ACHIEVEMENTS IN THE BAY OF QUIBERON.

No action of importance was in the course of this year achieved by the naval force of Great Britain in the seas of Europe. A powerful squadron still remained in the hay of Quiberon, in order to amuse and employ a body of French forces on that part of the coast, and interrupt the navigation of the enemy; though the principal aim of this armament seems to have been to watch and detain the few French ships which had run into the river Vil-laine, after the defeat of Confians; an object, the importance of which will doubtless astonish posterity. The fleet employed in this service was alternately commanded by admiral Boscawen and sir Edward Hawke, officers of distinguished abilities, whose talents might have been surely rendered subservient to much greater national advantages. All that Mr. Boscawen could do in this circumscribed scene of action was, to take possession of a small island near the river Vannes, which he caused to be cultivated, and planted with vegetables, for the use of the men infected with scorbutic disorders arising from salt provision, sea air, and want of proper exercise. In the month of September, sir Edward Hawke, who had by this time relieved Mr. Boscawen, detached the gallant lord Howe, in the Magnanime, with the ships Prince Frederick and Bedford, to reduce the little island of Dumet, about three miles in length, and two in breadth, abounding with fresh water. It was defended by a small fort, mounted with nine cannon, and manned with one company of the regiment of Bourbon, who surrendered in a very short time after the ships had begun the attack. By this small conquest a considerable expense was saved to the nation in the article of transports employed to carry water for the use of the squadron.

Admiral Rodney still maintained his former station off the coast of Havre de Grace, to observe what should pass at the mouth of the Seine. In the month of July, while he hovered in this neighbourhood, five large flat bottomed boats, laden with cannon and shot, feet sail from Harfleur in the middle of the day, with their colours flying, as if they had set the English squadron at defiance; for the walls of Havre de Grace, and even the adjacent hills, were covered with spectators, assembled to behold the issue of this adventure. Having reached the river of Caen, they stood backwards and forwards upon the shoals, intending to amuse admiral Rodney till night, and then proceed under cover of the darkness. He perceived their drift, and gave directions to his small vessels to be ready, that, as soon as day-light failed, they should make all the sail they could for the mouth of the river Orne, in order to cut off the enemy’s retreat, while he himself stood with the larger ships to the steep coast of Port Bassin. The scheme succeeded to his wish. The enemy, seeing their retreat cut off, ran ashore at Port Bassin, where the admiral destroyed them, together with the small fort which had been erected for the defence of this harbour. Each of those vessels was one hundred feet in length, and capable of containing four hundred men for a short passage. What their destination was we cannot pretend to determine; but the French had provided a great number of these transports, for ten escaped into the river Orne leading to Caen; and in consequence of this disaster one hundred were unloaded, and sent up again to Rouen. This was not all the damage that the enemy sustained on this part of the coast. In the month of November, captain Curry, of the Acteon, chased a large privateer, and drove her ashore between Cape Barfleur and La Hogue, where she perished. The cutters belonging to admiral Rodney’s squadron scoured the coast towards Dieppe, where a considerable fishery was carried on, and where they took or destroyed near forty vessels of considerable burden. Though the English navy suffered nothing from the French during this period, it sustained some damage from the weather. The Conqueror, a new ship of the line, was lost in the channel, on the island of St. Nicholas, but the crew and cannon were saved. The Lyme, of twenty guns, foundered in the Categat, in Norway, and fifty of the men perished; and, in the West Indies, a tender belonging to the Dublin, commanded by commodore sir James Douglas, was lost in a single wind, with a hundred chosen mariners.

Of the domestic transactions relating to the war, the most considerable was the equipment of a powerful armament destined for some secret expedition. A numerous body of forces was assembled, and a great number of transports collected at Portsmouth. Generals were nominated to the command of this enterprise. The troops were actually embarked with a great train of artillery; and the eyes of the whole nation were attentively fixed upon this armament, which could not have been prepared without incurring a prodigious expense. Notwithstanding these preparations, the whole summer was spent in idleness and inaction; and in the latter end of the season the undertaking was laid aside. The people did not fail to clamour against the inactivity of the summer, and complained that, notwithstanding the immense subsidies granted for the prosecution of the war, no stroke of importance was struck in Europe for the advantage of Great Britain; but that her treasure was lavished upon fruitless parade, or a German alliance still more pernicious. It must be owned indeed, that no new attempt was made to annoy the enemy on British principles; for the surrender of Montreal was the natural consequence of the steps which had been taken, and of the measures concerted in the course of the preceding year. It will be allowed, we apprehend, that the expense incurred by the armament at Portsmouth, and the body of troops there detained, would have been sufficient, if properly applied, to reduce the island of Mauritius in the Indian ocean, Martinique in the West Indies, or Minorca in the Mediterranean; and all these three were objects of importance. In all probability, the design of the armament was either to intimidate the French into proposals of peace; to make a diversion from the Rhine, by alarming the coast of Bretagne; or to throw over a body of troops into Flanders, to effect a junction with the hereditary prince of Brunswick, who, at the head of twenty thousand men, had made an irruption as far as the Lower Rhine, and even crossed that river; but he miscarried in the execution of his design.