36

HAWKE AND CONFLANS.

[1759.

rolling seas from the Bay of Biscay. Still the British sailor stuck to his post. Autumn drew on. Again and again the wild north-west gales drove him from his blockading ground at the mouth of the harbour of Brest; again and yet again he fought his way back.

On November 6, a tremendous gale swept over the English fleet. For three days Hawke stood his ground, but he was forced to run back to the shores of England for shelter. Two days later he put to sea again, but the wind was blowing as furiously as ever, and he was again obliged to put back to Torbay. His own ship was rotten and water-logged, so he shifted his flag to the Royal George and struggled out again into the storm.

He was just too late. The French fleet had escaped, and the ships were even now running gaily with the wind behind them down the west coast of France to join the rest of the fleet. Conflans' daring plan might have succeeded had he not had against him a man whose genius, man whose genius, patience, and resolution were proof against the wildest waves and the fiercest winds. In the teeth of the gale Hawke fought his way across the channel to France to find the harbour empty, his prey gone. On ran the French ships before the gale. Very soon the white sails of the English might have been seen hurrying after them. With the waves breaking over their decks, weighed down by the weight of sail, battered by the wild wind that whistled

1759.]

A DARING DEED.

37

through their rigging, the English ships ran on, every hour bringing them nearer and nearer to the enemy.

ever.

"I will attack them in the old way," cried Hawke, “and make downright work of them." As night drew on, the wind blew harder than Conflans now devised a bold plan. He ran his ships coastwards, among islands and shoals of which he knew the English to be ignorant. It was a wild stretch of dangerous coast, on which the huge Atlantic waves broke with a roar thunder, tossing their white foam high into the air. The wind blew with ever-increasing fury, and the night was black as pitch. Only the genius of a Hawke could save the fleet in such a night.

1

as of

But to the successor of Drake 1 and Hawkins1 all things were possible. "Where there is a passage for the enemy, there is a passage for me. Where a Frenchman can sail, an Englishman can follow," cried Hawke. 66 Their pilot shall be our pilot. If they go to pieces on the shoals, they will serve as beacons for us. Their perils shall be our perils."

"And so, on the wild November afternoon, with the great billows that the Bay of Biscay hurls on that stretch of iron-bound coast, Hawke flung himself into the boiling cauldron of rocks and shoals and quicksands. No more daring deed was ever done at sea."

The battle began, and the roar of the guns an1 See Book III. chapter 15.

38

VICTORY OF QUIBERON.

[1759.

swered the din of the tempest. The wildly rolling fleets were soon hopelessly mixed up together. Ship after ship went down with its guns and its crews, but the flagship with Hawke on board was making for the white pennant which flew from the mast of Conflans' ship. Soon the two great ships had begun their fierce duel. Night fell before the battle was ended,- -a wild night filled with the shrieking of the gale, and morning broke no less wild and stormy. Seven French ships had run for shelter to the coast, two had gone to pieces on the rocks. But in the very centre of the English fleet lay the flagship of Conflans, battered and helpless. In the darkness and confusion of the night the French commander had mistaken his friends for his foes, and anchored unconsciously in the middle of the English fleet.

As the misty grey dawn showed him his mistake, Conflans cut his cables and made for the shore. The battle of Quiberon was over. The French ships were too much damaged to put to sea any more, and Hawke was free to sail home to receive the honours that a joyous England was ready to bestow upon the faithful and brave Admiral who had saved her from a French invasion.

THE year 1759 was a year of victory for England. By the triumph at Plassey Clive had founded the Indian Empire. "With the victory of Wolfe on

the Heights of Abraham began the history of the United States;" while Hawke's defeat of the French ships at Quiberon showed the growing strength of the English on the seas.

"We are forced to ask every morning what victory there is," laughed an English statesman, "for fear of missing one.'

The year 1762 found peace between England and France, but an unsatisfactory state of things arising beyond the seas in America.

It had cost England very large sums of money to save her colonies from the French. She now demanded those colonies, growing yearly in wealth and prosperity, to help to pay for the war. The colonies were quite willing to do this: they would pay a voluntary sum, but not a sum extracted by means of taxation. England did not understand the spirit of her colonies at this time, and she

40

THE STAMP ACT.

[1765.

passed the famous Stamp Act, charging certain stamp-duties in the colonies.

The news that the Stamp Act had actually been passed in England was received in America by a storm of indignation. The colonists denied that the mother country had any right to tax them. Bells were tolled, ships in the harbour flew their flags half-mast high, shops were shut, for it seemed as though the liberty of the American colonies were dead.

Men denounced it openly.

"Cæsar," cried one

in a voice of thunder, "had his Brutus, Charles the First had his Cromwell, and George the Third

"Treason! treason!" shouted his hearers. The young colonist paused.

66

George the Third," he finished, "may profit by their example."

A distinguished American, Benjamin Franklin, went to England to protest against the Stamp Act.

"What will be the consequences of this Act?" the English asked him.

"A total loss of the respect and affection the people of America bear to this country, and of all the commerce that depends on that respect and affection,” he answered firmly.

"Do you think the people of America would submit to a moderated Stamp Act?" they asked him again.