Editing Glorious First of June (section)

===French Navy===
[[Image:Louis-Thomas Villaret de Joyeuse, vice-amiral (1750-1812).jpg|upright|thumb|1839 portrait of Villaret by [[Jean-Baptiste Paulin Guérin]]]]

In contrast to their British counterparts, the [[French Navy]] was in a state of confusion. Although the quality of the fleet's ships was high, the fleet hierarchy was riven by the same crises that had torn through France since the [[French Revolution|Revolution]] five years earlier.{{sfn|Jane |1997|p=94}} Consequently, the high standard of ships and ordnance was not matched by that of the available crews, which were largely untrained and inexperienced. With the Terror resulting in the death or dismissal of many senior French sailors and officers, political appointees and conscripts—many of whom had never been to sea at all, let alone in a fighting vessel—filled the Atlantic Squadron.{{sfn|Gardiner|2001a|p=16}}

The manpower problem was compounded by the supply crisis which was affecting the entire nation, with the fleet going unpaid and largely unfed for months at times.{{sfn|James |2002|p=58}} In August 1793, these problems came to a head in the [[Ponant Fleet|Brest Fleet]], when a lack of provisions resulted in a mutiny among the fleet's [[naval rating]]s. The crews overruled their officers and brought their ships into harbour in search of food, leaving the French coast undefended.{{sfn|James |2002|p=59}} The [[National Convention]] responded by instantly executing a swathe of the fleet's senior officers and non-commissioned officers. Hundreds more officers and sailors were imprisoned, banished or dismissed from the navy. The effect of this purge was devastating, seriously degrading the fighting ability of the fleet by removing at a stroke many of its most capable personnel.{{sfn|James |2002|p=22}} In their places were promoted junior officers, merchant captains and even civilians who expressed sufficient revolutionary zeal, although few of them knew how to fight or control a battle fleet at sea.{{sfn|James |2002|p=23}}{{sfn|Padfield |2000|p=13}}

The newly appointed commander of this troubled fleet was [[Louis Thomas Villaret de Joyeuse]]; although formerly in a junior position, he was known to possess a high degree of tactical ability, and had served under Vice-Admiral [[Pierre André de Suffren]] in the Indian Ocean during the American War of Independence.{{sfn|Jane |1997|p=96}}{{sfn|Mostert|2007|p=133}} However, Villaret's attempts to mould his new officer corps into an effective fighting unit were hampered by another new appointee, a deputy of the National Convention named [[Jean-Bon Saint-André]]. Saint-André's job was to report directly to the National Convention on the revolutionary ardour of both the fleet and its admiral. He frequently intervened in strategic planning and tactical operations. Shortly after his arrival, Saint-André proposed issuing a decree ordering that any officer deemed to have shown insufficient zeal in defending his ship in action should be put to death on his return to France, although this highly controversial legislation does not appear to have ever been acted upon. Although his interference was a source of frustration for Villaret, Saint-André's dispatches to Paris were published regularly in ''[[Le Moniteur Universel]]'', and did much to popularise the Navy in France.{{sfn|James |2002|p=123–124}}

The Atlantic Squadron was even more dispersed than the British in the spring of 1794: Counter-Admiral [[Pierre Jean Van Stabel]] had been dispatched, with five ships including two of the line, to meet the much-needed French grain convoy off the American eastern seaboard. Counter-Admiral [[Joseph-Marie Nielly]] had sailed from [[Rochefort, Charente-Maritime|Rochefort]] with five ships of the line and assorted cruising warships to rendezvous with the convoy in the mid-Atlantic. This left Villaret with 25 ships of the line at Brest to meet the threat posed by the British fleet under Lord Howe.{{sfn|James |2002|p=127}}