lso grounded. Both were
lost, but most of their people were saved. Beyond this Hawke's fleet
suffered little. "As to the loss we have sustained," wrote he, "let it
be placed to the account of the necessity I was under of running all
risks to break this strong force of the enemy."

A contemporary witness assigns to Hawke's own ship a large individual
share in the fighting. Of this he does not himself speak, nor is it of
much matter. That all was done with her that could be done, to aid in
achieving success, is sufficiently assured by his previous record.
Hawke's transcendent merit in this affair was that of the general
officer, not of the private captain. The utmost courage shown by the
commander of a single ship before the enemy's fire cannot equal the
heroism which assumes the immense responsibility of a doubtful issue, on
which may hang a nation's fate; nor would the admiral's glory be shorn
of a ray, if neither then nor at any other time had a hostile shot
traversed his decks.

The night of the 20th passed in anxieties inseparable from a situation
dangerous at best, but still more trying to an admiral upon whom, after
such a day, night had closed without enabling him to see in what case
most of his ships were. "In the night," he reports, "we heard many guns
of distress fired, but, blowing hard, want of knowledge of the coast,
and whether they were fired by a friend or an enemy, prevented all means
of relief." In the morning he resumed his activity. Little, however,
could be done. The continuing violence of the wind, and ignorance of
the ground, prevented approach within gun-shot to the ships at the mouth
of the Vilaine, while they, by lightening and favor of the next flood
tide, warped their way inside through the mud flats.

Hawke remained nearly two months longer, returning to England January
17, 1760. He had then been thirty-five weeks on board, without setting
foot on shore. At the age of fifty-four, and amid such manifold cares,
it is not to be wondered at that he should need relief. Rather must he
be considered fortunate that his health, never robust in middle life,
held firm till his great triumph was achieved. Boscawen succeeded him
temporarily in the command.

He was received in England with acclamations and with honors; yet the
most conspicuous mark of approval conferred on admirals before and
after, the grant of the peerage, was not given to him, who had wrought
one of the very greatest services ever d