nco-Spanish War, were founded mainly on the expediency
of attacking the allies before they got away into the ocean
wilderness, were supported by the high professional opinion of Lord
Howe, who of the Kempenfeldt affair said: "Not only the fate of the
West India Islands, but perhaps the whole future fortune of the war,
might have been decided, almost without a risk, in the Bay of
Biscay."[167] Not without a risk, but with strong probabilities of
success, the whole fortune of the war should at the first have been
staked on a concentration of the English fleet between Brest and
Cadiz. No relief for Gibraltar would have been more efficacious; no
diversion surer for the West India Islands; and the Americans would
have appealed in vain for the help, scantily given as it was, of the
French fleet. For the great results that flowed from the coming of De
Grasse must not obscure the fact that he came on the 31st of August,
and announced from the beginning that he must be in the West Indies
again by the middle of October. Only a providential combination of
circumstances prevented a repetition to Washington, in 1781, of the
painful disappointments by D'Estaing and De Guichen in 1778 and 1780.

FOOTNOTES:

[157] The curious reader can consult Clinton's letters and notes, in
the "Clinton Cornwallis Controversy," by B.F. Stevens. London, 1888.

[158] Bancroft: History of the United States, vol. x. p. 191.

[159] Although the English thus culpably failed to use their
superiority to the French alone, the Channel fleet numbering over
forty of the line, the fear that it might prevent the junction caused
the Brest fleet to sail in haste and undermanned,--a fact which had an
important effect upon the issue of the cruise. (Chevalier, p. 159.)

[160] The details of the mismanagement of this huge mob of ships are
so numerous as to confuse a narrative, and are therefore thrown into a
foot-note. The French fleet was hurried to sea four thousand men
short. The Spaniards were seven weeks in joining. When they met, no
common system of signals had been arranged; five fair summer days were
spent in remedying this defect. Not till a week after the junction
could the fleet sail for England. No steps were taken to supply the
provisions consumed by the French during the seven weeks. The original
orders to D'Orvilliers contemplated a landing at Portsmouth, or the
seizure of the Isle of Wight, for which a large army was assembled on
the coast of Norman