the field involve the admission of his opponent’s greater skill.  “Short of water,”—­with eighteen ships to fifteen, able therefore to spare ships by detachments for watering, that should not have happened; “injury to spars,”—­that resulted from the action; “1,121 men short,”—­Suffren had embarked just that number—­1,200—­because Hughes let him communicate with the port without fighting.  Notwithstanding the much better seamanship of the British subordinates, and their dogged tenacity, Suffren here, as throughout the campaign, demonstrated again the old experience that generalship is the supreme factor in war.  With inferior resources, though not at first with inferior numbers, by a steady offensive, and by the attendant anxiety about Trincomalee impressed upon the British admiral, he reduced him to a fruitless defensive.  By the seizure of that place as a base he planted himself firmly upon the scene of action.  Able thus to remain, while the British had to retire to Bombay, he sustained the Sultan of Mysore in his embarrassing hostility to the British; and in the end he saved Cuddalore by readiness and dexterity despite the now superior numbers of the British fleet.  He was a great sea-captain, Hughes was not; and with poorer instruments, both in men and ships, the former overcame the latter.

On the 29th of June a British frigate, the Medea, bearing a flag of truce, reached Cuddalore.  She brought well-authenticated intelligence of the conclusion of peace; and hostilities ceased by common consent.

[Footnote 136:  Now Mauritius.]

[Footnote 137:  On the Malabar—­western—­coast.]

[Footnote 139:  See ante, p. 163.]

[Footnote 140:  I infer, from the accounts, that the Monmouth was well east of the Hero, that the French had passed her first, and that the Heros was now on her port beam; but this point is not certain.]

[Footnote 141:  Expressions in Johnstone’s Report.]

[Footnote 142:  Charnock, however, says that in 1762, immediately after receiving his post-commission, he commanded in succession the Hind, 20, and the Wager, 20.  Moreover, before his appointment to the expedition of 1781, he had been Commodore on the Lisbon Station.  But he had spent comparatively little time at sea as a captain.—­W.L.C.]

[Footnote 143:  See ante, pp. 79, 80.]

[Footnote 144:  One being the captured British Hannibal, 50, which was commissioned by Captain Morard de Galles, retaining the English form of the name, Hannibal, to distinguish her from the Annibal, 74, already in the squadron.]

[Footnote 145:  In the plan, Positions II and III, the second position is indicated by ships with broken outlines.  These show the two lines of battle in the engagement until the wind shifted to south-south-east.  The results of the shift constituted a third position, consecutive with the second, and is indicated by ships in full outline.]