HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



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own ambition, certain it is, it at 

 the time was predifted (and which 

 subsequent events but too fatally 

 proved) one, not fpunded in judg- 

 ment, nor likely to revive the 

 drooping laurels of the favourite 

 service of the country. 



As subsequent events (which do 

 not come within the scope of this 

 volume) have not only necessitated 

 lord Melville to retire from his si- 

 tuation at the admiralt)', but have 

 tumbled him headlong from the emi- 

 nence, where his abilities and good 

 fortune had placed him, " never to 

 rise again," we are glad to have 

 it in our power to state, to the ere- 

 dit of this fallen minister, that to 

 him the civil department of the navy 

 was indebted for measures at once 

 timely and decisive. If it must be al- 

 lowed, that, in nautical affairs, he 

 ■was entirely unversed, yet in ac- 

 tivity of mind, and plenitude of re- 

 source, he infinitely exc(?iled his 

 predecessor ; and he deserves no 

 small degree of praise for the care 

 and pains he instantly took upon 

 his entering into office, to repair 

 the dreadful breaches which the 

 o'cononiical system had made in 

 every department of the naval ser- 

 vice. Nor, Tn faft, was this an 

 easy task : for such was the muti- 

 lated and shattered state of the fleet, 

 and to such an extent had this spirit 

 of parsimonious reform been car- 

 ried, that when stores and timber 

 were od'ered at comparatively very 

 moderate terms, they were refused 

 by the late admiralty, and suffered 

 to be sold to the agents of the ene- 

 mies of the country, rather than 

 deviate from their pernicious prin- 

 ciple, although at that moment our 

 dock-yards were in want ot those 

 articles for their daily consumption. 

 Thus stripped an(i reduced, as our 



arsenals were found by lord Me!- 

 ville, he w'as compelled to accept 

 the offers of timber, stores, and 

 masts, at whatever prices the con- 

 tra6tors chose to demand, and which, 

 under any other circumstances, 

 might,with j ustice, have been deemed 

 a most culpable and lavish expendi- 

 ture. Thus were the errors of the 

 late admiralty paid for by the pub- 

 lic, without its possessing any con- 

 fidence in its better government un- 

 der the present. Tfic deficiency of 

 ships, which had been sufiered 

 to rot at their moorings, without 

 the addition of a single new one 

 to replace them, was m;i(le up by 

 the purchase of East India ships, 

 and by contracting for the repair of 

 others. And a sort of patch-work 

 fleet was thus created, which, in 

 numbers, Avcrc to tell against those 

 of the enemy, but which, in fadt, 

 were very little intrinfic strength to 

 our fleet. But the principal ser.vice 

 which the new first lord of (he admi- 

 ralty rendered to the navy, and to his 

 country, was by laying down new 

 ships of the line, and frigates, in thu 

 king's yards, and by restoring the 

 practice of -contriving for the build- 

 ing of others in those of the mer- 

 chants, which had been totally 

 laid aside ; and thus providing for 

 the future existence of our best and 

 surest defence. 



On the appointment of lord Mel- 

 ville, much apprehension prevailed 

 in the navy, that those prcdiledtions ' 

 ■which he was supposed to entertain, 

 (in common with all those who come 

 from the same part of the world,) 

 for his co>iutrym-cn, would have 

 filled up every subordinate statioa 

 with Scotchmen. It is, however, 

 but justice to declare, that in this 

 respett, much impartiality govemed 

 his conduct during the period when 



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