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A great stroke was in preparation at Toulon, which could be covered for a while by diplomatic correspondence, coupled with angry demonstrations on the Atlantic and Channel coasts. On the 10th of April, 1756, twelve French ships-of-the-line and fifteen thousand troops sailed for Minorca, then a British possession, and in the absence of a hostile fleet effected a landing without opposition.
In 1744, after four years of war with Spain alone, the number was ninety ships-of-the-line and eighty-four frigates. The French navy at the same time he estimates at forty-five ships-of-the-line and sixty-seven frigates.
The frigate followed warily, watching for a chance to strike at advantage; but when the ships-of-the-line had been dropped far enough to be unable to help their consort, the British vessel hove-to in defiance, and the enemy fell back upon his supports.
A great fleet of twenty-eight ships-of-the-line sailed from Portsmouth on the 13th of March, convoying three hundred merchant-ships for the East and West Indies, besides ninety-seven transports and supply-ships for the Rock. A delay on the Irish coast prevented its falling in with De Grasse, who had sailed nine days after it. Arriving off Cape St.
Six weeks later, when he reached the neighborhood of Port Mahon, his fleet had been increased to thirteen ships-of-the-line, and he had with him four thousand troops. It was already late; a practicable breach had been made in the fortress a week before. When the English fleet came in sight, La Galissonière stood out to meet it and bar the entrance to the harbor.
It numbered then nine ships-of-the-line, with three smaller cruisers. "As far as outside show goes," he reported to St. Vincent, "the ships look very well; but they complain of their bottoms, and are very short of men."
Meanwhile a French officer of very different temper from his predecessors was on his way to the East Indies. It will be remembered that when De Grasse sailed from Brest, March 22, 1781, for the West Indies, there went with his fleet a division of five ships-of-the-line under Suffren.
The law was satisfied, and, said Lord St. Vincent at the moment, perhaps one of the greatest of his life, 'Discipline is preserved, sir!" Again a year later, in May, 1799, when twenty-five French ships-of-the-line broke through the wretchedly inefficient guard at that time kept before Brest, and entered the Mediterranean, a reinforcement of over a dozen was sent from the Channel to Lord St.
He was now ordered to report to Commodore Linzee, then lying with a detachment of three ships-of-the-line in the harbor of Cagliari, at the south end of Sardinia. On her passage the "Agamemnon" met and engaged a French squadron, of four large frigates and a brig.
Only two ships-of-the-line and five merchantmen out of one hundred and fifty reached the West Indies.
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