Ships of the Aggregate line Guns broadsides ------------------------------------------------ British 115 8,718 88,957 French 76 6,002 73,057 Of her main fighting units, the ships-of-the-line, England could put into commission about 85, which as soon as possible were distributed in three main spheres of operation: in the Mediterranean and its western approaches, from 20 to 25; in the West Indies, from 10 to 12; in home waters, from the North Sea to Cape Finisterre, from 20 to 25, with a reserve of some 25 more in the home bases on the Channel. Though this distribution was naturally altered from time to time to meet changes in the situation, it gives at least an idea of the general disposition of the British forces throughout the war. France, with no suitable bases in the Channel, divided her fleet between the two main arsenals at Brest and Toulon, with minor squadrons at Rochefort and, during the Spanish alliance, in the ports of Spain. _Distant Operations_ In the West Indies and other distant waters, France could offer but little effective resistance, and operations there may hence be dismissed briefly, but with emphasis on the benefit which naval control conferred upon British trade, the main guaranty of England's financial stability and power to keep up the war. Fully one-fifth of this trade was with the West Indies. Consequently, both to swell the volume of British commerce and protect it from privateering, the seizure of the French West Indian colonies--"filching the sugar islands," as Sheridan called it--was a very justifiable war measure, in spite of the scattering of forces involved. Hayti was lost to France as a result of the negro uprising under Toussaint l'Ouverture. Practically all the French Antilles changed hands twice in 1794, the failure of the British to hold them arising from a combination of yellow fever, inadequate forces of occupation, and lax blockade methods on the French coast, which permitted heavy reenforcements to leave France. General Abercromby, with 17,000 men, finally took all but Guadaloupe in the next year. As Holland, Spain, and other nations came under French control, England seized their colonies likewise--the Dutch settlements at the Cape of Good Hope and Ceylon in 1795; the Moluccas and other Dutch islands in the East Indies in 1796; Trinidad (Spanish) in 1797; Curacao (Dutch) in 1800; and the Swedish and Danish West Indies in 1801. By the Treaty of Amiens in 1802 all these except Trinidad and Ceylon were given back, and had to be retaken in the later period of the war, Guadaloupe remaining a privateers' nest until its final capture in 1810. Though French trade was ruined, it was impossible to stamp out privateering, which grew with the growth of British commerce which it preyed upon, and the extent of which is indicated by the estimate that in 1807 there were from 200 to 300 privateers on the coasts of