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The allied fleet, to the number of thirty-six sail-of-the-line, assembled at Cadiz. Their cruises, however, were confined to the Portuguese coast; and their only service, a most important one, was the capture of an entire convoy, largely laden with military stores, for the East and West Indies.
The French fleet at Brest, under Marshal de Conflans, a sea officer despite his title, numbered twenty sail-of-the-line, besides frigates. The troops to be embarked are variously stated at fifteen to twenty thousand. The original purpose was to escort the transports with only five ships-of-the-line, besides smaller vessels. Conflans insisted that the whole fleet ought to go.
Vincent in the words quoted, he assumes, what did not at any time exist, thirty or forty sail-of-the-line for the North Sea and the Downs. St. Vincent's stand was taken on the position that the flotilla could not be manned without diminishing the cruisers in commission, which were far short of the ideal number named by Nelson.
As a third part of the combination, the French squadron from Newport put to sea, bringing eight more sail-of-the-line, which, added to De Grasse's, would overmatch any British fleet on the western side of the Atlantic. The one disturbing possibility was that the British West India fleet, which very properly had sailed in pursuit, might defeat the two French fleets singly.
He then went on to reconnoitre Toulon, where he saw thirteen sail-of-the-line and five frigates lying in the outer roads, ready for sea, while five more of the line he learned were fitting at the arsenal. During the six days he remained off the port he noted that continual progress was being made in the enemy's preparations.
In the outer road lay fifteen sail-of-the-line, the British having then fourteen; but more significant of the enemy's purpose was the presence at Marseilles of fifty large transports, said to be ready. "I have no doubt," wrote Nelson, "but Porto Especia is their object."
I flatter myself their Lordships will not be displeased with me if I take the liberty to construe my instructions in such a manner as to think myself authorized and obliged to succor any of His Majesty's colonies that may be in danger; and shall, therefore, without a moment's loss of time, hasten to the succor of Jamaica, with ten sail-of-the-line, three frigates and three bombs."
He was at last successful; and on August 28 the wished-for fleet, a powerful collection of twenty-eight sail-of-the-line, with frigates, reached Chesapeake Bay. Already the French troops from Newport, and part of the American army from outside New York, had begun their southward march, carefully concealing their purposes from Clinton, and were moving through Pennsylvania.
Hotham's squadron gained from neutral vessels two important pieces of information, that Nantes, Bordeaux, and L'Orient were filled with English vessels, prizes to French cruisers; and that the enemy kept eight sail-of-the-line, with frigates in proportion, constantly moving in detachments about the Bay of Biscay.
The ministry argued that the whole British force hardly numbered one hundred sail-of-the-line, while the navies of France and Spain amounted to one hundred and forty, not to speak of that of Holland. "With so glaring an inferiority, what hopes of success could we derive, either from the experience of the last campaign, or from any new distribution of our force in that which would have followed?
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