g
the whole year Russell was the undisputed master of the Mediterranean,
passed and repassed between Spain and Italy, bombarded Palamos, spread
terror along the whole shore of Provence, and kept the French fleet
imprisoned in the harbour of Toulon. Meanwhile Berkeley was the
undisputed master of the Channel, sailed to and fro in sight of the
coasts of Artois, Picardy, Normandy and Brittany, threw shells into
Saint Maloes, Calais and Dunkirk, and burned Granville to the ground.
The navy of Lewis, which, five years before, had been the most
formidable in Europe, which had ranged the British seas unopposed from
the Downs to the Land's End, which had anchored in Torbay and had laid
Teignmouth in ashes, now gave no sign of existence except by pillaging
merchantmen which were unprovided with convoy. In this lucrative war
the French privateers were, towards the close of the summer, very
successful. Several vessels laden with sugar from Barbadoes were
captured. The losses of the unfortunate East India Company, already
surrounded by difficulties and impoverished by boundless prodigality in
corruption, were enormous. Five large ships returning from the Eastern
seas, with cargoes of which the value was popularly estimated at a
million, fell into the hands of the enemy. These misfortunes produced
some murmuring on the Royal Exchange. But, on the whole, the temper of
the capital and of the nation was better than it had been during some
years.

Meanwhile events which no preceding historian has condescended to
mention, but which were of far greater importance than the achievements
of William's army or of Russell's fleet, were taking place in London.
A great experiment was making. A great revolution was in progress.
Newspapers had made their appearance.

While the Licensing Act was in force there was no newspaper in England
except the London Gazette, which was edited by a clerk in the office
of the Secretary of State, and which contained nothing but what the
Secretary of State wished the nation to know. There were indeed many
periodical papers; but none of those papers could be called a newspaper.
Welwood, a zealous Whig, published a journal called the Observator; but
his Observator, like the Observator which Lestrange had formerly edited,
contained, not the news, but merely dissertations on politics. A crazy
bookseller, named John Dunton, published the Athenian Mercury; but the
Athenian Mercury merely discussed questions of natural