fitted to be the local base and depot of the English war,
as well as a wayside port of refuge on the line of communications to
Jamaica, Florida, and even to North America; while Sta. Lucia, a
hundred miles to leeward, was held in force as an advanced post for
the fleet, watching closely the enemy at Fort Royal.

In India the political conditions of the peninsula necessarily
indicated the eastern, or Coromandel, coast as the scene of
operations. Trincomalee, in the adjacent island of Ceylon, though
unhealthy, offered an excellent and defensible harbor, and thus
acquired first-rate strategic importance, all the other anchorages on
the coast being mere open roadsteads. From this circumstance the
trade-winds, or monsoons, in this region also had strategic bearing.
From the autumnal to the spring equinox the wind blows regularly from
the northeast, at times with much violence, throwing a heavy surf upon
the beach and making landing difficult; but during the summer months
the prevailing wind is southwest, giving comparatively smooth seas and
good weather. The "change of the monsoon," in September and October,
is often marked by violent hurricanes. Active operations, or even
remaining on the coast, were therefore unadvisable from this time
until the close of the northeast monsoon. The question of a port to
which to retire during this season was pressing. Trincomalee was the
only one, and its unique strategic value was heightened by being to
windward, during the fine season, of the principal scene of war. The
English harbor of Bombay on the west coast was too distant to be
considered a local base, and rather falls, like the French islands
Mauritius and Bourbon, under the head of stations on the line of
communications with the mother-country.

Such were the principal points of support, or bases, of the
belligerent nations, at home and abroad. Of those abroad it must be
said, speaking generally, that they were deficient in resources,--an
important element of strategic value. Naval and military stores and
equipments, and to a great extent provisions for sea use, had to be
sent them from the mother-countries. Boston, surrounded by a thriving,
friendly population, was perhaps an exception to this statement, as
was also Havana, at that time an important naval arsenal, where much
ship-building was done; but these were distant from the principal
theatres of war. Upon New York and Narragansett Bay the Americans
pressed too closely fo