A second sortie was made, and Cherbourg was taken on the 6th August. This was our only genuine success, for several privateers were destroyed and some guns were brought away. As it was thought that more might have been done, the expedition sailed on its third sortie in September to make another attempt on St. Malo. But by this time we had achieved our purpose of inducing the French to withdraw troops from Germany and look to their own coast. The soldiers landed to invest the town were assailed by superior numbers, and driven to re-embark in the Bay of St. Cas with heavy loss. The military management was not good, but no skill could have secured success. The naval work of transport and convoy was thoroughly well executed. It is a satisfaction to be able to turn to scenes where the navy was more effectually employed. In March of 1758 a squadron of small vessels, under the command of Captain Holmes, drove a French and Austrian garrison out of Embden, a port belonging to our ally the King of Prussia. This was a most useful piece of service, since it helped us to retain the power to land soldiers on the continent for the defence of Hanover and the prosecution of the war in Germany. In the following month of April Hawke was allowed to use a squadron in a way much better calculated to convince the French of our superiority at sea, and of their inability to invade, than any number of mere sporadic raids on their coast, since it gave them no chance of retaliating as they did in the Bay of St. Cas. Pitt, who was always well informed of the enemy’s movements, learnt early in the year that a great convoy was being prepared in the Basque Roads for America, and was to sail under protection of a small squadron. Hawke was sent to intercept it with seven sail of the line and three frigates. He found five French line-of-battle ships and several frigates, with forty merchant ships carrying 3000 troops to reinforce the American garrisons, starting or about to start from the Basque Roads and the Pertuis d’Antioche, the anchorages on the mainland just opposite the islands of Oléron and Ré. Between the 4th and 6th of April he broke up the convoy and drove it into the mud. In their anxiety to escape to Rochefort up the Charente the Frenchmen threw their guns overboard and started their water to lighten the ships. When it is remembered that they were five to seven, and on their own coasts, the prompt flight of the French liners speaks aloud of the little spirit of their navy at this period.