After capturing the island of Aix, a service in which Howe. greatly distinguished himself, the fleet proceeded to the Channel, and made ready to disembark the troops which it had on board.. But the military commanders showed a singular unwillingness to undertake any responsible movement; they held a council of war, which decided, as most councils of war do decide, on doing nothing; and, after a great parade of force, the fleet went "back again"-to the amusement of the enemy, and the angry contempt of all England.

Howe acted as Commodore in the great expedition under Lord Anson which sailed from Spithead on the 1st of June, 1758, to blockade Brest, where the French were understood to have collected a strong fleet. Anson detached Howe, in the Essex, with a powerful squadron, to cover the landing in Cancale Bay of an army of 13,000 men under the Duke of Marlborough. The disembarkation was safely effected on the 6th, and next morning the army advanced against St. Maloes, where, however, it accomplished no greater achievement than to burn two or three men-of-war, and some seventy or eighty merchant ships, after which it returned to Cancale Bay, reembarked, made an equally futile demonstration off Cherbourg, and then sailed for England; having taught the French, as Walpole says, "that they were not to be conquered by every Duke of Marlborough." Comparing the small result of the expedition with its tremendous cost, Henry Fox said that it was "breaking windows with guineas."

Another expedition against the French coast took place in the late summer of the year. This time Howe had the command-in-chief of the naval force; and as Howe, though he spoke little, did much, Cherbourg was captured on the 8th of August, its pier and basins were destroyed, with a hundred and seventy heavy guns. The brass guns were brought to the Tower of London, with their brass mortars, and about one

RICHARD, EARL HOWE.

A.D. 1725-1799.

I.

RICHARD HOWE, second son of Viscount Howe of Langar, was born in 1725. He appears to have been educated at Eton; but his education must have been of the slightest kind, as he left Eton at the age of fourteen, and was entered as midshipman on board the 50-gun ship Severn. This vessel was attached to Commodore Anson's famous South Sea expedition, but in rounding Cape Horn was so disabled in a violent gale as to be compelled to bear up for Rio de Janeiro, whence, after having refitted, she returned to England. The rough experiences which the young midshipman underwent in his first voyage gave him no distaste for the sea. We find him next on board the Bedford, which, with a squadron under Sir Charles Knowles, attacked La Guayra, on the Caraccas coast, suffering severely from the heavy fire of its batteries. Thus was he initiated into the dangers of tempest and battle, bearing himself in both so gallantly, that in 1744, at the age of nineteen, he was promoted to the rank of a lieutenant.

In the year of the Rebellion, 1745, Howe, in command of the ship Baltimore, served on the Scottish coast; and in a skirmish with a couple of French ships, on the 1st of May, was severely wounded in the head. Soon afterwards he was raised

to the rank of captain, a rapid promotion which he probably owed to the influence of his family. We have little to record until the beginning of the Seven Years' War, when, on board the 60-gun ship Dunkirk, he joined Admiral Boscawen's fleet ordered to North America for the protection of our settlements against French attack. In a dense fog off the coast of Newfoundland, the Dunkirk and the Defiance, another 60-gun ship, separated from the fleet and fell in with two French men-ofwar, the Alcade and the Lys, the former of 64 guns and 480 men, and the latter, pierced for the same number, but, being armed en flûte, mounting only 22; this ship had on board eight companies of soldiers. A smart action followed, in which the Dunkirk lost 7 men killed and 25 wounded: both the Frenchmen struck their colours.

In the spring of 1756 we find Captain Howe employed in the Channel service, and displaying an activity and a skill which recommended him to the command of a squadron of ships-of-war, assembled to protect the Channel Islands, and harass and destroy the French coasting trade. Later in the year he was attached to the fleet, under Sir Edward Hawke, destined for an attack upon Rochefort. The characteristics of the naval commanders of this expedition-from which so much was expected, and by which so little was accomplished-have been incisively sketched by Horace Walpole. "Sir Edward Hawke, who commanded the fleet, was a man of steady courage, of fair appearance, and who even did not want a plausible kind of sense; but he was really weak, and childishly abandoned to the guidance of a Scotch secretary. The next was Knowles, a vain man, of more parade than real bravery. Howe, brother of the lord of that name, was the third on the naval list. He was undaunted as a rock, and as silent. He and Wolfe soon contracted a friendship, like the union of cannon and gunpowder."

After capturing the island of Aix, a service in which Howe greatly distinguished himself, the fleet proceeded to the Channel, and made ready to disembark the troops which it had on board.. But the military commanders showed a singular unwillingness to undertake any responsible movement; they held a council of war, which decided, as most councils of war do decide, on doing nothing; and, after a great parade of force, the fleet went "back again"-to the amusement of the enemy, and the angry contempt of all England.

Howe acted as Commodore in the great expedition under Lord Anson which sailed from Spithead on the 1st of June, 1758, to blockade Brest, where the French were understood to have collected a strong fleet. Anson detached Howe, in the Essex, with a powerful squadron, to cover the landing in Cancale Bay of an army of 13,000 men under the Duke of Marlborough. The disembarkation was safely effected on the 6th, and next morning the army advanced against St. Maloes, where, however, it accomplished no greater achievement than to burn two or three men-of-war, and some seventy or eighty merchant ships, after which it returned to Cancale Bay, reembarked, made an equally futile demonstration off Cherbourg, and then sailed for England; having taught the French, as Walpole says," that they were not to be conquered by every Duke of Marlborough." Comparing the small result of the expedition with its tremendous cost, Henry Fox said that it was "breaking windows with guineas."

Another expedition against the French coast took place in the late summer of the year. This time Howe had the command-in-chief of the naval force; and as Howe, though he spoke little, did much, Cherbourg was captured on the 8th of August, its pier and basins were destroyed, with a hundred and seventy heavy guns. The brass guns were brought to the Tower of London, with their brass mortars, and about one