That it was safe to send Hood with his twenty sail of the line to the Mediterranean before the home fleet was ready is a signal proof that the Government felt it could rely on the disorganisation of the enemy to serve as our defence for a time. France had been at war since the previous year, and the contending portions of Girondins and Jacobins in Paris had alike been deliberately provoking a war with England. If they had been wise, they would have had a part at least of their fleet in a condition to act at once. But if wisdom can be attributed to the dominant elements in the National Assembly, the praise can be given only on the ground that a universal war was needed to confirm the triumph of the revolutionary parties. The ruin of their finances and the whirlwind of the social Revolution precluded all possibility of immediate effective action at sea. If we look only to the number of ships in commission and their distribution, France was in fairly good position to strike at once. There were three sail of the line and seven frigates at San Domingo, five frigates at Martinique, and two sloops at Cayenne. The Mediterranean fleet, recently reinforced from the Channel, consisted of eighteen sail of the line, sixteen frigates, and a number of small craft. In the Channel and on the Atlantic coast there were seven ships of the line at Brest, one at Cherbourg, three at the isle of Aix, together with seven frigates and other small vessels. The Vendéens were in arms for the king, and the authorities at Paris were well aware of the necessity for cutting them off from foreign support. On the 8th March, Admiral Morard de Galle, an officer of the old grand corps, was ordered to sea to cruise on the coast with three sail of the line. Bad weather drove him back to port, or served as an excuse for his return with his ill-appointed and mutinous ships. With feverish energy, and perhaps in the sincere though frantic belief that revolutionary energy would atone for the want of other elements of strength, the National Assembly commissioned fresh vessels, drove them to sea, and collected a squadron in Quiberon Bay under Villaret-Joyeuse. Morard de Galle took command of the whole on the 22nd May, seven days before Howe left London. By the 1st August he had with him nineteen sail of the line—four less than left St. Helens with Howe on the 14th July.
The operations in the Channel till the close of 1793 are without interest. Howe sighted the French hull down off Belleisle on the 31st July. Calms, squalls, and thick weather, the shyness of the enemy and the rawness of his own force, hastily manned and commanded by officers grown somewhat rusty in peace, combined to prevent an engagement. Till the close of the year the English admiral was either cruising in search of the enemy, and to protect trade, or was coming back to Torbay with sprung masts and split topsails to refit, and for stores. In November the French squadron of Vanstabel escaped his pursuit by sheer superiority of sailing due to the finer lines of their hulls and the more scientific cut of their sails. Morard de Galle did not dare to force an engagement. That he was outnumbered was a sound reason for avoiding battle. And he had still better cause in the state of his crews. Unpaid, unclothed, fed on insufficient rations of salted meat only, and infested by scurvy, they had good cause for discontent. A worse cause of weakness than even these paralysed him. The crews were in the full fever of revolutionary disorder, and had acquired a settled habit of mutiny. They were distrustful of the civisme of their admiral, and maddened by the fear of treason. After many clamours, they forced their admiral to return to Brest on the 28th of September. The delegate of the National Assembly, Tréhouart, who accompanied the fleet, recognised the necessity for the return; but as usual the blame was laid on the want of civisme of the chiefs. Morard de Galle was dismissed and imprisoned. Several captains were sent before the revolutionary tribunal, and most of them were put to death.
While the French were dismissing and beheading their officers, public opinion in England as represented by the Press, was condemning Howe. He was violently abused in the blackguard newspaper style of the time, and was ridiculed in highly coloured caricatures. One by Isaac Cruikshank shows “How a great admiral, with a great fleet, went a great way, was lost a great while, saw a great sight, and then came home for a little water.” The admiral chants piteously—
“Oh Lord when I get to Torbay,
How folks will gape and stare;
Are non come back the Lord knows how
And been the Lord knows where.”
Another, drawn with the genius of Gillray, and inspired by all his brutality of rancour, shows Howe blinded by a shower of gold coins, and standing on a gold shell. He is saying, “Zounds! the damned hailstones hinder one from doing one’s duty. I cannot see out of my eyes for them. Oh it was just such another cursed peppering as this, that I fell in with on the coast of America in the last war, and a deuce of a thing it is, that whenever I am just going to play the devil I am either hindered by these confounded French storms, or else loose (sic) my way in a fog.”
Here we have the English counterpart of the French popular fury which doubted the civisme of Morard de Galle and suspected him of treason. But the Government of England was strong, and upheld its admiral.