114 HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

place at Paris on the 20th day of March ; and was followed by a repetition of thesame ceremoy in London, a few days afterward.

The French marine, notwithstanding its improvement in the quality of the vesselswhich individually composed it, had considerably fallen from that consequencewhich it boasted, in respect to numbers, during the reign of Louis the Fourteenth.It amounted, at the commencement of the war, to no more than forty-five shipsof theline; scarcely seventy frigates, or vessels of inferior force; with a number of galleys,amounting, indeed, to nearly sixty; but which were, consequently, from their form,incapable of rendering them any assistance, except in the Mediterranean. 'Withso inconsiderable a navy, it was scarcely possible to effect any enterprize by openforce, except they could first deceive their antagonist by a feint in one quarter,while their actual intentions were directed against another. To have sent forth afleet, either into the Atlantic, or the Mediterranean itself, against such a force asEngland possessed, would have been rashly exposing it to an almost certaindestruction : for this reason, no instance occurred during the whole of the actualwar, of the French having any armament at sea which deserved the name of a fleet,or of their projecting any expedition except such of the most desultory nature ascould be effected by light or flying squadrons. Rochambeau, the French admiral,who succeeded Roquefeuille in the command of the Brest squadron, put to seafrom thence with all the ships fit for service, amounting to fourteen sail of theline. With this force, lie proceeded to the southward, and, for some time,actually blockaded an Englifh squadron, under sir Charles Hardy, who had putinto Lisbon on his passage to the Mediterranean. The arrival of sir John Balchenput an end to their temperorary exultation ; and the French ships consideredthemselves as fortunate in being capable of making good their retreat into Cadiz.Foiled almost in every quarter, the most trivial successes, which in the general eventsof war must inevitably be atchievcd, were boasted of with as much arrogance asthough they had been the most splendid victories.

. Upon the whole, however, the confederated powers acquired a very considerableshare of political credit, possessed as they were of very inadequate means of op-position, on account of the address with which they contrived to prevent beingtotally over-run in every quarter, by the superior force which assailed them. Theirlittle flying squadrons and cruizers did very considerable injury to the Britifh com-merce, which was sometimes heightened by the more mortifying information of thecapture of a ship of war. Nevertheless, the general events at sea were scarcely

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