In 1695 it was the same story. We made a demonstration at St. Malo, then we burnt the little fishing town of Granvelle, and then we achieved another failure at Dunkirk. In the following year these feats were renewed at Calais and elsewhere, till the war died down and was brought to a pause by the truce called the Peace of Ryswick in 1697. When it was resumed, the Admiralty had learnt that these expeditions were forms of waste, and we hear little or nothing of them during the reign of Queen Anne. It is probable that Captain Pritchard did more harm to the enemy by destroying the convoy in Berteaume Bay than was inflicted in all these expeditions, and he did it at a thousandth part of the cost.
More legitimate and fruitful than these attacks on the French coast towns were other operations of the fleet, which may be classed under two heads. First are the cruises of what our ancestors called “The Grand Fleet”—that is to say, movements of great forces representing the bulk of our effective naval power in Europe. Then contemporary to, but apart from them, were the cruises of squadrons, designed to protect our own colonial possessions or menace those of the French. These two kinds of naval operations were so far independent of one another that it is not necessary to tell them together. Again, many of them were so barren in results that it is superfluous to tell them in detail. Yet the mere fact that they took place shows the magnitude, the persistence, and the coherence of our efforts to make full use of the fleet. It has seemed to me most advisable to set them both forth briefly in parallel columns, and give particular accounts of the more notable among them afterwards.
The year of Beachy Head. December 1689 to May 1690.—Captain Lawrence Wright to the West Indies, with ten ships and three small vessels. Contemporary with this cruise was the expedition of Sir W. Phipps from New England against Nova Scotia, then a French colony, and Quebec.
Year of Russell’s first command 12th December 1690 to August in the Channel. 1691.—Captain Ralph Wren to the West Indies. He died of fever, and many of his men with him. The squadron was brought home by Boteler.
Year of La Hogue. In 1692 there was no colonial expedition.