Page:The Annual Register 1758.djvu/19

Rh the shadow of this stratagem, they got ready in the harbour of Toulon

a fleet of twelve men of war of the line with the utmost expedition, which convoyed an army of about 11,000 men, under command of the Duke de Richlieu, to the island of Minorca.

In a few days they opened trenches before St. Philip's fort.

This was done while the nation trembled under a shameful panic, too public to be concealed, too fatal in its consequences to be ever forgotten. The real invasion did not lessen our fears of the imaginary one; it threw us into a confusion that suffered us to be sensible of nothing but our own weakness. We did not look upon ourselves sufficiently secured by the arrival of the Hanoverian and Hessian troops, which the same weakness had induced us to call to our assistance. The ministry seemed to have been infected with the common terror; for, though they had very early notice of the French designs, such was the apprehension of the invasion, or such the ill contrived disposition of our navy, that Admiral Byng was not dispatched to the Mediterranean before the 5th of April, and then with a squadron of no more than ten ships of the line.

The engagement with the French fleet under M. Galissoniere;

the retreat of Byng, by which the garrison of fort St. Philip was cut off from all hopes of relief; the surrender of that garrison after nine weeks open trenches; the sentiments

of the court and the public, on the different merits of the governor and the admiral; the opposition of some, who thought the one too highly honoured; and the other too severely censured, and the measures which rather indignation at our losses and disgraces, than a cool sense of things obliged us to take, are known to all the world. Our affairs were in such a condition, that we were driven to the expedient of a court martial to revive the British spirit, and to the unfortunate

necessity of shedding the blood of an admiral, a person of a noble family, as a sacrifice to the discipline of our navy.

From this melancholy picture, let us turn our eyes another way, and review the steps by which this war came to involve the rest of the contending powers. The French, amongst the other plans they formed for distressing our affairs, made no secret of their design of attacking his Majesty's German dominions. These countries evidently had no sort of connection with the matters which gave rise to the war. But being under a sovereign so remarkably affectionate to his native country; they judged he might be terrified into a relaxation of his rights in America, to preserve Hanover from the calamities with which it was threatened. Their politics, however, in this instance proved as unsuccessful as they were unjust. No motion was made towards an abatement in our claims with regard to America; his Majesty took other methods for the preservation of the peace of Germany. His British subjects by their representatives, not more generously than reasonably, resolved to defend the Hanoverians if attacked in their quarrel. To answer this purpose; the ministry entered into a subsidy treaty with the Empress of Russia, in virtue of which she was to hold 55,000 men in readiness to be sent on a requisition wherever the British service required.