u. But after so long a voyage" (he had been away over
three years) "I think you should be allowed a little time to spend with
your friends on shore. It is some consolation, however, that I have some
friends on the new Board of Admiralty." "There has been a clean sweep,"
he says again, "but I hope I may have some friends amongst the new Lords
that will upon my account afford you their protection."

This was in the beginning of 1743, when Hawke had just returned from a
protracted cruise on the West India and North American stations, where
by far the greater part of his early service was passed. He never again
returned there, and very shortly after his uncle's letter, just quoted,
he was appointed to the _Berwick_, a ship-of-the-line of seventy guns.
In command of her he sailed in September, 1743, for the Mediterranean;
and a few months after, by his decided and seamanlike course in
Mathews's action, he established his professional reputation and
fortunes, the firm foundations of which had been laid during the
previous years of arduous but inconspicuous service. Two years later, in
1746, Martin Bladen died, and with him political influence, in the
ordinary acceptation, departed from Hawke. Thenceforth professional
merit, forced upon men's recognition, stood him in stead.

He was thirty-nine when he thus first made his mark, in 1744. Prior to
this there is not found, in the very scanty records that remain of his
career, as in that of all officers of his period while in subordinate
positions, any certain proof that he had ever been seriously engaged
with an enemy. War against Spain had been declared, October 19, 1739. He
had then recently commissioned a fifty-gun ship, the _Portland_, and in
her sailed for the West Indies, where he remained until the autumn of
1742; but the inert manner in which Spain maintained the naval contest,
notwithstanding that her transmarine policy was the occasion of the
quarrel, and her West Indian possessions obviously endangered, removed
all chance of active service on the large scale, except in attacking her
colonies; and in none of those enterprises had the _Portland_ been
called upon to share.

Meantime, a general European war had begun in 1740, concerning the
succession to the Austrian throne; and, in the political combinations
which followed, France and Great Britain had as usual ranged themselves
on opposite sides, though without declaring war upon each other.
Further, there had existed