Cut off as I am from all communication with English politics, I shall not presume to guess at the causes which have retained our fleet in harbour. But some of those which have not retained it, I shall venture to state. It was not the weather, for that was uninterruptedly fine until the 25th of January. It was not the wind, for that during the same period was always easterly, here at least, and our distance from Plymouth is barely 45 leagues. It was not a want of information, for (to my knowledge) exclusive of other channels, two English gentlemen, who escaped from this place in a boat at least as early as the 8th of January, must have arrived in England by the 12th or 13th. The rigid caution observed by the French, in not hazarding engagements at sea, is notorious. In the present instance it has been exchanged for a hardy audacity. They now boast that they have challenged us to the lists, which we have not dared to enter against them; but, during the time of their fleet being out, I have seen them tremble at the probability of such an event. Had the month of January been as tempestuous as it commonly is in this climate, our assistance would hardly have been required to destroy their leaky and crazy ships, in want of naval stores and able seamen. One hard gale of wind at S. S. W. would have cost them at least a dozen sail of the line. What then shall we say? “There is,” my friend, “a tide in the affairs” of nations, as well as of men: the page of history every where records it. Hannibal, after the battle of Cannæ, instead of marching to Rome, turned aside to Capua;----from that moment the Carthaginian fortune ebbed, never to flow again. The series of rapid conquests, which distinguished the brilliant campaign of 1776, was finished, not by taking Philadelphia, dispersing the Congress, and breaking up the new government, but by occupying winter cantonments in Jersey, where our victorious army was beaten in detail;----and America was lost. The allies, after the surrender of Valenciennes, divided their forces;----and since that fatal separation how has their career of conquest been turned into retreat, marked only by overthrow, consternation and despair! On the 31st of December, the Admiral was again reduced to my society, and that of his youngsters, all the other officers of the Alexander being sent on shore to the Château, where, according to accounts which I have received from them, by some letters privately conveyed to me, they are treated in a manner shocking to humanity.----But I must be contented with telling you my own story.