[Footnote 44:  Laughton, Studiesin_Naval_Hist._ p. 103.]

The mighty conflict which raged between Great Britain on one side and France and her allies on the other, with little intermission, for more than twenty years, presents a different aspect from that of the war last mentioned.  The victories which the British fleet was to gain were generally to be overwhelming; if not, they were looked upon as almost defeats.  Whether the fleet opposed to ours was, or was not, the more numerous, the result was generally the same—­our enemy was beaten.  That there was a reason for this which can be discovered is certain.  A great deal has been made of the disorganisation in the French navy consequent on the confusion of the Revolution.  That there was disorganisation is undoubted; that it did impair discipline and, consequently, general efficiency will not be disputed; but that it was considerable enough to account by itself for the French naval defeats is altogether inadmissible.  Revolutionary disorder had invaded the land-forces to a greater degree than it had invaded the sea-forces.  The supersession, flight, or guillotining of army officers had been beyond measure more frequent than was the case with the naval officers.  In spite of all this the French armies were on the whole—­even in the early days of the Revolution—­extraordinarily successful.  In 1792 ‘the most formidable invasion that ever threatened France,’ as Alison calls it, was repelled, though the invaders were the highly disciplined and veteran armies of Prussia and Austria.  It was nearly two years later that the French and English fleets came into serious conflict.  The first great battle, which we call ‘The Glorious First of June,’ though a tactical victory for us, was a strategical defeat.  Villaret-Joyeuse manoeuvred so as to cover the arrival in France of a fleet of merchant vessels carrying sorely needed supplies of food, and in this he was completely successful.  His plan involved the probability, almost the necessity, of fighting a general action which he was not at all sure of winning.  He was beaten, it is true; but the French made so good a fight of it that their defeat was not nearly so disastrous as the later defeats of the Nile or Trafalgar, and—­at the most—­not more disastrous than that of Dominica.  Yet no one even alleges that there was disorder or disorganisation in the French fleet at the date of anyone of those affairs.  Indeed, if the French navy was really disorganised in 1794, it would have been better for France—­judging from the events of 1798 and 1805—­if the disorganisation had been allowed to continue.  In point of organisation the British Navy was inferior, and in point of discipline not much superior to the French at the earliest date; at the later dates, and especially at the latest, owing to the all-pervading energy of Napoleon, the British was far behind its rival in organisation, in ‘science,’ and in every branch of training that can be imparted