dy. Upon reaching the Channel, these orders were
suddenly changed, and Falmouth indicated as the point of landing. By
this time, August 16, summer was nearly over; and Falmouth, if taken,
would offer no shelter to a great fleet. Then an easterly gale drove
the fleet out of the Channel. By this time the sickness which raged
had so reduced the crews that many ships could be neither handled nor
fought. Ships companies of eight hundred or a thousand men could
muster only from three to five hundred. Thus bad administration
crippled the fighting powers of the fleet; while the unaccountable
military blunder of changing the objective from a safe and accessible
roadstead to a fourth-rate and exposed harbor completed the disaster
by taking away the only hope of a secure base of operations during the
fall and winter months. France then had no first-class port on the
Channel; hence the violent westerly gales which prevail in the autumn
and winter would have driven the allies into the North Sea.

[161] Life of Admiral Keppel, vol. ii pp. 72, 346, 403. See also
Barrow: Life of Lord Howe, pp. 123-126.

[162] Beatson gives quite at length (vol. v. p. 395) the debate in the
allied council of war. The customary hesitation of such councils, in
face of the difficulties of the situation, was increased by an appeal
to the delusion of commerce-destroying as a decisive mode of warfare.
M. de Beausset urged that "the allied fleets should direct their whole
attention to that great and attainable object, the intercepting of the
British homeward-bound West India fleets. This was a measure which, as
they were now masters of the sea, could scarcely fail of success; and
it would prove a blow so fatal to that nation, that she could not
recover it during the whole course of the war." The French account of
Lapeyrouse-Bonfils is essentially the same. Chevalier, who is silent
as to details, justly remarks: "The cruise just made by the allied
fleet was such as to injure the reputation of France and Spain. These
two powers had made a great display of force which had produced no
result." The English trade also received little injury. Guichen wrote
home: "I have returned from a cruise fatiguing but not glorious."

[163] This mishap of the French was largely due to mismanagement by De
Guichen, a skilful and usually a careful admiral. When Kempenfeldt
fell in with him, all the French ships-of-war were to leeward of their
convoy, while the English were to wind