Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 25.djvu/202

H island of Aix was at once reduced by the Magnanime and Barfleur, but it was found that the renegades, who had been shipped as pilots, were quite ignorant of the place. A sounding party, under the immediate command of Rear-admiral Brodrick, was sent to make independent observation. It returned late on the evening of the 24th, and on the 25th a council of war was held. From Brodrick's report it appeared that the troops might be landed on a hard sandy beach in Chatelaillon Bay, that the transports might anchor about a mile and a half from the shore, the ships of war not within two miles. The general did not consider this encouraging; the ships, he said, at this distance could not cover the landing, nor a retreat if the army should sustain any reverse; and such a reverse was extremely probable. The enemy, he argued, was well prepared; and most likely had a large army waiting for them behind the sandhills of Chatelaillon Bay. Hawke confined himself to laying before the council the possibility of putting the men on shore; this, he said, he was ready to do; as to the further operations, it was for the soldiers to decide. But the soldiers, after much hesitation, determined to do nothing. On the 29th Hawke sent them a formal message that if they had no military operations to propose he would take the fleet home. The general assented. The fleet left the anchorage on 1 Oct., and arrived at Spithead on the 6th.

A very angry public feeling was excited by the news of the failure. It was asserted that there were secret political reasons for it; that Rochefort had been spared as an equivalent for the sparing of Hanover, and as the price of more favourable terms in the convention of Kloster-Seven (Potter to Pitt, 11 Oct. 1757; Correspondence of the Earl of Chatham, i. 277;, Letters to his Son, 10, 26 Oct., 4, 20 Nov.; Horace Walpole to Conway, 13 Oct.) It was, however, on Mordaunt, not on Hawke, that indignation or suspicion fell (, p. 331), and on 22 Oct. Hawke again put to sea to look for the homeward-bound fleet of Du Bois de la Mothe. He fortunately missed it, so that it carried into Brest the terrible pestilence which raged there instead of at Portsmouth during the winter (, Traité sur les Maladies des Gens de Mer, p. 97, 2nd edit. 1780). He returned to Spithead on 15 Dec. On 12 March 1758 he again sailed, on information that the French were preparing a large convoy for America. In the beginning of April he learned that it was putting to sea; on the 3rd he chased it into St. Martin's in the Isle of Ré; on the 4th he looked into Basque Roads. Inside the Isle of Aix were five ships of the line, which threw overboard their guns and stores, and escaped on to the mud flats; the next day, with the assistance of boats from Rochefort, they got into the river. Hawke had all along vainly urged on the admiralty his want of bomb-vessels and fireships; without these he could do nothing more than cut adrift the buoys with which the flying enemy had marked their anchors and guns, and send a working party on shore at Aix to destroy the new fortifications in progress. He returned to Portsmouth, leaving a small squadron, under Captain Keppel of the Torbay, to blockade the convoy in St. Martin's. He had effectually prevented the sailing of the French expedition for many months, but was discontented at having been unable to destroy it altogether. The admiralty also were discontented; they knew that the fault was their own, and naturally vented their spleen on Hawke, whose return was coldly acknowledged. Four days' leave was curtly refused him. On 10 May he received an order to put the squadron designed for a secret expedition under the command of Captain Howe [see HOWE, RICHARD, Earl Howe]. Howe waited on Hawke with their lordship's letter about four o'clock in the afternoon, and at seven o'clock Hawke replied in an outspoken and angry letter, protesting against the conduct of the admiralty towards him during the past twelve months, more especially now in appointing Howe over his head, and finally acquainting them that he had struck his flag.

The admiralty were astounded, but Hawke could not be spared. They sent for him to attend the board; explanations and assurances were given and accepted, and on 17 May he resumed his command. Howe was still to command the secret expedition; and, to prevent the difficulty of his corresponding directly with the admiralty, independent of the commander-in-chief, Anson himself was to hoist his flag, Hawke going with him as second in command. This he would seem to have meant as a formal acknowledgment that he accepted the admiralty's explanations; and a month later (18 June) he applied to Anson to be sent home, on the pretext of a severe feverish cold, a complaint he was very subject to. He did not again hoist his flag till 13 May 1759, when he took command of the western squadron. It was known that the French were contemplating an invasion of England, or more probably of Ireland; that troops were mustered in the Morbihan; flat-bottomed boats for their transport were collected at Havre, and every exertion was to be made, by uniting the Toulon and Brest squadrons, to obtain command of the Channel. In the Mediterranean Bos-