886

ijtg.

1720.

Geg. L Naval Expeditions, &e, of the Engliih, Book VI.

the Ships he had with him, remained inthe Mole of Mejjina, till the twelfth ofNovember, when he sent his whole Squa-dron (excepting the Barseur, with whichhe remained alone in that Place, to pre-pare every Thing for a second Embar-kation) to convoy the Transports, withseven Thousand Imperial Foot, andfive Hundred Horse, commanded byGeneral Zumjungen, to trapani.

The seventh of December , (<r) anotherFleet of Transports, with twelve Hun-dred Horse, and a Thousand Foot,sailed from the Mole of Mesina ; And,the next Day, the former Fleet of

Transports returned back again thither 17 T 9*empty, to take in a Regiment of Dra-goons, and a farther Supply of Infantry.

The seventh of November, His Ma- , . »

jesty set out from Hanover, in His Wayfor Holland ; The thirteenth, He em- Hanover-bark’d on Board the Carolina Yacht, atHelvoetjluys , arrived at Gravefend thenext Day, and, the fame Evening came ?l> e Pari sto St. Jams. The twenty third ot'E-------

November, the Parliament met, and, the r 0 i u iionssecond of December, the House os Com- w ithrega^tnons, in a Grand Committe on the Sup- to the Navy*ply, came to several Resolutions, withRegard to the Navy. (dj

Ci

SirNo*uiito ttict

CHAP. IV.

Naval Expeditions and 'transactions of the British Nation, with other Occurrences,during the Tear, 1720. so 1725. inclusve.

these Affairs have no Relation to my 172^History, I pass them by. ,

The Beginning of February, theKing of Spain acceeded to the QuadrupleAlliance ; And, as a Consequence there- & ra s[e- 0 -'of, a Cessation of Arms by Sea was, ance.soon after, published 5 (a) Which was

soon

TT A M now entering upon a Year of

1 W onders, the History of which (asfar, I mean, as regards the mysteri-ous Transactions of it, the Affairs ofthe South Sea Company, and it’s hopefulIssue) must be look’d upon, in futureAges, as a Fiction or a Dream: But, as

on both. They soon beat the Spaniards out of theBattery, and landing some Men, took Possession ofit. In the mean Time, both of the Men of Warblew up ; But they brought off the Merchant-ship.

The tenth' of OUtober, the Sheer ness-, com-manded by Captain Delgafno, chased and took,between Lagos and Cape St. Mary-, the St. Fran -cis, a Spanijh Packet-Boat, of eighteen Guns, fixPattereroes, one Hundred five and twenty Men,and thirty Passengers, coming from St. Domingoto Cadiz, laden with Cacoa, Log-wood, and someChests of Silver.

In the fame Month of Odoler, Sir GetugeByng, having had repeated Information, that theMalthese had not only favoured and assisted theSpaniards against us ; But had themselves madePrizes of our Merchant-Ships, partly nnder thePretext of Spanijh Commissions and Colours, andin Part openly, with their own Colours, sentCaptain Saunders thither, in the Dreadnought, todemand Satisfaction for these Insults, who, aftersome Conferences with the Deputies, sent to himby the Grand Master and Council, obtained Re-paration for all the Damages done by their Sub-jects to those of Great Britain, to the Admiral'sentire Satisfaction ; With so high a Hand did ourFleet carry it, at that Time, in those Seas!

The seventh of December, at Night, His Ma-jesty's '.hips, the Dover, Ævice, and Norwich,under the Command of Commadore Cavendijh, be-ing about nine Leagues to the Westward of CapeVincent , fell in with three Spanish Men of War,f six ty-four, fixty-two and fifty Guns, whichthey engaged, the ninth, for three Hours ; But, asthe Sea was so high, that they could not make Useof their Corner Tire of Guns, and, besides, theEnemy was so much fnperiour in Force, that theyso”nd it impossible to take them, they bore awayfor Gibraltar, having about forty Men killed andwounded; But, as they were afterwards informed,the Spaniards lost many more.

(c) With the Assistance of the former Trans-ports, the Imperialists took Old Trapani, Marsalaand Mazzara ; And, on the other Side, they took,in the mean Time, Mola , Taormina , Cantabiano,and some other Posts.

(d) They resolved, that thirteen Thousand,five Hundred Men, be allowed for the Sea-Service,for the Year, 1720. at four Pounds, per Man,y-sv Month, for thirteen Months; That two Hun-dred and seventeen Thousand, nine Hnndred andeighteen Pounds, ten Shillings, and eight Pence, begranted for the Ordinary of the Navy, for thefame Year; And seventy-nine Thousand, sevenHundred, and three and twenty Pounds, for theextraordinary Repairs of the Navy, for that Year.The fifteenth of January, they farther resolved,that three Hundred and feventy-feven Thousand,five Hundred and sixty-one Pounds, fix Shillingsand nine Pence, half Penny, be granted for the Ex-pence of the Navy, in 1719. not yet provided forby Parliament.

(a) About the fame Time, a Messenger dis-patched by the Lord Carteret, from Stockholm ,brought the Instrument of the Treaty of Friend-ship and Alliance, concluded between His Majestyand the Crown of Sweden.

During this Time, likewise, th&Briti/h Squa-dron, under the Command of Sir George Byng ,continued doing the Imperialists all imaginableService, in Sicily ; But I find no Account of anyparticular Action of any of our ShipsBut thatthe Orford , and the Canterbury, carried a SpanijhPrize, of eight and forty Guns, taken on theCoast of Spain , into Naples : And that, thefourteenth of April, Sir George Byng, having senta small Vessel, to sound the Bay of Palermo, theCannon from the Town and Batteries fired uponit; Whereupon, the sixteenth, he ordered twoMen of War, to stand in, and fire upon a Lower,and some Posts possefs’d by the Spaniards ,. who be-ing forced to- abandon them, the Imperialists af-te rwards made themselves Masters of them.