lligent and systematic efforts of
twenty years bore their due fruit; for though the warfare afloat ended
with a great disaster, the combined efforts of the French and Spanish
fleets undoubtedly bore down England's strength and robbed her of her
colonies. In the various naval undertakings and battles the honor of
France was upon the whole maintained; though it is difficult, upon
consideration of the general subject, to avoid the conclusion that
the inexperience of French seamen as compared with English, the narrow
spirit of jealousy shown by the noble corps of officers toward those
of different antecedents, and above all, the miserable traditions of
three quarters of a century already alluded to, the miserable policy
of a government which taught them first to save their ships, to
economize the material, prevented French admirals from reaping, not
the mere glory, but the positive advantages that more than once were
within their grasp. When Monk said the nation that would rule upon the
sea must always attack, he set the key-note to England's naval policy;
and had the instructions of the French government consistently
breathed the same spirit, the war of 1778 might have ended sooner and
better than it did. It seems ungracious to criticise the conduct of a
service to which, under God, our nation owes that its birth was not a
miscarriage; but writers of its own country abundantly reflect the
spirit of the remark. A French officer who served afloat during this
war, in a work of calm and judicial tone, says:--

"What must the young officers have thought who were at Sandy
Hook with D'Estaing, at St. Christopher with De Grasse, even
those who arrived at Rhode Island with De Ternay, when they saw
that these officers were not tried at their return?"[11]

Again, another French officer, of much later date, justifies the
opinion expressed, when speaking of the war of the American Revolution
in the following terms:--

"It was necessary to get rid of the unhappy prejudices of the
days of the regency and of Louis XV.; but the mishaps of which
they were full were too recent to be forgotten by our ministers.
Thanks to a wretched hesitation, fleets, which had rightly
alarmed England, became reduced to ordinary proportions.
Intrenching themselves in a false economy, the ministry claimed
that, by reason of the excessive expenses necessary to maintain
the fleet, the admirals must be ordered to