bad, and indifferent. Upon this Lord Howe observed, that he could not subscribe to the mode his lordship took of estimating the naval strength of Great Britain; good and indifferent, a prudent man would think was stretching the account to the utmost verge of show, indeed he could hardly say, utility; but to include the bad in the statement would be dangerous computation indeed.' Upon the overthrow of the Coalition, when Mr. Pitt became minister, Lord Howe was again called to the Admiralty, and thus a second time brought into an office for the duties of which he had little relish, and probably for some of them,' says his biographer, as little qualification.' But for Sir John Barrow's remarks upon that office, and the administration of naval affairs, the reader must be referred to the book itself, where it is treated at considerable length, with full knowledge of the subject in all its bearings. Lord Howe remained at the Admiralty till the year 1788, when Mr. Pitt's parsimony determining to keep down the navy estimates below what the veteran admiral knew was necessary for keeping the fleet in that state of efficiency which the honour and the interests of the country required, induced him to resign. A month after his resignation, the king, in acknowledgment of his many and important services, was pleased to create him an Earl of Great Britain; and at the same time bestowed on him the title of Baron Howe of Langar, in Nottingham, to descend to his eldest daughter and her heirs male. In 1790, upon the dispute with Spain concerning Nootka Sound, Earl Howe was appointed to command in the Channel Soundings, or wherever his Majesty's service should require, and the peculiar mark of distinction of hoisting the Union flag at the main was conferred on him-being the first instance of such an honour since Admiral Benbow, in 1701. When the difference with Spain had been accommodated, he was suffered to remain unmolested by the cares of office or of naval command, in the enjoyment of rural dissipation; but whether engaged in business or pleasure his thoughts and feelings were as irrevocably turned to naval concerns as the needle to the Pole.' On the death of Rodney, in 1792, he was appointed to succeed him as ViceAdmiral of England, an honorary situation with which he was highly gratified. He was now advanced in years, and much afflicted with the gout, which almost annually attacked him, and sometimes threatened his head and stomach. His work, however, was not yet done, and he was called upon thus late in life to more arduous and important services than he had ever hitherto performed. Upon the breaking out of the war with France, he was appointed in February, 1793, once more to the Channel fleet. That war had not taken us unprepared. Our dock-yards had been Supplied with stores; the ships were in a rapid and of 115 ships of the line the greater part condition wy put to sea on July 14, with twenty-three sail of aw divisions, under Vice-Admiral Graves and Sir Ho His instructions informed him that eight or suled from Brest in order to join five more from Rochtors, and his immediate attention was to be evention of their return to Brest, or of forming am other ships from thence. Before he got out the weather became such that he deemed it expey and anchor in Torbay, as the best position for ** as soon as the season became favourable. from an American vessel that she had passed the worssting of seventeen sail, to the westward of sight of them on the 31st, their topsails appearso-head just above the horizon. Two days after sight of and on August 10th, he was fain urte Torbay, some of the ships having sprung bos having their sails split. From this time ember his attention was engaged in promani-hound convoys. He then fell in with an arsisting of six sail of the line and two em but the headmost and best sailers of chance to come up with them, that they Natarother; and after keeping the sea Wember the fleet went into port to refit. ses the Admiral by the newspapers, boon made, and no battle fought, and he nently coming into Torbay instead of end this appears to have affected him, for he to retire, pleading his infirmities and advanced Pint without whom Lord Chatham took no imporbs office of Admiralty,' would not for a moment »ddle of April. 1794, the Channel fleet assembled at 1: msisted of thirty-two sail of the line, six of Frigates were placed under Rear Admiral Monattend the outward-bound convoy and the East hippe, leaving twenty-two sail of the line and the immediate command of Lord Howe. To • W Alexander Hood and Graves were attached, Kerk Padley, Caldwell, Bowyer, and Gardner. ཟླ་ dawa war were to break out now, no historian would 4 to 4 de et the state of our fleets and dock-yards! On Ón the 2nd of May they put to sea. On the 4th, Lord Howe, having advanced with the several convoys as far as the Lizard, detached Montague with them, and proceeded for Ushant. The Latona and the Phaeton had been in the morning to look into Brest. They discovered one ship of the line with two frigates and two brigs at anchor in Camaret Bay, and twenty-two large ships were clearly seen within the Goulet, with a considerable number of smaller vessels. The French were expecting a very large and valuable convoy from North America and the West Indies, and the fleet continued cruizing in foggy and blowing weather in hopes of intercepting it. On the 19th, being close in with Ushant, the Latona and Phaeton again looked into Brest: it was then found that the enemy's fleet had put to sea, and an American vessel reported that it consisted of twenty-four sail of the line and ten frigates, that they had sailed on the 17th, and that their object was to protect the expected convoy. On the 25th, after a fruitless search for the enemy, two French corvettes, steering after the fleet on the supposition that it was their own, were taken and destroyed. Lord Howe could not send these and several other prizes and recaptures into any port without lessening his too little strength in frigates. He now stood under easy sail looking for the enemy's fleet in the direction where they were supposed to be; and on the morning of May 28, several French ships were discovered very far distant in the south-east, the wind then blowing fresh from the south by west, with a rough sea. The battle, which commenced on the 28th of May, and takes its name from the 1st of June, on which day it was brought to an end, was the most splendid and important service of the many which Earl Howe accomplished in the course of his long career. His biographer therefore gives the admiral's own account of the transactions of the three days, as recorded in his private journal, written with his own hand, a valuable document, which it has been deemed proper and fitting to give entire without addition or alteration. Of the engagement itself,' Sir John Barrow says, 'little in addition need be said, after the minute and circumstantial detail entered into by Mr. James, the indefatigable and accurate historian of naval actions.' The details occupy not less than sixty pages in that valuable work. Mr. Locker has not given a memoir of Lord Howe, declining health having compelled him to leave unfinished a work which he had begun so well, and for which he was so singularly well qualified. His volume, however, contains an account of this battle, written with characteristic perspicuity and animation. It was a battle which rather resembled the long sea-fights in Charles II.'s reign than the victories of Rodney and Nelson. The French never before fought better, A 194 ΕΙΣ The unferance n irre between the DAN ZA rulants and great skill, and he De aas Tersunai zamie deserved. One berry to act as circum svs Mr. Locker, ‘availed themWCORE » Thu se zesy. In attempting At low rey is Lordship, who loved # MATERIA Which tended greatly to inChs shows the wisdom of Lord Nelson's chie who exer a commander-in-chief has these sora de eptais want little further direc12 pamëse do their duty; and if not, such is the Guld Dw Depower of watching the conduct of kom, ofte se pa negating, or at least neutralising, wag ka pusyse omitted in the next year's code of que A# My appear to have been in this inmy maxime and Howe's qualifying note had the same hul acumele in reliance upon the gallantry of their Ang Pam i take advantage of any opportunity that The diet waned to Portsmouth with six of the The at hende slipse in tow; two of these were 80-gun mother 4 sunk immediately on taking pos session session of her. The British loss amounted to 1156 in killed and wounded, the French to 1270, besides 320 who went down in the Vengeur; prisoners, 2300. It was the opinion of most naval men at the time that the victory was not followed up as it might and should have been. The effect, however, upon the country, and upon the enemy also, was the same. The superiority of the British navy was once more proved. If it was not like one of Rodney's actions, it was not like Keppel's; the spirit of our navy, some time dormant, was revived, that of the enemy depressed; it was to the one a decided victory, to the other as decided a defeat. It was the more important, inasmuch as they had emulously brought the force of revolutionary excitement against the steady, national courage of their opponents. Their ships, too, were more than usually well manned-the destruction of their ships at Toulon by Lord Hood having left the men of the Toulon fleet disposable for this service. They were well officered also; the naval officers (who were always well trained) being almost the only class of persons whom the Revolution seems to have spared. Never before,' says the Moniteur, did there exist in Brest a fleet so formidable and well-disposed as that which is now lying there. Unanimity and discipline reign among officers and men, and all burn with desire to fight the enemies of their country upon the very banks of the Thames, and under the walls of London.' An address had been read to the seamen at Brest and L'Orient, by two deputies of the National Convention, in which it was said 'You will conquer the English; yes, you will conquer those eternal enemies of our nation. As for that, you have but to will it, and it is done.' These orations were read also to the different ships' companies in every ship by the chief officers and lest this excitement should fail of its desired effect, the National Convention adopted a decree, which was proposed by Jean Bon St. André, declaring that if any ship of the line should strike the national colours, however superior the enemy's force might be, unless the ship was so shattered as to be in danger of sinking before the crew could be saved, the captain and officers should be pronounced traitors to their country and suffer death; and that the captain and officers of any frigate, corvette, or smaller vessel, who should surrender to a force double their own, unless in the specified extremity, should be punished in the same manner. When these circumstances are considered, the battle of the 1st of June will be found to have been of greater consequence than many more brilliant actions. Greater skill might have been displayed in the action, greater energy in following up the victory; but the battle could not have been more bravely fought, nor more gallantly won, nor more important in its moral effect upon both nations. |