1755.] THE WAR IN EUROPE AND AMERICA. 103 



fleet put to sea from the port of Brest, freighted 

 with munitions of war and a strong body of troops 

 under Baron Dieskau, an officer who had distin- 

 guished himself in the campaigns of Marshal Saxe. 

 The English fleet gained its destination, and landed 

 its troops in safety. The French were less fortu- 

 nate. Two of their ships, the Lys and the Alcide, 

 became involved in the fogs of the banks of New- 

 foundland ; and when the weather cleared, they 

 found themselves under the guns of a superior Brit- 

 ish force, belonging to the squadron of Admiral 

 Boscawen, sent out for the express purpose of 

 intercepting them. " Are we at peace or war i " 

 demanded the French commander. A broadside 

 from the Englishman soon solved his doubts, and 

 after a stout resistance the French struck their 

 colors.^ News of the capture caused great excite- 

 ment in England, but the conduct of the aggres- 

 sors was generally approved ; and under pretence 

 that the French had begun the war by their alleged 

 encroachments in America, orders were issued for 

 a general attack upon their marine. So successful 

 were the British cruisers, that, before the end of 

 the year, three hundred French vessels and nearly 

 eight thousand sailors were captured and brought 

 into port.^ The French, unable to retort in kind, 



1 Garneau, II. 551. Gent, Mag. XXV. 330. 



2 SmoUett, III. 436. 



" The French inveighed against the capture of their ships, before any 

 declaration of war, as flagrant acts of piracy ; and some neutral powers of 

 Europe seemed to consider them in the same point of view. It was cer- 

 tainly high time to check the insolence of the French by force of arms ; 

 and surely this might have been as eflectually and expeditiously exerted 



