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Updated: May 18, 2025
On the 22d of May he was off Ushant, between which and Cornwallis's rendezvous he passed twenty-four hours, fuming and fretting over a delay that was losing him a fresh, fair, northerly wind; the more so, that he was satisfied Cornwallis neither needed nor wanted the ship. "From his conduct," not being on his rendezvous, "I am clear there can be nothing in Brest to demand his attention."
As a client of her husband he was very well; but as a nephew of Lady Ushant he was injurious. It was he who had carried Mary away to Cheltenham where she had been instigated to throw her bread-and-butter into the fire, as Mrs. Masters expressed it, by that pernicious old woman Lady Ushant. "Mr. Masters is out walking," she said.
Evidently a line of ships disposed from Ushant to the Lizard, the nearest point on the English coast, would constitute a very real danger to a vessel seeking to approach any French port on the Channel.
The fleet stood off Ushant; the wind came to the S.E. with hazy weather, and on the same night they escaped. Sir James writes: "April 27th. Yesterday at noon, it blowing very strong from the northward, with foggy weather, the signal was made that the enemy was under sail.
Thus in Hawke's blockade at the end of 1759, during the critical month from mid-October to mid-November, he was unable to keep his station for nearly half the time, and when he did get contact with Conflans it was from Torbay and not Ushant. Still it may be doubted if without the confidence bred of his stormy vigil the battle of Quiberon would have been fought as it was.
At this time Reginald Morton was up in London and had been away nearly a week. He had gone intending to be absent for some undefined time, so that Lady Ushant and Mrs. Hopkins were free from all interruption. It was as yet only the middle of March and the lion had not altogether disappeared; but still Mary could get out.
By breakfast-time on the morning but one following, we were abreast of Cape Saint Vincent. Eighteen hours later, we made the Rock of Lisbon; and, on the fifth day out from Gibraltar, finding ourselves in the latitude of Cape Finisterre, we hauled up to the northward and eastward for Ushant; and entered the Bay of Biscay. So far, all had gone well.
Then there came a sudden disruption to all these plans, and a sudden renewal of her hopes to Mrs. Masters which for one half day nearly restored her to good humour. Lady Ushant wrote to postpone the visit because she herself had been summoned to Bragton. Her letter to Mary, though affectionate, was very short.
And when she was constrained once or twice in the year to give a dinner to her step-daughter's husband and Lady Ushant, that, I think, was really a period of discomfort to her. When at Bragton she could at any rate be quiet, and Mary's caressing care almost made the place pleasant to her. Mr. Runciman prospers at the Bush, though he has entirely lost his best customer, Lord Rufford.
His station was from ten to twenty leagues south-west of Scilly; consequently he had not been seen by the enemy, who from Ushant had stood up the Channel.
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