Political oversight and the 1 June balance

The French entered the main battle with three first rates and twenty-three third rates against a British mix of three first, four second, and eighteen third rates. The video stresses that these categories did not yield a simple arithmetic advantage because gun power, damage, and crew quality also mattered. Villaret-Joyeuse additionally sailed with representative-on-mission Jean Bon Saint-André, reflecting revolutionary fears that commanders might defect or surrender. Political supervision could answer a loyalty problem, but it also made an already strained command structure more difficult to operate.