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Updated: May 13, 2025
In the next two rates we have the rank and file of the battle-line, two-deckers of increased size-namely, seventy-fours in the third rate, and sixty-fours in the fourth. Here, however, is a slight break in the perfection of the system, for the fourth rate also included 50-gun ships of two decks, which, during the progress of the Seven Years' War, ceased to be regarded as ships-of-the-line.
Consequently, the expedition must have gone to the eastward. The size and nature of the armament must also be considered, forty thousand troops, a dozen ships-of-the-line, besides a staff of scientific men, all pointed to a great, distant, and permanent occupation. The object might be Corfu, or to overthrow the existing government of Turkey, or to settle a colony in Egypt.
A similar system prevailed in the colonial areas, but there the naval defence consisted normally of cruiser squadrons stiffened with one or two ships-of-the-line mainly for the purpose of carrying the flag. They were only occupied by battle-squadrons when the enemy threatened operations with a similar force.
Those incidents also will be selected which show how false standards affected particular individuals, according to their personal characteristics. In Admiral Mathews' action, in February, 1744, an allied fleet composed of sixteen French ships-of-the-line and twelve Spanish lay in Toulon, waiting to sail for a Spanish port.
"After the disaster to the squadron of L'Étenduère," says a French writer, "the French flag did not appear at sea. Twenty-two ships-of-the-line composed the navy of France, which sixty years before had one hundred and twenty. Privateers made few prizes; followed everywhere, unprotected, they almost always fell a prey to the English.
On June 8th Boscawen, having driven two French frigates into a fortified bay near Toulon, attacked them with three ships-of-the-line. The attack failed, and the British ships were badly injured; a timely lesson on the general inexpediency of attacking shore batteries with vessels, unless for special and adequate reasons of probable advantage.
A gleam of better things for a moment shone upon him in August of that year, when the French fleet, under Count D'Estaing, appeared in Haiti, numbering twenty-two ships-of-the-line, with transports reported to be carrying twenty thousand troops.
That he succeeded in the main, that he was not responsible for the fallen condition of the fleet when war again arose in 1778, is evidenced by a statement, uncontradicted, in the House of Lords in 1779, that when he left office the navy had 139 ships-of-the-line, of which 81 were ready for sea.
In theory, cruiser escort is sufficient, but in practice it was found convenient and economical to assign the duty in part to ships-of-the-line which were going out to join the distant terminal squadron or returning from it for a refit or some other reason; in other words, the system of foreign reliefs was made to work in with the supplementary escort system.
Ships-of-the-line, frigates, and sloops patrolled the entrances to all the seaports, terminating not only foreign but coastwise commerce. Things went little if any better for the United States. The army was on paper 58,000 men; but the people of the north and west would not enlist. The utmost efforts at recruiting did not succeed in bringing one-half the nominal force into the field.
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