EXPEDITION TO CANADA.

The English ministry had conceived great expectations from an expedition against Quebec and Placentia, in North America, planned by colonel Nicholson, who had taken possession of Nova Scotia, and garrisoned Porte Royal, to which he gave the name of Anapolis. He had brought four Indian chiefs to England, and represented the advantages that would redound to the nation in point of commerce, should the French be expelled from North America. The ministers relished the proposal. A body of five thousand men was embarked in transports, under the command of brigadier Hill, brother to Mrs. Masham; and they sailed from Plymouth in the beginning of May, with a strong squadron of ships commanded by sir Hovenden Walker. At Boston in New England, they were joined by two regiments of provincials; and about four thousand men, consisting of American planters, Palatines, and Indians, rendezvoused at Albany, in order to march by land into Canada, while the fleet sailed up the river of that name. On the twenty-first day of August they were exposed to a violent storm, and driven among rocks, where eight transports perished, with about eight hundred men. The admiral immediately sailed back to Spanish-river bay, where it was determined, in a council of war, that as the fleet and forces were victualled for ten weeks only, and they could not depend upon a supply of provisions from New England, they should return home without making any further attempt. Such was the issue of this paltry expedition, intrusted to the direction of an officer without talents and experience.

In the Irish parliament held during the summer, the duke of Ormond and the majority of the peers supported the tory interest, while the commons expressed the warmest attachment to revolution principles. The two houses made strenuous representations, and passed severe resolutions against each other. After the session, sir Constantine Phipps, the chancellor, and general Ingoldsby, were appointed justices in the absence of the duke of Ormond, who returned to England in the month of November. In Scotland the Jacobites made no scruple of professing their principles and attachments to the pretender. The duchess of Gordon presented the faculty of advocates with a silver medal, representing the chevalier de St. George; and on the reverse the British islands, with the motto “Redditte.” After some debate, it was voted, by a majority of sixty-three voices against twelve, that the duchess should be thanked for this token of her regard. This task was performed by Dundas of Arnistoun, who thanked her grace for having presented them with a medal of their sovereign lord the king; hoping, and being confident, that her grace would very soon have an opportunity to compliment the faculty with a second medal, struck upon the restoration of the king and royal family, upon the finishing rebellion, usurping tyranny, and whiggery. An account of this transaction being laid before the queen, the lord-advocate was ordered to inquire into the particulars. Then the faculty were so intimidated that they disowned Dundas, and Home his accomplice. They pretended that the affair of the medal had been transacted by a party at an occasional meeting, and not by general consent; and, by a solemn act, they declared their attachment to the queen and the protestant succession. The court was satisfied with this atonement; but the resident from Hanover having presented a memorial to the queen, desiring that Dundas and his associates might be prosecuted, the government removed sir David Dalrymple from his office of lord-advocate, on pretence of his having been too remiss in prosecuting those delinquents; and no further inquiry was made into the affair.