Finally, the French withdrew from the Channel, having accomplished nothing beyond an insignificant raid on Teignmouth. Torrington was tried by Court Martial and acquitted, though he was never again employed afloat. But the fact remains that, as Admiral Bridge says, "most seamen were at the time, have been since, and still are in agreement with Torrington." As to his conduct of the battle, which has so unjustly involved him in lasting discredit with the historians, though not with the seamen, he said in his defence before the Court Martial: "I may be bold to say that I have had time and cause enough to think of it, and that, upon my word, were the battle to be fought over again, I do not know how to mend it, under the same circumstances." Again, as to his general conduct of the campaign, he said: "It is true that the French made no great advantage of their victory though they put us to a great charge in keeping up the militia; but had I fought otherwise, our fleet had been totally lost, and the whole kingdom had lain open to an invasion. What, then, would have become of us in the absence of his Majesty and most of the land forces? As it was, most men were in fear that the French would invade; but I was always of another opinion; for I always said that, _whilst we had a fleet in being_, they would not dare to make an attempt." This is the first appearance of the phrase "a fleet in being" in the terminology of naval warfare. Its reappearance in our own day and its frequent employment in naval discussion are due to the masterly analysis of Torrington's strategy and tactics which the late Admiral Colomb gave in his illuminating work on _Naval Warfare_. In order to avoid giving it the extreme expression which, according to Admiral Mahan, it has received from some writers, and involving it in that extreme misconception which he thinks it has undergone at the hands of others--or it may be of the same--I have thought it worth while to examine at some length the campaign which gave rise to it so as to ascertain exactly what was in the mind of Torrington when he first used it. It is plain that Torrington held, as all great seamen have held, that the primary object of every belligerent is to destroy the armed forces of the enemy. He was so circumstanced that he could not do that himself, because the forces which might have been at his disposal for the purpose, had the circumstances been other than they were, were so divided and dispersed that the enemy might overcome them in detail. That the enemy would do this, if he could, he did not doubt, and it was equally certain that it must be his immediate object to prevent his doing it. His own force being by far the strongest of the three opposed to Tourville, it must be upon him that the brunt of the conflict would fall. Nothing would suit him better than that Tourville should turn back and attempt to force a battle on either Killigrew or Shovel to the