* Five sons of this nobleman were remarkably distinguished in this war. The fourth and fifth were dangerously wounded at the battle of Minden; the second was hurt in the reduction of Guadaloupe; lord Wallingford, the eldest, received a shot at Carrickfergus; and the third was slain in this engagement.
Then the master, assuming the direction, continued the engagement with equal resolution till the enemy made his escape; which he the more easily accomplished, as the Biddeford was disabled in her masts and rigging.
REMARKABLE ADVENTURE OF FIVE IRISHMEN.
The bravery of five Irishmen and a boy, belonging to the crew of a ship from Waterford, deserves commemoration. The vessel, in her return from Bilboa, laden with brandy and iron, being taken by a French privateer off Ushant, about the middle of April, the captors removed the master, and all the hands but these five men and the boy, who were left to assist nine Frenchmen in navigating the vessel to France. These stout Hibernians immediately formed a plan of insurrection, and executed it with success. Four of the French mariners being below deck, three aloft among the rigging, one at the helm, and another walking the deck, Brian, who headed the enterprise, tripped up the heels of the French steersman, seized his pistol, and discharged it at him who walked the deck; but missing the mark, he knocked him down with the but-end of the piece. At the same time hallooing to his confederates below, they assailed the enemy with their own broadswords; and, soon compelling them to submit, came upon deck, and shut the hatches. Brian being now in possession of the quarter-deck, those who were aloft called for quarter, and surrendered without opposition. The Irish having thus obtained a complete victory, almost without bloodshed, and secured the prisoners, another difficulty occurred: neither Brian nor any of his associates could read or write, or knew the least principle of navigation; but supposing his course to be north, he steered at a venture, and the first land he made was the neighbourhood of Youghall, where he happily arrived with his prisoners.
THE RAMILLIES MAN OF WAR WRECKED.
The only considerable damage sustained by the navy of Great Britain, since the commencement of this year, was the loss of the Ramillies, a magnificent ship of the second rate, belonging to the squadron which admiral Boscawen commanded on the coast of France, in order to watch the motions and distress the commerce of that restless enterprising enemy. In the beginning of February, a series of stormy weather obliged the admiral to return from the bay of Quiberon to Plymouth, where he arrived with much difficulty: but the Ramillies overshot the entrance to the sound; and, being embayed near a point called the Bolthead, about four leagues higher up the channel, was dashed in pieces among the rocks, after all her anchors and cables had given way. All her officers and men, amounting to seven hundred, perished on this occasion, except one midshipman and twenty-five mariners, who had the good fortune to save themselves by leaping on the rocks as the hull was thrown forwards, and raised up by the succeeding billows. Such were the most material transactions of the year, relating to the British empire in the seas of Europe.