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NAVAL HISTORY of GREAT BRITAIN - Vol I
1794
BRITISH AND FRENCH FLEETS
172


nine ships of Lord Howe's fleet, the admiral, with the remainder and the prizes, having, as already stated, proceeded to Spithead.

On the 11th M. Villaret, or, rather, Jean-Bon Saint-André, cast anchor in Bertheaume Bay, in company with M. Cornice; and notwithstanding the comparative unsafety of that roadsted, and the pressing wants, as well of the wounded men to be sent to the hospital as of the disabled ships to be refitted in the dock-yard (the Montagne herself had actually to send her rudder to Brest to be repaired), M. Jean-Bon Saint-André preferred, for the present, the risk of remaining there, to the still greater risk, as he conceived it, of encountering the indignation of the people of Brest, at the loss of so many of their ships, and, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, of so many thousands of their countrymen. On the 12th, the same day that Rear-admiral Montagu anchored in Cawsand Bay, the long expected, the critically circumstanced, Franco-American convoy, consisting of 116 sail, within one (a ship having foundered through bad weather) of its original number, under the escort of Rear-admiral Vanstable, with the three ships of the line, Tigre, Jean-Bart, and Montagnard (which latter, it is believed, with, the Mont-Blanc, had joined him near the scene of action on the 29th of May), anchored in the road of Bertheaume ; notwithstanding the promised sharp look-out which was to have been kept for it by British fleets and squadrons. This joyful event happened very opportunely for the discomfited admiral and deputy ; and the French man-of-war fleet and merchant convoy entered Brest in triumph.

Having conducted both admirals and both fleets, after the great battle fought between them, to the respective ports from which they originally sailed, we shall take a cursory notice of some of the published accounts on each side connected with the subject. Jean-Bon Saint-Audré's official report to the National Convention contains, among many minor ones, two important mistakes : one, that the British fleet consisted of 28 sail of the line, drawn up for battle, besides a reserve of several others ; and secondly, that two British ships sank in the action, one while engaged to windward with the Montagne, and the other in the rear, upon the authority of Rear-admiral Nielly, who is stated to have declared that he saw her go down. As a set-off to this, most of the English unofficial accounts gave the French 27, and some 28, sail of the line ; and Lord Howe's letter expressly states, that one French ship "sank in the engagement." M. de Poggi, who published in England a "Narrative of the Proceedings" of Lord Howe's fleet, rectifies the mistake about the sinking of the Jacobin, but makes a much greater, by declaring, that the Audacieux, Montagnard, and Mont-Blanc, foundered : the last after the action of the 29th of May, and the two former in that of the 1st of June.

The conventional deputy blames several of the captains for not obeying signals, and scruples not to declare that, but for their

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