inden and Quiberon and
Quebec. France aimed both at a descent upon England and at the conquest
of Hanover; for the one purpose she gathered a naval armament at Brest,
while fifty thousand men under Contades and Broglie united for the other
on the Weser. Ferdinand with less than forty thousand met them (August
1) on the field of Minden. The French marched along the Weser to the
attack, with their flanks protected by that river and a brook which ran
into it, and with their cavalry, ten thousand strong, massed in the
centre. The six English regiments in Ferdinand's army fronted the French
horse, and, mistaking their general's order, marched at once upon them
in line regardless of the batteries on their flank, and rolling back
charge after charge with volleys of musketry. In an hour the French
centre was utterly broken. "I have seen," said Contades, "what I never
thought to be possible--a single line of infantry break through three
lines of cavalry, ranked in order of battle, and tumble them to ruin!"
Nothing but the refusal of Lord John Sackville to complete the victory
by a charge of the horse which he headed saved the French from utter
rout. As it was, their army again fell back broken on Frankfort and the
Rhine. The project of an invasion of England met with the like success.
Eighteen thousand men lay ready to embark on board the French fleet,
when Admiral Hawke came in sight of it on the 20th of November at the
mouth of Quiberon Bay. The sea was rolling high, and the coast where the
French ships lay was so dangerous from its shoals and granite reefs that
the pilot remonstrated with the English admiral against his project of
attack. "You have done your duty in this remonstrance," Hawke coolly
replied; "now lay me alongside the French admiral." Two English ships
were lost on the shoals, but the French fleet was ruined and the
disgrace of Byng's retreat wiped away.

[Sidenote: Pitt in America.]

It was not in the Old World only that the year of Minden and Quiberon
brought glory to the arms of England. In Europe, Pitt had wisely limited
his efforts to the support of Prussia, but across the Atlantic the field
was wholly his own, and he had no sooner entered office than the
desultory raids, which had hitherto been the only resistance to French
aggression, were superseded by a large and comprehensive plan of
attack. The sympathies of the colonies were won by an order which gave
their provincial officers equal rank with the r