The fierce gales of November made Hawke's task of keeping a large fleet in the Bay of Biscay one of supreme difficulty, and unusually wild weather compelled him to run for shelter in Torbay. On the 14th the storm abated, and De Conflans, seeing the coast clear, put to sea. The same day Hawke left the shelter of the English coast; on the 16th he was off Ushant. "On that afternoon," writes Dr. John Campbell, "several English transports returning from Quiberon Bay passed through the fleet, and informed the admiral that they had seen the French squadron on the preceding day, standing to the south-east, and distant about twenty-three leagues from Belle-Isle." The intelligence was received by the whole British fleet with acclamations, and every ship prepared for action. The wind also became favourable and every sail was spread to catch the gale. On the 20th, about half an hour after eight o'clock in the morning, the _Maidstone_ frigate let fly her top-gallant sails, which was a signal for discovering a fleet. About nine, Lord Howe, in the _Magnanime_, made signal that they were enemies. Sir Edward Hawke immediately told his officers that he did not intend to trouble himself with forming lines, but would attack them in the old way, to make downright work with them; and accordingly he threw out a signal for seven of his ships to chase, in order to allure the enemy to fight. As the British neared the French, the weather became squally and rough; but Conflans in a very gallant style seemed to offer battle: his courage, however, soon cooled, and long before the fleets were within the range of shot, he changed his plan, and stood right before the wind toward the shore. It was two in the afternoon before our headmost ships could get up with his rear; but at that time the _Warspite_ and _Dorsetshire_ began to fire. The imagination can conceive nothing more sublime than the spectacle which the hostile squadrons presented at this moment. A dreadful storm darkened the face of the heavens; the sea was rolling in tremendous waves which on all sides were dashing themselves into foam on treacherous rocks and shallows unknown to the English pilots. In the midst of these terrible circumstances, calculated, from the very majesty of the physical power in action, to awe and intimidate, two adverse navies, the greatest that had been employed in one of the greatest wars in the annals of Europe, freighted with the fate, and worthy of being intrusted with the glory of the rival nations, were preparing for battle. It was a moment as if nature had resolved to contrast the tameness of physical terror with the grandeur of heroism, and to show how much more sublime are the moral sentiments of a collected mind than all the awful phenomena of the heavens darkened, and the ocean agitated by a tempest, with the multifarious dangers of secret rocks and unknown shallows.