their position on the 30th, returned to New York. Byron’s scattered ships now began to drop in, but Howe’s service was over for the time being. On the 25th September he handed over his command to Gambier, and sailed for home. On his return he refused to serve under Sandwich, who had supported him so ill. The reason was a bad one, and was not excused by the fact that the minister’s hacks endeavoured to throw blame on the admiral. An officer who pleads a personal offence as an excuse for not fighting his country’s enemies sets an example which is only just short of mutinous. Gambier was soon superseded by the arrival of his superior Byron. “Foul Weather Jack” made haste to refit his ships at New York, and on the 18th October went to look into Boston. Storms blew him about, he lost vessels, and was forced to take refuge in Newport, Rhode Island. D’Estaign in the meantime had been striving with the ill-will of the Bostonians, a people described by the English historian Beatson as of “a sour, morose, and sullen temper.” They were very angry with the French for not giving more support to Sullivan at Rhode Island, and showed their ill-will by making riotous attacks on the sailors of their allies. One of D’Estaign’s officers, M. de Saint Sauveur, was actually killed in a savage conflict between the townsmen and the French boats’ crews. The admiral was nevertheless able to refit his squadron mainly with our own naval stores, captured and brought into port by the active American privateers. The approach of winter made campaigning hazardous on the stormy Northern coast, and on the 4th November D’Estaign sailed for the West Indies, where the French wished to recover their losses in the previous war. All through this war the main fleets will be found leaving the Antilles when the hurricane months begin in July, and the summer favours them in the North. Then, as winter approaches, and the hurricane season is over in October, they will be found streaming back to take part in the defence or conquest of the islands round the Caribbean Sea. The change in the scene of conflict had been foreseen by us. On the 4th November, the very day that D’Estaign left Boston, Hotham sailed from New York with two 64-gun ships, three of 50, and three frigates, carrying 5000 men of the army in North America, which was already too weak for its work. They were destined for Barbadoes first, and then for the general protection of the Sugar Islands. So close did Hotham and D’Estaign come to one another on the passage that a Newfoundland dog belonging to an English officer, which fell overboard, is said to have been picked up swimming by the French flagship the _Languedoc_, but there was no meeting.