desiring her to give directions for repairing this
loss, and to build such capital ships as she should think fit, and
promising to make good the expense at their next meeting. Thus, great
as was the loss, the British Navy was restored to that state of
efficiency which it is most important that it should ever maintain.

John Deane had a great disappointment in not being able, after all, to
leave his ship. As soon as the damages she received in the storm were
repaired, she was ordered to rejoin the fleet under Sir George Rooke.
That admiral had been directed to convey the Arch-Duke Charles of
Austria to Lisbon. Before the fleet had reached Finisterre another
violent storm arose, which dispersed the ships and drove them back into
the Channel. The tempestuous weather prevented the admiral from sailing
before the 5th of February, and on the 15th of the same month he arrived
at Lisbon.

A short historical account is now necessary, that the cause of the long
war in which England was engaged may be understood. The King of Spain,
who died in 1700, declared by his will, real or pretended, the Duke of
Anjou, grandson to Louis the Fourteenth, King of the whole Spanish
monarchy. The Spaniards, finding themselves threatened with war by the
Emperor of Germany, and by England, in conjunction with the United
Provinces, delivered themselves up into the hands of France. In
consequence, both the Spanish Netherlands and the Duchy of Milan
received French garrisons, and the French fleet came to Cadiz. A
squadron was also sent to the West Indies, so that the whole Spanish
Empire fell into the hands of the French. The Duke of Burgundy then
having no children, the King of Spain was likely to succeed to the crown
of France, and thus the world saw that a new universal monarchy might
possibly arise out of this conjunction. Hence arose the War of
Succession in Spain. With the object above mentioned of placing the
Duke of Anjou on the throne of Spain, Louis had sacrificed his charming
and clever niece, the granddaughter of our King Charles the First and
Henrietta Maria to an imbecile husband, the thought of whom was hateful
to her, and he also had engaged in a variety of other intrigues with the
same object. The Spaniards in general gave the preference to the
Arch-Duke Charles, or Don Carlos, who was the legitimate heir of the
Spanish monarchy, second son of the Emperor of Austria. The object of
Louis was first to secure his own author