ation and spirit, than their exposed and vulnerable allies
upon the Continent. The difference between them is that between men
who are out of reach and are 2 to 1, and men whose territories are
accessible to an enemy greatly superior to themselves in numbers.
Therefore it was Pitt who from his post of vantage pushed the others
forward, and, when they vacillated, encouraged them with money and the
promise of spoil. The alliance with the maritime states was important
for his policy, but it accomplished nothing in the actual struggle.
The Dutch and the Spaniards were never brought into line; and the
English, though they owed their safety at first to their system of
alliances, owed their victories to themselves. And those victories
became more numerous and splendid when, after two years of
inefficacious friendship with us, the Spaniard and the Dutchman joined
our enemies. England was drawn into the war, which it maintained with
unflagging resolution, by the prospect of sordid gain. It brought
increase of rents to the class that governed, and advantage to the
trader from the conquest of dependencies and dominions over the sea.

The year 1793 brought us no profit from the sea. We occupied Toulon on
the invitation of the inhabitants, and there we had in our possession
half of the naval resources of France. But before the end of the year
we were driven away. The French dominions in India fell at once into
our hands, and in March and April 1794 we captured the Windward
Islands in the West Indies, Martinique, Santa Lucia, and at last
Guadeloupe. But a Jacobin lawyer came over from France and reconquered
Guadeloupe, and the French held it with invincible tenacity till 1810.
They lost Hayti, but it never became English, and drifted into the
power of the negroes, who there rose to the highest point they have
attained in history. In the summer of the same year, 1794, Corsica
became a British dependency, strengthening enormously our position in
the Mediterranean. We were not able to retain it. Our admirals did
nothing for La Vendee. So little was known about it that on December
19 there was a question of sending an officer to serve under
Bonchamps, who at that time had been dead two months.

In all this chequered and inglorious history there is one day to be
remembered. On April 11, 1794, 130 merchantmen, laden with
food-supplies, sailed from Chesapeake Bay for the ports of France.
Lord Howe went out to intercept them; and on May 16