lcide, of sixty-four guns and four hundred and eighty men, and the
Lys, pierced for fifty-four guns, but mounting only twenty-two, having
eight companies of land-forces on board, being separated from the rest
of their fleet in the fog, fell in with the Dunkirk, captain Howe,
and the Defiance, captain Andrews, two sixty gun ships of the English
squadron; and after a smart engagement, which lasted some hours, and in
which captain (afterwards lord) Howe behaved with the greatest skill
and intrepidity, were both taken, with several considerable officers and
engineers, and about eight thousand pounds in money. Though the capture
of these ships, from which the commencement of the war may in fact be
dated, fell greatly short of what was hoped for from this expedition;
yet, when the news of it reached England, it was of infinite service to
the public credit of every kind, and animated the whole nation, who
now saw plainly that the government was determined to keep no further
measures with the French, but justly to repel force by force, and put
a stop to their sending more men and arms to invade the property of the
English in America, as they had hitherto done with impunity. The French,
who, for some time, did not even attempt to make reprisals on our
shipping, would gladly have chosen to avoid a war at that time, and to
have continued extending their encroachments on our settlements, till
they had executed their grand plan of securing a communication from
the Mississippi to Canada, by a line of forts, many of which they had
already erected.

FRENCH AMBASSADOR RECALLED.

Upon the arrival of the news of this action at Paris, the French
ambassador, M. de Mirepoix, was recalled from London, and M. de Bussy
from Hanover, where he had just arrived, to attend the king of England
in a public character. They complained loudly of Boscawen's attacking
the ships, as a breach of national faith; but it was justly retorted on
the part of England, that their encroachments in America had rendered
reprisals both justifiable and necessary. The resolution of making them
was the effect of mature deliberation in the English council. The vast
increase of the French marine of late years, which in all probability
would soon be employed against Great Britain, occasioned an order for
making reprisals general in Europe as well as in America; and that all
French ships, whether outward or homeward bound, should be stopped, and
brought into British po