But Pitt had aroused the national spirit, and aggressive reprisals were adopted with enthusiasm. Admiral Rodney was entrusted with an attack upon Havre, where a vast number of flat-bottomed boats with a quantity of military stores of all kinds had been prepared to assist in the projected invasion. On July 3rd he anchored in Havre roads. The French commander had been forewarned of the English approach, and had made ample preparations for resistance. Powerful batteries had been erected all along the shore, and on both sides of the river's mouth; these were garrisoned with several thousand men, who opened a heavy fire on the squadron the moment it came within gunshot. The pilots proved wholly ignorant of the place, but some of Rodney's captains worked all night in taking soundings. The bombardment was continued without intermission for two days and two nights. Nearly all the French transports and boats were burnt, with all the warehouses containing the stores; and Havre itself was so disabled as to be valueless as an arsenal during the remainder of the war. In August the Toulon fleet slipped through the Straits of Gibraltar, with the intention of re-inforcing the Brest fleet; only, however, to be vigorously attacked and decisively defeated by Admiral Boscawen, who gave battle in Lagos Bay off the south coast of Portugal; meanwhile the ships at Dunkirk were blockaded by Admiral Boyce. In May, Admiral (afterwards Lord) Hawke was ordered to blockade the Brest fleet. For six months the blockade lasted. The gales and the difficulty of victualling the fleet governed the situation. When a westerly gale sprang up, the French could not get out to sea from Brest; but there was the great danger of some of the English ships being driven on shore, and the question was "How to get the fleet into a place of safety, like Plymouth or Torbay, and out again before the wind changed and allowed the French to sail." It was like "a cat watching a mouse." The difficulties of the commissariat may be estimated by a letter in which Hawke wrote to the responsible officer at Plymouth: "The beer brewed at your port is so excessively bad that it employs the whole of the time of the squadron in surveying it and throwing it overboard.... A quantity of bread will be returned to you; though not altogether unfit for use, yet so full of weevils and maggots that it would have infected all the bread come on board this day."