the Comet bomb. This appointment was confirmed in August, 1745. In that year a fleet under Admiral Vernon was stationed in the Downs to watch the movements of the armament which had been fitted out at Ostend and Dunkirk to land the Pretender in Scotland. Several frigates and sloops were detached to the North Seas, and Howe's name appears as commander of one of these sloops. It is inferred that this promotion was made through Vernon's interest, with whom it appears that he was a favourite, by his being selected to carry up a loyal address from the fleet under that admiral's orders.

Howe's name is first publicly mentioned in the account of the siege of Fort William. It occurs in the military journal thus:

Tuesday, 18th March.-The Baltimore, Captain Richard Howe, went up towards Killmady Barns, in order to protect the landing of our men. They fired several shot and threw some cohorn shells, and set one hovel on fire, but could not attempt landing; for the rebels were entrenched by a hollow road or rill, and in great numbers. The Baltimore's guns, being only four-pounders, had no effect on the stone-walls of these barns, which the rebels had before loop-holed. We brought our people back without any damage. Soon afterwards he joined the Greyhound frigate, Captain Noel, and was severely wounded in the head, in an action with two large French ships, in a place called Loch Nony, in Mordant.'

Previous to this action, he found on his arrival in England that he had been made captain, and appointed to the Triton, with orders to receive treasure at Lisbon and bring it to England; meeting, however, in the Tagus with the Rippon, destined for the coast of Guinea, whose captain, Holborne, was unwell, they agreed to exchange ships. This being approved, Howe received his commission for the Rippon in September, 1747, ran down the coast as was then usual, and proceeded to cross the Atlantic for the Leeward Islands. Rear Admiral Knowles was then commanding a squadron on the Jamaica station: as soon as he heard that Howe was at Barbadoes, he wrote to the Admiralty thus: If their lordships would indulge me with Captain Howe's coming from the Leeward Islands, down here, as he is a pupil of my own, and equally desirous of being with me, I shall esteem it a favour. Permission was granted, and he arrived at Jamaica just too late for the action with the Spanish fleet off the Havannah, on the 2nd of October, 1748. In that action, the Cornwall, bearing the admiral's flag, suffered so much that it was thought expedient to send her home in the spring. Howe was appointed her captain, and returned to England in her, intelligence having arrived that the peace of Aix la Chapelle had been signed.

The calm and tranquil life,' says Sir John Barrow, which a

B 2

sailor

sailor is generally compelled to live on shore, compared with his active and unremitting employment afloat, ill accords with that constant wear and tear both of body and mind, which the command and the various duties of a ship of war require, to say nothing of the anxious and ardent desire of distinction with which every lover of his profession is embued.' Howe seems to have felt the languor arising from inactivity, and the peace offered but little prospect of acquiring either fame or fortune, yet, while the pendant is over head, there is always an opportunity of acquiring knowledge in the profession, and also of being in the way of anything that may turn up.' In 1751 he obtained a commission for the Glory of 44 guns, and was sent to run down the coast of Africa, visit the settlements there, for the support of which, Parliament had that year granted 10,000l., and to protect the traders. The merchants of Cape Coast Castle complained of wrongs from General Van Voorst, the Dutch Governor of Elmina. Howe anchored close under the Dutch fortress, and demanded immediate satisfaction for the injury done to the English merchants, and the restitution also of some free negroes who had been put in prison. Van Voorst hesitated to comply, but Howe gave him distinctly to understand, that although the two nations were at peace, he felt himself authorised to prevent any communication of Dutch ships with the fort till the demands should be complied with. This was holding the right tone, redress was accordingly obtained, and all differences adjusted. On his return home at the close of the year, he was appointed to the honorary command of the Mary yacht, which he soon left, on being commissioned to the Dolphin frigate, for he was desirous of more active employment. In this frigate he was employed about two years in protecting the trade in the Straits of Gibraltar, and along the coasts of France, Spain, and Barbary, in the Mediterranean.

Hitherto Howe had been employed in the ordinary course of service, and no opportunity had occurred for distinguishing himself, though that service had sometimes been sufficiently severe.

'He had the good fortune, however, to reach the highest step of rank, short of a flag officer, about the twentieth year of his age, and the sixth of his servitude. But such rapid advancement does not appear, in his case, to have been the result of any undue influence, either from party or family connexions; in those days such early promotion was not unusual, and numerous instances might be quoted, even of a much later date, of youths having risen to the rank of captain at the age of fifteen or sixteen. That abuse, for such it certainly was, has long ceased to exist, and no such untimely progress can by possibility be made in our days. A youth, who now enters the naval profession, must serve six years in one or more of his Majesty's ships, and must have completed

his nineteenth year of age, before he can be examined even, as to his qualifications to render him eligible for the commission of lieutenant; he must serve two years more in a sea-going ship, to qualify for the commission of commander; and one year, for that of captain. So that the very earliest period, supposing not a day to be lost, at which a naval officer can now arrive at the rank of captain, is, when he has completed the age of twenty-two; and he may deem himself fortunate, if he acquires that rank by the time he is thirty; many indeed are they who never attain it at all.'*-pp. 19, 20.

Returning to England in 1754, he was not long unemployed. The French were preparing a powerful armament; and it was not doubted that their preparations were designed for supporting and extending their encroachments upon the British possessions in America. The French then entertained as little doubt of outwitting the English in diplomacy, as our soldiers and sailors have learned to feel of beating them in battle. Lord Albemarle, our ambassador at Paris, died suddenly about this time. Horace Walpole says his mistress had sold him to the French court. The secrets of any statesman, however honourably he may act according to his own sense of honour, may be presumed to be for sale, if he is under the influence either of a mistress or of a father-confessor. The old debauchée is likely to be cajoled by one, the devotee by the other. Horace Walpole's opinion is worth more than his testimony, for no man was ever more deliberately a libeller; but what he asserts in this case was generally believed at Paris. In the Mémoires Secrets,' published in continuation of Bachaumont's Journal, (a compilation equally disgraceful to the compiler and to the public for which he catered,) it is said, on occasion of the Comte d'Herouville's death, in 1782, that he had been talked of for the ministry under Louis XV., and would probably have attained it had it not been for son mariage trop inégal. Il avoit épousé la fameuse Lolotte, maîtresse du Comte d'Albemarle, l' Ambassadeur d'Angleterre; laquelle servait d'espion au ministère de France auprès de son amant, et a touché en conséquence jusqu'à sa mort une pension de la cour de 12,000 livres. But if the French court purchased, as he reports, and, as is sufficiently probable, the instructions of our ambassador, they could have learned from them nothing to facilitate their own schemes of aggression-nothing but what they knew before; for the policy of England, defective as it might be on other points, had this great and paramount advantage, that it was open, honest, and straightforward.

* Such is the effect of the long list of captains, amounting in 1837 to about 700, instead of 284, the number in 1750; and of admirals in the former year, 136, in the place of 181 in the latter.

Th

The king's message, declaring that it was necessary to augment the forces by sea and land, was received with true English feeling, both by the Parliament and by the nation. A million was granted to be raised by lottery, and so eager were the people to lend their money to the government, that instead of one million, 3,880,000l. were immediately subscribed. The French continued to declare, even to M. de Mirepoix, their minister here, that no hostility was intended, nor even the slightest infringement of the treaty. But the preparations at Brest, Rochefort, and other ports, could not be kept secret; they were too notorious for this to be attempted, and the English government received certain information of the objects for which they were designed from General Wall, an Irish officer and statesman in the service of Spain, who had been ambassador for Spain in England, and having a clear view of the interests of his adopted country, was opposed to the French party in her councils. The Duc de Mirepoix began to suspect that he had not been fairly dealt with by his own government; and when the English ministry produced proofs of that insincerity and doubledealing in which he had been made to bear a part, he went to France, and upbraided the cabinet of Versailles for having employed him as their tool. They referred him to the king, and the king, pursuing the consistent system of Gallic perfidy, sent him back to London, with fresh assurances of the most pacific intentions. But dissimulation could be carried no further now. And M. de Mirepoix had scarcely obtained an audience to deliver the false professions with which he had anew been charged, when certain intelligence arrived that the French armament was ready to sail.

Immediately a squadron was equipped under Admiral Boscawen. The equipment was carried on with such despatch, that a French 74, which had been taken in the preceding war, was cleaned and sheathed at Portsmouth in eight hours and three quarters, by torch and candle-light. He sailed in April, 1755, from Plymouth with eleven sail of the line, and one frigate, and with two regiments on board. No secret was made that they had orders to attack the French ships wherever they should find them. Upon this the Duc de Mirepoix declared that his master would consider the first gun fired at sea in a hostile manner as a declaration of war. A threat like this was not required for rousing the spirit of the nation. Not only was the press for seamen carried on in all parts of Great Britain, and of Ireland also, with extraordinary vigilance, but in aid of the King's bounty, bounties were offered by almost all the considerable towns in England to those who would voluntarily enlist either as sailors or soldiers. Boscawen was reinforced with six

sail of the line, and a frigate under Admiral Holbourne. In this fleet Captain Howe had the command of the Dunkirk. The French fleet under Admiral Bois de la Motte had put to sca unperceived, but Boscawen reached the banks of Newfoundland before them, and took a position off Cape Race, the southernmost point of that island, as the most likely place to hear of or intercept them, not doubting that their destination was the St. Lawrence. The French admiral is supposed to have learned Boscawen's position; he divided his squadron into two parts; one passed through the Straits of Belleisle, a most dangerous navigation, which was never known to have been attempted before by ships of the line; the other gained the St. Lawrence by the usual passage round Newfoundland, and escaped the British fleet, owing to the fogs that prevail there and more especially in the spring. In one of those fogs the British ships had been dispersed, and when it cleared away, the Dunkirk and Defiance found themselves not only separated from their own squadron, but very near two of the French ships, the Alcide and the Lys. The British were of 60 guns cach; the Alcide was of 64, and 480 men; the Lys was pierced for the same number of guns, but being armed en flute, mounted only 22, and had eight companies of soldiers on board. There had been no declaration of war on either side; Howe, therefore, had a critical part to perform, but his good sense and English spirit led him at once to the right course. Under a press of sail he came alongside the sternmost ship, which was the Alcide, hailed the captain in the usual manner, and requested he would proceed with him to the British admiral, who was then in sight at the distance of about six miles. M. Hocquart, the captain, asked in reply whether it was peace or war? Howe repeated his request that he would accompany him to the admiral, so to prevent any order that he might otherwise receive by signal, to fire into him for not having brought to when pursued, which signal he should be bound to obey. During this parley the signal was actually thrown out from the flag-ship to engage.

The log of the Dunkirk, in the usual laconic style, thus relates the action: Being got up with the sternmost of the Alcide of 64 guns, a little before noon, and the captain refusing to shorten sail, engaged with (the signal having been made by the vice-admiral) and brought the ship to. Men killed in the action, 7; rendered unserviceable from wounds, 5; wounded in a lesser degree, 20. A smart action, Sir John Barrow calls it. By Charnock's account, it would seem to have been a severe one, the enemy making,' he says, 'a very brave and resolute defence, and not surrendering till after a contest of nearly five

hours'