fome of the great officers of ftate free from fufficient cause of alarm, until the troops were brought forward to their protection.

The prevalent fpirit was now fo ftrong as to feem to operate more or lefs every where. Nobody was fo hardy as to attempt to justify the late profecution upon its own proper ground.

For a confiderable

time the admiralty was only defended upon the plea of official neceffity; and the conduct of the profecator feemed wholly abandoned by all his friends.

Admiral Keppel had received an early letter from the admiralty, acquainting him that the fufpenfion was taken off in confequence of his acquittal, and requiring him accordingly to refume his command: although he complied with this requifition, yet from the cold official terms in which the letter was couched, as well as a maimed quotation it included from the fentence, in which the claufe moft to his own honour, and that which leaned most upon his adverfary, were both equally omitted, it feemed upon the whole to indicate, and was understood accordingly, that that board was no fharer in the general fatisfaction which attended the event of his trial. Nor was his reception at court faid to be much more pleafing. Thefe circumftances being followed up by others of the fame nature, the line of conduct was understood to be fo marked and apparent, that it afforded a fubject of open difcuffion at different times in both Houfes; the oppofition contending that it tended ftrongly to fpread and confirm an opinion, al ready too generally received, than which nothing could be more

fcandalous or difgraceful to government, namely, that the attack upon the admiral's life and honour was rather the effect of a combination, and of a concerted scheme, framed under and supported by the fanction of authority, than the ca fual refult of private pique, envy, or malice.

On the other hand, the unfortunate officer, who was now become the object of general odium, was compelled, befides the lofs of public favour and opinion, to fubmit to that of honours, of authority, and of fubftantial emoluments. On the very day that the fentence of the court-martial was difclofed in the Houfe of Commons, a noble lord, one of his late brethren in office, after expreffing fome doubts as to the propriety of the notice, he, however, faid, that, in order to quiet the minds of the people, he would inform them, that Sir Hugh Pallifer had no longer a feat at the admiralty board, his refignation having been accepted that morning. In this manner things continued for about a week longer; the oppofition waiting, as they faid, to afford an opportunity to the crown to exprefs its utmost reprobation of the late conduct, and therein vindicate its own honour, by totally difmiffing the vice-admiral of the blue from its fervice. At length, when one of the most active leaders of the oppofition was on the point of moving an addrefs for that purpofe, information was given, that Sir Hugh Pallifer had refigned his lieutenant-generalship of the Marines, and his government of Scarborough Caftle; that he had alfo vacated his feat in parliament; and only retained his vice-admiral

fhip,

fhip, as a qualification for his trial by a court-martial, which the admiralty had ordered to be held up on him.

The strong interests which were thus agitated, and the spirit of enquiry raised by the paft and the depending court-martial, were not eafily laid or qualified, and naturally directed the attention of parliament to the affairs of the navy. This fubject was almoft the only one in which parties feemed to engage. The members of oppofition directed their attacks almoft entirely against the firft lord of the admiralty, whom they confidered, in the prefent fituation of affairs, as the most efficient, and confequently as the most immediately refponfible, of any of the King's fervants.

No less than three motions of cenfure, relative to the state and difpofition of the navy, and one for the removal of the Earl of Sandwich from his Majefty's fervice, were made during the prefent feffion in the Houfe of Commons. In confequence of an addrefs for the purpose, several extracts of letters relative to the equipment of the Breft fleet having been laid before March 3d. that Houfe, Mr. Fox moved the following refolution :"That it appears to this Houfe, that the fending Admiral Keppel, in the month of June laft, to a ftation off the coaft of France, with a fquadron of twenty fhips of the line, and four frigates, at a time when a French fleet, confifting, as there is great reafon to believe, of thirty-two fhips of the line, and certainly of twenty-feven, with a great number of frigates, was at Breft, and ready to put to fea, was

a measure greatly hazardous to the fafety of the kingdom, without any profpect of an adequate advahtage."

Mr. Fox introduced his motion by a very able and animated fpeech; in the courfe of which he acknowledged, that if the prefent was carried, he would follow it with another for the removal of the first lord of the admiralty; and it would then reft with that House, whether the facts ftatedin his mo tion would not furnish matter fufficient to found upon it a parliamentary enquiry. He began with fome obfervations on the advantages refulting from thofe fort of enquiries which he propofed, and which are peculiar to free governments. He faid, that fubfequent inquifitorial controuls were a fubftitute for that fecrecy and difpatch in which arbitrary states are thought to excel, and that it more than compenfated for the want of them; as was fully proved by the irresistible exertions, and the almost inexhaustible resources, of free states; that vigour of exertion and attention to duty are always found where the final account is inevitable; and where no favour, no court cabal, can secure neglect and incapacity from detection and punishment.

The propriety of entering into the refolution propofed was fupported by the following very embarraffing dilemma. When Mr. Keppel failed from Plymouth on the 9th of June, with 20 fhips, under orders to cruize off Ufhant for a certain number of days, the admiralty board must have known that there were then thirty fail of the line ready to proceed to fea in Breft water, or elfe that board was

ignorant

ignorant of the fact. If the former, it was faid to be an act of the higheft criminality to rifque the fate of this country in fo great a difparity of force. Had an engagement happened, which muft have been inevitably the cafe, had not the most confummate wisdom and love for his country induced Admiral Keppel, in a cafe of fuch infinite importance, to difregard the orders of the minifters, the confequences might have been fatal to the naval power of this country. Our trade might have been ruined, our coafts infulted, and in the deftruction of Portsmouth and Plymouth, the feeds of all future navies for ever exterminated.

On the other hand, prefuming that the first lord of the admiralty was ignorant of the real naval force of France, would not the confequences to the nation be the fame? And therefore, it was afked, was not his conduct equally criminal? For negligence in men, entrufted with the fafety of nations, was very different from the negligences of ordinary perfons. In fuch men negligence was criminality. And, that men high in office, and in refponfible fituations, did in effect acknowledge guilt, when they pleaded ignorance in juftification of mifconduct and neglect.

On the other fide it was anfwered, that, before ignorance was fuffered to imply criminality, it was abfolutely neceffary that the fact in queftion fhould be eftablished; that it fhould be afcertained beyond a poffibility of doubt. That the fast which was produced, as the foundation of the refolution now propofed, viz. "That there 66 were 27 fhips of the line in Breft VOL. XXII,

"water," was fo far from being proved, that it was not even grounded on probability. If the papers found on board the Pallas and Licorne were adduced as proofs of the fact, nothing could be more vague, indefinite, and inconclufive. For, firft, fuppofing the import of those papers to have been ever fo precife, it was to be remembered, that they were entirely without date; and in the next place, that they contained nothing more than an order to provide anchorage for fuch a certain rate and number of fhips, It therefore contained evidence not that the fhips were ready for fea, but that anchorage was ordered for them when they fhould be ready. If the written evidence, they said, was defective, the parole evidence given by Admiral Keppel (who had been examined in his place, relative to the verbal information he received by the capture of the two French frigates) must be no lefs defective, for it was founded eutirely upon the written.

But the evidence, they faid, was not more defective in fupport of the prefumption on which the refolution was founded, than the circumftances were ftrong, which went directly to its overthrow. For it appeared that a number of French merchantmen had been fuffered to pafs through the British fleet fo late as the 23d or 24th of June. The ftrength or weaknefs of the British fleet muft have been known to them. And if the Breft fleet had fuch a fuperiority as was afferted, what reafon could be given why they did not inftantly proceed to fea, in order to meet, and to crush fo inferior an enemy? But although M. D'Orvilliers was in

[H]

poffeffion

Poffeffion of that information from the 23d of June, he did not leave Breft harbour until the 8th of July; a full proof that, contrary to the words of the resolution, there was no reason to fuppofe that there were 32, or even 27 fhips of the line, in Breft water, ready to put to fea.

It was afferted on the fame fide, that when Lord Hawke was fent to watch the motions of the French, upon the rumour of an invafion in the year 1758, the board of adniralty, upon hearing the enemy had a fuperior force out, fent him orders to return: although he did not receive the orders until the fervice was ended, that gallant and able officer anfwered the board in his letter, that he fhould never relinquish his duty, or return into port, from any trifling fuperiority of the enemy. They farther obferved, that if the evil, which was fuppofed or apprehended, had really happened, and that Admiral Keppel had been defeated, was it probable, or could it even be fuppofed, that a conflict with a British fleet of zo fhips of the line fhould have left the enemy in a condition to purfue their victory to the deftruction of all our naval magazines? The only victory, they faid, which France ever obtained over England at fea, was that over Lord Torrington in the reign of King William. Then, inftead of purfuing the advantage they had gained, instead of burning Portf mouth or Plymouth, inftead" of "exterminating the feeds of all "future navies," the French fleet, contented with its honours, retired into the ports of France to repair the damages which it had unavoidably fuftained. And fuch, they

faid, must have been the confequences of a victory, if they had obtained one, in the prefent instance.

On the other fide it was replied, that M. D'Orvilliers continuing in port after the arrival of the merchantmen who had paffed through the British fleet, was by no means a proof, nor did it even amount to a prefumptive evidence of any weight, that he was not then, with the force which had been stated, in actual condition for proceeding to fea. For it would have been a meafure extremely hazardous for that commander, and which, without exprefs orders from his court, he could not have ventured to have trufted himself to fea with 27 fail of the line before he had received the moft undoubted information of Admiral Byron's departure from the channel. For, until he was perfectly fatisfied that the Britifh flect was divided, he could have had no affurance, that, instead of twenty, he fhould not have encountered Admiral Keppel, with a fleet of 35 fhips of the line; which was the force he had caufe to apprehend, including Byron's fquadron, and three fhips, which were ready for fea, and which he had therefore a right to confider as part of the fleet. For the French merchantmen could report no farther than they faw. They faw three flags and they might, perhaps, count 20 fail of the line; but they could not poffibly anfwer that there were no more in company.

That this was the fcale by which the French regulated their conduct was evident from what followed. For as foon as Admiral Byron's deftination was known in Paris, orders were fent to Breft for the

feet