d. The latter, protected by
fog, actually crossed on May 30 the waters fought over on the 29th,
and twelve days later safely reached the French coast. Robespierre
had told Villaret that if the convoy were captured he should answer
for it with his life. Hence the French admiral declared years later
that the loss of his battleships troubled him relatively little.
"While Howe amused himself refitting them, I saved the convoy,
and I saved my head."

[Illustration: BATTLE OF THE FIRST OF JUNE, 1794

Based on diagram in Mahan's _Influence of Sea Power upon the French
Revolution,_ Vol. I, p. 136.]

Though the escape of the convoy enabled the French to boast a "strategic
victory," the First of June in reality established British prestige
and proved a crushing blow to French morale. A British defeat,
on the other hand, might have brought serious consequences, for
within a year's time the Allied armies, including the British under
the Duke of York, were driven out of Holland, the Batavian Republic
was established in league with France (February, 1795), and both
Spain and Prussia backed out of the war. Austria remained England's
only active ally.

During the remainder of 1794 and the year following only minor or
indecisive encounters occurred in the northern theater of war, lack
of funds and naval supplies hampering the recovery of the French
fleet from the injuries inflicted by Howe. Ill health forcing the
latter's retirement from sea duty, he was succeeded in the Channel by
Lord Bridport, who continued his predecessor's easy-going methods
until the advent of Jervis in 1798, instituted a more rigorous
regime. It was not yet recognized that the wear and tear on ships
and crews during sea duty was less serious than the injurious effect
of long stays in port upon sea spirit and morale.

_French Projects of Invasion_

With their fleets passive, the French resorted vigorously to commerce
warfare, and at the same time kept England constantly perturbed by
rumors, grandiose plans, and actual undertakings of invasion. That
these earlier efforts failed was due as much to ill luck and bad
management as to the work of Bridport's fleet. Intended, moreover,
primarily as diversions to keep England occupied at home and sicken
her of the war, they did not altogether fail of their aim. Some
of these projects verged on the ludicrous, as that of corraling
a band of the criminals and royalist outlaws that infested France
and dropping them on