The British avoided intercepting a French fleet that left Toulon under the comte d'Estaing in April for North America, fearing the French fleet at Brest might then be used to launch an invasion of Britain.
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Secretly approached by Louis XVI and France's foreign minister, the comte de Vergennes, Pierre Beaumarchais was given authorization to sell gunpowder and ammunition to the Americans for close to a million pounds under the veil of the Portuguese company Rodrigue Hortalez et Compagnie.
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Antoine de Sartine inherited a strong French Navy, resurrected by Choiseul after the disasters of the Seven Years' War (in which France had lost Canada, Louisiana, and India); a resurrected French Navy which would later defeat the British Navy in the War of American Independence.
One of Thurel's sons was a corporal and a veteran in the same company; he died at the Battle of the Saintes, a naval battle that occurred on 12 April 1782 off the coast of Dominica, West Indies during the American campaign.