Identifier: seanpowerinf00maha (find matches)
Title: The influence of sea power upon history, 1660-1783
Year: 1890 (1890s)
Authors: Mahan, A. T. (Alfred Thayer), 1840-1914
Subjects: Naval history Sea-power
Publisher: Boston : Little, Brown and Company
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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of the bay, forcing the enemy, if he fol-lowed, to take position between him and the beach, six milesto leeward. None of his expectations were fulfilled. In theretreat he took the head of his fleet; a step not unjustifiable,since only by leading in person could he have shown just whathe wanted to do, but unfortunate for his reputation with thepublic, as it placed the admiral foremost in the flight. Hawkewas not in the least, nor for one moment, deterred by thedangers before him, whose full extent he, as a skilful sea-man, entirely realized ; but his was a calm and steadfast aswell as a gallant temper, tliat weighed risks justly, neitherdissembling nor exaggerating. He has not left us his rea-soning, but he doubtless felt that the French, leading, wouldserve partially as pilots, and must take the ground beforehim ; he believed the temper and experience of his officers,tried by the severe school of the blockade, to be superior tothose of the French; and he knew that both the government
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THE BREST FLEET DISPERSED. 303 and the country demanded that the enemys fleet should notreach another friendly port in safety. On the very day thathe was thus following the French, amid dangers and underconditions that have made this one of the most dramatic ofsea fights, he was being burnt in effigy in England for allow-ing them to escape. As Confians, leading his fleet, was round-ing the Cardinals, — as the southernmost rocks at the entranceof Quiberon Bay are called, — the leading English ships broughtthe French rear to action. It was another case of a generalchase ending in a melee, but under conditions of exceptionalinterest and grandeur from the surrounding circumstances ofthe gale of wind, the heavy sea, the lee shore, the headlongspeed, shortened canvas, and the great number of ships en-gaged. One French seventy-four, closely pressed and out-numbered, ventured to open her lower-deck ports; the seasweeping in carried her down with all on board but twentymen. Another was sun

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