The two despatches which Dartmouth sent to the King and Pepys upon Thursday, November 22nd, show that the English Admiral looked forward to the future with faint and chastened hope. Henceforth fast succeeding events darkened his outlook.

To begin with, on coming in, he learned, through a letter of the 20th instant, that his acceptance of the Secretary's offer of the 13th instant to fit out the remaining third rates had been a waste of time; and that the promised fireships were not yet found for him. Much else of colourless routine interest, over which there is no call to delay, the letter handled. The only satisfaction it can possibly have provided for Dartmouth lay in a comment upon an enclosed draft of a warrant, which the King had prepared, but which, so great had been his trust in his Admiral's discretion, he had never signed, a warrant intended “in explanation of” the important Supplementary Order of the 12th instant issued from Lord Middleton's office, and on the strength of which the recent futile sailing to Torbay had been made. Perhaps, in the light of a new, if undeserved, failure, even the flattering comment read ironically. The above-mentioned letter, Sir Richard Beach, Commissioner of the Portsmouth yard, had handed on. He, at the same time, reported his cheerless prospect for lack of funds to pay the hands needed to repair the vessels in dock and his shortage of essential stores. Next, a “short and melancholy account” of the bankrupt affairs of the Ordnance Office made dismal reading for its Master.