During the last days of the siege of Acre and while Bonaparte was leading his baffled army through the sands of the desert back into Egypt, the western Mediterranean was thrown into a ferment by the escape of the French fleet from Brest. This very remarkable episode, having led to no tangible results, has been little noticed by general historians; but to the student of naval war its incidents are most instructive. It is scarcely too much to say that never was there a greater opportunity than that offered to the French fleet, had it been a valid force, by the scattered condition of its enemies on this occasion; nor can failure deprive the incident of its durable significance, as illustrating the advantage, to the inferior navy, of a large force concentrated in a single port, when the enemy, though superior, is by the nature of the contest compelled to disseminate his squadrons. The advantage is greatest when the port of concentration is central with reference to the enemy's positions; but is by no means lost when, as was then the case with Brest, it is at one extremity of the theatre of war. It was a steady principle in the policy of Napoleon, when consul and emperor, to provoke dissemination of the British navy by threatening preparations at widely separated points of his vast dominions; just as it was a purpose of the British government, though not consistently followed, to provoke France to ex-centric efforts by naval demonstrations, menacing many parts of the shore line. The Emperor, however, a master of the art of war and an adept at making the greatest possible smoke with the least expenditure of fuel, was much more than a match in the game of deception for the unmilitary and many-headed body that directed the affairs of Great Britain.
Although in 1799 the Channel fleet had attached to it as many as fifty-one ships-of-the-line,[250] of which forty-two upon the alarm that ensued very soon got to sea,[251] Lord Bridport had with him but sixteen when he took command off Brest, on the 17th of April, relieving the junior admiral who, with eight or nine ships, had done the winter cruising. On the 25th Bridport looked into the port and saw there eighteen ships-of-the-line ready for sea. The wind being fresh at north-east, the British admiral stood out until he reached a position twelve miles west-south-west of Ushant Island. The entrance being thus clear and the wind fair, the French fleet, numbering twenty-five of the line and ten smaller vessels, slipped out that night under command of Admiral Bruix, then minister of marine, who, by his close official relations to the government, was indicated as a proper person to fulfil an apparently confidential mission, for which his professional ability and activity eminently fitted him.