Minorca was restored to the British flag in 1763, and eighteen years later had to undergo a second siege by the French under Crillon, when, at the end, the governor, out of 660, had 560 on the sick list against 14,000 besiegers, and for the second time the fortress capitulated. It was taken for the third and last time by General Stuart (with the 8th and 42nd) in 1798, of whom it was said that no man could “manage Frenchmen like him, and the British will go to h--ll for him.” Little resistance was made, and the number of the prisoners exceeded that of the invaders. It was ceded finally to Spain in 1802. In 1758 a force was despatched to destroy the shipping at St. Malo, and to capture Cherbourg, both of which affairs were successfully conducted, the docks being blown up, and the brass cannon captured taken in triumph through the streets of London; but success in these somewhat pitiful operations was to receive a rude check, for a third landing in the bay of St. Cas was conducted with such contempt for all military precautions, that the force, on re-embarking, was heavily beaten by the French, and while many boats were sunk by the fire of artillery, some forty-six officers and eight hundred men were left prisoners in the hands of the enemy. In 1759 the first serious attempts at extending our power over the West Indies began; as did the first serious effort for the conquest of Canada, the main action in which was the gallant capture of Quebec. An expedition, in which the 3rd, 4th, 61st, 63rd, 64th, 65th, some marines, and a second battalion of the 42nd, raised readily and rapidly to avenge the loss of the first battalion at Ticonderoga the previous year, took part, was therefore despatched under General Hopson, and though they failed at Martinique, they succeeded, after much toil and privation for three months, during which the climate was a more deadly foe than the French, at Guadaloupe. Similarly, two years later, while one force was sent to harass the French coast and destroy the harbours of refuge for French privateers, and suchlike, on the island of Belleisle in the Bay of Biscay, a success in which the 3rd, 9th, 19th, 21st, 25th, 37th, 61st, etc., Regiments shared, and where Private Samuel Johnson, though severely wounded, distinguished himself by killing six men in the defence of his wounded officer; another army composed of the 1st, 17th, and 22nd Foot completed the capture of the Caribbean Sea Colonies by the occupation of Dominica, Martinique, St. Vincent, and St. Lucia. When Spain, too, joined the enemies of Great Britain in 1762, and it was found impracticable to land an army on the Continent, it was none the less clearly evident that decisive blows could be struck against her in other parts of the world.