Cuba and Hayti alone. As for the captured islands, Great Britain in 1815 retained only Malta, Heligoland, and the Ionian Islands in European waters; Cape Colony, Mauritius, and Ceylon on the route to the East; and in the Caribbean, Demerara on the coast, Santa Lucia, Trinidad, and Tobago--some of them of little intrinsic value, but all useful outposts for an empire of the seas. In the Channel and Bay of Biscay, the first year of war passed quietly. Lord Howe, commanding the British Channel fleet, had behind him a long, fine record as a disciplinarian and tactician; he had fought with Hawke at Quiberon Bay, protected New York and Rhode Island against d'Estaing in 1778, and later thrown relief into Gibraltar in the face of superior force. Now 68 years of age, he inclined to cautious, old-school methods, such as indeed marked activities on both land and sea at this time, before Napoleon had injected a new desperateness into war. Both before and after the "Glorious First of June" the watch on the French coast was merely nominal; small detachments were kept off Brest, but the main fleet rested in Portsmouth throughout the winter and took only occasional cruises during the remainder of the year. _The Battle of the First of June_ Though there had been no real blockade, the interruption of her commerce, the closure of her land frontiers, and the bad harvest of 1793, combined to bring France in the spring following to the verge of famine, and forced her to risk her fleet in an effort to import supplies from overseas. On April 11 an immense flotilla of 120 grain vessels sailed from the Chesapeake under the escort of two ships-of-the-line, which were to be strengthened by the entire Brest fleet at a rendezvous 300 miles west of Belleisle. Foodstuffs having already been declared subject to seizure by both belligerents, Howe was out on May 2 to intercept the convoy. A big British merchant fleet also put to sea with him, to protect which he had to detach 8 of his 34 ships, but with orders to 6 of these that they should rejoin his force on the 20th off Ushant. Looking into Brest on the 19th, Howe found the French battle fleet already at sea. Not waiting for the detachment, and thus losing its help in the battle that was to follow, he at once turned westward and began sweeping with his entire fleet the waters in which the convoy was expected to appear.