It was important to bring matters to an issue, for, as he wrote Elliot, his force was diminishing daily through the deterioration of ships never from the first fit for their work.

Measured by the standard of the ships in the Channel, "I have but four sail fit to keep the sea.

I absolutely keep them out by management." Except the four, all needed docking, and there was not a dock open to the British west of Constantinople.
But, while thus keenly anxious to force an action, he was wary to obtain tactical conditions that should insure a success, adequate both to the risk he ran, and to the object at which he aimed.

"I think their fleet will be ordered out to fight close to Toulon, that they may get their crippled ships in again, and that we must then quit the coast to repair our damages, and thus leave the coast clear; but my mind is fixed not to fight them, unless with a westerly wind, outside the Hieres, and with an easterly wind, to the westward of Sicie." Crippled there, to leeward of their port, the other British division coming up fresh, as a reserve, from the southward, where it lay concealed, would both cut them off, and rescue any of their own fleet that might have been overpowered.

Bickerton's orders were to remain due south from Port Cros, one of the Hyeres, at a distance such that, with the upper canvas furled, his ships could not be seen from the islands, but could keep the main division in sight from their mastheads.