So many were the calls on the navy that it was not possible to collect sufficient line-of-battle ships for service in home waters. The nominal superiority of the allies was overwhelming, but the difference between paper and real strength has rarely been better shown than in this year. The Dutch were not ready. The French, though incomparably the most formidable of our enemies, could not man and officer all their ships effectively. The Spaniards were miserably inefficient. France and Spain alike were intent on pushing the war in America, or in endeavouring to recover Minorca and Gibraltar. Both dreaded the dangers of the Channel. Thus no resolute effort was made to assail Great Britain itself. In America our enemies gained, by the intelligent use of their fleets, the success which established the independence of the United States. In European waters the British Government was compelled to leave the garrison of Minorca to its fate. After a siege begun on the 18th August 1781, it surrendered on the 4th February 1782. Yet the foundations of our power were not only not shaken, but were not seriously menaced. Before taking up the story of the war in American waters, it will be convenient to show how the heart of the empire was guarded, and how the forces on both sides started for operations in distant seas. The British Government had to provide first of all for the free movement of its trade—a task greatly complicated by the war with Holland. Then it had to reinforce its squadrons in America, to endeavour to strengthen its general position by seizing the Dutch possessions at the Cape, and by providing for the safety of Gibraltar. The great fortress was on a superficial view a mere burden on the fleet throughout the war. Three great armaments had to be sent for its relief first and last. Two of them were provided only by leaving the Channel with small or no protection. Some English public men were of opinion that it might be profitably exchanged for an island in the West Indies. Yet it attracted a large part of the enemy’s forces which might have been employed with more damaging results to us elsewhere. It is true that for this we have to thank the want of intelligence of our opponents. To recover Gibraltar was an object for which the King of Spain was prepared to make every effort, and he could think of no other way of taking it than by direct siege. His Ambassador in Paris, the Count of Aranda, had sagacity enough to see that it might be recovered “in the heart of Jamaica.” Aranda could, however, secure no hearing. So long as our opponents were intent on mastering Gibraltar by bombardment and blockade, the obvious interest of England was to keep it from capture. Nor could the pride of the nation be reconciled to the surrender of this trophy of former wars. Its importance to the ultimate interests of the naval power of Great Britain was to be amply proved in the next war.