inferior in strength, and it is obvious
that his design was not to fight the enemy, as he immediately made
the best of his way to Halifax. About the middle of September,
being reinforced with four ships of the line, he again proceeded to
Louisbourg, probably with intention, if possible, to draw the enemy
to an engagement; but he found de la Mothe too prudent to hazard an
unnecessary battle, the loss of which would have greatly exposed all the
French colonies. Here the English squadron continued cruising until
the twenty-fifth, when they were overtaken by a terrible storm from the
southward. When the hurricane began, the fleet were about forty leagues
distant from Louisbourg; but were driven in twelve hours within
two miles of the rocks and breakers on that coast, when the wind
providentially shifted. The ship Tilbury was wrecked upon the rocks, and
half her crew drowned. Eleven ships were dismasted, others threw their
guns overboard; and all returned in a very shattered condition to
England, at a very unfavourable season of the year. In this manner ended
the expedition to Louisbourg, more unfortunate to the nation than the
preceding designs upon Rochefort; less disgraceful to the commanders,
but equally the occasion of ridicule and triumph to our enemies.
Indeed, the unhappy consequences of the political disputes at home, the
instability of the administration, and the frequent revolutions in our
councils, were strongly manifested by that langour infused into all our
military operations, and general unsteadiness in our pursuits. Faction,
in the mother-country, produced divisions and misconduct in the
colonies. No ambition to signalize themselves appeared among the
officers, from the uncertainty whether their services were to be
rewarded or condemned. Their attachment to particular persons weakened
the love they ought to have entertained for their country in general,
and destroyed that spirit of enterprise, that firmness and resolution
which constitutes the commander, and without which the best capacity,
joined to the most uncorruptible integrity, can effect nothing.

The French king not only exerted himself against the English in America,
but even extended his operations to their settlements in Africa, where
he sent one of his naval commanders with a small squadron, to reduce.
This gentleman, whose name was Kersin, had scoured the coast of Guinea,
and made prize of several English trading ships; but his chief aim was
to