a task that, sooner than undertake it, he sent in his resignation. Wedderburn immediately claimed for himself the longcoveted Chief Justiceship, and he obtained it, notwithstanding Lord North's natural reluctance to forego so able a coadjutor in the House of Commons. He was further gratified with a Peerage, by the title of Lord Loughborough. His promotion was commonly approved, and drew forth warm congratulations, even from political opponents. Nor did they forbear from honourable counsels. "My Lord," wrote Burke, "I hope that, instead of bringing the littleness "of Parliamentary politics into a Court of Justice, you will "bring the squareness, the manliness, and the decision of a "judicial place into the House of Parliament where you are "just entering."*

Such high anticipations, it must be owned, were not altogether fulfilled. The speech with which the new Peer opened the Special Commission, on the 10th of July, was indeed much admired for its eloquence, and much applauded as falling in with the angry temper of that time. But, on cool retrospect, it was felt that its partial overstatements, its intemperate denunciations of men upon their trial, were far from becoming in a Judge. "At present," writes one of his successors on the Bench, "no Counsel, even in open"ing a prosecution, would venture to make such a speech." **

It so happened by good fortune for Lord George Gordon, that a legal technicality and no law certainly so much abounded in these as ours delayed the trial until the ensuing year, when a calmer temper in the public might be expected to prevail. But ere the month of July, 1780, had closed, all the other rioters in custody no less than 135 — had been already tried. Of these about one half were found Guilty; and among the convicted but he received a respite was Edward Dennis, the common hangman. Finally, after full consideration of the cases and numerous respites, there were twenty-one persons left to undergo the extreme sentence of the law.

*Letter, June 15. 1780. (Corresp. vol. ii. p. 356.)

**Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, vol. vi. p. 144. Similar to his is the judgment of Lord Brougham.

1780.

RODNEY RELIEVES GIBRALTAR.

43.

CHAPTER LXII.

REVERTING from the course of home affairs to the prosecution of the war, we find England, at this period, threatened or assailed in every quarter of the globe. - Ever since the Spaniards' declaration of war in 1779, Gibraltar had been closely invested. The events of that memorable siege will require and deserve a consecutive account, and that account will find its place at their close. Meanwhile, it may here be stated, that Admiral Sir George Rodney, who had been named to the chief command in the West Indies, was directed on his way to afford some relief to the beleaguered fortress. On this occasion, as on every other, Rodney more than fulfilled the expectations of his friends. At the beginning of his voyage, and of the month of January, he captured a rich Spanish convoy in the Bay of Biscay. On the 16th of the same month, he encountered the Spanish Admiral Langara, off Cape St. Vincent. The action, which continued till two hours after midnight, was well-contested, but the victory of the English was complete. Langara's own ship of eighty guns was taken, and three ships of the line besides, while four others were either sunk, blown up, or driven on shore. Of the whole Spanish fleet only four sail escaped into Cadiz Bay. Rodney pursuing his voyage and anchoring off Gibraltar, cheered the garrison by his news almost as much as by his succour. He sent forward some light ships, to afford relief, in like manner, to the English at Port Mahon; and these objects having been accomplished, he made the best of his way to the West Indies.

In that quarter the French fleet was commanded by Comte de Guichen; the Spanish, at a later period, by Admiral Solano. Rodney stood firm against both, even when combined, but was not able to bring them, as he wished, to

a general engagement. At last, the three antagonists parted as though by consent. De Guichen convoyed to Europe the homeward-bound merchantmen of France; Solano put into the Havanna; and Rodney sailed for a time towards the North American coasts.

The victory off Cape St. Vincent was by no means our sole success in the European seas. As Admiral Digby was returning home with Rodney's Spanish prizes, he fell in with and took a French ship of the line, besides two vessels laden with military stores. Several other captures were made by other Captains. But in the summer, although our naval glories were not tarnished, our trading interests sustained a grievous blow. Count Florida Blanca, the Spanish Minister, had received intelligence from his spies in England, that the united fleets of West and East India men were about to sail, with only two ships of war for their convoy. Laying his plan accordingly with great secresy and skill, he sent out a squadron with every ship that could be spared, to intercept these fleets at their point of separation off the Azores islands. The two English convoy-ships escaped, but scarce any of the convoy, and thus well-nigh sixty sail freighted with costly merchandise, and in part also with military stores for the defence of our distant settlements, were brought captive into Cadiz. Never before, it is said, was that harbour entered by so rich a prize.*

But besides the utmost exertions by sea, both of France and Spain, we had also, at this trying period, to withstand the claims of Neutral nations. These deemed their commerce impeded or their honour compromised by the Right of Search, which we had exercised ever since the beginning of the war. They were disposed to contend, in opposition to the principles of our Maritime law, and to the decisions of our Admiralty Courts, that a neutral flag should cover or protect the cargoes even of a hostile state. On this plea, if it had been yielded, the supplies most injurious to our interests might have been poured in without stint or measure, not * Coxe, Bourbon Kings of Spain, vol. v. p. 58.

1780.

CAPTURE OF A DUTCH CONVOY.

.45

only to any point on the French or Spanish coasts, but also to our own insurgent Colonies. With the Dutch more especially, as next to ourselves the most commercial nation, we had for some time past been engaged in discussions on that score. The complaints, however, did not come wholly from their side. In our arduous conflict we had found them lukewarm allies, or rather secret enemies. We accused them of giving direct encouragement to the American privateers in their West India islands. We accused them of receiving favourably in their European ports Paul Jones with the English prizes he had made. And we required from them, but in vain, military succours in the war, according to the positive stipulations in their treaty of 1716.

The memorials and counter-memorials on these subjects were transmitted in part by Count Welderen, the Dutch Minister in London, and in part by Sir Joseph Yorke, who for upwards of a quarter of a century had been the English Minister at the Hague. In the midst of this paper warfare and of the accumulating bales of protocols, some of the points in dispute were brought to a practical issue. On the first day of the New Year, 1780, a Dutch fleet of merchant-ships proceeding to the Mediterranean, and convoyed by one of their Admirals, Count Byland, fell in with an English squadron under Commodore Fielding. The Dutch commander refused to allow the pretensions of the English. He fired upon the boats which the Commodore sent to search his vessels; poured a broadside into Fielding's own flag-ship; and then, finding the act of hostility returned, struck his colours. The greater part of the convoy made their escape; but seven sail, besides Count Byland's man of war, were carried to Spithead. It was found that they were laden with military stores for the use of the French and Spaniards; and thus, on the event becoming known to the two Governments of St. James's and the Hague, there arose a train of angry recriminations from both. You supply our enemies with arms, said the English. You insult our flag, said the Dutch.

But the main importance of this affair was the impression

"

which it produced at Petersburg. News had come there some time since, that the Spanish cruisers in the Mediterranean had seized two Russian trading vessels, freighted with corn for the use of the garrison of Gibraltar. At these tidings the Empress Catherine had been highly incensed. "My commerce," she was fond of saying, "is my child; and as such she was eager to protect it. She was already preparing some retaliatory measures against Spain, when the event of the 1st of January enabled her Minister Count Panin, an enemy of England, to give a more general scope to her resentments. On the 26th of February, she issued her famous Declaration to the Belligerent Courts, asserting in the strongest terms the maxims, that free ships make free goods; that contraband articles are only such as a treaty stipulates; and that blockades to be acknowledged must be stringent and effective. This Declaration, though professedly aimed at all the Belligerents without distinction, in truth struck England solely, or almost solely, as the preponderating Power at sea. It became the basis of the "Armed Neutrality," as it was termed; an alliance between Russia, Sweden, and Denmark, to support the claims of Neutrals, if needful, even by the force of arms. To this alliance other Neutral Powers, as Holland and Prussia, afterwards acceded. Spain and France speedily gave in their adhesion to the Czarina's code; Spain declaring that she had infringed it only on compulsion to requite the violence of England. Thus, in addition to all her other enemies at this period, in the Old World and the New, England was left to maintain, single-handed, against a league of the Baltic Powers, her principles of Maritime Law.**

It might seem indeed as if, at that period, the other nations of the earth, jealous of our long ascendancy, or mind

See the Malmesbury Papers, vol. i. page 355.

** Besides the many older writers on the "Armed Neutrality," I would commend to English readers, an account of it in the unpretending, but candid and very able, volume recently published by Mr. W. H. Trescot, in America. (Diplomacy of the Revolution, New York, 1852.) The principal points at issue have been condensed by M. Thiers, in a clear and masterly sketch. (Le Consulat et l'Empire, vol. ii. pp. 106-110. ed. 1845.)