<P> Following naval defeats at the Battle of Quiberon Bay and Battle of Lagos, and with news of the Allied victory at Minden, the French began to have second thoughts about their plan, and in late autumn cancelled it . The French did not have the clear sea they hoped for the crossing, nor could they now spare the number of troops on the continent . A number of flaws in the plan had also become apparent, including the fact that claims of the number of Jacobite supporters were now considered wildly optimistic . </P> <P> The campaign was considered a last throw of the dice for the Jacobites to have any realistic hope of reclaiming the British throne . After the campaign the French soon abandoned the Stuarts entirely, withdrawing their support, and forcing them to take up a new home in Rome . Many of the Highland communities that had strongly supported the Jacobites in 1715 and 1745 now had regiments serving in the British army, where they played a key role in Britain's success that year . </P> <P> By 1759 the Royal Navy had expanded to 71,000 personnel and 275 ships in commission, with another 82 under ordinance . During the war the British had instituted a new system of blockade, by which they penned in the main French fleets at anchor in Brest and Toulon . The British were able to keep an almost constant force poised outside French harbours . The French inability to counter this had led to a collapse in morale among French seamen and the wider population . </P> <P> The French government had devised a plan that would allow them to launch their invasion . It required a junction of the two French fleets in the English Channel, where they would be able to cover a major invasion . However, in August 1759 the French Mediterranean Fleet under Admiral La Clue left harbour and was destroyed at the Battle of Lagos near Portugal . This left only the Channel Fleet at Brest under Conflans . When he tried to break free of the British blockade in November, he was run down and attacked by the British under Admiral Hawke at the Battle of Quiberon Bay . This victory left the British in almost total command of the seas, compounded by the effective use of naval forces in the West Indies, Canada and India . A small French force under Thurot did manage to land on the Irish coast, and menace Belfast before being forced to withdraw and being destroyed by a Royal Navy squadron in the Irish Sea . </P>

Which of the following was not an advantage of the british in the war for independence