Part 52

"Early in the year [1759] the French had begun to make preparations for an invasion of the British Isles on a large scale. Flat-bottomed boats were built at Havre and other places along the coasts of Normandy and Brittany, and large fleets were collected at Brest and Toulon, besides a small squadron at Dunkirk. A considerable force was assembled at Vannes in the south of Brittany, under the command of the Duc d'Aiguillon, which was to be convoyed to the Irish coasts by the combined fleets of Brest and Toulon, while the flat-bottomed boats transported a second army across the channel under cover of a dark night. The Dunkirk squadron, under Admiral Thurot, a celebrated privateer, was to create a diversion by attacking some part of the Scotch coast. The design was bold and well contrived, and would not improbably have succeeded three or even two years before, but the opportunity was gone. England was no longer in 'that enervate state in which 20,000 men from France could shake her.' Had a landing been effected, the regular troops in the country, with the support of the newly created militia, would probably have been equal to the emergency; but a more effectual bulwark was found in the fleet, which watched the whole French coast, ready to engage the enemy as soon as he ventured out of his ports. The first attempt to break through the cordon was made by M. de la Clue from Toulon. The English Mediterranean fleet, under Admiral Boscawen, cruising before that port, was compelled early in July to retire to Gibraltar to take in water and provisions and to refit some of' the ships. Hereupon M. de la Clue put to sea, and hugging the African coast, passed the straits without molestation. Boscawen, however, though his ships were not yet refitted, at once gave chase, and came up with the enemy off [Lagos, on] the coast of Portugal, where an engagement took place [August 18], in which three French ships were taken and two driven on shore and burnt. The remainder took refuge in Cadiz, where they were blockaded till the winter, when, the English fleet being driven off the coast by a storm, they managed to get back to Toulon. The discomfiture of the Brest fleet, under M. de Conflans, was even more complete. On November 9 Admiral Sir Edward Hawke, who had blockaded Brest all the summer and autumn, was driven from his post by a violent gale, and on the 14th, Conflans put to sea with 21 sail of the line and 4 frigates. On the same day, Hawke, with 22 sail of the line, stood out from Torbay, where he had taken shelter, and made sail for Quiberon Bay, judging that Conflans would steer thither to liberate a fleet of transports which were blocked up in the river Morbihan, by a small squadron of frigates under Commodore Duff. On the morning of the 20th, he sighted the French fleet chasing Duff in Quiberon Bay. Conflans, when he discerned the English, recalled his chasing ships and prepared for action; but on their nearer approach changed his mind, and ran for shelter among the shoals and rocks of the coast. The sea was running mountains high and the coast was very dangerous and little known to the English, who had no pilots; but Hawke, whom no peril could daunt, never hesitated a moment, but crowded all sail after them. Without regard to lines of battle, every ship was directed to make the best of her way towards the enemy, the admiral telling his officers he was for the old way of fighting, to make downright work with them. In consequence many of the English ships never got into action at all; but the short winter day was wearing away, and all haste was needed if the enemy were not to escape. ... As long as daylight lasted the battle raged with great fury, so near the coast that '10,000 persons on the shore were the sad spectators of the white flag's disgrace.' ... By nightfall two French ships, the Thésée 74, and Superb 70, were sunk, and two, the Formidable 80, and the Héros 74, had struck. The Soleil Royal afterwards went aground, but her crew escaped, as did that of the Héros, whose captain dishonourably ran her ashore in the night. Of the remainder, seven ships of the line and four frigates threw their guns overboard, and escaped up the river Vilaine, where most of them bumped their bottoms out in the shallow water; the rest got away and took shelter in the Charente, all but one, which was wrecked, but very few ever got out again. With two hours more of daylight Hawke thought he could have taken or destroyed all, as he was almost up with the French van when night overtook him. Two English ships, the Essex 64, and the Resolution 74, went ashore in the night and could not be got off, but the crews were saved, and the victory was won with the loss of 40 killed and 200 wounded. The great invasion scheme was completely wrecked. Thurot had succeeded in getting out from Dunkirk, and for some months was a terror to the northern coast-towns, but early in the following year an end was put to his career. For the rest of the war the French never ventured to meet the English in battle on the high seas, and could only look on helplessly while their colonies and commerce fell into the hands of their rivals. From the day of the fight in Quiberon Bay, the naval and commercial supremacy of England was assured."

_F. W. Longman, Frederick the Great and the Seven Years War, chapter 12, section 3._

ALSO IN: _C. D. Yonge, History of the British Navy, volume 1, chapter 12._

_J. Entick, History of the late War, volume 4, pages 241-290._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1760. Completed conquest of Canada. Successes of the Prussians and their allies.

See CANADA: A. D. 1760; and GERMANY: A. D. 1760.

{928}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1760-1763. Accession of George III. His ignorance and his despotic notions of kingship. Retirement of the elder Pitt. Rise and fall of Bute. The Grenville Ministry.

"When George III. came to the throne, in 1760, England had been governed for more than half a century by the great Whig families which had been brought into the foreground by the revolution of 1688. ... Under Walpole's wise and powerful sway, the first two Georges had possessed scarcely more than the shadow of sovereignty. It was the third George's ambition to become a real king, like the king of France or the king of Spain. From earliest babyhood, his mother had forever been impressing upon him the precept, 'George be king!' and this simple lesson had constituted pretty much the whole of his education. Popular tradition regards him as the most ignorant king that ever sat upon the English throne; and so far as general culture is concerned, this opinion is undoubtedly correct. ... Nevertheless ... George III. was not destitute of a certain kind of ability, which often gets highly rated in this not too clear-sighted world. He could see an immediate end very distinctly, and acquired considerable power from the dogged industry with which he pursued it. In an age where some of the noblest English statesmen drank their gallon of strong wine daily, or sat late at the gambling-table, or lived in scarcely hidden concubinage, George III. was decorous in personal habits and pure in domestic relations, and no banker's clerk in London applied himself to the details of business more industriously than he. He had a genuine talent for administration, and he devoted this talent most assiduously to selfish ends. Scantily endowed with human sympathy, and almost boorishly stiff in his ordinary unstudied manner, he could be smooth as oil whenever he liked. He was an adept in gaining men's confidence by a show of interest, and securing their aid by dint of fair promises; and when he found them of no further use, he could turn them adrift with wanton insult. Anyone who dared to disagree with him upon even the slightest point of policy he straightway regarded as a natural enemy, and pursued him ever afterward with vindictive hatred. As a natural consequence, he surrounded himself with weak and short-sighted advisers, and toward all statesmen of broad views and independent character he nursed the bitterest rancour. ... Such was the man who, on coming to the throne in 1760, had it for his first and chiefest thought to break down the growing system of cabinet government in England."

_J. Fiske, The American Revolution, chapter 1 (volume 1)._

"The dissolution of Parliament, shortly after his accession, afforded an opportunity of strengthening the parliamentary connection of the king's friends. Parliament was kept sitting while the king and Lord Bute were making out lists of the court candidates, and using every exertion to secure their return. The king not only wrested government boroughs from the ministers, in order to nominate his own friends, but even encouraged opposition to such ministers as he conceived not to be in his interest. ... Lord Bute, the originator of the new policy, was not personally well qualified for its successful promotion. He was not connected with the great families who had acquired a preponderance of political influence; he was no parliamentary debater: his manners were unpopular: he was a courtier rather than a politician: his intimate relations with the Princess of Wales were an object of scandal; and, above all, he was a Scotchman. ... Immediately after the king's accession he had been made a privy councillor, and admitted into the cabinet. An arrangement was soon afterwards concerted, by which Lord Holdernesse retired from office with a pension, and Lord Bute succeeded him as Secretary of State. It was now the object of the court to break up the existing ministry, and to replace it with another, formed from among the king's friends. Had the ministry been united, and had the chiefs reposed confidence in one another, it would have been difficult to overthrow them. But there were already jealousies amongst them, which the court lost no opportunity of fomenting. A breach soon arose between Mr. Pitt, the most powerful and popular of the ministers, and his colleagues. He desired to strike a sudden blow against Spain, which had concluded a secret treaty of alliance with France, then at war with this country.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1761 (AUGUST).

Though war minister he was opposed by all his colleagues except Lord Temple. He bore himself haughtily at the council, --declared that he had been called to the ministry by the voice of the people, and that he could not be responsible for measures which he was no longer allowed to guide. Being met with equal loftiness in the cabinet, he was forced to tender his resignation. The king overpowered the retiring minister with kindness and condescension. He offered the barony of Chatham to his wife, and to himself an annuity of £3,000 a year for three lives. The minister had deserved these royal favours, and he accepted them, but at the cost of his popularity. ... The same Gazette which announced his resignation, also trumpeted forth the peerage and the pension, and was the signal for clamors against the public favourite. On the retirement of Mr. Pitt, Lord Bute became the most influential of the ministers. He undertook the chief management of public affairs in the cabinet, and the sole direction of the House of Lords. ... His ascendency provoked the jealousy and resentment of the king's veteran minister, the Duke of Newcastle: who had hitherto distributed all the patronage of the Crown, but now was never consulted. ... At length, in May 1762, his grace, after frequent disagreements in the cabinet and numerous affronts, was obliged to resign. And now, the object of the court being at length attained, Lord Bute was immediately placed at the head of affairs, as First Lord of the Treasury. ... The king and his minister were resolved to carry matters with a high hand, and their arbitrary attempts to coerce and intimidate opponents disclosed their imperious views of the prerogative. Preliminaries of a treaty of peace with France having been agreed upon, against which a strong popular feeling was aroused, the king's vengeance was directed against all who ventured to disapprove them. The Duke of Devonshire having declined to attend the council summoned to decide upon the peace, was insulted by the king, and forced to resign his office of Lord Chamberlain. A few days afterwards the king, with his own hand, struck his grace's name from the list of privy councillors. ... No sooner had Lord Rockingham heard of the treatment of the Duke of Devonshire than he ... resigned his place in the household. A more general proscription of the Whig nobles soon followed. The Dukes of Newcastle and Grafton, and the Marquess of Rockingham, having presumed, as peers of Parliament, to express their disapprobation of the peace, were dismissed from the lord-lieutenancies of their counties. ... Nor was the vengeance of the court confined to the heads of the Whig party. {929} All placemen, who had voted against the preliminaries of peace, were dismissed. ... The preliminaries of peace were approved by Parliament; and the Princess of Wales, exulting in the success of the court, exclaimed, 'Now my son is king of England.' But her exultation was premature. ... These stretches of prerogative served to unite the Whigs into an organised opposition. ... The fall of the king's favoured minister was even more sudden than his rise. ... Afraid, as he confessed, 'not only of falling himself, but of involving his royal master in his ruin,' he resigned suddenly [April 7, 1763],--to the surprise of all parties, and even of the king himself,--before he had held office for eleven months. ... He retreated to the interior cabinet, whence he could direct more securely the measures of the court; having previously negotiated the appointment of Mr. George Grenville as his successor, and arranged with him the nomination of the cabinet. The ministry of Mr. Grenville was constituted in a manner favourable to the king's personal views, and was expected to be under the control of himself and his favorite."

_T. E. May, Constitutional History of England, 1760-1860, chapter 1._

ALSO IN: _J. H. Jesse, Memoirs of the Life and Reign of George III., chapter 1-10 (volume 1)._

_The Grenville Papers, volumes 1-2._

_W. Massey, History of England: Reign of George III., chapters 2-3 (volume 1)._

_G. O. Trevelyan, Early History of Charles James Fox, chapter 4._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1760-1775. Crown, Parliament and Colonies. The conflicting theories of their relations.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1760-1775.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1761-1762. The third Family Compact of the Bourbon kings. War with Spain.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1761 (AUGUST).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1761-1762. The Seven Years War: Last Campaigns in Germany.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1761-1762.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1 762. Capture of Havana.

See CUBA: A. D. 1514-1851.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1762-1764. "The North Briton," No. 45, and the prosecution of Wilkes.