Картины маринистов - корабли

The primary strategy of the British Royal Navy of the eighteenth century
was to bring the enemy fleet to battle and destroy it, thereby preventing
a possible armed invasion of Britain, Scotland, or Ireland.
Admiral Horatio Nelson identified the ultimate goal of British naval
strategy as "the annihilation of the enemy." To attain this objective, the
English needed to maintain an overwhelming strength at sea.3 In the
1740s, for example, the British had 90 ships-of-the-line and 84 frigates, a
number that increased during the next decade. By comparison, the
French had 45 ships of the line and 76 frigates, and the numbers of
French vessels fell as those of British increased during the Seven Years
War.

The disparity in fleet size is best explained in terms of French naval
strategy. The French objective in maintaining a fleet was to protect their
trading establishments, island outposts, and colonies. The Royal Marine
was also used to facilitate ulterior objectives on the Continent such as
the movement of troops or the distribution of supplies. The French
needed, therefore, to have only enough ships to resist scattered incursions
of their empire or to similarly threaten British interests. The policy
of the French admirals was "to neutralize the power of their adversaries,
if possible, by grand maneuvers rather than to destroy it by grand attack."
This strategy, known in maritime circles as that of a "fleet in
being," required a stronger enemy to take extraordinary measures to
maintain its preponderance of strength while allowing the weaker the
economy of maintaining a smaller naval establishment and applying its
national resources elsewhere.

Mahan noted that the reliance on the defensive use of
sea power alone harbored an intrinsic inadequacy for a nation with many
posts and scattered colonies, compelling the strategist "to distribute his
force so as to be strong enough to stop the enemy on any line of attack
that he [might] adopt."6 These differences in naval strategy must not be
forgotten as it is only against this backdrop that some of the naval campaigns
of the period can be interpreted.