al nervousness, and the
difficulty under which he labored through force inadequate to the
numerous and exacting duties entailed by constant holding the sea in
war. From this point of view it bears upon his conduct.

That Bompart was coming proved to be true. On November 10th Hawke
anchored with the fleet in Torbay, after three days of struggle against
a very heavy westerly storm. "Bompart, if near, may get in," he wrote
the Admiralty, "but no ship can get out from any port in the Bay." The
weather had then moderated, but was still too rough for boating, even in
the sheltered roadstead; hence he could get no reports of the state of
the ships, which shows incidentally the then defective system of
signalling. On the 12th he sailed, on the 13th was again forced into
Torbay by a south-wester, but on the 14th got away finally. On the
afternoon of the 16th the fleet was twenty-five miles from the Island of
Ushant, near Brest, and there learned from transports, returning from
the light division off Quiberon, that the French fleet had been seen the
day before, seventy-five miles northwest of Belleisle; therefore some
fifty or sixty miles southeast of the point where this news was
received. Conflans had sailed the same day that the British last left
Torbay, but before his departure Bompart had opportunely arrived, as
Hawke had feared. His ships were not able to go at once to sea on so
important a mission, but their seasoned crews were a welcome
reinforcement and were distributed through the main fleet, which
numbered twenty-one ships-of-the-line. Hawke had twenty-three.

Concluding that the enemy were bound for Quiberon, Hawke carried a press
of sail for that place. He knew they must be within a hundred miles of
him and aimed to cut them off from their port. During the 17th the wind,
hanging to the south and east, was adverse to both fleets, but on the
18th and 19th it became more favorable. At half-past eight on the
morning of the 20th, one of the lookout frigates ahead of the British
made the signal for sighting a fleet. It was then blowing strong from
the west-northwest, and Belleisle, which is ten miles west of Quiberon
Bay, and south of which the fleets must pass, was by the English
reckoning forty miles distant. A course of some fifty or sixty miles was
therefore to be run before the enemy could close the land, and there
remained about eight hours of sun.

Hawke's day had come. Towards ten o'clock he had the enemy suffici