The French fleet got under way, and worked up to windward to a point fair for crossing the bar.

Then D'Estaing's heart failed him under the discouragement of the pilots; he gave up the attack and stood away to the southward.
Naval officers cannot but sympathize with the hesitation of a seaman to disregard the advice of pilots, especially on a coast foreign to him; but such sympathy should not close their eyes to the highest type of character.

Let any one compare the action of D'Estaing at New York with that of Nelson at Copenhagen and the Nile, or that of Farragut at Mobile and Port Hudson, and the inferiority of the Frenchman as a military leader, guided only by military considerations, is painfully apparent.

New York was the very centre of the British power; its fall could not but have shortened the war.

In fairness to D'Estaing, however, it must be remembered that other than military considerations had to weigh with him.