ed
with the increased length of the lines of communication. The necessity
of protecting the seaports and the lengthened lines of communication
thus combined to augment the naval detachments in America, and to
weaken proportionately the naval force at the decisive points in
Europe. Thus also a direct consequence of the southern expedition was
the hasty abandonment of Narragansett Bay, when D'Estaing appeared on
the coast in 1779, because Clinton had not force enough to defend both
it and New York.[240]
In the West Indies the problem before the English government was not
to subdue revolted territory, but to preserve the use of a number of
small, fruitful islands; to keep possession of them itself, and to
maintain their trade as free as possible from the depredations of the
enemy. It need not be repeated that this demanded predominance at sea
over both the enemy's fleets and single cruisers,--"commerce-destroyers,"
as the latter are now styled. As no vigilance can confine all these to
their ports, the West Indian waters must be patrolled by British
frigates and lighter vessels; but it would surely be better, if
possible, to keep the French fleet away altogether than to hold it in
check by a British fleet on the spot, of only equal force at any time,
and liable to fall, as it often did, below equality. England, being
confined to the defensive, was always liable to loss when thus
inferior. She actually did lose one by one, by sudden attack, most of
her islands, and at different times had her fleet shut up under the
batteries of a port; whereas the enemy, when he found himself
inferior, was able to wait for reinforcements, knowing that he had
nothing to fear while so waiting.[241]
Nor was this embarrassment confined to the West Indies. The nearness
of the islands to the American continent made it always possible for
the offence to combine his fleets in the two quarters before the
defence could be sure of his purpose; and although such combinations
were controlled in some measure by well-understood conditions of
weather and the seasons, the events of 1780 and 1781 show the
perplexity felt from this cause by the ablest English admiral, whose
dispositions, though faulty, but reflected the uncertainties of his
mind. When to this embarrassment, which is common to the defensive in
all cases, is added the care of the great British trade upon which the
prosperity of the empire mainly depended, it must be conceded that the
task o
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