There is no end to the advantages a joint fleet and army possesses over an army alone, even when the army alone has many more men. It is ten times easier to supply armies with what they need in the way of men, guns, munitions, food, clothes, and other stores, when these supplies can be carried by sea. It is ten times easier to keep your movements secret at sea, where nobody lives and where the weaker sea-power can never have the best of lookouts, than it is on land, where thousands of eyes are watching you and thousands of tongues are talking. So, if your army fights near a coast against an enemy who commands the sea, you can never tell when or where he may suddenly attack your line of supply by landing an army to cut it. The French generals, though they had the best army in the world, were always looking over their shoulders to see if some British joint expedition was not hovering round the flank exposed to the coast. The French Navy, though very gallant, could only help French shipping here and there, by fits and starts, and at the greatest risk. So, while the British forces used the highways of the sea the whole time, the French forces could only use them now and then by great good luck. Thus British sea-power hampered, spoilt, or ruined all the powers of the land. The French wanted to save Louisbourg, the fall of which they knew would be the first step to the British conquest of Canada. But they could not send a fleet through the English Channel right under the eyes of the British naval headquarters, from which they were themselves expecting an attack. So they tried one from the Mediterranean. But Osborne and Saunders shut the door in their faces at Gibraltar and broke up their Toulon fleet as well. Then the French tried the Bay of Biscay. But Hawke swooped down on the big convoy of supply vessels sheltering at Aix and forced both them and their escorting men-of-war to run aground in order to save themselves from being burnt. Meanwhile large numbers of French farmers and fishermen had to be kept under arms to guard the shores along the Channel. This, of course, was bad for the harvest of both sea and land, on which the feeding of the men at the front so greatly depended. But there was no help for it, as the British fleet was watching its chance to pounce down on the first point left unguarded, and the French fleet was not strong enough to fight it out at sea. St. Malo and Cherbourg were successfully attacked. The only failure was at St. Cast, where a silly old general made mistakes of which a clever French one quickly took advantage.