home without ransom or exchange. We arrived at Plymouth on the 7th of March following."

Thus had this mighty fleet, from which so much had been anticipated, utterly failed in its object: some of the ships belonging to it had perished on the rocks or in the waves, others had been captured by the enemy, and the remainder, jaded and weather-beaten, had returned into port. The following little table will show, at one view, how the 44 sail, of which that fleet at its departure consisted, were ultimately disposed of:

That a succession of storms, such as those with which the British Channel was visited in the winter of 1796-7, should disperse and drive back an encumbered and (nautically, if not numerically considered) ill-manned French fleet, ought not to create surprise. But that, during the three or four weeks that the ships of this fleet were traversing, in every direction, the English and Irish Channels, neither of the two British fleets appointed to look after them should have succeeded in capturing a single ship, may certainly be noted down as an extraordinary circumstance. How it happened we will endeavour in part to explain.

On the 17th of December, at noon, when Rear-admiral Bouvet, having ran through the passage du Raz, made sail to the westward with his nine ships of the line, Vice-admiral Colpoys, with 13 sail, was in latitude 48� 17' north, longitude 6� 7' west, or just 15 leagues to the westward of Ushant ; towards which he was working against a fresh east-south-east wind. On the 19th, at 9 h. 30 m. a.m., when the Ph�be joined with the news of the French fleet's having quitted Brest for Camaret, the vice-admiral was in latitude 48� 51' north, longitude 5� 43' west, or about 12 leagues north-west by west of Ushant, where a strong south-westerly wind had driven him.

The wind, however, subsequently changed to north-west by

^ back to top ^