It was with infinite sorrow I heard, that, in
taking the king of France's fleet in trust, we instantly unrigged and
dismasted the ships, instead of keeping them in a condition to escape in
case of disaster, and in order to fulfil our trust,--that is, to hold
them for the use of the owner, and in the mean time to employ them for
our common service. These ships are now so circumstanced, that, if we
are forced to evacuate Toulon, they must fall into the hands of the
enemy or be burnt by ourselves. I know this is by some considered as a
fine thing for us. But the Athenians ought not to be better than the
English, or Mr. Pitt less virtuous than Aristides.
Are we, then, so poor in resources that we can do no better with
eighteen or twenty ships of the line than to burn them? Had we sent for
French Royalist naval officers, of which some hundreds are to be had,
and made them select such seamen as they could trust, and filled the
rest with our own and Mediterranean seamen, which are all over Italy to
be had by thousands, and put them under judicious English
commanders-in-chief, and with a judicious mixture of our own
subordinates, the West Indies would at this day have been ours.
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