-the-line. The squadron at Brest was reduced to twelve or fifteen.... To please Spain, twenty French ships-of-the-line had joined the flag of Admiral Cordova in Cadiz. In consequence of these dispositions, the English with their Channel fleet held in check the forces which we had in Brest and in Cadiz. Enemy's cruisers traversed freely the space between the Lizard and the Straits of Gibraltar." (Chevalier, p. 202.)
In 1781 "the Cabinet of Versailles called the attention of Holland and Spain to the necessity of assembling at Brest a fleet strong enough to impose upon the ships which Great Britain kept in the Channel. The Dutch remained in the Texel, and the Spaniards did not leave Cadiz. From this state of things it resulted that the English, with forty ships-of-the-line, blocked seventy belonging to the allied powers." (p. 265.)
[165] "A question was very much agitated both in and out of Parliament; namely, Whether the intercepting of the French fleet under the Count de Grasse should not have been the first object of the British fleet under Vice-Admiral Darby, instead of losing time in going to Ireland, by which that opportunity was missed. The defeat of the French fleet would certainly totally have disconcerted the great plans which the enemies had formed in the East and West Indies. It would have insured the safety of the British West India islands; the Cape of Good Hope must have fallen into the hands of Britain; and the campaign in North America might have had a very different termination." (Beatson's Memoirs, vol. v. p. 341, where the contrary arguments are also stated.)
[166] This is one of the most common and flagrant violations of the principles of war,—stretching a thin line, everywhere inadequate, over an immense frontier. The clamors of trade and local interests make popular governments especially liable to it.
[167] Annual Register, 1782.