be able to keep the sea.-After this action I ordered, by signal, an account to be rendered me of the damage sustained by the different vessels: and I found that 9 gunboats and 1 praam were unable to follow the rest of my little squadron. I sent them in to the port of Calais. There were besides 2 gun-boats stranded.-I landed in order to concert with the commandant of the Marine on measures propor to be taken for the prompt repair of the vessels which I had sent into port; after which I returned on board.-Towards 3 in the afternoon, I made the signal to prepare for getting under weigh. The enemy's division having availed themselves in the morning of the tide to get to the westward, I supposed that they meant to take post between Cape Blancnez and Cape Grisnez; and that the passage would be entirely free for the vessels which I had ordered to weigh from Dunkirk.-At 3, the wind being E. N E. with a good breze and a clear sky, I made the signal to weigh, and to form in a single line of battle, at a quarter of a cable's distance. My signals were executed with such promptness, that I owe the greatest praise to my officers.-The enemy were in sight at a great distance in the offing, and there were abreast of the flotilla none but looking-out vessels, which made signal for our being under weigh, as soon as they saw us under sail.-At past 4 a ship of the line, four frigates, and three brigs, fell in with us off Cape Blancnez, and kept abreast of us. I remarked with pleasure that they hesitated to attack us, and waited the other vessels of their division, which soon joined them, making in all 19 sail. They then formed in line of battle, and began, off Sangate, to press us closer; but before they were within reach of our guns, the land batteries threw some bombs which fell at no great distance from them. The enemy also began a cannonade, and I returned their fire; but they kept at so great a distance that I ceased firing. Some moments afterwards, the enemy having approached nearer, I re-commenced firing. The force of the enemy increased successively in such a manner, that when we were off Wissant, it was composed of 45 vessels, of which two were of the line, and several frigates: the rest were sloops of war, and smaller vessels; the action then became very warm, and we made use, on both sides, of grape-shot.-Having entered the passage of the Bancà-ligne, the order of battle was exactly preserved.-Although the

passage is not 50 toises broad, and that we were constantly obliged to have the lead in our hands, and often forced to increase or diminish sail, the fire of our batteries was SD vigorously kept up, that none of these grand floating castles dared to approach us. On leaving the banks one gun boat only got aground, which, by that false manœuvre, occasioned two others to touch, but they did not cease firing. Having arrived at the extremity of Cape Grisuez, all the line doubled the Cape in the best order; the three praams in the rear then kept up a fire which the enemy will long remember.The manoeuvres of the praams in a passage so narrow, and during an action so warm, do the greatest honour to the Commandant Lambour, and the officers who command them; they merit my highest praise. The formidable batteries of Grisnez also kept up a well-supported fire while we were abreast of the Cape. After the whole line had doubled it, the enemy continued the attack upon the rear-guard; one of the gun-boats was so much damaged that it was obliged to keep close to the shore; some of the enemy's vessels continuing firing until we reached Ambleteuse, where we anchored with the squadron; some moments afterwards the enemy came anew, as if animated by a sentiment of rage, to attack us at anchor, and approached us within grape-shot distance; they were answered on our side with as much vigour as at the commencement. A frigate had the andacity to ap proach nearer than the others, but she paid dearly for her temerity, and was soon forced to sheer off; we saw distinctly that she suffered much, and that a great deal of confusion existed among her crew I left the vessels in the roads, and caused to enter, with the night tide, seven of the gunboats that had been most damaged.The enemy's squadron stood to sea, and a strong division anchored two leagues from the coast, abreast of Ambleteuse: we observed that a great number of their vessels made the Coast of England. On the fol lowing morning I had the satisfaction of secing 54 vessels arrive from Dunkirk at Calais, without firing a single gun, the enemy having directed their whole attention to the side of Ambleteuse.---The gun-boats that went aground on the Banc-à-ligne came also into the road, and one gun-boat only, stranded near Odreselle, did not enter until the fol lowing tide.

(To be continued.

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This

I

SUMMARY OF POLITICS. "TIMES OF DIFFICULTY." phrase has been so frequently applied to the series of years, daring which Mr. Fitt has been minister of this country, and its application has so evident a tendency to deceive the nation, or, rather, to continue its decepfion, as to a very important point, especially at the present crisis, when it behoves them to place their confidence only on those who are well worthy of it, that it appears to me necessary to inquire into the grounds, upon which such application has been male bave frequendy had to remark, cursorily, upon the unfairness, the meanness, the paltry shifts, of those, who attributed the dangers and disgrace of the country to some Over-ruling necessity; and that, to use the words of Mr. Pitt himself," from the fatality of the times and the general state "of the world, we must consider our lot as cast by the decrees of Providence in a "time of peril and trouble." This was a very pretty come-off for a "heaven-born" minister, who, after having had the absolute command of all the resources of the nation for nearly 20 years, and after having, a hundred times, boasted of his superior skill and purity, was obliged to confess, that the nation was at last reduced to a state, in which it could neither go to war nor, remain in peace, with a reasonable prospect of security! A very decent come-off! Something that the Grocer's Company could, twenty years before, hardly have expected! A hea ven-born minister throwing his blunders upon Providence! He felt; he had long felt; but, particularly, at the commencement of the present war, when no one could tell what was the object of the war, or how it could end, and when Mr. Addington could only say, that we were at war because we could not be at peace: at such a time Mr. Pitt could not fail to perceive, that the eyes of the people would be directed towards

*Speech in the House of Commons, 23d May, 1893.

him, and that, even his creatures would begin to ask themselves, who it was that had brought us into such a state. Hence he perceived the necessity of proaching the doctrine of fatality; and, the moment the key was given, the whole pack of his partisans joined in the cry.As occasion has required, this doctrine has been preachsd through the columns of the Treasury prints from the time above referred to till now; and, it is by no means wonderful, that the preachers should have become more zealous at this time, when the object of their exculpatory efforts is about to embark as chief in the conducting of a new warlike league against the power, before whom he, but the other day, fell prostrate, after having, for years, been in the almost constant habit of describing her as upon the brink of ruin. One effort of this sort, in the Morning Post of the 31st ultimo, is worthy of particular notice. The passage alluded to appears to have been written with an intention to counteract the endeavours of a writer in the Morning Chronicle to convince the people, that, if they were to judge from the past, they had very little to expect from any war, conducted by Mr. Pitt. "It does not seen

probable" says the Morning Pet], "that he" [the writer in the Morning Chronicle] will induce the country to be"lieve with him, that Mr. Pitt's name is "indissolubly associated with the degrada❝tion of Europe and the aggrandizement of

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France, because, unluckily for his asser"tion, the country must recollect, that, un"der the administration of Mr. Pitt, Great "Britain has uniformly, and for a long

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time, resisted the aggressions of France; "and that she now forms a rallying point "for the other European nations, which, "had different counsels been followed, "would have been wanting to them. Un

connected as we are with any party, it must, we think, on a due and dispassionate consideration of the subject, appear "the glory of Mr. Fit's life, that placed as ice has been in circumstances of such

of this description of persons is, as we here see It, in the Morning Post, that, though, the change we speak of is but too real, yet the fault was not Mr. Pitt's. It was nobody's fault. It was the work of Providence; or, if it be to be imputed to any human agency, it was the fruit of the Opposition, who thwarted the minister in his measures, and who, in fact, compelled him either to ruin the cause of his country, or, to quit his place; and, of course, he chose the former; and yet, the ruin of that cause was no fault of his! All this you shall hear the hirelings of the Treasury, and all the numerous tribe of place-hunters, most deliberately and cooly assert; and, they will, at the same time, not scruple to entertain you for hours with descriptions of the contemptibleness of that same opposition! In fact, Mr. Pitt never was hampered with an opposition. From the day of his first triumph over the aristocracy of the country; from that day to the present, he never has had a formidable opposition, in parliament, to encounter. Just at the close of the last session he would, indeed, have had a formidable opposition to face; but he took care not to face them, and carried his measures after they had retired to the country. "Placed, as he has been, in times of peculiar difficulty." Not he. He was

"

not "

placed in times of peculiar difficulty, nor of any difficulty at all. He, as I have before shown, took the helm at a moment the most favourable that could possibly be. He had eight years of peace, and of great abundance, to start with; and, I should suppose, that no people but the good, easy, forgiving, nay, submissive, English, would so soon have forgotten his annual boasts of the unexampled prosperity of the country. These boasts extended to every department and to every part of the King's dominions; so that, when he finally resolved on war, in 1793, the nation appeared, from his accounts, to be ready to burst with prosperity and happiness. Thus far, then; Thus far, then; that is to say, during the first eight, or nearly nine years, of his twenty years' adminis tration, he was not, at any rate, placed in times of "peculiar difficulty." The war was long and arduous. True; but who made it so? 'ho caused the dificulties that now arose? Who determined on the war? And who on the manner of conducting it? His partisans are aware of these questions, and, accordingly, they provide themselves with an excuse in the novelty of the case, which afforded him no means of profiting from experience. Well, suppose the case to have been entirely new; suppose that prinples before unheard of could be made ap

plicable to it: even then it required only, wi dom to know how to act. And, if I am told, that no human wisdom was equal to the task, I have only to refer to the speeches of Mr. Fox and the writings of Mr. Burke. They disagreed as to the course to be pursued: the former said peace, the latter ho nourable war: the former said, let the revclution exhaust itself upon France; the latter said, attack the revolution and kill it in its birth. But, they both said, and they said it. over and over again, and in every stage of the war, that the course which Mr. Pitt pursued would lead to the fearful aggrandize ment of France, to the overthrow of the balance of Europe, and, of course, to the imminent danger, if not, at last, the subjugation of England. This is a fact which no one can deny, and which every one ought to remember. Continually; year after year and week after week, did Mr. Fox, as any one may now see in his speeches, warn Mr.. Pitt of the consequences of the war, and, I will be bound to point out, in those speeches, more than one hundred passages, in which the former specifically predicted, that a perseverance in the war would lead to such an extension of the power of France as would endanger the independence of England. And, as to Mr. Burke, we now find, from his posthumous publications, that he began in 1791, and did not cease to the day of his death, to warn the nuister of the consequences (just as have now happened) of a system of warfare such as he had adopted. Here are, then, proofs, that Mr. Pitt was either much less wise than others, or, that he had some object which he preferred to the good of the country. He rejected the, advice of others: he followed a course of his own choosing: he suffered no one to thwart him in it: he had all the means of the country in his hands: and, shall honot, according to the doctrine of my MOTTO, be made responsible; shall he not yet be made really responsible for the disgraceful result? Shall he, who was uniformly surrounded with majorities up to the teeth; he who was constantly boasting of those majorities; he who let pass hardly a week without loading his opponents with contempt; he who had obtained so complete a mastery over the peo ple as to keep the habeas corpus act suspended for years, and to impose and collect ten per centum upon the incore of every man, assested by the means of an inquisition into his most private concerns; Le who, to the very eve of the peace, exulted in the inexhaustible resources of the country: shall this man, now that the fatal effects of his measures are perceived and felt; shall he be