Judged by the fighting alone, the battle of Quiberon was less arduous than many we have fought with the French and all we have fought with the Dutch. But the fighting was in this case the least of the battle. It stands in the first rank, if not at the head of all the heroisms of the fleet, because it was won over the storm, the sea, and the rocks, as well as over man. The boldness of Hawke in flying at his enemy before his own force was thoroughly united, and the magnificent seamanship of his captains in circumstances of unparalleled difficulty set this battle apart. Although the French had but one vessel taken and five destroyed, they were utterly routed. The seven ships which fled into the Vilaine were lost for all practical purposes, and the spirit of their navy was broken for the rest of the war. There is a legend which tells how the sailing master of the =Royal George= expostulated when ordered to take the ship among the rocks of Quiberon, and how Hawke answered that his subordinate had done his duty by pointing out the danger and was now to obey the order. If this story has not an actual, it has a mythical, truth. What gives its peculiar character to Hawke’s victory at Quiberon was its magnificent military quality. To the mere seaman there was something like madness in rushing just before dark into the most frightful of the possible perils of navigation. But the admiral, though a finished seaman, was also a great fighting leader, and to him the occasion seemed one on which to use his skill, not to avoid but to incur dangers, for a great purpose. Nothing equal in conduct will be met for twenty-two years, and until we come to Hood’s fine, though unsuccessful effort to save the island of St. Kitts from the Comte de Grasse. Indeed the whole passage of the blockade of Brest and the battle of Quiberon was without precedent in the history of the navy, and without an equal successor for forty years. The tenacity with which the fleet kept its watch into the stormy winter months would have appeared the excess of temerity to the naval officers of former times, who thought it dangerous to leave the great ships at sea after September. What also was without precedent was the success with which the crews were kept in health by the determination of the admiral that they should be regularly supplied with fresh meat and wholesome beer. After Quiberon the stormy weather made the service of the victuallers difficult, and there was a change for the worse which is recorded in the navy’s one contribution to epigrammatic literature— “Ere Hawke did bang Monsieur Conflans You sent us beef and beer; Now Monsieur’s beat We’ve nought to eat Since you have nought to fear.” It adds a grace to the heroic figure of Hawke that he was tender of the lives and of the health of his men. But his good sense taught him that sickly crews must needs make a crippled fleet.