uld be wished of particulars touching this
performance of Howe's, from the day of leaving England to that of
fulfilment, five full weeks later. Inference and comment has to be built
up upon incidents transmitted disconnectedly, interpreted in connection
with the usual known conditions and the relative strength of the two
opposing parties. To professional understanding, thus far supplemented,
much is clear; quite enough, at the least, to avouch the deliberation,
the steadiness, the professional aptitude, the unremitting exertion that
so well supplies the place of celerity,--never resting, if never
hasting,--the calculated daring at fit moments, and above all the
unfailing self-possession and self-reliance which at every instant up
to the last secured to the British enterprise the full value of the
other qualities possessed by the Commander-in-chief. A biographical
notice of Howe cannot be complete without quoting the tribute of an
accomplished officer belonging to one of the navies then arrayed against
him. "The qualities displayed by Lord Howe during this short campaign,"
says Captain Chevalier of the French service, "rose to the full height
of the mission which he had to fulfil. This operation, one of the finest
in the War of American Independence, merits a praise equal to that of a
victory. If the English fleet was favored by circumstances,--and it is
rare that in such enterprises one can succeed without the aid of
fortune,--it was above all the Commander-in-chief's quickness of
perception, the accuracy of his judgment, and the rapidity of his
decisions that assured success."

Having accomplished his main object and landed besides fifteen hundred
barrels of powder from his own ships, Howe tarried no longer. Like
Nelson, at Gibraltar on his way to St. Vincent, he would not trifle with
an easterly wind, without which he could not leave the Straits against
the constant inset; neither would he adventure action, against a force
superior by a third, amid the currents that had caused him so trying an
experience. There was, moreover, the important strategic consideration
that if the allied fleets, which were again in sight, followed him out,
they would thereby be drawn from any possible molestation of the
unloading of the supply ships, which had been attempted, though with no
great success, on the occasion of the relief by Darby, in 1781. Howe
therefore at once headed for the Atlantic. The allies pursued, and
engaged partiall