WILLIAM AXD MAET.

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the remains of the force which had lately been collected underTourville were dispersed over the ocean. Even the passagefrom England to Ireland was insecure. Every week it w'as an-nounced that tw'enty, thirty, fifty vessels belonging to Londonor Bristol had been taken by the French. More than a hun-dred prizes W'ere carried during that autumn into Saint Maloosalone. It would have been far better, in the opinion of theshipowners and of the underwriters, that the Royal Sun hadstill been afloat with her thousand fighting men on board thanthat she should bo lying a heap of ashes on the beach at Cher-burg, while her crew, distributed among twenty brigantines,prowled for booty over the sea between Cape Finisterre andCape Clear.*

The 'privateers of Dunkirk had long been celebrated; andamong them, John Bart, humbly horn, and scarcely able tosign his name, but eminently brave and active, had attainedan undisputed preeminence. In the country of Anson andIlawke, of Howe and Rodney, of Duncan, Saint Vincent andNelson, the name of the most daring and skilful corsair wouldhave f little chance of being remembered. But France, amongwhose many unquestioned titles to glory very few are derivedfrom naval war, still ranks Bart among her great men. In theautumn of 1692 this enterprising freebooter was the terror of allthe English and Dutch merchants who traded with the Baltic.He took and destroyed vessels close to the eastern coast of ourisland. He even ventured to land in Northumberland, andburned many houses before the trainbands could be collectedto oppose him. The prizes which he carried hack into hisnative port were estimated at about a hundred thousand pounds

* Commons’Journals, Nov. ID. 1692; Burnet, ii. 95.; Grey’s Debates,Nov. 21. 1692; Paris Gazettes of August and September; Narcissus Luttrell’aDiary, Sept.

CHAP.

XIX.