ire over the seas soon became as tyrannical and more
absolute than before.

Barring questions of preparation and administration, of the fighting
quality of the allied fleets as compared with the English, and looking
only to the indisputable fact of largely superior numbers, it must be
noted as the supreme factor in the military conduct of the war, that,
while the allied powers were on the offensive and England on the
defensive, the attitude of the allied fleets in presence of the
English navy was habitually defensive. Neither in the greater
strategic combinations, nor upon the battlefield, does there appear
any serious purpose of using superior numbers to crush fractions of
the enemy's fleet, to make the disparity of numbers yet greater, to
put an end to the empire of the seas by the destruction of the
organized force which sustained it. With the single brilliant
exception of Suffren, the allied navies avoided or accepted action;
they never imposed it. Yet so long as the English navy was permitted
thus with impunity to range the seas, not only was there no security
that it would not frustrate the ulterior objects of the campaign, as
it did again and again, but there was always the possibility that by
some happy chance it would, by winning an important victory, restore
the balance of strength. That it did not do so is to be imputed as a
fault to the English ministry; but if England was wrong in permitting
her European fleet to fall so far below that of the allies, the latter
were yet more to blame for their failure to profit by the mistake. The
stronger party, assuming the offensive, cannot plead the perplexities
which account for, though they do not justify, the undue dispersal of
forces by the defence anxious about many points.

The national bias of the French, which found expression in the line of
action here again and for the last time criticised, appears to have
been shared by both the government and the naval officers of the day.
It is the key to the course of the French navy, and, in the opinion of
the author, to its failure to achieve more substantial results to
France from this war. It is instructive, as showing how strong a hold
tradition has over the minds of men, that a body of highly
accomplished and gallant seamen should have accepted, apparently
without a murmur, so inferior a role for their noble profession. It
carries also a warning, if these criticisms are correct, that current
opinions and plausible