Unbeknownst to either Villaret or Cornwallis, the British Channel Fleet was also at sea, having sailed from Spithead on 12 June with 14 ships of the line and 11 smaller vessels under the command of Admiral Alexander Hood, 1st Viscount Bridport. Bridport had been tasked with ensuring the safety of a convoy of transports, commanded by Commodore Sir John Borlase Warren, which carried a French Royalist army to Quiberon with the intention of triggering a counter-revolution in Brittany. This force consisted of an additional three ships of the line, six frigates and more than 50 transports containing 2,500 French Royalists. The voyage across the English Channel and around the Ushant headland took seven days, the combined fleet and expeditionary force arriving off Belle Île on 19 June. Bridport had ordered Warren to take his convoy on to Quiberon while the main body of the Channel Fleet stood further out to sea to intercept any attack by the French Atlantic Fleet, which Bridport assumed would advance southwards from Brest. What the British admiral did not know was that not only had the French fleet sailed a week earlier, they were still at sea – Villaret's ships having been blown southwards by a severe gale on 18 June and forced to take shelter in the anchorage off Belle Île.