6 j 8 W, and M. Naval Expeditions, <3tc. of the English, Book IV*

1693. and two to Windward, which last: keptSight of him ’till it was Night. (J)

4Council of Next Day, the Admiral called thear e ' Officers of the Men of War and Mer-chant-Ships on Board him, to informhimself from them what Account theycould give of the P^est of the Fleet, andto advise what was best to be done fortheir Security, (e)

Thus the Enemy drew our Squadronand the Trade into the Snare; But had

(d ) The Account the French give of thisAction.

F. Daniel. After having given an Account of this Mis-fortune, from our Writers, let us now hear whatthe French fay of it: The Englijh and Dutch,fays Father Daniel, sustaining every Day greatLostes from the French Privateers, and more par-ticularly by those of St. Ma/o, had -resolved tosecure their Smyrna Fleet, from any such Insults,by putting it under a Convoy of two and twentyMen of War. Advice of "this Precaution beingcarried to the French King, His Majesty or-dered Marshal de Tourville, with sixty Ships,which had been got together in the Ports of theOcean, to fail towards the Coasts of Portugal,and there way-lay the Smyrna-Fleet. TheirScouts discovered it a few Days afterwards: Butas they had Information, that the Englijh were atSea, with a Fleet of ninety Men of War, whichhad been seen on the Coast of France, the Mar-shal, who was not yet joined with the ToulonSquadron, consisting of thirty Ships, under theCount d’EJirees, thought fit to detach twenty ofhis best Sailors, to take a View of the EnglijhFleet, and to begin the Attack, if they did notfind them much more numerous than themselves,whilst he would back them with the Body of hisFleet. They executed the Orders given them,and took, at the Beginning of the Attack, twoMen of War, after which they burnt, funk orrun a-ground upon the Coast, sixty Merchant-Ihips, seven and twenty were taken, and the Re-mainder, which could not make their Way forEngland, took Refuge at St. Luc ar, Cadiz, andGibraltar. The Marquis of Coetlogon, Comman-der of a Squadron, burnt four Ships, very rjchlyladen at Gibraltar, and carried off thirteen, tho*they were defended by the Batteries of the Place,and an Estacade. If a greater Number of Menof War had taken the fame Course by Night, asthe Sieurs de Bellijle-Errqrd, de Chaland and&'Henri, the Englijh and Dutch would have su-stained afar greater Loss, tho’, as it was, it wasvery considerable, and amounted to, accordingto the Relation of the Captains of Ships whowere taken , above twenty (De Larrey fays,five and twenty) Millions of Liyres. (that is,Memoir et de something above a Million Sterling.) MonsieurForbiti. de Forbin, who was in the Action, gives us thefollowing Account of it, in his Memoirs- TheKing’s (Jc. the French King’s) Fleet, which con-sisted of seventy-five Men of War, commandedby the Marshal de Tourville, set Sail for theStreight of Gibraltar, where the Count d’EJirees,who was coming with twenty other Ships fromProvence, was to join them. They came to An-chor in the Road of Lagos, on the Coast of Por-tugal. I (fays my Author) was sent out for In-telligence, with Orders strictly to examine what-ever came to my View; And particularly, if I saw» great Number of Ships, I was to make it myBusiness to discover whether they were Merchant-men, or the Enemy's Ships qf Force I I was ac-

they pursued their Advantage, and exe- 1 693-cuted their Design, with as much Con-duct: and Resolution, as it was project-ed, hardly a Ship would have escaped ;

For their Admiral and Vice-Admiralof the Blue, were within Shot of SirGeorge Rooke , ■ when they tacked andstood into the Shoar after the Dirtch ;

And thereby (as I have said before)saved the Rest of the Fleet, (f)

Thk

compacted with three other Captains, who weresent on the fame Errand. We set Sail together,and, in a few Days, we discovered a Fleet of theEnemy's Merchant-men. We found they consist-ed of upwards of a Hundred and fifty Sail; Andbeing well assured of our Fact, we returned withall possible Haste to the Fleet, to give the Admi-ral an Account of it, with Assurance, that it wasa Fleet of Merchant-men, and not Men of War.Upon this Advice, the Admiral made ready forSailing, and stretched out, for what Reason I amat a Loss to fay, before the Wind, to ten LeaguesDistance. (The Reason is explained above.)The next Day our whole Fleet discovered theEnemy. The General gave Orders for theChace;But the Enemy took the Advantage of the Wind,which our Working the Night before had madeus lose, and fled: Insomuch, that we did themvery little Damage. We took, nevertheless, twoof their Men of War, of sixty Guns ; And a-bout thirty of their Merchant-lhips, which rana-ground on the Coast of Portugal , were burnt.I, for my Part, burnt three of them, and tooka fourth. It was happy for them that they cameoff so well; For had it not been for the false Step,

I just now hinted at, their whole Fleet wouldhave been lost. Monsieur de Forbin was not, itseems, let into the Secret, nor did not observethe real Neglect, which our Fleet took the Ad-vantage of, and thereby escaped. We find a ve-ry wide Difference in these two Accounts, as toour Loss. How Monsieur de Forbin comes tolessen it so very much, I cannot conceive. Hedoes not use to diminish the Glory of Actions hewas concerned in: But I am sorry I must say it,and the Reader will find it by an Account below,that Father Daniel, for this Time, comes muchnearer the Truth.

(e) Some of them said, they saw forty or fiftyShips bear away to the Southward, about ten onSaturday Night, and that among them were theMonk, and a Dutch Man of War of fifty Guns ;And there was great Hopes that the Chandois yAJia, and several other large Ships,bound to Tur-ky, were safe, because theAdcnral’s own Ship wasthe Leeward-moft of the Fleet, on Sunday Morn-ing, and that now there could be discerned nomore to Leeward than five French Ships, whichwere standing away towards Cadiz. But one ofthe Masters of the Merchants Ships was for look-ing towards the Streight’s Mouth; the Rest werepositively against it; Some inclined for Lisbon, o-thers for the Groyne, but most for Ireland; S othat the Admiral determined to steer away, eitherfor Cork or Kingsale, the two principal Ports i stthat Kingdom.

(/) An Account in what Manner the Squa-dron and Merchant-ships were separated:

With the Fleet when the French stood in to-wards the Shoar.

Englijh Ships of War.

The Royal Oak, Breda, Monmeuth , Lion »Woolwich , Chatham , Tiger-Prize, Lumly-CaJUc,

Princeji