d consumed a variety of stores to an immense value.
The damage, however, was so immediately repaired, that it had no sort
of effect in disconcerting any plan, or even in retarding any naval
preparation.

How important these preparations must have been, may be judged from the
prodigious increase of the navy, which, at this juncture, amounted to
one hundred and twenty ships of the line, besides frigates, fire-ships,
sloops, bombs, and tenders. Of these capital ships, seventeen were
stationed in the East Indies, twenty for the defence of the West
India islands, twelve in North America, ten in the Mediterranean, and
sixty-one either on the coast of France, in the harbours of England, or
cruising in the English seas for the protection of the British commerce.
Notwithstanding these numerous and powerful armaments, the enemy,
who had not a ship of the line at sea, were so alert with their small
privateers and armed vessels, that in the beginning of this year, from
the first of March to the tenth of June, they had made prize of two
hundred vessels belonging to Great Britain and Ireland. The whole number
of British ships taken by them, from the first day of June, in the year
one thousand seven hundred and fifty-six, to the first of June in the
present year, amounted to two thousand five hundred and thirty-nine; of
these, seventy-eight were privateers, three hundred and twenty-one were
retaken, and about the same number ransomed. In the same space of time,
the British cruisers had made captures of nine hundred and forty-four
vessels, including two hundred and forty-two privateers, many fishing
boats and small coasters, the value of which hardly defrayed the expense
of condemnation. That such a small proportion of ships should be taken
from the enemy is not at all surprising, when we consider the terrible
shocks their commerce had previously received, and the great number
of their mariners imprisoned in England; but the prodigious number of
British vessels taken by their petty coasting privateers, in the face
of such mighty armaments, numerous cruisers, and convoys, seem to
argue that either the English ships of war were inactive or improperly
disposed, or that the merchants hazarded their ships without convoy.
Certain it is, in the course of this year we find fewer prizes taken
from the enemy, and fewer exploits achieved at sea, than we had occasion
to record in the annals of the past. Not that the present year is
altogether barr