Herbert took his fleet to the Thames, and baffled the enemy's further pursuit by removing the buoys.[71] Tourville's is the only great historical name among the seamen of this war, if we except the renowned privateersmen at whose head was Jean Bart.

Among the English, extraordinary merit cannot be claimed for any one of the gallant and enterprising men who commanded squadrons.
Tourville, who by this time had served afloat for nearly thirty years, was at once a seaman and a military man.

With superb courage, of which he had given dazzling examples in his youth, he had seen service wherever the French fleets had fought,--in the Anglo-Dutch war, in the Mediterranean, and against the Barbary pirates.

Reaching the rank of admiral, he commanded in person all the largest fleets sent out during the earlier years of this war, and he brought to the command a scientific knowledge of tactics, based upon both theory and experience, joined to that practical acquaintance with the seaman's business which is necessary in order to apply tactical principles upon the ocean to the best advantage.

But with all these high qualities he seems to have failed, where so many warriors fail, in the ability to assume a great responsibility.[72] The caution in his pursuit of the allies after Beachy Head, though so different in appearance, came from the same trait which impelled him two years later to lead his fleet into almost certain destruction at La Hougue, because he had the king's order in his pocket.