French firepower masks institutional weakness

On paper the French fleet was at least comparable and in some respects heavier, with L'Orient and several powerful 80-gun ships. Its abundance of senior officers partly reflected the need to supervise new ships and unseasoned crews. One flag officer also served as another's chief of staff and political insurance, so the heavy senior presence was partly administrative and political. Counting modern-style stars made the French command look far stronger than Nelson's, but rank could not replace missing experience. Earlier exclusions of Huguenots and the Revolution had stripped away layers of institutional knowledge, leaving impressive matériel without equivalent depth of trained personnel. Many of the captured hulls consequently spent longer in Royal Navy service than they had under the French flag.