136 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1804. 



and Oporto : but. whether it were 

 to private or i)ublic iiiismanagcment, 

 certain it is, that the loss to the na- 

 tion was that ol' a line frigate, her 

 captain, many of her olVicers, and 

 sixty of her crew, with forty sail of 

 merchant ships, richly laden, and 

 more than live hundred seamen.* 



On the 15th of May, tlie acces- 

 sion of Mr. Pitt lO the oflicc of prime 

 "minister, gave the country a new 

 naval administration. At this pe- 

 riod, the situation of the British 

 marine was indeed critical. The total 

 want of stores, the neglected state 

 of the dock yards, and the universal 

 dissatisfaftion which pervaded both 

 its civil and military departments, 

 called loudly for new men and new 

 measures. True it is, that the per- 

 severance and unshaken spirit of 

 loyalty in that service, ^avc just 

 cause for national exultation ; and the 

 l)lockadingsystcmwasstill continued 

 Ly those, whose shattered ships and 

 •%vorn-out crews hardly enabi.cl them 

 lo obey orders, which, when exe- 

 cuted, could neither add to their 

 own renown, nor to the advantage 

 of the nation. But doep and loud 

 murmurs daily broke forth at the 

 instances which occurred of the 

 inefficiency of that measure, which 

 nearly two years' experience had 

 completely ex^iosed ; while, from 

 the abandonment of the gunboat 

 armament, the enemy sailed along 

 liis own coast in perfeft security, 

 (with the exception of the capture 

 of two or three of his vessels, which 

 ■boisterous weatiier had driven into 

 deep water.) and assembled his 

 immense ilolilhi, destined for our in- 

 vasion, at Boulogne, in defiance of 

 the sort of force wliich the admiralty 

 had confidently boasted was the 



only class proper to be effeftlreljr 

 employed on such service. Scarcely 

 a wind that blew that did not bring 

 an account of losses at sea, origi- 

 nating in want of judgment. In 

 line, an opinion universally pre- 

 vailed, that the very existence of tha 

 British navy depended upon a speedy 

 change of the admiralty. 



A perfect knowledge of the weak- 

 ness of tliisbriinch of the government, 

 induced Mr. Pitt here to direct his 

 principal attack, and may be assign- 

 ed as one of the means, which ena- 

 bled him, eventually, to overthrow 

 Mr. Addington's administration. 

 Under the circumstances of unpa- 

 ralleled difficulty in which our na- 

 val affairs were situated, it certain- 

 ly was matter of the utmost moment 

 to place at their head a successor 

 to the earl of St. Vincent, who 

 should, at once, be able and popu- 

 lar, and possess sufficient talents to 

 restore them to the prosperous con- 

 dition in which they had been left 

 by carl Spencer The appointment 

 of lord Melville (heretofore Mr. 

 Diindas) as first lord commissioner 

 of the admiralty, appeared there- 

 fore, ntterly strange and unac- 

 countable, as it was well known, 

 that although, as a statesman, he had 

 filled almost every high office under 

 the various administrations of this 

 country for the last 20 years, with 

 the exception of that to which ho 

 was now called, he was iitterly un- 

 qualified, by his total ignorance of 

 naval matters, for his proposed si- 

 tuation. Whether this nomination 

 arose, from the want of some other 

 person of sufficient abilities in the 

 narrow «ircle of Mr. Pitt's political 

 adherents to occupy so important 

 a trust, or, that it was his lorckihip's 



Title a particular account of this event, Appendix, p. 530. 



©wft 



