ad actually discovered, in the
preceding month, on their voyage to Toulon. On the seventeenth day of
July the admiral called a council of war in the road of Tetuan, when
they resolved to make an attempt upon Gibraltar, which was but slenderly
provided with a garrison. Thither they sailed, and on the twenty-first
day of the month the prince of Hesse landed on the isthmus with eighteen
hundred marines; then he summoned the governor to surrender, and was
answered, that the place would be defended to the last extremity. Next
day the admiral gave orders for cannonading the town; perceiving that
the enemy were driven from their fortifications at the south mole-head,
he commanded captain Whi-taker to arm all the boats, and assault that
quarter. The captains Hicks and Juniper, who happened to be nearest the
mole, immediately manned their pinnaces, and entered the fortifications
sword in hand. The Spaniards sprung a mine, by which two lieutenants,
and about a hundred men were killed or wounded. Nevertheless, the two
captains took possession of a platform, and kept their ground until they
were sustained by captain Whi-taker, and the rest of the seamen, who
took by storm a redoubt between the mole and the town. Then the governor
capitulated; and the prince of Hesse entered the place, amazed at the
success of this attempt, considering the strength of the fortifications,
which might have been defended by fifty men against a numerous army.

A sufficient garrison being left with his highness, the admiral returned
to Tetuan to take in wood and Water; and when he sailed, on the ninth
day of August, he descried the French fleet, to which he gave chase with
all the sail he could spread. On the thirteenth he came up with it,
as it lay in a line off Malaga ready to receive him, to the number
of two-and-fifty great ships, and four-and-twenty galleys, under the
command of the count de Tholouse, high-admiral of France, with the
inferior flags of the white and blue divisions. The English fleet
consisted of three-and-fifty ships of the line, exclusive of frigates,
but they were inferior to the French in number of guns and men, as well
as in weight of metal, and altogether unprovided with galleys, from
which the enemy reaped great advantage during the engagement. A little
after ten in the morning the battle began, with equal fury on both
sides, and continued to rage with doubtful success till two in the
afternoon, when the van of the French gave w