The conditions and the course of events of trade protection in home waters were much the same in 1707 as in 1704. The decline in strength of the active fleets of French great ships let the Allies carry on the service in the Mediterranean with a smaller force, but they still had a large fleet there, very likely larger than they really needed. Despite a long list of ships under repair and the slow progress in refits inevitable at that stage of the war, Great Britain had a greater strength at home in the later year; and this balanced the larger number of ships, individually more powerful than hitherto, in the Brest and Dunkirk cruising squadrons. Yet, misfortunes and mistakes apart, the force at home was still not large enough. The British trade and its protecting men-of-war suffered even more severely from the squadronal attack. I have mentioned in Chapter 11 the raid by great ships from Brest on some army victuallers in the Bay of Biscay in February. Two raids by the Dunkirk cruisers came in the summer, the first upon a coastwise convoy passing through the Channel, the second on the trade going to Russia. And in the autumn the Brest and Dunkirk squadrons together fell upon a big fleet outward bound in the Soundings.