nces of success it may under any circumstances
have had were lost beforehand, owing to the lateness of the
season--June--in which Pitt took office. Preparation began at the moment
when execution was due. The troops which should have sailed in early
summer could not, from delays apparently unavoidable under the
conditions, get away before September 10. Hawke himself hoisted his
flag--assumed active command--only on August 15. The previous
administration was responsible for whatever defect in general readiness
increased this delay; as regards the particular purpose, Pitt's
government was at fault in attempting at all an undertaking which, begun
so late in the year, could not expect success under the notorious
inadequacy of organization bequeathed to him by his predecessors. But
there will always be found at the beginning of a war, or upon a change
of commanders, a restless impatience to do something, to make a showing
of results, which misleads the judgment of those in authority, and
commonly ends, if not in failure, at least in barren waste of powder and
shot.

Not the least of the drawbacks under which the enterprise labored was
extremely defective information--especially hydrographic. The character
of the coast, the places suited for landing, the depths of water, and
the channels, were practically unknown. Hence a necessity for
reconnoissances, pregnant of indefinite delay, as might have been
foreseen. Among Hawke's memoranda occur the words, "Not to undertake
anything without good pilots." The phrase is doubly significant, for he
was not a man to worry needlessly about pilots, knowing that pilots look
not to military results, but merely to their own responsibility not to
take the ground; and it shows the total ignorance under which labored
all who were charged with an undertaking that could only succeed as a
surprise, executed with unhesitating rapidity. Hawke himself was
astounded at finding in Basque Roads, before Rochefort, "a safe spacious
road in which all the navy of England, merchant ships included, may ride
without the least annoyance. Before I came here, the place was
represented as very difficult of access, and so narrow that ships could
not lie in safety from the forts--nay, _the pilots made many baulks
before we came in_." In fact, want of good pilotage summed up the fault
of the expedition, from its inception in the Cabinet throughout all the
antecedent steps of consultation and preparation. Pitt's impetu