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Thus ended this almost forgotten affair, which in its day occasioned to an unusual degree the popular excitement and discussion which always follow marked disaster, and but rarely attend success. Besides the particular missteps of Lestock and the individual captains, which have been mentioned, Mathews's conduct was marked by serious failures in professional competency.
In the morning of the fourteenth, twenty sail of them were seen distinctly, and Lestock with his division had gained ground of them considerably by noon; but admiral Matthews displayed the signal for leaving off chase, and bore away for Port Mahon, to repair the damage he had sustained. Meanwhile the combined squadrons continued their course towards the coast of Spain.
We took breath, but were still anxious, watching each with head out on our own side; for Smith had not appeared, and Lestock, Sneyd, and Pakenham had not arrived: great fear of missing them and the letters in the hurly-burly of packages, and packers, and passengers, and sailors, and orderers, and hackney coaches, and coachmen, and boatmen, men, women, and children swarming and bawling.
But since the Fighting Instructions had been first issued there had been the courts-martial, also instructive, on Mathews, Lestock, Byng, Keppel, and Palliser, all of which turned more or less on the constraint of the line of battle, and the duty of supporting ships engaged, above all, an engaged Commander-in-Chief.
A regular course of occupations and duties, and feeling herself essential to the happiness and the holding together of a family she so loves, will be the best strengthening medicine for her. She arrived at home last night. My sister Fanny and her husband, Lestock Wilson, are with us.
He was justified if he reasoned at all in expecting that Lestock could get into action as soon as the French van; or, at the least, before it could reverse the conditions which would have ensued from a vigorous encounter upon the lines of Mathews's attack.
It was not till the next spring that Newcastle tried to explain the miscarriage to Shirley. He wrote that the troops had been detained by head-winds till General Saint Clair and Admiral Lestock thought it too late; to which he added that the demands of the European war made the Canadian expedition impracticable, and that Shirley was to stand on the defensive and attempt no further conquests.
Notwithstanding these discouragements, they opened a small battery against the town, which was set on fire in several places by their bombs and red-hot bullets; they likewise repulsed part of the garrison which had made a sally to destroy their works; but their cannon producing no effect upon the fortifications, the fire from the town daily increasing, the engineers owning they could not perform their promise, and admiral Lestock declaring, in repeated messages, that he could no longer expose the ships on an open coast at such a season of the year, general Sinclair abandoned the siege.
He was accompanied by Cameron of Lochiel and his brother, with a few other exiles. They set sail for France, and after having passed unseen, by means of a thick fog, through a British squadron commanded by admiral Lestock, and been chased by two English ships of war, arrived in safety at Roscau, near Morlaix, in Bretagne.
Lestock and Barry were at the church door, to hand her up the aisle. Old Mr. Keating was there, excellent, warm-hearted man; and Mr. Butler performed the ceremony. The bride and bridegroom went off from the church door, and are, I suppose, by this time, five o'clock, at Trim. To MRS. EDGEWORTH, IN LONDON. EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Aug. 25, 1839.
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