had grafted the milder virtues.” From early in 1777 Sartine had begun to prepare a squadron at Toulon. It was got ready with difficulty, for the Treasury was always in straits, and the _classes_ then, as ever, worked ill. The purpose it was to serve was to carry help to the Americans. The command was given to the Comte d’Estaign, a great noble of the Rouergue, now known as the department of Rodez. D’Estaign had been bred a soldier, had served in the East Indies, and had held a governorship in the West Indies. He was accused by us of having shown sharp practice when a prisoner of war to the East India Company. His bold, undertaking disposition had induced his sovereign to impose him on the corps of naval officers, which was discredited by the failures of La Clue and Conflans in 1759, and the timidity of D’Aché. That he was our ostentatious enemy was another strong recommendation. From his conduct in command we may gather that his daring was born of a heat of the blood, and not of a settled resolution of mind. He was therefore subject to fits of depression under the weight of responsibility. D’Estaign, whose destination was well known, was allowed to sail unmolested. Reinforcements were sent to Howe under the command of Admiral Byron. Byron, the grandfather of the poet, had all the knightly virtues of his brilliant cavalier house. He had sailed with Anson, had shared the wreck of the =Wager= to the south of Chiloe, had recorded his adventures of starvation among savages, or in friendship and love among the Spaniards of Chili, in a fine narrative, and had been the commander of a voyage of circumnavigation singularly barren of discovery. He was a brave, steady officer, but without original faculty for the higher parts of war, and so persistently unfortunate in meeting storms that the sailors had nicknamed him “Foul Weather Jack.” The first movement was made by D’Estaign, who left Toulon on the 13th April with a squadron of twelve sail of the line and four frigates. Baffling winds, the unskilfulness of his crews which contained few seamen, and the bad sailing qualities of some of his ships delayed his progress, and it was not till the 15th May that he was able to clear the Straits of Gibraltar. The series of operations which opened with his appearance off the Delaware on the 9th July was long, and ranged from New England to the southern limit of the West Indies. While it was beginning, the main fleets of England and France were coming to battle in the Channel. It will tend to make a narrative which runs the danger of being confused from the number of contemporary events somewhat clearer if we turn to the first meeting between Keppel and D’Orvilliers, noting only that Byron left Plymouth with thirteen sail of the line and a frigate on the 9th June to reinforce Howe, and therefore race D’Estaign across the Atlantic in a parallel and more northerly course. How he lost the race we shall see.