ghbouring coasts, either in his own person or in some of his
officers, led the fleet by night to the westward through the passage
between Scilly and Land's End. On the following morning he was no more
to be seen, and the enemy, ignorant of the manner of his evasion, was
thrown wholly off his track.[134] Howe met the convoy; and a strong
gale of wind afterwards forcing the allies to the southward, both it
and the fleet slipped by successfully, and reached England.

Howe was ordered now to prepare to throw reinforcements and supplies
into Gibraltar, which had not received relief since Darby's visit, in
April, 1781. For this urgent and critical service it was determined
to concentrate the whole Channel Fleet at Spithead, where also the
transports and supply-ships were directed to rendezvous. It was while
thus assembling for the relief of Gibraltar that there occurred the
celebrated incident of the _Royal George_, a 100-gun ship, while
being heeled for under-water repairs, oversetting and sinking at her
anchors, carrying down with her Rear-Admiral Kempenfelt and about nine
hundred souls, including many women and children. This was on the 29th
of August, 1782. On the 11th of September the expedition started, one
hundred and eighty-three sail in all; thirty-four being ships of the
line, with a dozen smaller cruisers, the rest unarmed vessels. Of the
latter, thirty-one were destined for Gibraltar, the remainder being
trading ships for different parts of the world. With so extensive a
charge, the danger to which had been emphasised by numerous captures
from convoys during the war, Howe's progress was slow. It is told that
shortly before reaching Cape Finisterre, but after a violent gale of
wind, the full tally of one hundred eighty-three sail was counted.
After passing Finisterre, the several "trades" probably parted from
the grand fleet.

On the 8th of October, off Cape St. Vincent, a frigate was sent ahead
for information. It was known that a great combined force of ships
of war lay in Algeciras Bay,--opposite Gibraltar,--and that an attack
upon the works was in contemplation; but much might have happened
meantime. Much, in fact, had happened. A violent gale of wind on
the 10th of September had driven some of the allied fleet from their
moorings, one vessel, the _San Miguel_, 72, being forced under the
batteries of Gibraltar, where she had to surrender; but there still
remained the formidable number of forty-eight ships of t