Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 04.djvu/213

Benbow a conviction. In September 1694 he was again appointed to a similar flotilla intended to act against Dunkirk. The bomb-vessels were to be supported by a number of so-called machines, invented by one Meester, an engineer. They would seem to have been explosive fireships, similar to, but smaller than, the one tried at St. Malo in the summer. The attacking squadron was covered by the fleet from the Downs, commanded by Sir Clowdisley Shovell, and the attempt was made on 12 and 13 Sept. No result, nowever, was obtained. The French had blocked the entrance to the port, and, the weather having set in stormy, the fleet and the flotilla returned to the Downs. In the following summer it was resolved to make a further attempt with these machines. Benbow was again appointed to the command of the bomb-vessels, which, supported by the English and Dutch fleet under Admirals Lord Berkeley and Van Almonde, appeared off St. Malo on 4 July, and immediately opened fire. They kept this up till dark, renewed it the next morning, and continued it till evening, when they drew off, without any decisive result, several houses having been knocked down or set on fire, whilst on the side of the assailants some of the bomb-vessels were shattered or sunk. In a council of war held the next day it was resolved that as much had been done as could be hoped for. Benbow, with the bomb- vessels and some frigates, was sent along the coast to attack Granville, which he shelled for some hours, alarming, but not seriously injuring, the inhabitants (P.R.O. Home Office (Admiralty) Records, ix., Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 21494, ff. 29 et seq.). In the further attacks on the French coast during that summer Benbow had no share. He gave up his command on the return of the fleet to the Downs. 'Benbow is quitting his ship,' wrote Lord Berkeley on 23 July. 'I cannot imagine the reason. He pretends sickness, but I think it is only feigned.' And on the 28th he again wrote : 'As to Captain Benbow, I know of no difference between him and me, nor have we had any. He has no small obligation to me, but being called in some of the foolish printed papers "the famous Captain Benbow," I suppose has put him a little out of himself, and has made him play the fool, as I guess, in some of his letters. I will not farther now particularize this business, but time will show I have not been in the wrong, unless being too kind to an ungrateful man.' Notwithstanding this, however, Benbow's conduct was warmly approved of; the admiralty ordered him 'to be paid as rear-admiral during the time he has been employed this summer on the coast of France as a reward for his good service' (Minutes, 12 Sept. 1695), and early in the following spring gave him the rank as well.' In May 1696 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the squadron before Dunkirk, and was ordered to stretch as far to the northward as he thought 'convenient for the intercepting of Bart's squadron and protecting the English and Dutch trades expected home northabout.' The orders to look out for Bart were repeated more than once (Minutes, 15 May, 29 July), but Benbow's efforts were unavailing. In the middle of September he did, indeed, manage to get a distant view of the object of his search, but Bart easily escaped into Dunkirk. Benbow, on learning this, returned to the Downs, and in December was appointed to command the squadron in the Soundings for the protection of the home-ward-bound trade. He continued on this service till the peace, when, with very short rest, he was (9 March 1697-8) appointed commander-in-chief of the king's ships in the West Indies, with special orders to hunt down the pirates. His sailing was delayed till November, and he did not reach Barbadoes till February of the next year, 1698-9. Thence he proceeded towards the Spanish main, and, by a threat of blockading Cartagena, induced the governor to restore two English merchant ships which he had detained to form part of a projected expedition against the Scotch colony at Darien. Benbow's action virtually put an end to this, and preserved the colonists for the time, This result would seem to have been displeasing to the home government, and in June stringent orders were sent out to Benbow and the governors in the West Indies 'not to assist the Scotch colony in Darien' (Adm, Min. 21 June 1699). The rest of the year was occupied in ineffectual efforts to persuade or constrain the Spanish commandants at Porto Bello, or St. Domingo, to restore some ships which had been seized for illicit trading, and in a vain attempt to induce the Danish governor of St. Thomas's to give up some pirates who had sheltered themselves under the Danish flag. He afterwards ranged along the coast of North America as far as Newfoundland, scaring the pirates away for the time, but failing to capture any, and towards the summer of 1700 he returned to England. He was almost immediately appointed to the command in the Downs, and continued there through the spring and summer of 1701, when he served for some months as vice-admiral of the blue, in the grand fleet under Sir George Rooke, and was then again sent to the West Indies as commander-in-chief. He arrived at 