MARITIME EVENTS.
During this year, France, Spain, and Holland equipped seventy ships of the line for active service, in order to reduce the maritime superiority of Britain. As the forces of the British were inferior on her own coasts to those of the enemy if united, the plan adopted, was to prevent their junction, and to weaken them by separate attacks; to protect our convoys; and to relieve the important post of Gibraltar. To effect the first of these objects Admiral Barrington sailed from Portsmouth with twelve sail of the line, and on the 20th of April he discovered seventeen or eighteen sail of large merchantmen and transports, under convoy of two French ships of the line and a frigate. Barrington gave chase, and in the course of two days the two ships of the line, ten large transports, and a schooner were captured. The victors found on board the prizes a. great quantity of ordnance and ammunition, anchors and masts for ships, and other materials needed by the French in the East Indies, besides eleven chests of Dutch silver, and about 1400 troops. After this successful cruise, Barrington returned to port in consequence of boisterous weather, and Admiral Kempenfelt, with nine sail of the line, took the station which he had quitted. In the mean time the British suffered a reverse, for de Guichen having formed a junction with the Spanish fleet at Cadiz, captured eighteen sail of British merchantmen and transports, bound to Canada and Newfoundland. Great apprehensions were entertained for the Jamaica fleet, but Lord Howe, with a squadron of twelve sail, effectually covered them, and the combined squadrons, being unable to effect a junction with the Dutch, and finding that no advantage could be derived from remaining in the Channel, retired from the British coasts. Lord Howe, indeed, terrified the Dutch into a relinquishment of their designs on the trade of Great Britain to the Baltic, and the whole scheme of the enemy proved abortive. Storms, however, in part accomplished what the enemy failed to perform. In various latitudes the summer and autumn of this year were remarkable for storms and hurricanes, and a terrible catastrophe befell a fleet under Admiral Graves, which sailed, with the great prizes taken by Rodney and Hood, to convoy the great fleet of West-Indiamen. All these ships, except the “Ardent,” foundered at sea, as well as two line-of-battle ships, and a great number of merchantmen; three thousand lives were lost. This calamity was aggravated by the loss of the Royal George at Portsmouth, which was the finest ship in our navy. The Royal George was inclined on her side to undergo a slight species of careening, without the delay of going into dock, and on the 29th of August a sudden squall of wind threw her on her side, and the gun-ports being open she instantly filled and went to the bottom. Admiral Kempenfelt was writing in his cabin at the moment, and he, together with nearly one thousand men, women, and children, were thus suddenly buried in the ocean. These calamities excited a deep concern throughout the whole nation, and the fate of the brave Kemperjfelt was deeply deplored.
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