There had consequently been little privateering; and the voyage to New England or Jamaica had been almost as safe as in time of peace.

Since the battle, the remains of the force which had lately been collected under Tourville were dispersed over the ocean.

Even the passage from England to Ireland was insecure.
Every week it was announced that twenty, thirty, fifty vessels belonging to London or Bristol had been taken by the French.

More than a hundred prices were carried during that autumn into Saint Maloes alone.

It would have been far better, in the opinion of the shipowners and of the underwriters, that the Royal Sun had still been afloat with her thousand fighting men on board than that she should be lying a heap of ashes on the beach at Cherburg, while her crew, distributed among twenty brigantines, prowled for booty over the sea between Cape Finisterre and Cape Clear.