the honour of knighthood, having a little before made a naval promotion, in which he was declared vice-admiral of the red, and intrusted with the command of the squadron that was to escort the Smyrna fleet. The ill success of this expedition

has been already referred to.

A violent party resentment was raised against him, owing to his conduct in parliament; for being in 1695 elected member for Portsmouth, and voting mostly with those that we were called tories, great pains were taken to ruin him in the king's opinion; but to the honour of William, when pressed to remove Sir George Rooke from his seat at the admiraltyboard, he answered plainly, I WILL NOT. "Sir George Rooke," continued his majesty, "served me faithfully at sea, and I will never displace him for acting as he thinks best for the service of his country in the House of Commons ;" an answer truly worthy of a British prince.

Upon the accession of queen Anne, in 1702, Sir George was constituted vice-admiral, and lieutenant of the admiralty of England, as also lieutenant of the fleets and seas of this kingdom; and, upon the declaration of war against France, it was resolved that he should command the grand fleet sent against Cadiz, the duke of Ormand having the command in chief of the land forces. The result of this expedition, and the unsuccessful attack upon Vigo, need not be repeated.

When the attempt on Barcelona miscarried, the admiral, though not joined by the reinforcement from England, chased the Brest squadron into Toulon; and having afterwards passed through the Straits, joined Sir Cloudesley Shovel, with the fleet under his command, off Lagos; and continued cruising for about a month in expectation of orders from home, or from the court of Spain. On the 17th of July, being in the road of Tetuan, a council of war was called, in which several schemes were examined, but were all found to be impracticable; at last, Sir George Rooke proposed the attacking of Gibraltar, which was agreed to, and immediately put into execution; for, the fleet arriving there on the 21st of the same month, the troops, which were but eighteen hundred men, were landed the same day; the admiral gave the signal for cannonading the place on the 22d, and, by the glorious courage of the English seamen, the place was taken on the 24th. After this remarkable service, the Dutch admiral thought of nothing but returning home, and actually detached six men-of-war to Lisbon, so little appearance was there of any engagement. But, on the 9th

of August, the French fleet, under the command of the count de Thoulouse, was first seen at sea, and appeared to be by much the strongest that had been equipped during the whole war; the English admiral, however, resolved to do all that lay in his power to force an engagement. We have already given an account of the battle which followed off Malaga.

On the return of Sir George Rooke, he was extremely well received by the queen and the lord high-admiral. But, unluckily for him, the battle off Malaga was, some way or other, compared to that of Blenheim, fought the same year; which made the matter of fact a point of party debate, and, in the addresses sent up from all parts of her majesty's dominions, the whigs took all imaginable care to magnify the duke of Marlborough's success, without saying a word of the victory at sea; whereas the tories were equally zealous in their compliments upon both; and, to say the truth, both these battles were decisive; that of Blenheim put an end to the influence of France in the empire, as that of Malaga extinguished the French power at sea.

Sir George, perceiving that as he rose in credit with his country, he lost his interest with those at the helm, resolved to retire from public business, and prevent the affairs of the nation from receiving any disturbance upon his account. Thus, immediately after he had rendered such important services to his country, as the taking the fortress of Gibral tar, and beating the whole naval force of France in the battle off Malaga, the last engagement which happened between these two nations at sea, during this war, he was constrained to quit his command: and, as the tories had before driven the earl of Orford from his post immediately after the glorious victory at La Hogue, so the whigs returned them the compliment, by making use of their ascendency to the like good purpose, with regard to Sir George Rooke.

After this strange return for the services he had done his country, Sir George Rooke passed the remainder of his days as a private gentleman, and for the most part at his seat in Kent. His zeal for the church, and his strict adherence to the tories, made him the darling of one set of people, and exposed him no less to the aversion of another. In party matters he was warm and eager, but in action he was perfectly cool and temperate, gave his orders with the utmost serenity, and as he was careful in marking the conduct of his principal officers, so his candour and justice were always conspicuous

in the accounts he gave of them to his superiors; he there knew no party, no private considerations, but commended merit, wherever it appeared. He was equally superior to popular clamour and popular applause; and he had a contempt for foreign interests when incompatible with our own, and knew not what it was to seek the favour of the great, but by performing such actions as deserved it. He died

in 1709.

The highly honourable names of Sir Daniel Mitchell, Sir Ralph Delavel, admiral Churchill, Sir Thomas Dilkes, Sir John Leake, Sir Andrew Leake, Sir Stafford Fairborne, together with that of William Dampier, the celebrated voyager, all of whom ornamented this period, we can do no more than mention.

REIGN OF GEORGE 1.-1714 TO 1727-BYNG, LORD TORRINGTONSIR WILLIAM JUMPER-SIR JOHN JENNINGS-DUKE OP LEEDSREIGN OF GEORGE II.-1727 TO THE TREATY OF AIX LA CHA PBLLE IN 1748-ADMIRAL VERNON-SIR CHARLES WAGER-SIR JOHN NORRIS-SIR PETER WARREN. GEORGE II. FROM THE PEACE OF AIX LA CHAPELLE TO HIS DEATH IN 1760. GEORGE III. FROM HIS ACCESSION TO THE PEACE OF PARIS IN 1763. THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR-ADMIRAL JOHN BYNG, HIS TRIAL AND EXECUTION-TAKING OF QUEBEC-SUCCESSES IN EAST AND WEST INDIES-UNION OF THE SPANISH AND FRENCH FLEETS-THEIR DESTRUCTION-ADMIRAL BOSCAWEN-HAWKE-LORD ANSON

THERE is hardly any period of English history so barren of important naval events as the reign of George I. This is in no degree to be attributed either to the insufficiency of the navy, or to the want of skill and gallantry in its commanders. In these respects there was no falling off; our most formidable rivals, the Dutch, were now our firm allies; with France, too, we were at peace during the whole of this reign. A war with Spain, originating from trifling causes, and in which the Spanish fleet was nearly annihilated

without any general engagement, afforded our seamen the only opportunity of acquiring distinction. The English fleets were chiefly commanded by Sir George Byng, afterwards viscount Torrington; and a brief sketch of his life will suffice to bring such actions as are deserving of notice, under our review. His principal coadjutors were Sir John Jennings, Sir James Wishart, admiral Baker, the marquis of Carmarthen, afterwards duke of Leeds, and Sir William Jumper, whose personal adventures entitle him to a separate notice.

GEORGE BYNG, LORD TORRINGTON. George Byng descended from an ancient family in Kent, and was born in 1663. At the age of fifteen, he went to sea, a volunteer. In 1681, he quitted the sea service, upon the invitation of general Kirk, governor of Tangiers, and served as a cadet in the grenadiers of that garrison; and, a vacancy soon happening, he was made ensign, and, not long after, lieutenant. In 1684, he was appointed lieutenant of the Oxford; from which time he continued in the sea service. The next year he went in the Phoenix, to the East Indies, where he boarded a Zinganian pirate, who maintained a desperate fight, in so much that most of those who entered with him were slain, and he himself severely wounded; the pirate sinking, he was taken out of the sea, with hardly any remains of life. In the year 1688, Byng, being first lieutenant to Sir John Ashby, in the fleet commanded by the earl of Dartmouth, and fitted out to oppose the designs of the prince of Orange, was particularly entrusted in the intrigues then carrying on among the most considerable officers of the fleet, in favour of that prince, and was the person they sent with assurances of obedience to his highness; to whom he was privately introduced at Sherborne by admiral Russell. Upon his return, the earl of Dartmouth sent him to carry a message to the prince, and made him captain of a fourth-rate man-of-war. In 1690, he was advanced to the command of the Hope, a third-rate, and was second to Sir George Rooke in the battle off Beachy Head. After this he was captain of the Royal Oak, and served under admiral Russel. In 1693, that officer distinguished him in a particular manner, by promoting him to the rank of his first captain; in which station he served two years in the Mediterranean. Upon the breaking out of the