He, and those around him, saw plainly enough that the only hope of escape from annihilation was the landing of a British force to their assistance.

Unhappily, however, England had not as yet awoke to the tremendous nature of the struggle that was going on.

Her army was a small one; and her fleet, as yet, had not attained the dimensions that were, before many years, to render her the unquestioned mistress of the seas.
The feeling that the Revolution was the fruit of centuries of oppression; and that, terrible as were the excesses committed in the name of liberty, the cause of the Revolution was still the cause of the peoples of Europe, had created a party sufficiently powerful to hamper the ministry.

Moreover, the government was badly informed in every respect by its agents in France, and had no idea of the extent of the rising in La Vendee, or how nobly the people there had been defending themselves against the whole force of France.

It is not too much to say that had England, at this time, landed twenty thousand troops in Brittany or La Vendee, the whole course of events in Europe would have been changed.