about five times as much. Notwithstanding the blow inflicted on the Spanish navy and on Spain, it was not unnaturally said that ‘the expedition was undertaken solely to put money into the Keppels' pockets.’ Immediately after the reduction of Havana Pocock returned to England, leaving the command of the remaining ships with Keppel, who on 21 Oct. 1762 was advanced to be rear-admiral of the blue, the promotion being, it is said, extended so as to include his name. At the peace Havana was restored to the Spaniards, and the troops were sent home; but Keppel retained the command at Jamaica till the beginning of 1764, when he was relieved by Sir William Burnaby. In May he sailed for England.
From July 1765 till November 1766 he was one of the lords commissioners of the admiralty, and in September 1766 hoisted his flag on board the Catherine yacht, to convey the Princess Caroline Matilda to Rotterdam, on the occasion of her unfortunate marriage to the king of Denmark. He seems, too, to have attached himself closely to the political party of the Marquis of Rockingham and the Duke of Richmond, and during the years immediately following to have identified himself with the intrigues and schemes of which they were the centre. On 24 Oct. 1770 he was promoted to the rank of vice-admiral, and was nominated for the command of the fleet fitting out against Spain; the dispute was, however, arranged, and Keppel did not hoist his flag.
During the following years, in which party animosity raged with great virulence, Keppel was closely associated with the opponents of the government, and the relations between him and the Earl of Sandwich, then first lord of the admiralty, would seem to have been the reverse of friendly. Still, his standing in the service was so high that it was impossible to pass him over, and as early as November 1776, on the probability of war with France, he was asked by the king in person to undertake the command of the Channel fleet. Keppel felt bound to accept it, but he represented to his majesty the hostility with which the ministry regarded him. He had an uneasy feeling that the offer might be a trap of his political enemy. ‘If Lord Sandwich has but a bad fleet to send out,’ wrote the Duke of Richmond to him, ‘'tis doing him no injustice to suppose he would be glad to put it under the command of a man whom he does not love, and yet whose name will justify the choice to the nation. If we meet with a misfortune, he hopes to get off. … If blame is to be borne, he will endeavour by every art he is but too much master of, to throw it on your shoulders.’ It was, however, more than a year before Keppel was called on to serve. On 29 Jan. 1778 he was promoted to be admiral of the blue, and on 22 March received his commission as commander-in-chief of the grand fleet. At Portsmouth everything was still unprepared; and in spite of Sandwich's boast in the House of Lords, 18 Nov. 1777, that ‘there were thirty-five ships of the line completely manned and fit for sea at a moment's warning,’ Keppel found there were not more than six ‘fit to meet a seaman's eye.’ The dockyard, too, was depleted of stores, and it was only by the most unremitting exertion that by the beginning of June twenty ships could be got ready. With these he sailed from St. Helens on 13 June, with instructions to prevent the French fleet in Brest from putting to sea, or the Toulon fleet from joining it. To either of these singly he was supposed to be superior. Presently, however, on detaining the French frigates Licorne and Pallas, he obtained certain intelligence that the fleet at Brest consisted of thirty-two ships of the line ready for sea, and acting on the spirit of his instructions, he fell back to Spithead, 27 June, to wait for reinforcements. His instructions were kept strictly secret; but to naval men it was clear that, under the circumstances, no other line of conduct was open to him, and the admiralty tacitly admitted as much by continuing their efforts to strengthen the fleet. The government, however, was much enraged at the imputation which his return to Spithead cast on them, and, as the Earl of Bristol said in the House of Lords, 23 April 1779, ‘Instead of applause and testimonies of approbation for his conduct, the tools and scribblers of power were employed in every quarter of the town to whisper and write away his exalted character. … The pensioned vehicles of infamy, detraction, and villany poured forth the dictates of their more infamous and profligate protectors and paymaster, not only by asserting that Admiral Keppel's return to port was in hopes of ruining the ministry, but also by a constant abuse on all those whose experience and whose judgment in naval matters justified the admiral's conduct.’
On 9 July Keppel again put to sea with twenty-four ships of the line, a fleet which was raised to thirty two days later. On the 8th the French fleet of thirty-two sail, under Count d'Orvilliers, had also put to sea, apparently on the report that the English fleet consisted of only twenty ships. The weather was very thick; but on the afternoon of the 23rd the fog clearing discovered the two fleets to each other, distant only some four or five
