s near a coast against an enemy who commands the sea,
you can never tell when or where he may suddenly attack your line of
supply by landing an army to cut it. The French generals, though they
had the best army in the world, were always looking over their
shoulders to see if some British joint expedition was not hovering
round the flank exposed to the coast. The French Navy, though very
gallant, could only help French shipping here and there, by fits and
starts, and at the greatest risk. So, while the British forces used
the highways of the sea the whole time, the French forces could only
use them now and then by great good luck. Thus British sea-power
hampered, spoilt, or ruined all the powers of the land.

The French wanted to save Louisbourg, the fall of which they knew would
be the first step to the British conquest of Canada. But they could
not send a fleet through the English Channel right under the eyes of
the British naval headquarters, from which they were themselves
expecting an attack. So they tried one from the Mediterranean. But
Osborne and Saunders shut the door in their faces at Gibraltar and
broke up their Toulon fleet as well. Then the French tried the Bay of
Biscay. But Hawke swooped down on the big convoy of supply vessels
sheltering at Aix and forced both them and their escorting men-of-war
to run aground in order to save themselves from being burnt. Meanwhile
large numbers of French farmers and fishermen had to be kept under arms
to guard the shores along the Channel. This, of course, was bad for
the harvest of both sea and land, on which the feeding of the men at
the front so greatly depended. But there was no help for it, as the
British fleet was watching its chance to pounce down on the first point
left unguarded, and the French fleet was not strong enough to fight it
out at sea. St. Malo and Cherbourg were successfully attacked. The
only failure was at St. Cast, where a silly old general made mistakes
of which a clever French one quickly took advantage.

Thus harassed, blockaded, and weakened on every coast, France could do
nothing to save Louisbourg, the first link in the long, thin chain of
French posts in America, where the fortunes of war were bound to follow
the side that had the greater sea-power. No army could fight in
America if cut off from Europe; because the powder and shot, muskets
and bayonets, cannons and cannon-balls, swords and pistols, all came
out from France an