Palliser resigned and demanded a court martial. Though Keppel still refused to appear as accuser, the trial was held on the flagship between the 12th April and 3rd May. It ended in an acquittal with the qualification that Palliser ought to have made the admiral acquainted with the condition of the =Formidable=. Sir Hugh retired to the Governorship of Greenwich Hospital. Keppel was so popular that the Admiralty did not dare to remove him. But he was now in love with his parts of martyr and factious politician. He began to wrangle over orders, and to find offence where none was. At last he was allowed to haul down his flag at his own request. In his place in Parliament he was not ashamed to sneer at a brother officer, who, in the course of 1779, had to retire up Channel in face of an enemy twice his strength, and to insinuate that he himself would have been bolder in such a pass than he was with the equal fleet of D’Orvilliers, and the coast of Brest under his lee in July 1778. For a time he, with the help unhappily of Howe, an incomparably better man, set the disgraceful example of refusing to serve because what they were pleased to call their honour was not safe with Sandwich. His tar barrel popularity was clamorous for a space, and he succeeded Vernon on many tavern signboards, but by 1783 Rodney and Hood had arisen, and the patriot hero of 1779 had become the “Cautious Leeshore.” While the battle of Ushant was being half fought, and the subsequent quarrel was dragging its slow length along, a brilliant campaign was being conducted on the coasts of America. D’Estaign, it will be remembered, had cleared the Straits of Gibraltar on the 16th May. His squadron consisted of the _Languedoc_, 80 (Flagship), _Tonnant_, 80, _César_, 74, _Zélé_, 74, _Hector_, 74, _Marseilles_, 74, _Protecteur_, 74, _Guerrier_, 74, _Vaillant_, 64, _Provence_, 64, _Fantasque_, 64, and _Sagittaire_, 64, with the frigates _Chimère_, _Engageante_, _Alcmène_ and _Aimable_. Some of them were bad sailers, and as the crews had been completed by drafting soldiers, they were awkward. The neglect of the past weighed on the French fleet, and the nerve of the Admiral. D’Estaign spent much time in practising his raw crews, a wise precaution no doubt, but one which was fatal to rapidity of movement. He added gratuitously to the causes of delay by turning aside to chase prizes. On the 8th July he reached the Delaware, and landed M. Gérard de Rayneval, the French Minister to Congress, whom he had brought with him. Even then he would not make haste to begin his attack on the British squadron. On his way north to New York, and on the 10th July, he actually lost sight of his fleet because he employed his mighty flagship, the _Languedoc_, in chasing a trumpery British vessel named the =York=, of 10 guns and 60 men. These were not the methods to employ against the wary, resolute, and thorough antagonist he was about to encounter.