men in good spirits. They adorned their veffels with all the pomp and parade of a naval triumph. Their colours of every kind were hung out. The foldiers dreffed in new red uniforms, and difpofed upon the poop, and upon the tops, made a gallant appearance. In this manner they advanced to the attack, with horns founding and drums beating; and every thing expreffed hope and joy.

This gay preparative was followed by a fierce fire, fupported on both fides for four hours, at a very small distance, with uncommon refolution. The Spaniards pointed their guns well, and ftood to them with firmnefs. But their fpirit and perfeverance was more than equalled by the British fhips, whofe fire at length became fuperior. The Spanish batteries were almoft filenced. The English were in expectation of feeing the colours immediately ftruck, when, juft as their fuccefs feemed certain, by fome unknown accident, the fhip took fire. In an inftant fhe was all in a blaze. The fame moment discovered the flames, and the impoffibility of extinguishing them.

Then was to be feen a most dreadful fpectacle. All the fides of the veffel were immediately crouded with naked men, who but a few minutes before reckoned themselves almoft in the affured poffeffion of wealth and conquest, precipitating themselves into the fea with the melancholy alternative of a death by fire or water. Some clung to the yards and rigging, until the prevalency of the flames loofed their holds, and they tumbled into the fea. The enemy's fire, which recommenced on this accident, redoubled their diftrefs, VOL. VI.

and many, who might have efcaped drowning, perifhed by the fhot. Several had loft their limbs in the engagement, who lay bleeding and helpless on the deck, and without the leaft power of fhifting their fituation, beheld the flames approach them. No affittance could be given, all being occupied by their own diftrefs, and intent on their own prefervation. Some of the wounded perished by their own hands.

A circumstance is related of this dreadful scene, which is extremely ftriking, and ftrongly characterifes the fpirit of our English feamen. Several of those who could not fwim, in the midst of all this fcene of horror and confufion, went to the lower guns, and kept up a conftant fire upon the enemy, till they were driven by the flames to die in another element. The commodore was drowned; and of 340 fouls, only 78 in all escaped.

The other veffels of the fquadron, far from being able to yield any affiftance to the fufferers, were obliged to get off as expeditiously as they could, left they fhould have been involved in the fame fate. The Ambufcade, the next fhip in force to the commodore's, with difficul ty efcaped. She was little better than a wreck; he had fixty fhot in her hull (many of them between wind and water) and fix foot of water in her hold; and all her rigging was miferably mangled. By exertion of uncommon efforts they made a fhift to get into the Portuguese fettlement at Rio de Janeiro.

4

In this manner ended the laft expedition made by our people in the war: an expedition con[C] ducted

mense waste of savage country was evidently to a commercial nation no great object for the prefent; but it was a confidcrable one in hope, because it contained an inexhaustible variety of foils, climates and fituations, and thereby afforded ample materials for the exertion of wealth and skill in its improvement to all the purposes (of trade. These exertions were not likely to be wanting, or to be ineffectual. Independent of national motives, the administration in England had a particular intereft in improving thofe acquifitions to the utmoft; they were to juftify the choice they had made in preferring them to the Weft India iflands. They therefore took very great pains to come at an exact knowledge of every thing, which could tend to render our new conquefts on this continent flourishing and commercial. To this end they judged it expedient to divide them into three separate and independent go

vernments.

The first and most northerly of thefe divifions was called the government of Quebec. It is bounded on the Labrador coaft by the river of St. John, or Saguenay. This river continues the boundary of the colony, as it runs from the weftward, until you come to a lake, which it meets in its course, called the Lake of St. John.

To form the western boundary, an imaginary line is here drawn from that lake to another, which is fituated to the fouth-west of it, and is called Nipiflim. At this lake they changed the direction of the line, fo as to make it cross the river St. Lawrence and the Lake Champlain in forty-five degrees of north latitude; and this

formed the southern boundary. From thence ftriking the line to the north-eaft, they carried it quite to the gulph of St. Lawrence, through the high lands, which feparate the rivers which fall into the great river of Canada from these which fall into the ocean. This government is very fhort, almoft upon every fide, of the extent of the government of Canada, whilst it continued in the hands of the French.

They divided the fouthern part of our conquefts on this continent into two governments, thofe of Eaft and Weft Florida. The former was bounded towards the north by our colony of Georgia; to the east and fouth by the Atlantic ocean and the gulph of Florida; and on the weft by the river Apalachicola.

The latter, or Weft Florida, was bounded on the eaft by the fame river. Its fouthern frontier ran along the gulph of Mexico to the Lake Pontchartrain on one of the mouths of the Mififippi. This great river formed its boundary to the weft unto the 31ft degree of latitude, from which a line was ftruck across for the northern limit, due eaft, until it met the abovementioned river Apalachicola.

As to the shore of Labrador and the adjacent iflands in the gulph of St. Lawrence, their value confifts, in a manner wholly, in the fishery carried on upon their coafts. It is of importance to that branch of commerce to be under ftrict regulations; and this could never be well compaffed, unless the coaft, near which it is carried on, was under a fingle direction. With great judgment, therefore, all the coaft of Labrador from the river [C] 2 Saguenay

Saguenay to Hudfon's ftreights, and all the neighbouring iflands, were put under the care and inspection of the governor of Newfoundland. But the islands of St. John and Cape Breton were annexed, as their fituation required, to Nova Scotia.

The reader will obferve, and poffibly with fome furprife, that in this diftribution, much the largest, and, perhaps, the most valuable part of our conquefts, does not fall into any of these governments; that the environs of the great lakes, the fine countries on the whole courfe of the Ohio and Ouabache, and almost all that tract of Louifiana, which lies on the hither branch of the Miffifippi, are none of them comprehended in this diftribution. The government of Weft Florida extends in no part much above half a degree from the sea.

Many reafons may be affigned for this apparent omiffion. A confideration of the Indians was, we prefume, the principal, because it might have given a fenfible alarm to that people, if they had feen us formally cantoning out their whole country into regular establishments. It was in this idea that the royal proclamation of the 7th of October 1763, ftrictly forbids any purchafes or fettlements beyond the limits of the three abovementioned governments, or any extenfion of our old colonies beyond the heads of the rivers which fall from the weftward into the Atlantic ocean; referving exprefly all the territory behind thefe as an hunting ground for the Indians. The crown, however, retains its right of making purchases and agreements with the Indians.

This refraint is founded on

reafon and equity. But we can. not help obferving, that the neceffity of fuch a restraint feems to detract fomewhat from the force of thofe arguments which have been ufed to prove the value of our acquifitions on this continent. About the beginning of the war, a map of the middle fettlements was published, in which thefe back countries were for the first time laid down with exactnefs. A pamphlet accompanied the map, by the fame author, who feemed perfectly well acquainted with that part of the world. In this pamphlet it was afferted, that, notwithstanding the vaft extent of territory, which even then we poffeffed in North America, the nature of the country was fuch, that ufeful land began to be fcarce, and that our fettlements muft fhortly be checked and limited by this circumftance. The great expediency, almoft the abfolute neceffity, of a further extent of our territories there, was urged upon this principle; and many schemes of trade and manufacture were grounded upon it. It is vifible, that the execution of these schemes muft be, for a while at leaft, fufpended. However, it is not improbable that particular interefts, and, at that particular time, an intention likewife in favour of the national intereft, may have perfuaded thefe writers to reprefent the fearcity of improveable land on the hither fide of the mountains to be much greater than in reality it is.

Another reafon,we fuppofe, why no difpofition has been made of the inland country, was, that the charters of many of our old colonies give them, with very few exceptions, no other bounds to the weftward but the South Sea; and

confe