On the other hand, the stock market stood firm.
Nevertheless, it was justly felt that such a state of things as a
vastly superior hostile fleet in the Channel should not have been. Sir
John Jervis, afterward Earl St. Vincent, who commanded a ship in the
fleet, wrote to his sister: "What a humiliating state is our country
reduced to!" but he added that he laughed at the idea of invasion.

The French had placed a force of fifty thousand men at Le Havre and
St. Malo, and collected four hundred vessels for their transport.
Their plans were not certainly known, but enough had transpired
to cause reasonable anxiety; and the crisis, on its face, was very
serious. Not their own preparations, but the inefficiency of their
enemies, in counsel and in preparation, saved the British Islands
from invasion. What the results of this would have been is another
question,--a question of land warfare. The original scheme of the
French Ministry was to seize the Isle of Wight, securing Spithead as
an anchorage for the fleet, and to prosecute their enterprise from
this near and reasonably secure base. Referring to this first project,
d'Orvilliers wrote: "We will seek the enemy at St. Helen's,[70] and
then, if I find that roadstead unoccupied, or make myself master of
it, I will send word to Marshal De Vaux, at Le Havre, and inform him
of the measures I will take to insure his passage, which [measures]
will depend upon the position of the English main fleet [dependront
des forces superieures des Anglais]. That is to say, I myself will
lead the combined fleet on that side [against their main body], to
contain the enemy, and I will send, on the other side [to convoy],
a light squadron, with a sufficient number of ships of the line and
frigates; or I will propose to M. de Cordova to take this latter
station, in order that the passage of the army may be free and sure.
I assume that then, either by the engagement I shall have fought with
the enemy, _or by their retreat into their ports_, I shall be certain
of their situation and of the success of the operation."[71] It will
be observed that d'Orvilliers, accounted then and now one of the best
officers of his day in the French navy, takes here into full account
the British "fleet in being." The main body of the allies, fifty
ships, was to hold this in check, while a smaller force--Cordova had
command of a special "squadron of observation," of sixteen ships of
the line--was to convoy the crossing.