men

1,121

down with scurvy, and the water of the fleet very short. He therefore thought it necessary to go to Madras, where he anchored on the 25th. Suffren regained Cuddalore on the afternoon of the 23d. His return and Hughes's departure completely changed the military situation. The supply-ships, upon which the British scheme of operations depended, had been forced to take flight when Suffren first approached, and of course could not come back now. "My mind is on the rack without a moment's rest since the departure of the fleet," wrote the commanding general on the 25th, "considering the character of M. de Suffren, and the infinite superiority on the part of the French now that we are left to ourselves."

The battle of June 20th, 1783, off Cuddalore, was the last of the maritime war of 1778. It was fought, actually, exactly five months after the preliminaries of peace had been signed on January 20th, 1783. Although the relative force of the two fleets remained unchanged, it was a French victory, both tactically and strategically: tactically, because the inferior fleet held its ground, and remained in possession of the field; strategically, because it decided the object immediately at stake, the fate of Cuddalore, and with it, momentarily at least, the issue of the campaign. It was, however, the triumph of one commander-in-chief over another; of the greater man over the lesser. Hughes's reasons for quitting the field involve the admission of his opponent's greater skill. "Short of water," with eighteen ships to fifteen, able therefore to spare ships by detachments for watering, that should not have happened; "injury to spars," that resulted from the action; "1,121 men short," -Suffren had embarked just that number - 1,200 — because Hughes let him communicate with the port without fighting. Notwithstanding the much better seamanship of the British subordinates, and their dogged tenacity,

Suffren here, as throughout the campaign, demonstrated again the old experience that generalship is the supreme factor in war. With inferior resources, though not at first with inferior numbers, by a steady offensive, and by the attendant anxiety about Trincomalee impressed upon the British admiral, he reduced him to a fruitless defensive. By the seizure of that place as a base he planted himself firmly upon the scene of action. Able thus to remain, while the British had to retire to Bombay, he sustained the Sultan of Mysore in his embarrassing hostility to the British; and in the end he saved Cuddalore by readiness and dexterity despite the now superior numbers of the British fleet. He was a great sea-captain, Hughes was not; and with poorer instruments, both in men and ships, the former overcame the latter.

On the 29th of June a British frigate, the Medea, bearing a flag of truce, reached Cuddalore. She brought wellauthenticated intelligence of the conclusion of peace; and hostilities ceased by common consent.