It was only off Newfoundland that Admiral Boscawen’s squadron encountered some French vessels detached from the fleet in consequence of the bad weather. “Captain Hocquart, who commanded the _Alcide,_” says the account of M. de Choiseul, “finding himself within hail of the _Dunkerque,_ had this question put in English: ‘Are we at peace or war?’ The English captain appearing not to understand, the question was repeated in French. ‘Peace! peace!’ shouted the English. Almost at the same moment the _Dunkerque_ poured in a broadside, riddling the _Alcide_ with balls.” The two French ships were taken; and a few days afterwards, three hundred merchant vessels, peaceably pursuing their course, were seized by the English navy. The loss was immense, as well as the disgrace. France at last decided upon declaring war, which had already been commenced in fact for more than two years. It was regretfully, and as if compelled by a remnant of national honor, that Louis XV. had just adopted the resolution of defending his colonies; he had, and the nation had as well, the feeling that the French were hopelessly weak at sea. “What use to us will be hosts of troops and plenty of money,” wrote the advocate Barbier, “if we have only to fight the English at sea? They will take all our ships one after another, they will seize all our settlements in America, and will get all the trade. We must hope for some division amongst the English nation itself, for the king personally does not desire war.” The English nation was not divided. The ministers and the Parliament, as well as the American colonies, were for war. “There is no hope of repose for our thirteen colonies, as long as the French are masters of Canada,” said Benjamin Franklin, on his arrival in London in 1754. He was already laboring, without knowing it, at that great work of American independence which was to be his glory and that of his generation; the common efforts and the common interest of the thirteen American colonies in the war against France were the first step towards that great coalition which founded the United States of America. The union with the mother-country was as yet close and potent: at the instigation of Mr. Fox, soon afterwards Lord Holland, and at the time Prime Minister of England, Parliament voted twenty-five millions for the American war. The bounty given to the soldiers and marines who enlisted was doubled by private subscription; fifteen thousand men were thus raised to invade the French colonies.