La Clue remained at Carthagena till he found an opportunity to slip out and escape to Toulon in April. The attempt to send help to North America had broken down before the watch of the English admiral. It was Osborn’s last service. An attack of paralysis reduced him to the necessity of coming home in July. He was thanked by the House of Commons, and acknowledged its thanks in the words which sound best in the ears of Englishmen, protesting that he had done no more than his duty, and hoping that his services might be “the most inconsiderable that shall be thus honoured.” The command in the Mediterranean devolved on Admiral Brodrick, but the war in that sea died down till it revived in the _annus mirabilis_ of 1759. The share of the work thrown on the Channel fleet was not so successfully done. Until the superiority of the navy had been more fully established, and St. Vincent had organised his system of sleepless blockade, winter and summer, Brest was a bad port to watch, opening as it does on the wide and stormy Atlantic, not, as Toulon does, on the fierce and fickle but not formidable Mediterranean. In January of 1757 M. de Beauffremont left Brest for America with a squadron. It was too early to venture to enter the St. Lawrence, and he sailed first for the West Indies. Thence he made his way to Cape Breton in June, carrying with him a large convoy of merchant ships. At Cape Breton he found M. Durevest with the four vessels which had eluded Admiral Saunders in April. Another reinforcement joined him under the command of M. Dubois de Lamotte, who had left Brest on the 3rd May with nine sail of the line. The total force under Beauffremont’s command now amounted to eighteen sail of the line and five frigates. An admirable opportunity was offered him of doing some service, but he effected nothing of the active order. His mere presence on the coast had put a stop for the time to a scheme of Lord Loudoun for an attack on Louisbourg. In so far he did some good to his side in a passive way, and with that he was content. And with that he continued to be content. Admiral Holburne sailed from St. Helen’s on the 16th April, picked up some troops at Cork, and reached Halifax in July. His purpose was to join with Lord Loudoun and the colonial forces in an attack on Louisbourg. But the French were judged to be in too great strength to allow of success, and the combined operation was given up. Admiral Holburne, with his fleet of sixteen sail of the line and three frigates, paraded past Louisbourg in August and dared Beauffremont to battle. But the Frenchman would not come out. Holburne returned to Halifax, was reinforced by four sail of the line, and resumed the blockade of Louisbourg, but on the 24th of September a hurricane of extraordinary violence scattered his fleet, and he was blown home. The most severely damaged vessels were sent back at once. The admiral came on with the others, and the trade from Halifax. When the coast was