Within sight from the Hard is an 80-gun three-decker, the _Royal William_, just back from the capture of Louisbourg, Cape Breton. She, too, was launched as long ago as Charles the Second’s reign, under the name _Royal Prince_, and she fought her first battle at Solebay, eighty-six years ago. She carried James Duke of York’s flag during part of the battle, and Prince Rupert in turn had his flag in her in a later battle. William the Third gave the ship her present name, and under it she fought at La Hogue as Sir Cloudesley Shovell’s flagship, not without distinction. If one might dip into the future and witness events just one year later, the visitor to Portsmouth would then see the _Royal William_ there again, and again just arrived from across the Atlantic. This time she would be in other guise—a ship “in mourning,” all over funereal black, with yards set to point in all directions—“a-cockbill,” as the old term went—and colours at half-mast, firing minute guns, and with a funeral procession of boats putting off from alongside to bear to the shore the body of General Wolfe. Off the dockyard, on this October afternoon of 1758, awaiting their turn for repair, are two jury-rigged ships. One is a small, old-fashioned sixty-four, firing a broadside of some 540 lb. weight of metal. The other is a giant 80-gun ship of French build, and brand new. She is bigger than the finest first-rate in King George’s service, a fair match for the new _Royal George_, and fires the tremendous broadside of 1136 lb. weight of metal. Yet the little ship took the big one in a midnight battle last February. It was as fine a feat of arms as the Navy has seen. The two are the _Monmouth_ and the _Foudroyant_. They have just come into port, and both show plenty of marks by way of battle scars. If you were to row round the _Foudroyant_ you would find her, on her larboard side, where the _Monmouth_ made her attack, battered almost to splinters. The fight lasted four and a half hours, from eight till after midnight, and went on for most of the time within pistol-shot. The _Monmouth_ in that time used up four tons of powder and about ten tons of cannon-balls. At Gibraltar, where they repaired the _Foudroyant_ to bring her to England, they had to plug over seventy shot-holes at the water-line—and two or three cannon-balls had gone through some of the holes.