During this war the usual complaints about ships’ bottoms were made, especially from the West Indian Station; and in October, 1761, the Admiralty ordered a frigate to be sheathed with thin sheets of copper as an experiment. This was at first found extremely successful, but after the lapse of a few years it was noted that chemical action had set up between the copper and the iron bolts at the ships’ bottom--most of these bolts being rusted away. Experiments were, however, continued, since, though the life of a copper bottom was but three to four years, its general advantages were very great. Ultimately iron bolts were abandoned in favour of copper ones. The cost of this came to £2,272 for a ship of the first-rate, and was only relatively satisfactory. Ever since the Treaty of Paris in 1763, friction had been growing between the Home Country and the North American Colonies. The causes which led to it concern the British Navy only in so far as it was used for the harsh enforcement of the regulations entailed by the Treaty in question--regulations which bore heavily on the Colonists. The rest of the story is merely the tale of political incapacity at home. The American Colonists, in addition to a few fast sailing frigates which they handled with unexpected aptitude, possessed a so very considerable mercantile fleet that it was estimated that 18,000 of their seamen had served in the English ships in the late war with France. Consequently, the Colonists were in a position to fit our privateers, and with these, in the first eight years of the war, they captured nearly 1,000 English merchant ships. Their own losses were, however, greater, and it is probable that despite all the military blunders which characterised English conduct of the war, the Colonists would eventually have been worn down but for the active intervention of France in 1778, and Spain a little later. As regards naval operations against the Americans themselves, these were mainly in the nature of sea transport. Where they were otherwise, they were of an inglorious nature, owing to the total inability of the Home Government to appreciate the position. The naval story of the war is, in the main, the story of frigates attempting difficult channels, and going aground in the attempt. It is of interest mainly because in 1776 one David Bushnell made the first submarine ever actually used in war, and attempted to torpedo the English flagship, _Eagle_ (64). He reached his quarry unsuspected, but the difficulties of attaching his “infernal machine” were such that he had to rise to the surface for air and abandon the enterprise. His subsequent fate was undramatic--he and his boat were captured at sea on board a merchant ship, which was carrying him elsewhere for further operations.