uty of
cutting off the communications between the two islands. As early as
March he had sent a large fleet with six thousand troops and supplies
of war, which were landed without any trouble in the southern ports of
Ireland; but after performing that service, the ships employed
returned to Brest, and there remained inactive during May and June
while the grand fleet under the Comte de Tourville was assembling.
During those two months the English were gathering an army on their
west coast, and on the 21st of June, William embarked his forces at
Chester on board two hundred and eighty-eight transports, escorted by
only six men-of-war. On the 24th he landed in Carrickfergus, and the
ships-of-war were dismissed to join the English grand fleet, which,
however, they were not able to do; Tourville's ships having in the
mean time got to sea and occupied the channel to the eastward. There
is nothing more striking than the carelessness shown by both the
contending parties, during the time that Ireland was in dispute, as to
the communications of their opponents with the island; but this was
especially strange in the French, as they had the larger forces, and
must have received pretty accurate information of what was going on
from disaffected persons in England. It appears that a squadron of
twenty-five frigates, to be supported by ships-of-the-line, were told
off for duty in St. George's Channel; but they never reached their
station, and only ten of the frigates had got as far as Kinsale by the
time James had lost all at the battle of the Boyne. The English
communications were not even threatened for an hour.

Tourville's fleet, complete in numbers, having seventy-eight ships, of
which seventy were in the line-of-battle, with twenty-two fire-ships,
got to sea June 22, the day after William embarked. On the 30th the
French were off the Lizard, to the dismay of the English admiral, who
was lying off the Isle of Wight in such an unprepared attitude that
he had not even lookout ships to the westward. He got under way,
standing off-shore to the southeast, and was joined from time to time,
during the next ten days, by other English and Dutch ships. The two
fleets continued moving to the eastward, sighting each other from time
to time.

The political situation in England was critical. The Jacobites were
growing more and more open in their demonstrations, Ireland had been
in successful revolt for over a year, and William was now there,