spring following to the
verge of famine, and forced her to risk her fleet in an effort to
import supplies from overseas. On April 11 an immense flotilla
of 120 grain vessels sailed from the Chesapeake under the escort
of two ships-of-the-line, which were to be strengthened by the
entire Brest fleet at a rendezvous 300 miles west of Belleisle.
Foodstuffs having already been declared subject to seizure by both
belligerents, Howe was out on May 2 to intercept the convoy. A
big British merchant fleet also put to sea with him, to protect
which he had to detach 8 of his 34 ships, but with orders to 6 of
these that they should rejoin his force on the 20th off Ushant.
Looking into Brest on the 19th, Howe found the French battle fleet
already at sea. Not waiting for the detachment, and thus losing its
help in the battle that was to follow, he at once turned westward
and began sweeping with his entire fleet the waters in which the
convoy was expected to appear.

The French with 26 ships-of-the-line--and thus precisely equal to
Howe in numbers--had left Brest two days before. The crews were
largely landsmen; of the flag officers and captains, not one had
been above the grade of lieutenant three years before, and nine of
them had been merchant skippers with no naval experience whatever.
On board were two delegates of the National Convention, whose double
duties seem to have been to watch the officers and help them command.
To take the place of experience there was revolutionary fervor,
evidenced in the change of ship-names to such resounding appellations
as _La Montagne, Patriote, Vengeur du Peuple, Tyrannicide_, and
_Revolutionnaire_. There was also more confidence than was ever felt
again by French sailors during the war. "Intentionally disregarding
subtle evolutions," said the delegate Jean Bon Saint Andree, "perhaps
our sailors will think it more appropriate and effective to resort
to the boarding tactics in which the French were always victorious,
and thus astonish the world by new prodigies of valor." "If they
had added to their courage a little training," said the same
commissioner after the battle, "the day might have been ours."

The commander in chief, Villaret de Joyeuse, who had won his lieutenancy
and the esteem of Suffren in the American war, was no such scorner
of wary tactics. Thus when the two fleets, more by accident than
calculation on either side, came in contact on the morning of May
28, 1794, about 400 mil