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NAVAL OPERATIONS The naval operations of the Seven Years' War began nearly a year before the declaration of hostilities. In June 1755 a British squadron under Boscawen was sent into the Straits of Belle Isle to intercept French ships carrying soldiers and stores to Quebec, in retaliation for aggressions on British possessions in North America. On the 8th of June Boscawen seized two French line-of-battle ships fitted as transports, the " Alcide " and the "'Lys." A general seizure of French merchant ships followed, and thousands of French sailors were in prison in England by the early days of 1756. The government of Louis XV. did not reply by a declaration of war, but prepared to retaliate by a threat of invasion, which created something like a panic in Great Britain. The government, then in the weak hands of the duke of Newcastle, accumulated warships in the Channel, 2 3 S 6 7 }Km and on the 3rd of February 1756 issued a proclamation which instructed the inhabitants of the southern counties of England to drive their cattle inland in case of a French landing, and thereby much aggravated the prevailing fear. But the invasion scheme was so far only a cover for an attack on Minorca, then held by Great Britain.A squadron of twelve sail of the line was prepared at Toulon under La Galissoniere, a veteran admiral who had entered the navy in the reign of Louis XIV. It escorted transports carrying 15,000 troops under the duc de Richelieu. The danger to Minorca, where the garrison had been allowed to fall below its due strength, was well known to the British ministers. On the filth of March they appointed Admiral John Byng to command a squadron which was to carry reinforcements. He did not, however, leave St Helens till the 6th of April. Byng had with him ten sail of the line, and carried 3000 soldiers for the garrison. The ships were indifferently manned, and the admiralty refused to strengthen him by drafts from the ships it proposed to retain in the Channel. In order to find room for the soldiers, the marines of the squadron were left behind. There was therefore a danger that, if an encounter with the French fleet took place after the reinforcements were landed, the British squadron would be short-handed. Byng reached Gibraltar on the 2nd of May. The French invasion of Minorca had been carried out on the 19th of April. The governor of Gibraltar, General Fowke, refused to part with any of his soldiers to reinforce Minorca. On the 8th of May Byng sailed, and on the 19th he was in communication by signal with General Blakeney, governor of the fortress. Before the soldiers could be landed the French fleet came in sight. Byng had been joined by three ships of the line at Gibraltar, and had therefore thirteen ships to twelve. One of the French vessels, the " Foudroyant" (84), was a finer warship than any in the British line, but in effective power Byng was at least equal to his opponent, and if his ships were poorly manned La Galissoniere was in worse case. The British admiral rejected one of his small line-of-battle ships in order to engage in the then orthodox mannervan to van, centre to centre, and rear to rear, ship against ship. By the manoeuvres of the afternoon of the 19th and morning of the loth he gained the weather-gage, and then bore down on the enemy at an angle, the van of the English steering for the van of the French. The sixth
In 1757 the naval war began to be pushed with a vigour hitherto unprecedented. The elder Pitt became the effective head of the government, and was able to set about ruining the French power at sea. Owing to the long neglect of the French navy, it was so inferior in strength to the British that nothing short of the worst mismanagement on Pitt's part could have deprived Great Britain of victory. Some of the minister's measures were not indeed wise. He sent out, during the last months of 1757 and the whole of 1758, a series of combined expeditions against the French coast, which were costly and for the most part unsuccessful. They 'terminated in September 1758 with a disaster to the troops engaged in St Cas Bay. Yet these assaults on the French coast did much to revive the spirit of the nation, by removing the fear of invasion. Meanwhile a sound aggressive policy was followed in distant seas during 1758.In the East Indies the squadron which had been engaged during 1757 in co-operating with Clive
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During 176o and 1761 the French fleet made no attempt to keep the sea. The British navy went on with the work of conquering French possessions. During 1760 it co-operated on the Lakes and on the St Lawrence in the final conquest of Canada. Between April and June of 1761 it covered the capture of the island of Belle-Ile on the French coast, which both strengthened its means for maintaining blockade and gave the British government a valuable pledge to be used for extorting concessions when the time for making peace came. The complete ruin of French merchant shipping and the collapse of the navy left the maritime population free to seek a livelihood in the privateers. Commerce-destroying was carried on by them with considerable success. The number of British merchant ships taken has been put as high as one-tenth of the whole. But this percentage was the price paid for the enormous advantage gained by the ruin of the French as commercial rivals. The merchant shipping of Great Britain increased largely in the course of the war, and from it dates her commercial predominance. By the close of 1761 the helplessness of France at sea had been demonstrated, but the maritime war was revived for a few months by the intervention of Spain. A close alliance, known as " the family compact," was made between the royal houses of that country and France in the course of 1761. The secret was divulged, and Pitt would have made war on Spain at once. He was overruled and retired. So soon, however,. as the treasure ships from America had reached Spain, at the close of 1761, the Spanish government declared war. Its navy was incapable of offering a serious resistance to the British, nor did it even attempt to operate at sea. The British government was left unopposed to carry out the plans which Pitt had prepared against Spain. The only aggressive movement
the most active share in the operations which forced them to retire. But the most effective blows delivered against Spain were directed at her colonies. The British troops, left free by the recent
See Beatson, Naval and Military Memoirs of Great Britain (London, 18o4) ; Captain Mahan, Influence of Sea Power upon History; Lacour Gayet, La Marine militaire de la France sous le regne de Louis X V (Paris, 1902). (D. H.) End of Article: NAVAL If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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