The English fleet had been detained at home by various causes, and especially by the court martial which honourably acquitted Admiral Keppel. It sailed, however, at last to prevent a junction of the French and Spanish fleets, but that junction had been effected; and the combined fleet appeared in Plymouth Sound, while the fleet of England was cruizing near Ushant, or in the Bay of Biscay. Plymouth was undoubtedly open to their attack; and the individual having the civil government of the dock-yard, is said to have actually deliberated about taking the last desperate measure, for depriving the enemy of every advantage to be derived from acquiring such stores as might be consumed by fire. The Ardent, a sixty-four gun ship of the line, arrived from Portsmouth; and not suspecting that a hostile fleet could appear upon our coast, and still less occupy our harbours, continued its course into the midst of the ships, and became a prize; but not without making a brave resistance, and endeavouring to escape by running ashore. The combined fleet, instead of attacking Plymouth, sailed in quest of the adverse fleet, having manifestly taken their original course with the view of giving battle; and what must be mentioned to their honour, not a single act of wanton hostility was committed on any part of the coast. Every thing remained in suspense; watch and ward was established at all points. The gentlemen in every parish assembled, such as had arms, to take hasty instructions in military evolutions, while no one ventured to whisper the extent of his apprehensions to others, or even to avow them in his own mind; when, on the last day of August, both fleets appeared between the Land’s End and the Lizard. In the night, or in a fog, the fleets had passed each other; and the Editor remembers seeing the English fleet collected together in a close mass, making its way up the channel, to the amount of about forty sail of the line, pursued by the combined fleet of nearly double that number, in what is termed, line of battle a-head. An action now seemed to be inevitable; but for some unknown cause, the combined fleet discontinued the pursuit and returned to Brest, while the English fleet anchored in Tor Bay. On the dissolution of Parliament in 1784, Sir Francis Basset exerted himself to the utmost, and made large sacrifices of money in support of the unpopular coalition ministry, and he remained stedfast with that defeated party till the whole political hemisphere became changed in every aspect, by an event manifested in one country alone, but originating from causes long in action, and imperceptively working throughout an entire change of ancient institutions, with the very form and shape perhaps of civilized society as it previously stood.