out his benefactor's patience and good breeding by repeating that this was the very moment for an invasion of England, and that the whole island was impatiently expecting its foreign deliverers, events were passing which signally proved how little the banished oppressor understood the character of his country

men.

Tourville had, since the battle of Beachy Head, ranged the Channel unopposed. On the twenty-first of July his masts were seen from the rocks of Portland. On the twenty-second he anchored in the harbour of Torbay, under the same heights which had, not many months before, sheltered the armament of William. The French fleet, which now had a considerable number of the troops on board, consisted of a hundred and eleven sail. The galleys, which formed a large part of this force, resembled rather those ships with which Alcibiades and Lysander disputed the sovereignty of the Ægean than those which contended at the Nile and at Trafalgar. The galley was very long and very narrow, the deck not more than two feet from the water edge. Each galley was propelled by fifty or sixty huge oars, and each oar was tugged by five or six slaves. The full complement of slaves to a vessel was three hundred and thirty-six; the full complement of officers and soldiers a hundred and fifty. Of the unhappy rowers some were criminals who had been justly condemned to a life of hardship and danger: a few had been guilty only of adhering obstinately to the Huguenot worship: the great majority were purchased bondsmen, generally Turks and Moors. They were of course always forming plans for massacring their tyrants and escaping from servitude, and could be kept in order only by constant stripes, and by the frequent infliction of death in horrible forms. An Englishman, who happened to fall in with about twelve hundred of these most miserable and most desperate of human beings on their road from Marseilles to join Tourville's squadron, heard them vowing that, if they came near a man of war bearing the cross of St. George, they would never again see a French dockyard.*

* See the articles Galère and Galérien, in the Encyclopédie, with the plates;

In the Mediterranean Sea galleys were in ordinary use: but none had ever before been tossed on the stormy ocean which roars round our island. The flatterers of Lewis said that the appearance of such a squadron on the Atlantic was one of those wonders which were reserved for his reign; and a medal was struck at Paris to commemorate this bold experiment in maritime war.* English sailors, with more reason, predicted that the first gale would send the whole of his fairweather armament to the bottom of the Channel. Indeed the galley, like the ancient trireme, generally kept close to the shore, and ventured out of sight of land only when the water was unruffled and the sky serene. But the qualities which made this sort of ship unfit to brave the tempests and billows made it peculiarly fit for the purpose of landing soldiers. Tourville determined to try what effect would be produced by a disembarkation. The English Jacobites who had taken refuge in France were all confident that the whole population of the island was ready to rally round an invading army; and he probably gave them credit for understanding the temper of their countrymen.

Never was there a greater error. Indeed the French admiral is said by tradition to have received, while he was still out at sea, a lesson which might have taught him not to rely on the assurances of exiles. He picked up a fishing boat, and interrogated the owner, a plain Sussex man, about the sentiments of the nation. "Are you," Tourville asked, "for King James?" "I do not know much about such matters," answered the fisherman. "I have nothing to say against King James. He is a very worthy gentleman, I believe. God bless him." "A good fellow!" said Tourville: "Then I am sure you will have no objection to take service with us." "What!" cried the prisoner; go with the French to fight against the English! Your honour must excuse me. I could not do it to save my life."

This

A True Relation of the Cruelties and Barbarities of the French upon the English Prisoners of War, by R. Hutton, licensed June 27, 1690.

* See the Collection of Medals of Lewis the Fourteenth.

+ This anecdote, true or false, was current at the time, or soon after. In 1745 it was mentioned as a story which old people had heard in their youth. It is quoted in the Gentleman's Magazine of that year from another periodical work.

poor fisherman, whether he was a real or an imaginary person, spoke the sense of the nation. The beacon on the ridge overlooking Teignmouth was kindled the High Tor and Causland made answer: and soon all the hill tops of the West were on fire. Messengers were riding hard all night from Deputy Lieutenant to Deputy Lieutenant. Early the next morning, without chief, without summons, five hundred gentlemen and yeomen, armed and mounted, had assembled on the summit of Haldon Hill. In twenty-four hours all Devonshire was up. Every road in the county from sea to sea was covered by multitudes of fighting men, all with their faces set towards Torbay. The lords of a hundred manors, proud of their long pedigrees and old coats of arms, took the field at the head of their tenantry, Drakes, Prideauxes, and Rolles, Fowel of Fowelscombe and Fulford of Fulford, Sir Bourchier Wrey of Tawstock Park and Sir William Courtenay of Powderham Castle. Letters written by several of the Deputy Lieutenants who were most active during this anxious week are still preserved. All these letters agree in extolling the courage and enthusiasm of the people. But all agree also in expressing the most painful solicitude as to the result of an encounter between a raw militia and veterans who had served under Turenne and Luxemburg; and all call for the help of regular troops, in language very unlike that which, when the pressure of danger was not felt, country gentlemen were then in the habit of using about standing armies.

Tourville, finding that the whole population was united as one man against him, contented himself with sending his galleys to ravage Teignmouth, an unfortified market town which had given no provocation and could make no defence. A short cannonade put the inhabitants to flight. Seventeen hundred men landed and marched into the deserted streets. More than a hundred houses were burned to the ground. The cattle were slaughtered. The barks and fishing smacks which lay in the river were destroyed. Two parish churches were sacked, the Bibles and Prayerbooks torn and scattered about the roads, the pulpits and communion tables demolished. By this time sixteen or seventeen thousand Devonshire men had encamped close

to the shore; and all the neighbouring counties had risen. The tin mines of Cornwall had sent forth a great multitude of rude and hardy men mortally hostile to Popery. Ten thousand of them had just signed an address to the Queen, in which they had promised to stand by her against every enemy; and they now kept their word.* In truth, the whole nation was stirred. Two and twenty troops of cavalry, furnished by Suffolk, Essex, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire, were reviewed by Mary at Hounslow, and were complimented by Marlborough on their martial appearance. The militia of Kent and Surrey encamped on Blackheath.† Van Citters informed the States General that all England was up in arms, on foot or on horseback, that the disastrous event of the battle of Beachy Head had not cowed, but exasperated the people, and that every company of soldiers which he passed on the road was shouting with one voice, "God bless King William and Queen Mary."

Charles Granville, Lord Lansdowne, eldest son of the Earl of Bath, came with some troops from the garrison of Plymouth to take the command of the tumultuary army which had assem bled round the basin of Torbay. Lansdowne was no novice. He had served several hard campaigns against the common enemy of Christendom, and had been created a Count of the Roman Empire in reward of the valour which he had displayed on that memorable day, sung by Felicaja and by Waller, when the infidels retired from the walls of Vienna. He made preparations for action; but the French did not choose to attack him, and were indeed impatient to depart. They found some difficulty in getting away. One day the wind was adverse to the sailing vessels. Another day the water was too rough for the galleys. At length the fleet stood out to sea. As the line of ships turned the lofty cape which overlooks Torquay, an inci* London Gazette, July 7, 1690.

† Narcissus Luttrell's Diary. ‡ I give this interesting passage in Van Citters's own words. "Door geheel het ryk alles te voet en te paarde in de wapenen op was; en 't gene een seer groote gerustheyt gaf was dat alle en een yder even seer tegen de Franse door de laatste voorgevallen bataille verbittert en geanimeert warem. Gelyk door de troupes, dewelke ik op de weg alomme gepasseert ben, niet anders heb konnen hooren als een eenpaarig en generaal geluydt van God bless King William eù July 25, Queen Mary," 1690. Aug. 4,

dent happened which, though slight in itself, greatly interested the thousands who lined the coast. Two wretched slaves disengaged themselves from an oar, and sprang overboard. One of them perished. The other, after struggling more than an hour in the water, came safe to English ground, and was cordially welcomed by a population to which the discipline of the galleys was a thing strange and shocking. He proved to be a Turk, and was humanely sent back to his own country.

A pompous description of the expedition appeared in the Paris Gazette. But in truth Tourville's exploits had been inglorious, and yet less inglorious than impolitic. The injury which he had done bore no proportion to the resentment which he had roused. Hitherto the Jacobites, had tried to persuade the nation that the French would come as friends and deliverers, would observe strict discipline, would respect the temples and the ceremonies of the established religion, and would depart as soon as the Dutch oppressors had been expelled and the ancient constitution of the realm restored. The short visit of Tourville to our coast had shown how little reason there was to expect such moderation from the soldiers of Lewis. They had been in our island only a few hours, and had occupied only a few acres. But within a few hours and a few acres had been exhibited in miniature the devastation of the Palatinate. What had happened was communicated to the whole kingdom far more rapidly than by gazettes or newsletters. A brief for the relief of the people of Teignmouth was read in all the ten thousand parish churches of the land. No congregation could hear without emotion that the Popish marauders had made desolate the habitations of quiet fishermen and peasants, had outraged the altars of God, had torn to pieces the Gospels and the Liturgy. A street, built out of the contributions of the charitable, on the site of the dwellings which the invaders had destroyed, still retains the name of French Street.*

*As to this expedition I have consulted the London Gazettes of July 24, 28, 31, Aug. 4, 1690; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Welwood's Mercurius Reformatus, Sept. 5; the Gazette de Paris; a letter from Mr. Duke, a Deputy Lieutenant of Devonshire, to Hampden, dated July 25; a letter from Mr. Fulford of Fulford to Lord Nottingham, dated July 26; a letter of the same date from the Deputy