QUIBERON, CAMPAIGN AND BATTLE OF. Several plans were made for the invasion of the British Isles by the French during the Seven Years' War, and in 1759 an army was assembled at Vannes in Brittany, with its transports lying in the Morbihan, the landlocked waters inside Quiberon bay. To protect this force while undertaking the invasion, the French planned to unite their fleets at Toulon and Brest ; but these ports were blockaded by Admiral Edward Boscawen and Admiral Sir Edward Hawke respectively. During July 1759 Boscawen was compelled to take his squadron to Gibraltar for provisions and refitting, and Admiral de la Clue led the Toulon fleet through the straits of Gibraltar with the idea of reaching Brest. But he was pursued from Gibraltar by Boscawen, and in the running fight which finished in Lagos bay his force was completely disorganized and defeated.
Meanwhile Hawke continued the blockade of Brest with the utmost pertinacity, but on Nov. 9, 1759, he was forced to run into Torbay by lack of stores and exceptionally bad weather. On Nov. 14 he was again at sea ; but by this time the French had learnt of his withdrawal, thanks to some ships from the West Indies which reached Brest without being held up. Admiral Conflans took the Brest fleet to sea on the same day that Hawke left Torbay (Nov. 14), and headed south. Hawke, on learning from one of his scout ing ships the course taken by the French, also headed south. Con tinual changes of wind and weather made consistent navigation extremely difficult, but on the morning of Nov. 20 both fleets were about 3om. off Belle-Ile. Conflans, seeing a few English ships under Commodore Duff watching Quiberon bay, stood in close to capture them, but on sighting Hawke's fleet to the north-west, he changed his mind and determined to run into the bay itself, keeping his fleet as closed up as possible.
On sighting the French, Hawke signalled "line abreast" in order to concentrate his force, and followed this up by "general chase" and "line of battle ahead." Hawke's leading ships crowding sail with a fresh north-west gale astern of them, soon began to over haul the French, who were sailing in close order at the speed of the slowest. At 2:3o p.m., just as Conflans was rounding Belle-Ile,
his rearmost ships began to be attacked, and soon afterwards both fleets swept into the bay, bet ween the Cardinal islands and the Four sandbank. Inside the bay, owing to its peculiar shape, the sea was terrific ; there were innumerable reefs and sandbanks ; the short winter's day was rapidly closing in ; and both fleets were driving towards a lee shore. There were of the line in each fleet, but the French had a great advantage in carrying pilots who knew the coast, and with scarcely three hours' daylight left there seemed little chance of a decisive action, especially as it was almost impos sible to open the lower deck gun-ports. Nevertheless, two French ships were sunk and another was captured before Hawke made the signal to anchor. Next morning, Nov. 2 1 , the French fleet scat tered ; seven ships after throwing their guns overboard ran up the River Vilaine, and nine ran out to sea for Rochefort, one sinking on the way. A ship which had struck the night before but had not been captured ran on the Four in trying to escape and was burnt, together with two English ships which had also run aground. Con flans' flagship, the "Soleil Royal," which had anchored nearly in the middle of the English fleet, ran herself ashore on Nov. and was burnt by her own crew. An attempt to burn the ships in the Vilaine by a boat attack was abandoned, owing to bad weather and the strong defences of the river mouth. Nevertheless, the French Brest fleet was now quite useless as a tactical combination, and "had we had but two hours more daylight," wrote Hawke, "the whole had been totally destroyed or taken ; for we were almost up with their van when night overtook us." With both their fleets defeated, the French were now compelled to abandon their in vasion project, and cease all major naval operations for the rest of the war.