Orders for embarkation were issued to the fleets destined both for Brest and the Mediterranean on 11 May, but owing to adverse winds the combined fleets did not leave Spithead till 30 May. On 5 June they parted company, Russell going on to the Mediterranean, while Lord Berkeley, with forty-one ships of the line and frigates, English and Dutch, made for Brest. At 7 P.M. on the 7th his fleet anchored off the entrance to the port.
It had been settled at councils of war on 31 May and 6 June that the troops should be landed to the south of the entrance, in Camaret Bay, and the ships should remain at anchor till they learnt from Tollemache ‘the condition of the fort on the starboard side going in, and what forces he might find there.’ The object seems to have been to get possession of the peninsula of Quélern, which forms the south shore of the Goulet. The fleet could then pass with less risk through the Goulet into Brest roads, ‘to assist in carrying on the design against the town and the ships there’ (Russell's Instructions to Berkeley in Bourchett).
On the evening of the 7th a reconnaissance of the bay was made, under fire from the fort, by the rear-admiral, Lord Caermarthen, accompanied by Lord Cutts [q. v.]; and at a council next morning it was settled that two line-of-battle ships and six frigates should go in to batter Fort Camaret, while the troops were put on shore in a cove about a mile to the east of it. Caermarthen says nothing to confirm Burnet's statement that at this council every one except Tollemache was against the enterprise. It seems to have been afterwards, while it was in course of execution, that he was urged to give it up.
The ships, except one frigate, went in about noon on the 8th. They found they had to deal not only with the guns of the fort, but with four other batteries hitherto unobserved, besides a mortar battery, which dropped a shell upon the deck of one of them. They suffered more damage than they inflicted. There were also two other batteries, one at each end of the cove chosen for the landing-place. There, and all along the bay, intrenchments had been thrown up, which were manned by eight companies of marines and by militia, and there were some dragoons in support.
Under the heavy fire which the boats encountered, the landing of the troops was carried out ‘in a kind of confused manner.’ Tollemache had called for eight hundred volunteers at a guinea a head (Luttrell, iii. 327), and took the lead of them himself. He ordered all the boats to land their men as quickly as possible. They made for a point at the south end of the cove, where the rocks may have afforded some shelter, but where there was not much room. They fouled one another, and the leading boats grounded and prevented those behind from reaching the shore. Out of eight hundred or nine hundred men in the boats, only about half landed. Some, it was said, were not eager to land.
Tollemache led his men on against the intrenchment, but he recognised that the attempt was hopeless. He was shot in the thigh, and his small party was driven back to the boats. The tide was falling, many of the boats that had grounded could not be got off, and the men in them became prisoners. The total loss, according to a statement signed by Berkeley, was 574 soldiers and 211 seamen killed, wounded, and missing (Edye, i. 414), but it was commonly put higher. The affair lasted about three hours.
Tollemache was taken to the Dreadnought, and a council of war was held there, at which he suggested that some frigates and bomb-vessels should be sent into Brest roads to bombard the town. This proposal was rejected, because the wind that would take them in would forbid their coming out again. As Tollemache held that he was not authorised to make an attempt on any other place than Brest, it was decided to go back to Spithead. His view of his instructions was not shared by the council of state, when the expedition returned (minutes of council meeting of 13 June in Admiralty papers, Public Record Office). Tollemache was landed at Plymouth on the 11th. He was at first thought to be doing well, but his wound mortified, and he died at Plymouth on 12 June 1694. His body was taken to London, being ‘met and accompanied by the gentry of the country and the magistrates of the towns through which it passed’ (London Gazette), and it lay in state in Leicester Fields. A funeral in Westminster Abbey was proposed, but by his own desire he was buried in the family vault at Helmingham on the 30th. He was apparently unmarried.
As Shrewsbury wrote to William, ‘he was generally beloved, esteemed, and trusted.’ William himself wrote (21 June) that he was extremely affected at his loss, ‘for although I do not approve of his conduct, yet I am of opinion that his too ardent zeal to distinguish himself induced him to attempt what was impracticable.’ Three days before he had said: ‘I own to you that
