leading to Caen; and
in consequence of this disaster one hundred were unloaded, and sent up
again to Rouen. This was not all the damage that the enemy sustained on
this part of the coast. In the month of November, captain Curry, of
the Acteon, chased a large privateer, and drove her ashore between Cape
Barfleur and La Hogue, where she perished. The cutters belonging to
admiral Rodney's squadron scoured the coast towards Dieppe, where a
considerable fishery was carried on, and where they took or destroyed
near forty vessels of considerable burden. Though the English navy
suffered nothing from the French during this period, it sustained some
damage from the weather. The Conqueror, a new ship of the line, was lost
in the channel, on the island of St. Nicholas, but the crew and cannon
were saved. The Lyme, of twenty guns, foundered in the Categat, in
Norway, and fifty of the men perished; and, in the West Indies, a tender
belonging to the Dublin, commanded by commodore sir James Douglas, was
lost in a single wind, with a hundred chosen mariners.

Of the domestic transactions relating to the war, the most considerable
was the equipment of a powerful armament destined for some secret
expedition. A numerous body of forces was assembled, and a great number
of transports collected at Portsmouth. Generals were nominated to the
command of this enterprise. The troops were actually embarked with
a great train of artillery; and the eyes of the whole nation were
attentively fixed upon this armament, which could not have been
prepared without incurring a prodigious expense. Notwithstanding these
preparations, the whole summer was spent in idleness and inaction; and
in the latter end of the season the undertaking was laid aside. The
people did not fail to clamour against the inactivity of the summer, and
complained that, notwithstanding the immense subsidies granted for the
prosecution of the war, no stroke of importance was struck in Europe for
the advantage of Great Britain; but that her treasure was lavished upon
fruitless parade, or a German alliance still more pernicious. It must be
owned indeed, that no new attempt was made to annoy the enemy on British
principles; for the surrender of Montreal was the natural consequence
of the steps which had been taken, and of the measures concerted in the
course of the preceding year. It will be allowed, we apprehend, that the
expense incurred by the armament at Portsmouth, and the body of troo