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"In Seventeen Hundred And Fifty-Nine
When Hawke Came Swooping From The West,
The French King's Admiral With Twenty Of The Line
Came Sailing Forth To Sack Us Out Of Brest."
Laperouse's ship, the FORMIDABLE, was one of the French fleet of
twenty-one sail.
What happened was this. The French foreign minister,
Choiseul, had hatched a crafty plan for the invasion of England, but
before it could be executed the British fleet had to be cleared out of
the way. There was always that tough wooden wall with the hearts of oak
behind it, standing solidly in the path. It baffled Napoleon in the
same fashion when he thought out an invasion plan in the next century.
The French Admiral, Conflans, schemed to lure Sir Edward Hawke into
Quiberon Bay, on the coast of Brittany. A strong westerly gale was
blowing and was rapidly swelling into a raging tempest. Conflans,
piloted by a reliable guide who knew the Bay thoroughly, intended to
take up a fairly safe, sheltered position on the lee side, and hoped
that the wind would force Hawke, who was not familiar with the
ground, on to the reefs and shoals, where his fleet would be destroyed
by the storm and the French guns together. But Hawke, whose name
signally represents the bold, swift, sure character of the man,
understood the design, took the risk, avoided the danger, and clutched
the prey. Following the French as rapidly as wind and canvas could take
him, he caught their rearmost vessels, smashed them up, battered the
whole fleet successively into flight or splinters, and himself lost
only two vessels, which ran upon a shoal.
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