Pococke, with an inferior force, defeated the French fleet, under M. d'Aché, near Ceylon, though without capturing any ships. Surat, a place of great consequence on the coast of Malabar, was taken by a detachment from the English settlement of Bombay. The French factory in that town was destroyed; and, on the opposite side of the peninsula, the Dutch were chastised for attempting to acquire an ascendancy in Bengal.

These avaricious republicans, whose grasping spirit no principles could moderate, no treaties restrain, became jealous of the growth of the English power in the East Indies, and, enraged at the loss of certain branches of trade, which they had been accustomed to monopolise, formed a conspiracy for the extirpation of their rivals, as atrocious as that of Amboyna. In consequence of this conspiracy (in which the French and the soubahdar of Bengal are supposed to have been engaged), the government of Batavia, under pretence of reinforcing the settlement of Chinsura, sent an armament of seven ships, and thirteen hundred soldiers, up the river Ougli. The troops disembarked near Tannah Fort; and a detachment from Chinsura advanced to meet them. Colonel Forde, who had been appointed to watch their motions, at the head of the troops of the English East India Company, gave battle first to the detachment and afterward to the main body; defeated both; killed four hundred men, and made the fugitives prisoners. About the same time, three English India ships gave battle to the Dutch squadron, and obliged the whole to strike, after an obstinate engagement'.

Thus checked, the factory at Chinsura agreed to such conditions as the government of Calcutta thought proper to impose, disclaiming all knowledge of hostile intentions. Similar protestations were made by the states-general in Europe; and the British ministry, though by no means convinced of their good faith, seemed to admit their apology. The chastisement inflicted, though necessary for self-defence, was thought sufficiently severe to operate as a correction.

While the British arms were signally victorious by land in both hemispheres, the success of our countrymen was no less splendid by sea. Elate with their advantage at St. Cas, the French talked loudly of retaliating the insults on their coasts, by invading Great Britain and Ireland. Their ministry, embarrassed by the failure of public credit, were happy to indulge the national

1 Compared Relations of the hostile attempt of the Dutch in Bengal, transmitted to the India House.

vanity. Large bodies of troops were accordingly assembled on the coasts of the Channel; men-of-war and transports were collected, and flat-bottomed boats prepared at the principal seaports. A small armament, said to be destined for the invasion of Scotland, was to sail from Dunkirk; that which was supposed to be designed against Ireland was to sail from Lower Bretagne, the troops being under the command of the duke d'Aiguillon; while the troops intended for the invasion of England, if any such intention existed, were to sail from Havre de Grace, and other ports on the coast of Normandy, and land in the night on the opposite shore.

To defeat the purpose of these boasted armaments, an English squadron, under commodore Boyes, was stationed off Dunkirk; the port of Havre de Grace was watched, and the town fiercely bombarded, by rear-admiral Rodney; sir Edward Hawke, with a formidable force, blocked up the harbour of Brest, where the French fleet, under M. de Conflans, lay in readiness to conduct, as was supposed, the transports and flat-bottomed boats belonging to the grand armament; and a small squadron detached from that under Hawke, hovered on the coast of Bretagne. These precautions were continued during the whole summer; and the projected invasions seemed, in consequence of so strict a blockade, to be laid aside by the French ministry, till the month of August, when, the battle of Minden having baffled all their designs upon Hanover, they turned their attention seriously toward their naval

armaments.

In the mean time admiral Boscawen, who commanded the British fleet in the Mediterranean, was employed in blocking up, in the harbour of Toulon, a French squadron under M. de la Clue, intended to assist, as was believed, in the descents upon the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland. But Boscawen finding it necessary to return to Gibraltar to careen, M. de la Clue took that opportunity to attempt to pass the Strait, and had nearly accomplished his purpose, when he was discovered by the English admiral; pursued, and overtaken, on the 18th of August, off Cape Lagos, on the coast of Portugal. The French squadron consisted of twelve, and the English of fourteen ships of the line. The former made a faint resistance. The admiral's ship, named the Ocean, of eighty guns, and the Redoubtable, of seventy-four guns, were destroyed; and the Temeraire and the Modeste were taken 1.

1 Boscawen's Letter in the London Gazette, Sept. 7, 1759.

This disaster did not discourage the French ministry. The greatest preparations for an invasion were made at Brest and Rochefort; and the long neglected Pretender, again flattered and caressed, is said to have remained in the neighbourhood of Vannes, in disguise, in order once more to hazard his person, and countenance a revolt in the dominions of his ancestors, to serve the ambitious purposes of France. Happily the execution of that scheme, which might have produced great confusion, was prevented by the vigilance of sir Edward Hawke, till the season of action had elapsed. But the French, in their ardour, seemed to disregard the course of the seasons, and the rage of the elements. The English fleet being driven off the coast of France by a violent storm, Conflans put to sea with twenty-one sail of the line and four frigates, and threw the inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland into the utmost terror and consternation. But their alarm was transitory.

Sir Edward Hawke, who had taken shelter in Torbay, put to sea with twenty-three ships of the line, and came up with the enemy between Belleisle and Cape Quiberon. The French admiral being on his own coast, with which he was perfectly well acquainted, and not choosing openly to hazard a battle, or expose himself to the disgrace of a retreat, attempted to take advantage of a lee-shore, thickly sown with rocks and shoals. Among these he hoped to remain secure, or profit by the temerity of his antagonist. He accordingly collected his fleet under the land. Hawke saw the danger, and determined to brave it; though, in so doing, he perhaps obeyed the dictates of his own impetuous courage rather than those of a prudent foresight. While his fleet remained entire, he was at all times equal to the important charge with which he was intrusted by his sovereign, the protection of the British kingdoms; but, should it be destroyed by fortuitous means, the consequences might prove very distressing to his country. Fortunately, on this occasion, the English admiral, whose honest mind was not the most enlightened, and whose lionheart had never listened to the cautious suggestions of fear, being little acquainted with consequential reasoning, paid less regard to the possible disaster than to the probability of acquiring a complete victory, and essentially serving his country, by the destruction of the French fleet. Regardless of every peril, he bore down with full sail upon the enemy, about two o'clock in the afternoon, and ordered the pilot to lay his own ship, the Royal George, along side of that of the French admiral, named the Royal Sun.

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The pilot represented the danger of the coast. By this remonstrance," said Hawke, you have done your duty: now execute my orders, and I will endeavour to do mine." He reluctantly obeyed. Conflans did not decline the combat; but a French captain, with the gallantry peculiar to his nation, threw himself between the admirals. One broadside from the Royal George, and a high sea, sent his noble ship, called the Thesée, with him, and all his crew, to the bottom. The Superbe shared the same fate. The Formidable struck her colours. The Royal Sun drove on shore, and was burned by her own people, as well as the Hero by the British seamen. The Juste sunk at the mouth of the Loire. Unfortunately, however, a tempestuous night, which saved the French fleet from utter ruin, proved fatal to two English ships of the line. They ran upon a sand-bank, and were irretrievably lost. But the men, and part of the stores, were saved 1.

This justly celebrated victory, which broke the boasted effort of the naval power of France, freed the inhabitants of South Britain from all apprehensions of an invasion. But the people of North Britain were still kept under alarm. The famous adventurer Thurot had sailed from Dunkirk, before M. de Conflans left Brest. His squadron consisted of five frigates, carrying about twelve hundred soldiers. With this force he reached the Scottish coast, and showed a disposition to land in the neighbourhood of Aberdeen; but being pursued by Commodore Boyes, he was obliged to take shelter on the coast of Sweden, and afterward on that of Norway. During these voyages in an inclement season, his men became sickly, his ships were greatly shattered, and he lost company with one of them. He resolved, however, to attempt something worthy of his former exploits, before his return to France. Nor was he without hopes of yet co-operating with Conflans, with whose defeat he was unacquainted. He accordingly sailed for the coast of Ireland, and took Carrickfergus. Having there victualled his ships, pillaged the town, and obtained certain intelligence of Hawke's success, he again put to sea, and steered his course homeward. But he was swiftly pursued by a squadron under Elliot, and overtaken near the Isle of Feb. 28, Man. The force, on both sides, was nearly equal: the 1760. commanders were rivals in valour and naval skill; the crews were tried; and the engagement that took place was obstinate

1 Sir Edward Hawke's Letter in the London Gazette, Nov. 1759, and information afterward received relative to the action.

and bloody. The death of the gallant Thurot determined the contest. His principal ship struck her colours, and the rest followed the example '.

These naval victories, with the conquests achieved by the British arms in North America, and in the East and West Indies —in a word, wherever shipping could give a superiority-sufficiently pointed out to the intelligent part of the nation the true line of future hostilities, and the madness of persisting in the prosecution of a ruinous German war. Yet was it resolved, by the popular administration, not only to prosecute that war, but to make it the supreme object during the ensuing campaign. Above two millions sterling were accordingly granted, by parliament, in subsidies to German princes, besides the enormous supplies demanded for maintaining twenty-five thousand British soldiers in Westphalia. And all these troops and subsidies, it must be owned, were necessary for the defence of the electorate of Hanover, and in order to enable the king of Prussia to support his declining fortunes against the Austrians, Russians, Swedes, and the army of the empire. But why the people of Great Britain should burthen themselves, for such purposes, with a great amount of additional debt, was a question that no good citizen could answer with temper, and which a quiet subject would not choose to investigate. It will therefore, suffice to observe, that such was the wish of the monarch, and the will of the minister, who governed the populace and the parliament with absolute sway; and who had the address to convince both, that it would be ungenerous in Great Britain, and unworthy of her glory, to desert an illustrious ally in distress, after having encouraged him to engage in so arduous a struggle; or to permit the electoral dominions of her sovereign, how small soever their value, to fall into the hands of an enemy whom she had vanquished in every other part of the world.

The people of France were no less generous to their king. As the ordinary resources of the state had failed, the principal nobility and gentry, in imitation of his example, threw their plate into the public treasury, to enable him to support with vigour the war in Germany; conscious that the strength of the kingdom could there, on its own frontier, be exerted to the greatest advantage, and that of Great Britain with the least effect. The French forces in Westphalia were now so augmented, as nearly to reach the number of one hundred thousand men, under the

1 London Gazette, March 3, 1760.