deford, and the frigate with which the former was engaged bore away with all the sail she could carry. Captain Kennedy pursued her till noon the next day, when he entirely lost sight of her; by which means she got into Lisbon with the loss of several men besides the lieutenant of marines, and considerably damaged in her hull and rigging. In three days he was joined by the Biddeford, who, after a most severe conflict, had compelled her antagonist to fly, and had chaced her till she was out of sight. Soon after the action began, Captain Skinner, while standing upon the arm-chest to inspect the several posts, and to animate his men by his example, was unfortunately killed. He was an officer equally brave and boun tiful, and as much beloved for his gentleness and humanity as respected for his skill and courage by those who served under him. The command devolved upon the honourable Lieutenant Knollis, who maintained the battle with great spirit, even after he was wounded; and a second shot through his body deprived him of life. Notwithstanding these disasters, the crew of the Biddeford, though deprived of their officers, their main top-mast shot away, the ship disabled in her rigging, and the enemy's fire which continued exceedingly hot, discovered no signs of fear or of disinclination to the service. The master of the ship now assumed the command, and every man aboard acted as if on his personal bravery alone the fortune of the engagement had depended. While the master kept. the quarter-deck, and took care of the posts there, the purser was stationed on the main-deck, and kept up a brisk and well-directed fire. Numbers of the wounded men returned with chearfulness to their posts, after the surgeon had dressed their wounds. Their cool determined valour prevailed over a ship double their own in strength. The enemy's fire began to slacken, one gun becoming silent after another, till at length the enemy did not discharge four guns

in a quarter of an hour. It was believed they were going to strike; but it proved, that they were preparing for flight; for a little after, about ten at night, the engagement having lasted three hours, they bore away with all the sail they could crowd. The Biddeford took the opportunity to pour a broadside into her enemy, and a volley of small arms nearly at the same instant. But, when she attempted to chace, the sailors found they had no command of their ship, the rigging being cut to pieces, and the masts and yards shattered and disabled.

The spirit of enterprise, a consciousness of their own superiority, and a contempt of the French, seem to have been communicated to the meanest seaman of Great Britain at this happy period. As an example of this kind, the bravery of five Irishmen and a boy, belonging to the crew of a ship from Waterford, has been much celebrated. The ship, in her return from Bilboa, being taken by a French privateer off Ushant, the captors removed all the hands but these five men and a boy, who were left to assist nine Frenchmen in navigating the vessel. These daring Hibernians immediately formed a plan of insurrection, which they executed with success. Four of the French mariners being below deck, three aloft among the rigging, one at the helm, and another walking the deck, Brian, who headed the enterprise, tripped up the heels of the French steersman, seized his pistol, and discharged it at him who walked the deck; but, missing the mark, he knocked him down with the butt-end of the piece. At the same time hallooing to his confederates below, they assailed the enemy with their broad swords, and, soon compelling them to submit, came upon deck, and shut the hatches. The Irish being now in possession of the quarter-deck, the French who were aloft called for quarter, and surrendered without opposition. As neither Brian nor any of his associates could read or write, or knew the least prin

1

ciple of navigation, they steered the ship northward at a venture, and the first land they made was the neighbourhood of Youghall in the county of Cork.

The captures from the French, within the course of this year, consisted of royal ships of war, privateers, and armed merchantmen. The royal ships were six, mounting in all one hundred and seventy six guns. The privateers and armed merchantmen amounted to one hundred and ten, which carried eight hundred and forty-eight carriage guns, two hundred and forty swivels, and six thousand three hundred and eightynine men. The English navy suffered little from the French during this period, but sustained great damage from the weather. The Conqueror, a new ship of the line, was lost in the channel off the island of St. Nicholas; the crew and guns were saved. The Lyne of twenty guns foundered in the Cattegate in Norway, and fifty of the men perished. In the West Indies a tender belonging to the Dublin commanded by Commodore Sir James Douglas, was lost in a gale of wind, with one hundred chosen mariners. But these losses, great as they were, seemed inconsiderable, compared to that of the Ramillies, a magnificent ship of the second rate, belonging to the squa dron which Admiral Boscawen commanded on the coast of France. In the beginning of February a series of stormy weather obliged the admiral to return from the Bay of Quiberon to Plymouth, where he arrived with much difficulty. The Ramillies, having overshot the entrance to the Sound, and being embayed near a point called the Bolt-head, about four leagues higher up the channel, was dashed in pieces among the rocks, after her anchors and cables had given way. All her officers and men, one midshipman and twenty-five of the seamen excepted, amounting to seven hundred, perished.

The number of merchant vessels taken by the French amounted to above three hundred, chiefly, however, coasters and colliers of very inconsiderable

value. Nor would it have been at all surprising if the French had taken not only more numerous but more valuable prizes. While their own commerce was in a great measure destroyed, and they had no merchant ships at sea but some coasters, and a few vessels, under convoy from the West Indies, the trading fleets of England covered the ocean. Every year her commerce was augmenting; the money which the war carried out was returned by the produce of her industry; the sinking fund amounted annually to above three millions, and, in the year 1760, eight thousand vessels were employed by the traders of Great Britain.

But, notwithstanding this happy flow of prosperity, if we compare the naval and military transactions of the present year with those of the preceding, they will appear extremely inconsiderable. Excepting the reduction of Montreal, which was a natural consequence of our prior conquests in Canada, no additional acquisitions of great consequence had been made by the British arms. The English strength and wealth were employed in the war of Germany; but our operations, undertaken upon national principles, and tending to the interest of Great Britain, began gradually to languish. It was hoped, therefore, that after a general war of five years, carried on upon a larger scale, and attended with greater expence, and more surprising revolutions of fortune, than any war of equal duration that had ever taken place among the nations of Europe, it was now full time to give tranquillity to the four quarters of the globe, all of which had been shaken by our commotions. The posture of affairs was now much altered from what had taken place during the first periods of hostility. The ambition of France, which had inflamed the fuel of dissension, had been crowned with success in the beginning of the war. Admiral Byng behaved disgracefully in the Mediterranean, Minorca was taken, and the battle of Hastembeck seemed to decide

the fate of the electorate of Hanover. The duke of Cumberland was shut up at Closterseven, and the Canadians obtained considerable advantages over the English in North America. But now all was changed. The French had not reaped the fruits which they expected from their success in Germany, and had been obliged to abandon some part of their conquests; their interest was totally ruined in North America; in the East Indies, where they had formerly so many flourishing settlements, they were confined to one town; and the principal source of their wealth was cut off by the loss of Guadaloupe, Goree, and Senegal, and the destruction of their commerce and shipping. The misfortunes which France had already experienced in carrying on a naval war against Great Britain, induced her, as early as the year 1758, to signify her pacific intentions to the English ministry, who declined listening at that time to any proposals of negociation. In the following year the court of London was not so decisively bent on continuing the war; but it was not till 1761 that they began to think seriously of laying down their victorious arms. Had France been equally sincere in the wishes for accommodation which she publicly professed, matters might then have been amicably adjusted. But she had by this time discovered an after game, which remained for her to play, notwithstanding all her bad fortune. She had alarmed the pride and jealousy of the court of Spain, whose rich and extensive American possessions seemed now to lie at the mercy of the English colonies, and whose honour was deeply wounded in the disgrace inflicted on the first prince of the house of Bourbon. If the whole strength of the Spanish monarchy, augmented by continual accessions during a long peace, could be drawn into the vortex of hostility, France expected to be able still to retrieve her affairs. While she publicly declared for peace, her secret hopes were all centered in war; she treated of friendship with a spirit of enmity; and