The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 8, Number 2, Winter 2019 | Page 114

The Saber
One of the key changes was in how to
utilize the Royal Navy. Lord Sandwich
in particular argued for an aggressive
naval war against colonial maritime
trade, but with the entry of France, that
was not possible. 19
When France entered the war,
British intelligence estimated that the
French navy comprised between thirty-three
and forty-three ships of the line
deployed between Brest in the Atlantic
and Toulon in the Mediterranean. 20 The
British mustered some forty ships of the
line, half of those designated to channel
duty to protect against invasion. 21 The
remainder covered North America and
the West Indies. Added to this were the
ongoing political and economic strain
Britain endured and the suddenly immense
strategic problems of a global
war. 22 A shift in British strategic thinking
was in order.
The British were aware of French
naval preparations as early as 1776, but
did not heed the advice of ministers,
such as First Lord of the Admiralty
Lord Sandwich, and did not prepare
their fleet. 23 The British assumed that
the Americans could not contest the
Royal Navy, yet American privateers
and cruisers roamed North American
and European waters. 24 American privateers
captured over three hundred
British merchant vessels in 1777, while
the British captured only fifteen of the
American raiders. 25 The American navy
even recorded victories in the West Indies
early in the war. In a raid on the
port of Nassau in New Providence, the
Americans captured quantities of war
materiel and successfully returned it to
5