Incomplete casualty records and a continuing campaign

French loss estimates rely on incomplete captain's reports and British observations aboard captured ships, while British returns support a more secure total of roughly twelve hundred casualties. Howe still tried to find the grain convoy despite the condition of his fleet. Montagu sailed again, cornered Cornic's squadron near Brittany, and then withdrew when Villaret appeared with enough ships to threaten entrapment. Those movements helped Howe and Montagu return safely but did not intercept the convoy. The American grain ships reached France after losing only one vessel in a storm, preserving the operational fact behind later claims of French strategic success.