Page:Final French Struggles in India and on the Indian Seas.djvu/108

80 had emigrated in large numbers, and the democratic principle, which had been introduced upon the ruins of that which had crumbled away because its foundations had rotted, had been denied the opportunity granted to the land forces of developing, on the spur of the moment, a perfect system of promotion and command. Nevertheless, even under these trying circumstances, the navy of France proved not unworthy of the renown it had inherited from Tourville, from Duguay-Trouin, from Jean Bart, from de Forbin, and from Suffren. The battle of the 1st June, fought by an untried admiral, with a fleet in no way superior to its enemy in numbers and weight of metal, and newly officered from the lowest to the highest grade, was indeed a defeat, though not a very decisive defeat; yet who will say that under all the circumstances of the case, that defeat even was not glorious to the French arms?

Another cause which tended at this period to the