loss. To sailing ships the odds were
greater, as injury to spars might involve stoppage. Moreover, Howe's
arrangements brought into such fire all his heavier ships.]

[Footnote 26: A letter to the Admiralty, dated October 8th, 1779, from
Vice-Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot, then commander-in-chief at New York,
states that "at spring tides there is generally thirty feet of water
on the bar at high water."]

[Footnote 27: These four ships were among the smallest of the fleet,
being one 74, two 64's, and a 50. D'Estaing very properly reserved his
heaviest ships to force the main channel.]

[Footnote 28: _Flora_, 32; _Juno_, 32; Lark, 32; _Orpheus_, 32;
_Falcon_, 16.]

[Footnote 29: I have not been able to find an exact statement of the
number; Beatson gives eight regiments, with a reinforcement of five
battalions.]

[Footnote 30: It may be interesting to recall that this was the ship
on the books of which Nelson's name was first borne in the navy, in
1771.]

[Footnote 31: Troude attributes d'Estaing's sortie to a sense of
the insecurity of his position; Lapeyrouse Bonfils, to a desire for
contest. Chevalier dwells upon the exposure of the situation.]

[Footnote 32: For the respective force of the two fleets see pp. 66,
67, 71.]

[Footnote 33: This account of the manoeuvres of the two fleets is
based upon Lord Howe's dispatch, and amplified from the journal of
Captain Henry Duncan of the flagship _Eagle_ which has been published
(1902) since the first publication of this work. See "Navy Records
Society, Naval Miscellany." Vol. i, p. 161.]

[Footnote 34: At the mouth of Delaware Bay.]

[Footnote 35: _Ante_, p. 62.]

[Footnote 36: Chevalier: "Marine Francaise," 1778.]

[Footnote 37: Later Vice-Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, Bart., who perished
in the _Cato_ in 1783. He was father of that Admiral Sir Hyde Parker,
who in 1801 was Nelson's commander-in-chief at Copenhagen, and who in
1778 commanded the _Phoenix_, 44, in Howe's fleet. (_Ante_, pp. 39,
46.)]

CHAPTER V

THE NAVAL WAR IN EUROPE. THE BATTLE OF USHANT

1778

During the same two months that saw the contest between d'Estaing and
Howe in America the only encounter between nearly equal fleets in
1778 took place in European waters. Admiral Keppel, having returned
to Spithead after the affair between the _Belle Poule_ and the
_Arethusa_,[38] again put to sea on the 9th of July, with a force
increased to thirty ships of the line. He had been mortified b