pursuit of the enemy's cruisers, and so brought to
the latter a support almost equal to an active warfare on the seas.
Again, the efficiency of the English navy, as has been said, was low,
and its administration perhaps worse; while treason in England gave
the French the advantage of better information. Thus in the year
following La Hougue, the French, having received accurate information
of a great convoy sailing for Smyrna, sent out Tourville in May,
getting him to sea before the allies were ready to blockade him in
Brest, as they had intended. This delay was due to bad administration,
as was also the further misfortune that the English government did not
learn of Tourville's departure until after its own fleet had sailed
with the trade. Tourville surprised the convoy near the Straits,
destroyed or captured one hundred out of four hundred ships, and
scattered the rest. This is not a case of simple cruising warfare, for
Tourville's fleet was of seventy-one ships; but it shows the
incompetency of the English administration. In truth, it was
immediately after La Hougue that the depredations of cruisers became
most ruinous; and the reason was twofold: first, the allied fleet was
kept together at Spithead for two months and more, gathering troops
for a landing on the continent, thus leaving the cruisers unmolested;
and in the second place, the French, not being able to send their
fleet out again that summer, permitted the seamen to take service in
private ships, thus largely increasing the numbers of the latter. The
two causes working together gave an impunity and extension to
commerce-destroying which caused a tremendous outcry in England. "It
must be confessed," says the English naval chronicler, "that our
commerce suffered far less the year before, when the French were
masters at sea, than in this, when their grand fleet was blocked up in
port." But the reason was that the French having little commerce and a
comparatively large number of seamen, mainly employed in the fleet,
were able, when this lay by, to release them to cruisers. As the
pressure of the war became greater, and Louis continued to reduce the
number of his ships in commission, another increase was given to the
commerce-destroyers. "The ships and officers of the royal navy were
loaned, under certain conditions, to private firms, or to companies
who wished to undertake privateering enterprises, in which even the
cabinet ministers did not disdain to take shar