A French officer who served afloat during this war, in a work of calm and judicial tone, says:-- "What must the young officers have thought who were at Sandy Hook with D'Estaing, at St.Christopher with De Grasse, even those who arrived at Rhode Island with De Ternay, when they saw that these officers were not tried at their return ?"[11] Again, another French officer, of much later date, justifies the opinion expressed, when speaking of the war of the American Revolution in the following terms:-- "It was necessary to get rid of the unhappy prejudices of the days of the regency and of Louis XV.; but the mishaps of which they were full were too recent to be forgotten by our ministers.
Thanks to a wretched hesitation, fleets, which had rightly alarmed England, became reduced to ordinary proportions.
Intrenching themselves in a false economy, the ministry claimed that, by reason of the excessive expenses necessary to maintain the fleet, the admirals must be ordered to maintain the '_greatest circumspection_,' as though in war half measures have not always led to disasters.

So, too, the orders given to our squadron chiefs were to keep the sea as long as possible, without engaging in actions which might cause the loss of vessels difficult to replace; so that more than once complete victories, which would have crowned the skill of our admirals and the courage of our captains, were changed into successes of little importance.

A system which laid down as a principle that an admiral should not use the force in his hands, which sent him against the enemy with the foreordained purpose of receiving rather than making the attack, a system which sapped moral power to save material resources, must have unhappy results....

It is certain that this deplorable system was one of the causes of the lack of discipline and startling defections which marked the periods of Louis XVI., of the [first] Republic, and of the [first] Empire."[12] Within ten years of the peace of 1783 came the French Revolution; but that great upheaval which shook the foundations of States, loosed the ties of social order, and drove out of the navy nearly all the trained officers of the monarchy who were attached to the old state of things, did not free the French navy from a false system.

It was easier to overturn the form of government than to uproot a deep-seated tradition.