NAVAL OPERATIONS.
The naval war this year was very languid. The French and Spanish fleets did not venture out of port, and their detached squadrons put to sea only in the absence of the English. On the 6th of July a French squadron was attacked by Sir James Saumerez in the road of Algeiras; but after a hard struggle he was induced to retire. This disappointment, however, only served to stimulate the British to another action. The ships which had been damaged in the late contest were repaired with all possible expedition, and when the French, joined by a Spanish squadron, were sailing towards Cadiz, he attacked them, and one line-of-battle ship, of seventy-four guns, was captured, and two others blew up with the loss of about two thousand men. On the 1st of August Admiral Lord Nelson, with a flotilla of gun-boats and other vessels, stood over to the coast of France to reconnoitre the preparations said to be making for the invasion of England. On the 4th of the same month he sunk two floating batteries and destroyed some gun-boats; but a subsequent attack on the flotilla in the harbour failed. During this year the islands of St. Martin and St. Eustatius were reduced; while in the east, the Batavian settlement of Ternate, the principal of the Molucca islands, surrendered to the British, under Captain Haynes.