France, which had been rendering considerable secret assistance to the revolted Colonists, had, ever since the Treaty of Paris, been steadily building up her Navy, till she had eighty ships of the line and 67,000 men. The efficiency of the _personnel_ had been increased by the enrolment of a special corps of gunners, who practiced weekly. Efforts--which, however, were only moderately successful--had also been made to break down the serious class rivalries between those officers who were of the _noblesse_ and those who were tarpaulin seamen. But the majority of officers were skilled tactically, and special orders were issued that to seek out and attack the enemy was an objective.[36] Here, again, another weak point existed: d’Orvilliers, who commanded the main fleet, also received orders to be cautious--orders very similar in tenor to those by which his predecessors in previous wars were hampered. The fleet of Great Britain, spread over many quarters of the world, including ships being fitted, consisted of about 150 ships of the line, besides auxiliaries; but the actual available force of Home water fleet with which Keppel sailed just before the opening of the war was twenty ships only! Capturing two French frigates and learning from them that thirty-two ships were at Brest, Keppel got reinforcements of ten ships, and on the 27th of July, 1778, met d’Orvilliers, also with thirty ships, off Ushant. The battle lasted three hours, when the fleets drew apart without any material result having been achieved. The tactical ability lay with the French, and but for the inefficiency of the leader of one French division, the Duc de Chartres (the future “Phillipe Egalité”), would have done so still more. Yet, though Keppel had obviously done his best, public opinion in England had expected a great naval victory, and Keppel was the subject of a most violent controversy, which soon developed on political lines. At and about the time of the battle of Ushant, D’Estaing, with twelve ships of the line and five frigates, reached the Delaware. The English fleet under Howe, which consisted of only nine inferior ships of the line, took refuge inside Sandy Hook. D’Estaing came outside and remained ten days in July, but then sailed away.