proof that they
had ceased to succor the enemies of France." This was actual, but not
formal, war. Numerous places fell during the year, and the successes
of the French inclined both Holland and England to come to terms.
Negotiations went on during the winter; but in April, 1748, Saxe
invested Maestricht. This forced a peace.

Meanwhile, though languishing, the sea war was not wholly uneventful.
Two encounters between English and French squadrons happened during the
year 1747, completing the destruction of the French fighting navy. In
both cases the English were decidedly superior; and though there was
given opportunity for some brilliant fighting by particular captains,
and for the display of heroic endurance on the part of the French,
greatly outnumbered but resisting to the last, only one tactical lesson
is afforded. This lesson is, that when an enemy, either as the result
of battle or from original inequality, is greatly inferior in force,
obliged to fly without standing on the order of his flying, the regard
otherwise due to order must be in a measure at least dismissed, and a
general chase ordered. The mistake of Tourville in this respect after
Beachy Head has already been noted. In the first of the cases now under
discussion, the English Admiral Anson had fourteen ships against eight
French, weaker individually as well as in total number; in the second,
Sir Edward Hawke had fourteen against nine, the latter being somewhat
larger, ship for ship, than the English. In both cases the signal was
made for a general chase, and the action which resulted was a _melee_.
There was no opportunity for anything else; the one thing necessary was
to overtake the running enemy, and that can only certainly be done by
letting the fleetest or best situated ships get ahead, sure that the
speed of the fastest pursuers is better than that of the slowest of
the pursued, and that therefore either the latter must be abandoned or
the whole force brought to bay. In the second case the French
commander, Commodore l'Etenduere, did not have to be followed far. He
had with him a convoy of two hundred and fifty merchant-ships;
detaching one ship-of-the-line to continue the voyage with the convoy,
he placed himself with the other eight between it and the enemy,
awaiting the attack under his topsails. As the English came up one
after another they divided on either side of the French column, which
was thus engaged on both sides. After an obstinate