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Updated: May 12, 2025
I do not doubt," added the ambassador, "but with good handling her Majesty may now obtain any reasonable matter for the conservation of Brittany, as also for a place of retreat for the English, and I urge continually the yielding of Brest into her Majesty's hands, whereunto I find the king well inclined, if he might bring it to pass."
Very soon after his arrival in town, news was received that Villeneuve had gone to sea from Ferrol, and that Cornwallis, when informed of the fact, had divided his fleet, with great lack of judgment, keeping himself seventeen ships to confront the Brest squadron, while eighteen were sent to look for Villeneuve under the command of Admiral Calder.
How we with our ships entred into the Port of Brest, and sayling onward toward the West we passed amidst the Islettes, which were so many in number, that it was not possible to tell them: and how we named them the Islettes. Vpon the 10. of June wee with our ships entred into the Port of Brest, to furnish our selues with water and wood, and to make vs ready to passe the said Bay.
It has been said that the names of the French officers in America read like a list of medieval heroes in the Chronicles of Froissart. Only half of the expected ships were ready at Brest and only five thousand five hundred men could embark. The vessels were, of course, very crowded. Rochambeau cut down the space allowed for personal effects.
Gantheaume, with the Brest fleet, after eluding the blockaders, was to proceed first to Ferrol, capture the British ships off that port and, reinforced by the French and Spanish ships there at anchor, proceed across the Atlantic to the appointed rendezvous at Martinique.
On the seventh day of March, James embarked at Brest, together with the count D'Avaux, who accompanied him in quality of ambassador, and his principal officers. He was detained in the harbour by contrary winds till the seventeenth day of the month, when he set sail, and on the twenty-second landed at Kinsale in Ireland.
Before he could get into position the junction between Langara and the Brest squadron was made, and in their full force the allies had occupied the mouth of the Channel. With the addition of the Brest ships the combined fleet numbered forty of the line, while all Howe could muster was twenty-two, but amongst them were seven three-deckers and three eighties, and he would soon be reinforced.
The Duke turned at the door, and looked with listless inquiry into the face of the Minister of Marine, who, picking up an official paper from his table, ran an eye down it, marked a point with the sharp corner of his snuff-box, and handed it over to his visitor, saying: "Our roster of English prisoners taken in the action off Brest."
It was expected that they would be joined there by a reinforcement from Brest, and by the Dutch squadron in the Texel, making a total of about fifty of the line, under the command of the Spanish Admiral, Don Luis de Cordova. The Dutch did not appear, owing probably to Howe's demonstration before their ports; but eight ships from Brest raised the allied fleet to forty.
The Rabbis and scholars of Lithuania acquired fame without a struggle, and its Rabbinical schools quickly became the busy centres of Talmudic research. The destinies of the Jewish population of Lithuania, so different in character from that of Poland proper, were ruled absolutely by the "Synod of the Four Countries", with Brest, and afterwards Wilna, as headquarters.
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