Thus the gallant Hosier, mourning for his
men, and suffering himself from the deadly effects of the climate, still
kept at his post in performance of his duty till, on the 23rd of August,
1727, he breathed his last.

In 1727 a fleet was despatched, under Sir John Norris, into the Baltic,
where he was joined by a Danish squadron, to keep a watch on the
proceedings of the Empress Catherine, but her death put a stop to the
war.

The last naval expedition in this year was one for the purpose of
relieving Gibraltar. Sir Charles Wager and Rear-Admiral Hopson on
arriving there soon compelled the Spaniards to raise the siege.

George the First ended his reign on the 11th of June, 1727.

GEORGE THE SECOND.

Soon after the accession of George the Second in 1727, a peace was
concluded with Spain, which lasted twelve years.

Parliament voted a sum of 780,000 pounds to pay the wages of 15,000
seamen.

On the 16th of April, by an order in council, twenty of the oldest
surgeons in the Royal Navy were to be allowed two shillings and sixpence
per day, half-pay, and the twenty next in seniority two shillings per
day.

Notwithstanding the treaty with Spain, the Spaniards continued to annoy
the British trade, and to treat British subjects with the greatest
insolence and inhumanity. As an instance, Robert Jenkins, master of the
_Rebecca_ brig, of Glasgow, was boarded by a Guarda Costa. The
Spaniards treated the crew with the greatest barbarity, and cut off one
of the master's ears, which the captain of the Guarda Costa, giving to
Jenkins, insolently told him to carry that present home to the king his
master, whom, if he were present, he would serve in the same manner.
Some years afterwards, when Jenkins was examined at the bar of the House
of Commons, being asked what he thought when he found himself in the
hands of such barbarians, he replied with great coolness, "I recommended
my soul to God, and my cause to my country."

Four 20-gun ships and two sloops of war were sent out, therefore, to the
West Indies to cruise for the protection of British trade.

In 1731 an account of the reflecting or Hadley's quadrant appeared in a
paper given by a member of the Royal Society. After Dr Hadley's death,
however, among his papers a description was found of an instrument not
much dissimilar to Hadley's, written by Sir Isaac Newton, who may,
therefore, be considered the first inventor of the reflecting quadrant.

In 1732 the king gr