England was, as before, determined to assert her supposed sovereignty of the narrow seas, and to compel other nations to acknowledge her claims. While cruising in the chops of the channel the _Winchester_, Captain Hughes, chased a strange sail, on coming up with which he discovered her to be a large Dutch privateer. The commander, on being required to pay the usual compliment to the British flag, not only refused, but discharged a broadside into the _Winchester_. An obstinate fight ensued, in which the Dutch commander and forty of his men were killed. The Dutch and English were at this time, it will be remembered, at peace; but we hear of no complaint being made of the proceeding. On the retirement of the Earl of Pembroke, the queen, in November, 1709, issued a warrant for the executing of the office of Lord High Admiral by commission. The next year an Act was passed for the purchase of lands in order to fortify and better secure the royal docks at Portsmouth, Chatham, Harwich, Plymouth, and Milford Haven. By another Act, any seaman in the merchant-service, who had been disabled in defending or taking enemy's ships was deemed qualified to be admitted into Greenwich Hospital. A fleet, under Sir Hovenden Walker, whose flag-ship was the _Edgar_, was sent out to attack Quebec, and to recover from the French Placentia, in the island of Newfoundland. Having arrived too late in the season he was compelled to return. While he and most of the officers were on shore, on the 15th of October, the _Edgar_ blew up at Spithead, when every soul perished.