founded in 1752, was reorganized."[9]

The Academie's first director, a post-captain named Bigot de Morogues,
wrote an elaborate treatise on naval tactics, the first original work
on the subject since Paul Hoste's, which it was designed to supersede.
Morogues must have been studying and formulating his problems in
tactics in days when France had no fleet, and was unable so much as to
raise her head at sea under the blows of her enemy. At the same time
England had no similar book; and an English lieutenant, in 1762, was
just translating a part of Hoste's great work, omitting by far the
larger part. It was not until nearly twenty years later that Clerk, a
Scotch private gentleman, published an ingenious study of naval
tactics, in which he pointed out to English admirals the system by
which the French had thwarted their thoughtless and ill-combined
attacks.[10] "The researches of the Academie de Marine, and the
energetic impulse which it gave to the labors of officers, were not,
as we hope to show later, without influence upon the relatively
prosperous condition in which the navy was at the beginning of the
American war."

It has already been pointed out that the American War of Independence
involved a departure from England's traditional and true policy, by
committing her to a distant land war, while powerful enemies were
waiting for an opportunity to attack her at sea. Like France in the
then recent German wars, like Napoleon later in the Spanish war,
England, through undue self-confidence, was about to turn a friend
into an enemy, and so expose the real basis of her power to a rude
proof. The French government, on the other hand, avoided the snare
into which it had so often fallen. Turning her back on the European
continent, having the probability of neutrality there, and the
certainty of alliance with Spain by her side, France advanced to the
contest with a fine navy and a brilliant, though perhaps relatively
inexperienced, body of officers. On the other side of the Atlantic she
had the support of a friendly people, and of her own or allied ports,
both in the West Indies and on the continent. The wisdom of this
policy, the happy influence of this action of the government upon her
sea power, is evident; but the details of the war do not belong to
this part of the subject. To Americans, the chief interest of that war
is found upon the land; but to naval officers upon the sea, for it was
essentially a sea war. The inte