But there were doubtless more solid reasons, just as there was certainly another side to the dispute. Were it not that the merchants somehow contrived to make their profits in spite of everything, their situation would seem to be on the whole pitiable indeed; and, in any case, they had much to complain of. Not only were their fleets likely to be attacked before they had left port twenty-four hours, but they were lucky to get them out of port at all. While large squadrons sailed majestically up and down the Channel, merchantmen were lying in harbour by the score, unable to put to sea for want of a convoy. These delays were most calamitous to trade. In 1706 the Lisbon merchants complained that although a convoy was promised them for March, they were not able to sail till October. In the same year the Jamaica merchants were ordered to be ready to sail by the 20th of January; but no escort was allotted them till May, which was the wrong season for the voyage. Again, the Virginia merchants informed the Admiralty that, owing to the delay in providing them with a convoy home, their ships were forced to return in the winter, whereby no fewer than nineteen were lost, with up

tobacco, and five taken by the enemy, with over 2000 hogsheads more. The end of the year witnessed a most extraordinary scene in the Solent. In November and December large numbers of ships under convoy began to arrive there from Jamaica, Virginia, New England, Antigua, Portugal, and other parts; all of which, as fast as circumstances permitted, should have been taken over by other men-of-war and escorted to the Thames. It might be thought that here, in the very centre of our naval activities, with Portsmouth close at hand, with ships of war lying continually at Spithead, or passing to and fro through the Needles or outside the island, there should have been small delay in finding a convoy for so short a passage. Every ship sailing eastward could have lent a hand. Circumstances, however, were strangely unpropitious. The men-of-war were thereindeed, sometimes as many as sixteen lying idle at Spitheadbut nothing was done. Perhaps what was anybody's business was nobody's business, although such laxity is almost incredible. But the weeks went by and became months, and other merchantmen arrived until there were near eighty sail at anchor between Hurst and Cowes, near eighty masters stamping and blaspheming, and hundreds of seamen drawing their pay in idleness; and still no convoy had been heard of. Sir Charles Hardy, with the East India fleet, passed outside without looking in. Many men-of-war

sailed for the eastward, but refused to take charge of any of the ships. In February the Ruby and

Feversham

The

actually appointed for this purpose, and sailing orders were given for the 16th; but this came to nothing. Ruby and Feversham were needed elsewhere. The merchantmen were left to their own devices for many weeks more. When, if ever, they got away, does not in fact appear; it was probably in April or May. It was so late that most of their next season's voyages had to be abandoned, and on top of this their owners must have had to swallow a pretty bill for pay and keep and deterioration of cargoes.

These delays, added to the risks at sea, affected the very foundations of trade. What used to be legitimate speculation became so highly speculative that it no longer paid: would-be purchasers refrained from giving orders when the chances of their ever seeing their goods, or getting them in the right season, were so small. Some of the great convoys shrunk from these causes to a mere handful of ships. A London house, Jones, Way & Whitchurch, gradually reduced their fleet from forty sail to two. It was pointed out to the Admiralty that the confidence in their promises, already small, was not increased by the fact that they were frequently unable to protect their own interests. We have seen how the Union frigate fared at Shoreham. At the same port At the same port a vessel laden with timber for

the Navy was detained more than a year for want of a ship to escort her to Portsmouth. When one at length arrived, it deserted her in mid-Channel, so that she only escaped the enemy's privateers by the skin of her teeth.

Of the innumerable smaller grievances of which traders from time to time complained, we can only glance at one or two. There was the constant sore of "the Tyrannical, Barbarous, and Arbitrary Proceedings of the Press." There were the embargoes laid on shipping by the Admiralty or the Custom House. These, generally unpopular, were sometimes concurrent and contradictory, causing much confusion. In 1701, the Admiralty having instructed Sir John Lowther to lay an embargo on certain classes of vessels in Newcastle and other ports, learnt that by order of the Custom House a far more comprehensive one was in operation there already, "very different," as Sir John wrote, "from Yours or from any I ever saw before, One excepted in the second Dutch war, which was owned to be a mistake and presently set right. It embargoes all but coasters... This case seems to have been speedily set right also, the Custom House, apparently, being told to mind its own business. Another just cause of complaint was the high-handed treatment of traders at sea by irresponsible naval officers which at times passed all bounds of decency. Thus, in 1707, the Antelope galley,

treatment

bound up Channel with lead, tar, and stock-fish, was chased off Beachy Head by two large ships flying the Dutch flag. As these small coasters had standing orders from their owners to heave-to for nobody, when sailing without escort, the master of the Antelope hoisted his own colours and kept on his course. The strangers continuing to pursue him, he not unnaturally took them for French privateers, and so crowded on sail and ran for the shelter of the guns at Hastings; whereupon they hoisted the English flag and fired a shot or two at him. Not trusting these colours, and finding that they were gaining, he ran his vessel ashore. two ships now sent off their boats to him, and revealed themselves as two English fifth-rates, the Lyme and Gosport, both of which we have met before in more honourable circumstances. The officers in the boats, instead of expressing their regrets and offering help, said "they were not sorry, and would serve anybody the same that would not come to them,' and so made off, leaving the unlucky Antelope on the beach. It cost her owners £100 to get her into Rye, and double as much more for loss of time.

The

Such incidents were not likely to promote cordial relations between the sheep and their shepherds. There were quite enough genuine wolves without the shepherds playing the part themselves towards their own flocks. "Let them protect us a little better from the enemy," said the traders in

VOL. CXCIV.-NO. MCLXXVII.

effect, "before they put on these high and mighty airs. Let them keep the peace in the Narrow Seas, before they talk as if they owned them.”

But the peace was not kept. The privateers still swarmed about the ports. In general, the slow and insufficient English cruisers chased them in vain. Twenty sail of them were taken by the fleets of Admirals Byng and Jennings in nine months, and this was thought good work; but what were twenty sail among the hundreds afloat or on the stocks? The English privateers retaliated as best they might; but their best was as yet a poor thing beside the three or four hundred annual prizes of St Malo. However (to conclude in a more cheerful strain), we will take one or two random episodes from the other side of the picture.

A few English captains and men-of-war gained a welcome reputation for destroying these hornets. Such were Captain William Jumper and the Weymouth, 48, who wrought great havoc among them in 1696 and 1697.

Again, in the latter year, Captain Andrew Leake (who was afterwards mortally wounded at Gibraltar) had quite a busy couple of days in the Channel with the Canterbury, a fourth-rate of 60 guns. On August 29 his boats chased a French privateer ashore near Havre: the tide ebbing and the country people coming down, she could not be got off, and so was set on fire. At five the next morning the Canterbury took a small ketch 2 T

-apparently a Letter of Marque of sorts. At eleven she chased a pink ashore near La Hogue. A few hours later another sail was sighted, chased, and captured. She proved to be an English ship recently taken by a St Malo privateer, and with the latter's prize-crew on board.

A curious comedy of errors occurred in the Channel in October 1709. On the morning of the 18th, Sir George Byng's squadron, homeward bound, was almost becalmed, when two sail were sighted to windward. They were, in fact, a French privateer and a Bristol sloop, which the former had just taken. Byng, being to leeward with hardly any wind at all and his ships very foul, did not think it worth while to give chase: the less so that he was persuaded they were West Indiamen, homeward bound like himself. The privateer, on the other hand, took Byng's ships to be the squadron of DuguayTrouin (who was then at sea), and, having a momentary little breeze, she stood towards them with her prize. The little breeze, however, kept her a long way astern, so that two days passed in this manner: Byng drifting majestically on his course, the two little vessels slowly gaining on him.

On the 20th a couple of 54's, the Gloucester and Falmouth, standing down Channel, met the Admiral. They fired the usual salute on seeing his flag, and were then ordered to sail in company with him. This little episode occasioned great jubila

tion on board the still distant

privateer, whose people, seeing the smoke and hearing the reports, believed they had witnessed an engagement, in which their gallant countryman had captured two English warships. They stood still closer, until, the wind at length freshening from another quarter, one of the rearmost ships, the Chichester, bore down on them. At this the privateer realised her mistake and sheered off, leaving the sloop to be recaptured.

And, finally, let us turn to Christchurch Bay, in the same year. Here, on the 13th of June, the Cruiser, of 12 guns, and the Monck's Prize (an ex-French privateer), of 16, which were patrolling the coast between Poole and the Needles, discovered inshore of them one of the enemy's small Letters of Marque. The latter, being to leeward of her pursuers, despaired of getting out of the bay, and so attempted a remarkable enterprise. She made all sail for the Needles passage, with the intention (as it was supposed) of running the gauntlet of Sir George Byng's whole fleet, then lying at Spithead, and so escaping by St Helens. However, the Dispatch brigantine, of 10 guns, was lying as guardship just inside the Solent, off the beacon which then (as now) was known as "Jack in the Basket," at the mouth of the Lymington river; and this vessel, hearing firing from Hurst and the bay beyond, and seeing the sails of the daring fugitive gliding past the fort, instantly weighed or slipped and headed her off. She was found to carry only

6 guns and 25 men; and for such a toy ship of war to attempt so desperate an adventure required no common hardihood. Had she got among the ships at Spithead, and refused to heave-to, they would have sunk her on the spot. She certainly deserved to get away.

And so, with the rattle of guns which startled the little hamlet of Keyhaven, and brought the rope-makers and shipwrights of Lymington hurrying from their walks and yards, we can make an end. We have seen something of life round our coasts two hundred years ago, something of war as it affected ordinary people. We make a great mistake if we believe, because conditions are

changed, that we shall never see the like again. Warfare, under any conditions, is the same to those who suffer by it: a chain-shot is quite as painful as a pom-pom shell, and a pom-pom shell as anything we are likely to know in the future. It is the human element that counts in the end. Nor are conditions so transient as they seem. "Privateering," if we are to believe a formula, "is and remains abolished"; so does the press; but in fact it is only the names that are abolished.

So long as there

is war, we must prepare to face these and other evils, although perhaps under new names; and we cannot but be inspired by the knowledge of how they have been faced before.

DOUGLAS G. BROWNE.