FLEETS SENT TO THE EAST AND WEST INDIES.

Besides the diversion intended by a descent on the coast of France, several other methods were employed to amuse the enemy, as well as to protect the trade of the kingdom, secure our colonies in the West Indies, and ensure the continuance of the extraordinary success which had lately blessed his majesty’s arms in the East Indies; but these we could not mention before without breaking the thread of our narration. On the ninth of February, admiral West sailed with a squadron of men of war to the westward, as did admiral Coates with the fleet under his convoy to the West Indies, and commodore Stevens with the trade to the East Indies, in the month of March. Admiral Holbourn and commodore Holmes, with eleven ships of the line, a fire-ship, bomb-ketch, and fifty transports, sailed from St. Helen’s for America in April. The admiral had on board six thousand two hundred effective men, exclusive of officers, under the command of general Hopson, assisted by lord Charles Hay. In May, admiral Osborne, who had been forced back to Plymouth with his squadron by stress of weather, set sail for the Mediterranean, as did two ships of war sent to convoy the American trade.

In the meantime, the privateers fitted out by private merchants and societies, greatly annoyed the French commerce. The Antigallican, a private ship of war, equipped by a society of men who assumed that name, took the duke de Penthievre Indiaman, off the part of Corunna, and carried her into Cadiz. The prize was estimated worth two hundred thousand pounds, and immediate application was made by France to the court of Spain for restitution, while the proprietors of the Anti-gallican were squandering in mirth, festivity, and riot, the imaginary wealth so easily and unexpectedly acquired. Such were the remonstrances made to his catholic majesty with respect to the illegality of the prize, which the French East India company asserted was taken within shot of a neutral port, that the Penthievre was first violently wrested out of the hands of the captors, then detained as a deposit, with sealed hatches, and a Spanish guard on board, till the claims of both parties could be examined, and at last adjudged to be an illegal capture, and consequently restored to the French, to the great disappointment of the owners of the privateer. Besides the success which attended a great number of other privateers, the lords of the admiralty published a list of above thirty ships of war and privateers taken from the enemy in the space of four mouths, by the English sloops and ships of war, exclusive of the duke de Aquitaine Indiaman, now fitted out as a ship of war, taken by the Eagle and Medway; the Pondicherry Indiaman, valued at one hundred and sixty thousand pounds, taken by the Doverman of war; and above six privateers brought into port by the diligent and brave captain Lockhart, for which he was honoured with a variety of presents of plate by several corporations, in testimony of their esteem and regard. This run of good fortune was not, however, without some retribution on the side of the enemy, who, out of twenty-one ships homeward bound from Carolina, made prize of nineteen, whence the merchants sustained considerable damage, and a great quantity of valuable commodities, indigo in particular, was lost to this country.