The large combined force, of French and Spanish ships, was to sail from Cadiz, in the extreme south of Spain, under Count d’Estaing. At Port Cabello, he was to take command of the whole expedition. But just as the fleet was on the eve of sailing, the British government, alarmed by the little success which had attended its efforts thus far, the enormous expense which the conflict involved, the loss of all its trade with the colonies, the interruption of its commerce throughout the world, and more than all by the clamor of popular indignation, which rose, in England, against the unrighteous war it was waging, which clamor would make itself heard in the House of Commons and the House of Lords, very reluctantly felt constrained to consider terms of peace. It was decided to defer the sailing of the fleet till the result of the negotiations could be ascertained. Thus when Vaudreuil was hourly looking for the arrival of his whole squadron at Port Cabello, his transports were distant four hundred miles at Cape Francois, in San Domingo. The Spanish squadron, under Don Solano, was distant nearly fifteen hundred miles in Havana; while the great combined fleet of France and Spain, under D’Estaing, was quietly reposing, at the distance of many thousand miles, in the harbor of Cadiz. The last thing at night, the officers at Cabello were seen at the mast-heads of the ships, ranging the horizon with their glasses, in search of the expected fleets. The earliest dawn of the morning found them again upon the eager, anxious look-out. Thus the remainder of February, and the whole of the month of March passed sadly away. Not a sail was seen to break the outline where the ocean and the sky seemed to meet. The anxiety of the officers became intense. Their decks were blistered beneath the heat of a tropical sun. The climate was insalubrious. There was nothing in their surroundings to cheer them. The disappointment was terrible. The officers who had embarked on the enterprise with high ambition, anticipating renowned achievements and unfading laurels, saw all their hopes vanishing, and that the ridicule of the community, instead of its plaudits, would attend their return. Such is life: “A path it is of joys and griefs, of many hopes and fears, Gladdened at times by sunny smiles, but oftener dimmed by tears.” Serious sickness broke out, which seized alike officers and crew. Commodore Jones was attacked with intermittent fever, which seemed to paralyze his physical energies, leaving his mental powers in all their activity. On the 27th of February, the evening before his arrival at Port Cabello, he wrote to the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, saying: