quiet that had then endured a quarter of a century was so popular with the awakened intelligence of England, aroused at last to the imminent importance of her call to expansion by sea, that it was greeted by a general pealing of the bells, which drew from the reluctant prime minister, Walpole, that bitter gibe, “Ay, to-day they are ringing their bells, and to-morrow they will be wringing their hands.”  Howe embarked with Anson’s squadron, celebrated for its sufferings, its persistence, and its achievements, to waste the Spanish colonies of the Pacific; but the ship in which he had started was so racked in the attempt to double Cape Horn that she was forced to return to England.  The young officer afterwards served actively in the West Indies and in home waters.  On the 1st of May, 1746, being then in command of a small sloop of war, he was severely wounded in action with a superior enemy’s force off the coast of Scotland.  A few days before that, on the 10th of April, he had been promoted post-captain, being barely turned twenty.  Thus early he was securely placed on the road to the highest honors of his profession, which, however, were not to prove beyond the just claim of his already established personal merit.

During the first thirty months of the Seven Years War, Howe was closely engaged with, and at times in command of, the naval part of combined expeditions of the army and navy, fitted out to harass the French coasts.  The chief, though not the sole aim in these undertakings was to effect diversions in favor of Frederick the Great, then plunged in his desperate struggle with the allied forces of Russia, Austria, and France.  It was believed that the last would be compelled, for the defence of her own shores against those raids,—­desultory, it is true but yet uncertain as to the time and place where the attack would fall,—­to withdraw a number of troops that would sensibly reduce the great odds then overbearing the Prussian king.  It is more than doubtful whether this direction of British power, in partial, eccentric efforts, produced results adequate to the means employed.  In immediate injury to France they certainly failed, and it is questionable whether they materially helped Frederick; but they made a brisk stir in the Channel ports, their operations were within easy reach of England in a day when news travelled slowly, and they drew the attention of the public and of London society in a degree wholly disproportionate to their importance relatively to the great issues of the war.  Their failures, which exceeded their achievements, caused general scandal; and their occasional triumphs aroused exaggerated satisfaction at this earlier period, before the round of unbroken successes under the first Pitt had accustomed men, to use Walpole’s lively phrase, to come to breakfast with the question, “What new victory is there this morning?” The brilliant letter-writer’s correspondence is full of the gossip arising from these usually paltry affairs;