[Footnote 573:  Order, War Office, 19 Dec. 1757.]

[Footnote 574:  Pitt to Abercromby, 27 Jan. 1758.  Instructions for our Trusty and Well-beloved Jeffrey Amherst, Esq., Major-General of our Forces in North America, 3 March, 1758.]

During his first short term of office, Pitt had given a new species of troops to the British army.  These were the Scotch Highlanders, who had risen against the House of Hanover in 1745, and would raise against it again should France accomplish her favorite scheme of throwing a force into Scotland to excite another insurrection for the Stuarts.  But they would be useful to fight the French abroad, though dangerous as their possible allies at home; and two regiments of them were now ordered to America.

Delay had been the ruin of the last year’s attempt against Louisbourg.  This time preparation was urged on apace; and before the end of winter two fleets had put to sea:  one, under Admiral Boscawen, was destined for Louisbourg; while the other, under Admiral Osborn, sailed for the Mediterranean to intercept the French fleet of Admiral La Clue, who was about to sail from Toulon for America.  Osborn, cruising between the coasts of Spain and Africa, barred the way to the Straits of Gibraltar, and kept his enemy imprisoned.  La Clue made no attempt to force a passage; but several combats of detached ships took place, one of which is too remarkable to pass unnoticed.  Captain Gardiner of the “Monmouth,” a ship of four hundred and seventy men and sixty-four guns, engaged the French ship “Foudroyant,” carrying a thousand men and eighty-four guns of heavier metal than those of the Englishman.  Gardiner had lately been reproved by Anson, First Lord of the Admiralty, for some alleged misconduct or shortcoming, and he thought of nothing but retrieving his honor.  “We must take her,” he said to his crew as the “Foudroyant” hove in sight.  “She looks more than a match for us, but I will not quit her while this ship can swim or I have a soul left alive;” and the sailors answered with cheers.  The fight was long and furious.  Gardiner was killed by a musket shot, begging his first lieutenant with his dying breath not to haul down his flag.  The lieutenant nailed it to the mast.  At length the “Foudroyant” ceased from thundering, struck her colors, and was carried a prize to England.[575]

[Footnote 575:  Entick, III. 56-60.]

The typical British naval officer of that time was a rugged sea-dog, a tough and stubborn fighter, though no more so than the politer generations that followed, at home on the quarter-deck, but no ornament to the drawing-room, by reason of what his contemporary, Entick, the strenuous chronicler of the war, calls, not unapprovingly, “the ferocity of his manners.”  While Osborn held La Clue imprisoned at Toulon, Sir Edward Hawke, worthy leader of such men, sailed with seven ships of the line and three frigates to intercept a French squadron from Rochefort convoying a fleet