These were watched or blockaded by superior British squadrons in every case--the maintenance of blockades being mainly possible owing to the improved ventilation of the ships. Provisions were still bad and scurvy plentiful, but the blockade maintained was better and closer than anything that the French can have anticipated. This war, indeed, saw the birth of scientific blockade in place of the somewhat haphazard methods which had previously existed. In part, it arose from a better perception of naval warfare, the study of history and the growth of definite objectives. But since side by side with these improvements tactical ideas were nearly non-existent and ships in fighting kept a line of the barrack-ground type regardless of all circumstances,[33] improvements in naval architecture may claim at least as big a part as the wit of man. Ideas of blockading and watching were as old as the Peloponnesian War, but means to carry them into effect had hitherto been sadly lacking. To resume, the French fleets being cornered by superior forces, had no option but to wait for lucky opportunity to effect the usual attempted junctions. This opportunity was long in coming, and meanwhile Rodney made an attack on the invading flotilla at Havre, bombarded it for fifty-two hours, and utterly destroyed the flat-bottomed boats which had been collected. In July, 1759, Boscawen, having run short of water and provisions, had to withdraw from Toulon to Gibraltar, where he began to refit his ships, and De la Clue, learning of this, came out of Toulon in August, slipping through the straits at midnight, with the English fleet in pursuit shortly afterwards. De la Clue had intended to rendezvous at Cadiz, but having altered his mind, made the almost inevitable failure of getting all his ships to comprehend it.[34] So it came about that daylight found him near Cape St. Vincent, with only six sail, and eight of Boscawen’s ships (which he at first took to be his own stragglers) coming up. In the action that followed, three of the French ships were captured, two burned and one escaped. The stragglers of the French fleet got into Cadiz as originally directed, and a few months later escaped back to Toulon. Thurot, with a small squadron, slipped out from Dunkirk, in October, merely to intern himself in a Swedish harbour. Hawke continued his blockade of Brest, being now and then driven off by gales, and during one of these absences, Bempart, with his nine West Indian ships, got into Brest. The Brest fleet was apparently very short-handed, or else the West Indian squadron in a very bad way; in any case the crews of the latter were distributed among the former, and De Conflans sailed with only twenty-one ships on November 14th.