It has been said above that the Grand Fleet had gone to sea in the spring of 1694 under the command of Russell. He was also the chief of the “commission for executing the office of Lord High Admiral”—and therefore combined the whole civil and military authority in his own person. The fleet consisted of fifty-two English and forty-one Dutch ships of the line, with their attendant fireships and small craft, when all were collected at St. Helens. When he was sure that the French had no fleet in Brest to assist in the defence, the admiral returned to St. Helens on the 23rd May, and sailed with his whole force on the 29th. On the 6th June the force designed to carry out the already mentioned raid on Brest was detached, and Russell sailed for the south in pursuit of the French with thirty English and twenty-two Dutch. He was off the Rock of Lisbon on the 25th June. Here he was reinforced by ships both English and Dutch, and his force was raised to sixty-three. A little later he was burdened by the co-operation of nine very inefficient Spaniards.
In July Russell entered the Mediterranean, to the great relief of the palsied Spanish Government, now trembling in impotence before the French army of invasion in Catalonia and the French fleet in the Mediterranean. The enemy retired as the allies worked their way slowly up the coast and finally took refuge in the roadstead of Hyères, to the east of Toulon. Russell and his Dutch colleagues were then able to cover the Spanish forces in Catalonia and the Spanish coast trade from French attack. As autumn approached, they prepared to return; but King William wisely came to the decision that there was no better way of protecting English and Dutch naval interests at home than by keeping the French fleet shut in the Mediterranean. Russell therefore received orders to winter in Cadiz. He had to struggle with the unreasonable requests of the Spanish Government, which expected its allies to do everything for it, and could itself do little or nothing. Yet, as they were well supplied with money, stores, and even artificers from home, the allies passed the winter abroad at no greater cost than would have been incurred in their own ports.