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.

There lay at that time in the Downs two privateers, the _Duke_, of 30
guns and 170 men, commanded by Captain Wood Rogers, and the _Duchess_,
of 26 guns and 150 men, commanded by Captain Stephen Courtnay, having
been fitted out by some Bristol merchants to cruise against the
Spaniards in the South Seas. They had just returned from thence, having
captured a Spanish ship with two millions of pieces of eight on board.
On their voyage they had touched at the island of Juan Fernandez, which
they reached on the 31st of January, 1708-9. Two of the officers with
six armed men had gone on shore, but not quickly returning, the pinnace
was sent well manned to bring them off. Towards evening they both came
back bringing with them a man clothed in goat-skins, who appeared wilder
than the goats themselves. He seemed very much rejoiced at getting on
board, but at first could not speak plainly, only dropping a few words
of