The end of the war seemed not far away.

But it did not come.

The French admirals were often taken from an army command, and d'Estaing was not a sailor but a soldier.

He feared the skill of Howe, a really great sailor, whose seven available ships were drawn up in line at Sandy Hook so that their guns bore on ships coming in across the bar.
D'Estaing hovered outside.

Pilots from New York told him that at high tide there were only twenty-two feet of water on the bar and this was not enough for his great ships, one of which carried ninety-one guns.