NAVAL ENGAGEMENT OFF TOULON.

By this time an action had happened in the Mediterranean, between the British fleet commanded by admiral Matthews, and the combined squadrons of France and Spain, which had been for some time blocked up in the harbour of Toulon. On the ninth day of February they were perceived standing out of the road, to the number of four-and-thirty sail; the English admiral immediately weighed from Hieres bay; and on the eleventh, part of the fleets engaged. Matthews attacked the Spanish admiral, Don Navarro, whose ship, the Real, was a first rate, mounted with above an hundred guns. Rear-admiral Rowley singled out M. de Court, who commanded the French squadron; and a very few captains followed the example of their commanders; but vice-admiral Lestock, with his whole division, remained at a great distance astern; and several captains, who were immediately under the eye of Matthews, behaved in such a manner as reflected disgrace upon their country. The whole transaction was conducted without order or deliberation. The French and Spaniards would have willingly avoided an engagement, as the British squadron was superior to them in strength and number. M. de Court, therefore, made the best of his way towards the Straits’ mouth, probably with intention to join the Brest squadron; but he had orders to protect the Spanish fleet; and as they sailed heavily, he was obliged to wait for them, at the hazard of maintaining a battle with the English. Thus circumstanced, he made sail and lay-to by turns; so that the British admiral could not engage them in proper order; and as they outsailed his ships, he began to fear they would escape him altogether should he wait for vice-admiral Lestock, who was so far astern. Under this apprehension he made the signal for engaging, while that for the line of battle was still displayed; and this inconsistency naturally introduced confusion. The fight was maintained with great vivacity by the few who engaged. The Real being quite disabled, and lying like a wreck upon the water, Mr. Matthews sent a fire-ship to destroy her; but the expedient did not take effect. The ship ordered to cover this machine did not obey the signal; so that the captain of the fire-ship was exposed to the whole fire of the enemy. Nevertheless he continued to advance until he found the vessel sinking; and being within a few yards of the Real, he set fire to the fusees. The ship was immediately in flames, in the midst of which he and his lieutenant, with twelve men, perished. This was likewise the fate of the Spanish launch, which had been manned with fifty sailors to prevent the fire-ship from running on board the Real. One ship of the line belonging to the Spanish squadron, struck to captain Hawke, who sent a lieutenant to take possession of her; she was afterwards retaken by the French squadron; but was found so disabled that they left her deserted, and she was next day burned by order of admiral Matthews. At night the action ceased; and the admiral found his own ship so much damaged, that he moved his flag into another. Captain Cornwall fell in the engagement, after having exhibited a remarkable proof of courage and intrepidity; but the loss of men was very inconsiderable. Next day the enemy appeared to leeward, and the admiral gave chase till night, when he brought to, that he might be joined by the ships astern. They were perceived again on the thirteenth at a considerable distance, and pursued till the evening. In the morning of the fourteenth, twenty sail of them were seen distinctly, and Lestock with his division had gained ground of them considerably by noon; but admiral Matthews displayed the signal for leaving off chase, and bore away for Port Mahon, to repair the damage he had sustained. Meanwhile the combined squadrons continued their course towards the coast of Spain. M. de Court, with his division, anchored in the road of Alicant; and Don Navarro sailed into the harbour of Carthagena. Admiral Matthews, on his arrival at Minorca, accused Lestock of having misbehaved on the day of action; suspended him from his office, and sent him prisoner to England, where, in his turn, he accused his accuser. Long before the engagement, these two officers had expressed the most virulent resentment against each other. Matthews was brave, open, and undisguised; but proud, imperious, and precipitate. Lestock had signalized his courage on many occasions, and perfectly understood the whole discipline of the navy; but he was cool, cunning, and vindictive. He had been treated superciliously by Matthews, and in revenge took advantage of his errors and precipitation. To gratify this passion, he betrayed the interest and glory of his country; for it is not to be doubted, but that he might have come up in time to engage; and, in that case, the fleets of France and Spain would, in all likelihood, have been destroyed; but he intrenched himself within the punctilios of discipline, and saw with pleasure his antagonist expose himself to the hazard of death, ruin, and disgrace. Matthews himself, in the sequel, sacrificed his duty to his resentment, in restraining Lestock from pursuing and attacking the combined squadrons on the third day after the engagement, when they appeared disabled and in manifest disorder, and would have fallen an easy prey had they been vigorously attacked. One can hardly, without indignation, reflect upon these instances in which a community has so severely suffered from the personal animosity of individuals. The miscarriage off Toulon became the subject of a parliamentary inquiry in England. The commons, in an address to the throne, desired that a court-martial might be appointed to try the delinquents. By this time Lestock had accused Matthews, and all the captains of his division who misbehaved on the day of battle. The court-martial was constituted, and proceeded to trial. Several commanders of ships were cashiered; vice-admiral Lestock was honourably acquitted, and admiral Matthews rendered incapable of serving for the future in his majesty’s navy. All the world knew that Lestock kept aloof, and that Matthews rushed into the hottest part of the engagement. Yet the former triumphed on his trial, and the latter narrowly escaped the sentence of death for cowardice and misconduct. Such decisions are not to be accounted for, except from prejudice and faction. The war in Germany, which had been almost extinguished in the last campaign, began to revive, and raged with redoubled violence. The emperor had solicited the mediation of his Britannic majesty, for compromising the differences between him and the court of Vienna. Prince William of Hesse-Cassel had conferred with the king of England on this subject; and a negotiation was begun at Hanau. The emperor offered to dismiss the French auxiliaries, provided the Austrians would evacuate his hereditary dominions. Nay, prince William and lord Carteret, as plenipotentiaries, actually agreed to preliminaries, by which his Imperial majesty engaged to renounce the alliance of France, and throw himself into the arms of the maritime powers; to resign all pretensions to the succession of the house of Austria; and to revive the vote of Bohemia in the electoral college, on condition of his being re-established in the possession of his dominions, recognised as emperor by the queen of Hungary, and accommodated with a monthly subsidy for his maintenance, as his own territories were exhausted and impoverished by the war. By a separate article, the king of Great Britain promised to furnish him with three hundred thousand crowns, and to interpose his good offices with the queen of Hungary, that his electoral dominions should be favourably treated. These preliminaries, though settled, were not signed. The court of Vienna was unwilling to part with their conquests in Bavaria and the Upper Palatinate. The queen trusted too much to the valour of her troops, and the wealth of her allies, to listen to such terms of accommodation; and whatever arguments were used with the king of Great Britain, certain it is the negotiation wras dropped, on pretence that the articles were disapproved by the ministry of England. The emperor, environed with distress, renewed his application to the king of Great Britain; and even declared that he would refer his cause to the determination of the maritime powers; but all his advances were discountenanced; and the treaty of Worms dispelled all hope of accommodation. In this manner did the British ministry reject the fairest opportunity that could possibly occur of terminating the war in Germany with honour and advantage, and of freeing their country from that insufferable burden of expense under which she groaned.

GEORGE II. 1727-1760