In the East Indies the French squadron was commanded by M. d'Aché, and the English by Admiral Pocock, who had succeeded Admiral Watson. The former was reinforced by a considerable armament under the command of General Lally, an adventurer of Irish extraction in the French service. The English admiral was also reinforced March 24th, 1758, by four ships of the line; and, being soon after apprised of Lally's arrival, hoisted his flag on board the Yarmouth, a ship of sixty-four guns, and sailed in quest of the enemy. He made the height of Negapatam on March 28th, and the day following discovered the enemy's fleet in the road of Fort St. David. It consisted of eight ships of the line and a frigate, which immediately stood out to sea and formed the line-of-battle. Pocock's squadron consisted only of seven ships; with which he formed the line, and, bearing down upon M. d'Aché, began the engagement. The French commodore, having sustained a warm action for about two hours in which one of his largest ships was disabled, sheered off with his whole fleet. Being afterwards joined by two more ships of war, he again formed the line-of-battle to leeward. Admiral Pocock, though his own ship and several others were considerably damaged, and though three of his captains had misbehaved in the engagement, prepared again for the attack. But the manœuvres of the French fleet seem to have been intended merely to amuse him; for they neither showed lights nor gave any signal in the night, and next morning the smallest trace of them could not be observed.
Admiral Pocock made various attempts to bring the French squadron to a second engagement. These, however, proved ineffectual till August 3rd, when he perceived the enemy's fleet, consisting of eight ships of the line and a frigate, standing to sea off the road of Pondicherry. They would have gladly eluded his pursuit, but he obtained the weather-gauge, and sailed down upon them in order of battle. As it was now impossible to escape without coming to action the French prepared for the engagement, and fired on the Elizabeth, which happened to be within musket-shot of the ship in their van. But this spirited attack was not seconded with equal perseverance. In little more than ten minutes after Admiral Pocock had displayed the signal for battle, M. d'Aché set his fore-sail, and bore away, maintaining a running fight in a very irregular line for nearly an hour. The whole squadron immediately followed his example; and at two o'clock they cut away their boats, crowded sail and put before the wind. They escaped by favour of the night into the road of Pondicherry; but their fleet was so much damaged that, in the beginning of September, their commodore sailed for the Isle of Bourbon in order to refit, thus leaving the English admiral, whose squadron had always been inferior to that of the French in number of ships and men as well as in weight of metal, sovereign of the Indian seas.
In the glorious '59 the French fleet, under M. d'Aché, was augmented to eleven sail of the line, besides frigates and store-ships, an armament hitherto unknown in the Indian seas. The English commander, however, no sooner had intelligence of their arrival than he sailed to the coast of Coromandel, and determined to pursue and give them battle, notwithstanding the fact that the French had a superiority of one hundred and ninety-two guns and two thousand three hundred and sixty-five men, besides a great advantage in the size of their ships. On the morning of September 2nd the French fleet were descried from the mast-head. Admiral Pocock immediately threw out the signal for a general chase; but, the wind abating, he could not approach near enough to engage, though he crowded all the sail he could carry. At length they totally disappeared, and the admiral stood for Pondicherry on a supposition that they intended to sail thither. His conjecture was well founded; for on September 8th he observed them standing to the southward, and on the 10th, about two in the afternoon, M. d'Aché, seeing no possibility of escaping, made the signal for battle. The cannonading began without farther delay, and both squadrons engaged with equal impetuosity; but the French directing their cannon at the masts and rigging, while the English fired only at the hulls of the ships, the former sustained such a loss of men, and found their vessels in so shattered a condition that they were glad to sheer off with all their canvas set. The loss on the side of the English was not inconsiderable, there being five hundred and sixty-nine men killed and wounded; that on the side of the French must have been far greater, as their ships could hardly keep the sea, and they were obliged to make the best of their way to the Island of Mauritius in order to be refitted. Soon after this engagement Admiral Cornish arrived from England with four ships of the line, and confirmed the dominion of the English over the Indian seas.
[THE STORY OF THE "GLORIOUS FIFTY-NINE" AND THE BATTLE OF QUIBERON BAY.]
The year 1759 has been described as one of the most glorious years in the history of England, a year during which "it was necessary to ask every morning what new victory there was, for fear of missing one." The early part of the year was, indeed, one of "magnanimous fear"—as Pitt called it—for the French were known to be making unparalleled efforts for the invasion of England with the proud hope of entire conquest, and in Germany, in America, and in India, England was at war. Hostile fleets were assembled at Havre, Brest, Dunkirk, and Toulon. The fleet at Havre was an immediate menace to the English coasts; the Brest squadron was destined for the invasion of Ireland, the ships at Dunkirk were commissioned to harass Scotland, while it was hoped that the Toulon fleet would supply reinforcements wherever needed. In France this naval combination was regarded as irresistible.
But Pitt had aroused the national spirit, and aggressive reprisals were adopted with enthusiasm. Admiral Rodney was entrusted with an attack upon Havre, where a vast number of flat-bottomed boats with a quantity of military stores of all kinds had been prepared to assist in the projected invasion. On July 3rd he anchored in Havre roads. The French commander had been forewarned of the English approach, and had made ample preparations for resistance. Powerful batteries had been erected all along the shore, and on both sides of the river's mouth; these were garrisoned with several thousand men, who opened a heavy fire on the squadron the moment it came within gunshot. The pilots proved wholly ignorant of the place, but some of Rodney's captains worked all night in taking soundings. The bombardment was continued without intermission for two days and two nights. Nearly all the French transports and boats were burnt, with all the warehouses containing the stores; and Havre itself was so disabled as to be valueless as an arsenal during the remainder of the war.
In August the Toulon fleet slipped through the Straits of Gibraltar, with the intention of re-inforcing the Brest fleet; only, however, to be vigorously attacked and decisively defeated by Admiral Boscawen, who gave battle in Lagos Bay off the south coast of Portugal; meanwhile the ships at Dunkirk were blockaded by Admiral Boyce.
In May, Admiral (afterwards Lord) Hawke was ordered to blockade the Brest fleet. For six months the blockade lasted. The gales and the difficulty of victualling the fleet governed the situation. When a westerly gale sprang up, the French could not get out to sea from Brest; but there was the great danger of some of the English ships being driven on shore, and the question was "How to get the fleet into a place of safety, like Plymouth or Torbay, and out again before the wind changed and allowed the French to sail." It was like "a cat watching a mouse." The difficulties of the commissariat may be estimated by a letter in which Hawke wrote to the responsible officer at Plymouth: "The beer brewed at your port is so excessively bad that it employs the whole of the time of the squadron in surveying it and throwing it overboard.... A quantity of bread will be returned to you; though not altogether unfit for use, yet so full of weevils and maggots that it would have infected all the bread come on board this day."