would have been
protracted, and so many vigorous sallies might have been made, that the
assailants would have had cause to repent of their enterprise.

When the news of this conquest was brought to Versailles, by the count
of Egmont, whom the duke de Richelieu had dispatched for that purpose,
the people of France were transported with the most extravagant joy.
Nothing was seen but triumphs and processions, nothing heard but
anthems, congratulations, and hyperbolical encomiums upon the conqueror
of Minorca, who was celebrated in a thousand poems and studied orations;
while the conduct of the English was vilified and ridiculed in ballads,
farces, and pasquinades. Nothing more argues the degeneracy of a warlike
nation than the pride of such mean triumph, for an advantage, which,
in more vigorous times, would scarce have been distinguished by the
ceremony of a _Te Deum Laudamus_. Nor is this childish exultation, that
disgraces the laurels of victory, confined to the kingdom of France.
Truth obliges us to own, that even the subjects of Great Britain are apt
to be elevated by success into an illiberal insolence of self-applause,
and contemptuous comparison. This must be condemned as a proof of
unmanly arrogance, and absurd self-conceit, by all those who coolly
reflect that the events of war generally, if not always, depend upon the
genius or misconduct of one individual. The loss of Minorca was severely
felt in England, as a national disgrace; but, instead of producing
dejection and despondence, it excited an universal clamour of rage and
resentment, not only against Mr. Byng, who had retreated from the French
squadron; but also in reproach of the administration, which was taxed
with having neglected the security of Minorca. Nay, some politicians
were inflamed into a suspicion, that this important place had been
negatively betrayed into the hands of the enemy, that in case the arms
of Great Britain should prosper in other parts of the world, the French
king might have some sort of equivalent to restore for the conquests
which should be abandoned at the peace. This notion, however, seems to
have been conceived from prejudice and party, which now began to
appear with the most acrimonious aspect, not only throughout the united
kingdoms in general, but even in the sovereign's councils.

GALLANTRY OF FORTUNATUS WRIGHT.

Sir Edward Hawke, being disappointed in his hope of encountering La
Galissonniere, and relieving the Eng