This return, however, was not accomplished without some difficulty.  The enemy’s fleet attacked the rear guard of ours, and after an obstinate combat, took two vessels of war and some other vessels.  Among the prisoners made by the English were the Marquis de Levi, Lord Griffin, and the two sons of Middleton; who all, after suffering some little bad treatment, were conducted to London.

Lord Griffin was an old Englishman, who deserves a word of special mention.  A firm Protestant, but much attached to the King of England, he knew nothing of this expedition until after the King’s departure.  He went immediately in quest of the Queen.  With English freedom he reproached her for the little confidence she had had in him, in spite of his services and his constant fidelity, and finished by assuring her that neither his age nor his religion would hinder him from serving the King to the last drop of his blood.  He spoke so feelingly that the Queen was ashamed.  After this he went to Versailles, asked M. de Toulouse for a hundred Louis and a horse, and without delay rode off to Dunkerque, where he embarked with the others.  In London he was condemned to death; but he showed so much firmness and such disdain of death, that his judges were too much ashamed to avow the execution to be carried out.  The Queen sent him one respite, then another, although he had never asked for either, and finally he was allowed to remain at liberty in London on parole.  He always received fresh respites, and lived in London as if it his own country, well received everywhere.  Being informed that these respites would never cease, he lived thus several years, and died very old, a natural death.  The other prisoners were equally well treated.  It was in this expedition that the King of England first assumed the title of the Chevalier de Saint George, and that his enemies gave him that of the Pretender; both of which have remained to him.  He showed much will and firmness, which he spoiled by a docility, the result of a bad education, austere and confined, that devotion, ill understood, together with the desire of maintaining him in fear and dependence, caused the Queen (who, with all her sanctity, always wished to dominate) to give him.  He asked to serve in the next campaign in Flanders, and wished to go there at once, or remain near Dunkerque.  Service was promised him, but he was made to return to Saint Germain.  Hough, who had been made a peer of Ireland before starting, preceded him with the journals of the voyage, and that of Forbin, to whom the King gave a thousand crowns pension and ten thousand as a recompense.

The King of England arrived at Saint Germain on Friday, the 20th of April, and came with the Queen, the following Sunday, to Marly, where our King was.  The two Kings embraced each other several times, in the presence of the two Courts.  But the visit altogether was a sad one.  The Courts, which met in the garden, returned towards the Chateau, exchanging indifferent words in an indifferent way.