ut it past
carrying sail." The method used by Hawke was not only an innovation on
all past practice, but, as has before been said, constituted the pattern
whereon were framed the great blockades of the Napoleonic period, which
strangled both the naval efficiency and the commercial and financial
resources of the Empire. These were but developments of Hawke's fine
achievement of 1759; the prestige of originality belongs to him. Even
their success, with better ships and the improvement of detail always
accompanying habit, is foreshadowed by his. "I may safely affirm that,
except the few ships that took refuge in Conquet, hardly a vessel of any
kind has been able to enter or come out of Brest for four
months,"--ending October 10th. "They have been obliged to unload near
forty victuallers at Quimperley and carry their cargoes by land to
Brest. It must be the fault of the weather, not ours, if any of them
escape."

It was suitable indeed that so strenuous and admirable an exhibition of
professional ability,--of naval generalship,--alike in strategic
combination, tactical disposition, and administrative superintendence,
should terminate in a brilliant triumph, at once its fruit and its
crown; wherein sedulous and unremittent readiness for instant action,
comprehended by few, received a startling demonstration which none could
fail to understand. As Nelson was pursued by ignorant sneers before the
Nile, so Hawke was burned in effigy by the populace, at the very moment
when laborious effort was about to issue in supreme achievement. The
victory in either case is less than the antecedent labor, as the crown,
after all, is less than the work, the symbol than the fact symbolized.

A brief account of preceding conditions, and of the dispositions
maintained to meet them, is therefore necessary to due appreciation of
the victory of Quiberon Bay. Although the diversions of 1758 had not
very materially aided Frederic of Prussia, they had inflicted distinct
humiliation and harassment upon France. This, added to defeat upon the
Continent and in North America, had convinced the French Government, as
it convinced Napoleon a half-century later, that a determined blow must
be struck at England herself as the operative centre upon which rested,
and from which proceeded, the most serious detriment to their cause and
that of their allies. It was resolved, therefore, to attempt an invasion
of England; to the threat of which the English people we