t. A French squadron was to break out of
Toulon, join Conflans, sweep the narrow seas, and convoy the French
expedition to English shores. The strategy, if it had succeeded, might
have changed the fate of the world.

To Hawke was entrusted the task of blockading Conflans in Brest, and a
greater feat of seamanship is not to be found in British records. The
French fleet consisted of 25 ships, manned by 15,200 men, and carrying
1598 guns. The British fleet numbered 23 ships, with 13,295 men, and
carrying 1596 guns. The two fleets, that is, were nearly equal, the
advantage, on the whole, being on the side of the French. Hawke
therefore had to blockade a fleet equal to his own, the French ships
lying snugly in harbour, the English ships scourged by November gales
and rolling in the huge seas of the Bay of Biscay. Sir Cloudesley
Shovel, himself a seaman of the highest quality, said that "an admiral
would deserve to be broke who kept great ships out after the end of
September, and to be shot if after October." Hawke maintained his
blockade of Brest for six months. His captains broke down in health,
his men were dying from scurvy, the bottoms of his ships grew foul; it
was a stormy season in the stormiest of seas. Again and again the wild
north-west gales blew the British admiral off his cruising ground. But
he fought his way back, sent his ships, singly or in couples, to Torbay
or Plymouth for a moment's breathing space, but himself held on, with a
grim courage and an unslumbering vigilance which have never been
surpassed. On November 6, a tremendous westerly gale swept over the
English cruising-ground. Hawke battled with it for three days, and
then ran, storm-driven and half-dismantled, to Torbay for shelter on
the 10th. He put to sea again on the 12th. The gale had veered round
to the south-west, but blew as furiously as ever, and Hawke was once
more driven back on the 13th to Torbay. He struggled out again on the
14th, to find that the French had escaped! The gale that blew Hawke
from his post brought a French squadron down the Channel, which ran
into Brest and joined Conflans there; and on the 14th, when Hawke was
desperately fighting his way back to his post, Conflans put to sea,
and, with the gale behind him, ran on his course to Quiberon. There he
hoped to brush aside the squadron keeping guard over the French
transports, embark the powerful French force assembled there, and swoop
down on the English c