So it proved. On August 14th Count d'Orvilliers, the allied commander-in-chief, had made the Lizard, and for a fortnight had striven to bring Hardy to decisive action. Until he had done so he dared neither enter the Channel with his fleet nor detach a squadron to break the cruiser blockades at the invasion bases. His ineffectual efforts exhausted his fleet's endurance, which the distant concentration at Finisterre had already severely sapped, and he was forced to return impotent to Brest before anything had been accomplished. The allies were not able to take the sea again that campaign, but even had it been in their power to do so, Hardy and Kempenfelt could have played their defensive game indefinitely, and with ever-increasing chances, as the winter drew near, of dealing a paralysing blow.
There was never any real chance of success, though it is true Dumouriez thought otherwise. He believed the enterprise might have gone through if a diversion had been made by the bulk of the fleet against Ireland, and under cover of it a _coup de main_ delivered upon the Isle of Wight, "for which," he said, "six or eight of the line would have been enough." But it is inconceivable that old hands like Hardy and Kempenfelt would have been so easily beguiled of their hold on the line of passage. Had such a division been detached up the Channel from the allied fleet they would surely, according to tradition, have followed it with either a superior force or their whole squadron.
The well-known projects of the Great War followed the same course. Under Napoleon's directions they ran the whole gamut of every scheme that ever raised delusive hope before. Beginning from the beginning with the idea of stealing his army across in flat-boats, he was met with the usual flotilla defence. Then came his only new idea, which was to arm his transport flotilla to the point of giving it power to force a passage for itself. We replied by strengthening our flotilla. Convinced by experiment that his scheme was now impracticable, he set his mind on breaking the blockade by the sudden intrusion of a flying squadron from a distance. To this end various plausible schemes were worked out, but plan after plan melted in his hand, till he was forced to face the inevitable necessity of bringing an overwhelming battle force up to his transports. The experience of two centuries had taught him nothing. By a more distant concentration than had ever been attempted before he believed he could break the fatal hold of his enemy. The only result was so severely to exhaust his fleet that it never could get within reach of the real difficulties of its task, a task which every admiral in his service knew to be beyond the strength of the Imperial Navy. Nor did Napoleon even approach a solution of the problem he had set himself--invasion over an uncommanded sea. With our impregnable flotilla hold covered by an automatic concentration of battle-squadrons off Ushant, his army could never even have put forth, unless he had inflicted upon our covering fleet such a defeat as would have given him command of the sea, and with absolute control of the sea the passage of an army presents no difficulties.