[In 1762, an English fleet sailed from Portsmouth: this was joined by a portion of the squadron from Martinico. The whole amounted to nineteen ships of the line, eighteen smaller vessels of war, and one hundred and fifty transports, carrying ten thousand men. The expedition besieged and captured Havana.—TRS.]
The Spaniards, however, in 1775, made a descent with fifteen or sixteen thousand men upon Algiers, with a view of punishing those rovers of the sea for their bold piracies; but the expedition, for want of harmonious action between the squadron and the land-forces, was unsuccessful, on account of the murderous fire which the troops received from the Turkish and Arab musketeers dispersed among the undergrowth surrounding the city. The troops returned to their vessels after having two thousand men placed hors de combat.
The American war (1779) was the epoch of the greatest maritime efforts upon the part of the French. Europe was astonished to see this power send Count d'Estaing to America