The French tried to help the last of
the Stuarts by sending supply ships and men-of-war to Scotland. But
the British fleet kept off the men-of-war, seized the supply ships, and
advanced along the coast to support the army that was running the
Jacobites down. Prince Charlie's Jacobites had to carry everything by
land. The British army had most of its stores carried fen times better
by sea. Therefore, when the two armies met for their last fight at
Culloden, the Jacobites were worn out, while the British army was quite
fresh. In Canada it was the same story when the French fortress of
Louisbourg was entirely cut off from the sea by a British fleet and
forced to surrender or starve. In both cases the fleets and armies
worked together like the different parts of one body. At Louisbourg
the British land force was entirely made up of American colonists,
mostly from enlightened Massachusetts.
A fleet sent against the French in India failed to beat that excellent
French admiral, La Bourdonnais. But Anson's famous four years voyage
round the world (1740-44) was a wonderful success.
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