11. The Royal Navy blockade of the American coast was a complete failure
During the early years of the Revolutionary War French firms, such as Hortalez et Cie, were created to camouflage the support of the French government for the American cause. Supplies from France, including uniforms, boots and shoes, muskets and flints, gunpowder, field guns, food, and all of the other requirements of an army in the field were supplied by the French, later joined by the Dutch and the Spanish. The supplies did not trickle in, they arrived in ship after ship having successfully run the British blockade. The British did seize many ships, but many more got through.
The failure to establish a successful blockade was the single biggest contribution by the Royal Navy to the defeat of the British in the war. The blockade also failed to contain the raids of the privateers and Continental Navy ships which went to sea and preyed on the vessels sent to resupply British troops in North America. The porous nature of the blockade was wholly avoidable, as later wars would prove, such as during the War of 1812, when the US Navy was effectively blockaded after 1813, and the American Civil War, when blockade running by Confederate ships became a far more hazardous occupation.
