Not being permitted to know whether there is any certain opportunity of writing, I must send you by every probable way an account of the present situation of affairs, which is extremely interesting.
After a long delay through unfavorable winds, the Spanish and French fleets joined off Cape Finisterre the 26th of last month. On the 6th of this, they were off Ushant, making for the English channel. A courier that arrived yesterday left them in the same position, with the wind contrary on the 7th. The combined fleet consists of fifty ships of the line, with thirty odd frigates, bombs, and fire ships, under the command of the Count d’Orvilliers. The Spanish and French ships are mixed together, the former twenty and the latter thirty. Don Cardova commands a separate fleet of sixteen Spanish ships of the line, which attends the grand combined fleet as a corps de réserve. Don Ulloa cruises off the Canaries with four of the line, and six more block up the Bay of Gibraltar, while a Spanish army invests the town by land.
Between thirty and forty thousand French troops are ready to embark at Havre de Grace and at St Malo to invade England, the moment the combined fleet appears to protect them. Besides this, large corps of troops are assembled at Brest and Dunkirk, and transports preparing for them, so that they may be ready to support the others, according to the exigency of events and the place where they land.
The West India fleet, and that from the Baltic, got safe into the English ports to the amount of three hundred sail, the first of this month. This may enable them in a few weeks to add ten sail to their grand fleet, which at present consists of thirtyfive sail under Sir Charles Hardy, and is retiring up the channel. But it is to be hoped, they will feel some decisive blow before that augmentation.
I have the honor to be, &c.
ARTHUR LEE.
TO BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
Paris, August 14th, 1779.
Sir,