The expedition did not reach the River St. Lawrence until the 21st of August, when it encountered storms, and being furnished with pilots who were unacquainted with the navigation of that river, eight transports, a store ship, and a sloop were lost by shipwreck, and upwards of eighty persons, including officers, soldiers, and women, principally belonging to Colonel Kane’s fourth regiment, and Colonel Clayton’s thirty-seventh regiment, perished in this fatal service.
A scarcity of provisions had arisen, and it was then determined by a council of war that further operations should be abandoned. Some of the corps proceeded to Anna-polis Royal, and the squadron returned to England in the month of October, 1711, after having left the provincial auxiliaries upon their own coast.
On the 17th of April, 1711, the decease of Joseph I., Emperor of Germany, occurred, and Charles III., of Spain, was elected Emperor of Germany at Frankfort, by the name of Charles IV., on the 12th October following. Further attempts on the part of the British Government, in the cause of King Charles were now unnecessary, as he was called upon to assume the Imperial throne of his country. His Majesty embarked at Barcelona, on the 27th of September, on board of the confederate fleet, and sailed for Italy.
1712
1713
In the year 1712 negotiations were entered into by Great Britain and France, and peace was restored by the treaty of Utrecht on the 31st of March, 1713. By this treaty it was settled, that Great Britain should retain possession of Gibraltar, Minorca, and Nova Scotia, which had been conquered during the late war, and in effecting which, the Marine corps, which had been formed during the reign of Queen Anne, greatly contributed.
1714
On the return of peace, as concluded by the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, the corps of Marines, which had been formed in the reign of Queen Anne, were ordered to be disbanded; they were considered to be part of a war establishment, and a spirit of public economy, as well as of jealousy against a standing army, particularly in the early periods after the Revolution of 1688, afforded to the leaders of parliamentary debates, and of popular prejudices, grounds of objection to the maintaining of such corps after the termination of hostilities.
The arrangements consequent on the general peace having been made, a great reduction in the forces took place. These arrangements had scarcely been decided, when the decease of Her Majesty Queen Anne took place on the 1st of August, 1714, and King George the First ascended the throne.
Soon after His Majesty’s accession, the peace of the kingdom was disturbed by the hostile designs of King Louis XV. of France, who had supported and encouraged James Francis Edward Stuart, son of His late Majesty King James II., in his endeavours to obtain the throne of Great Britain; but the loyalty of the people, and the courage of the troops, defeated the attempts for the restoration of the Stuart family.
King George I., being supported by the parliament, adopted active measures for increasing his army, and resisting the plans of his enemies. Six additional regiments of cavalry, from ninth to fourteenth dragoons, were raised. The establishments of the regiments of infantry were increased, and in consideration of the gallant and extensive services of the Marine corps during the late war, Wills’s, now thirtieth, Goring’s, now thirty-first, and Borr’s, now thirty-second, were incorporated with the regiments of infantry of the line, and ranked according to the dates of their original formation in 1702.