North Sea to the coast of the Netherlands in dreadful conditions which resulted in the loss of 28 lives from exposure and exhaustion. Nothing was heard from Fairborne for a whole month. After refitting at Gothenburg in Sweden the ship returned to England. Fairborne was given command of a squadron in the English Channel, with his flag in the third-rate HMS Shrewsbury in 1704. He became Second-in-Command, under Shovell, of the Mediterranean Fleet in Spring 1705 and was present at the siege and capture of Barcelona in October 1705. He was also elected Whig Member of Parliament for Rochester at the 1705 English general election and appointed a member of the council of the Lord High Admiral (an office vested at that time in Prince George of Denmark) in February 1706. That year he financed the laying of a new pavement outside Rochester Guildhall, the commemorative stone for which still remains in place on the front of the building. He was given command of a squadron sent to La Rochelle in May 1706 and took part in the capture of Ostend in June 1706. In each of these actions he was personally involved in dangerous inshore operations and was said to have "courted danger like a mistress". Fairborne was promoted to full admiral on 7 January 1708 and was returned again for Rochester at the 1708 British general election. He retired as a council member in June 1708, and was promoted to Admiral of the Fleet on 21 December 1708. In Parliament he supported the Whig Ministry voting for the Naturalization of the German Palatines in 1709 but lost his Rochester seat at the general election in 1710 which produced a landslide victory for the Tory party in the wake of the prosecution of Henry Sacheverell which Fairborne had supported. He was offered a post as commissioner for disbanding the marines in 1713 but refused it in the vain hope that he would one day return to senior office in the Admiralty. The Tory Earl of Orford, who became First Lord of the Admiralty, ensured Fairborne never did return to office. In retirement he lived at No. 33 Golden Square in London. He died on 11 November 1742 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Family In June 1694 Fairborne married Dorothy Fane; they had three sons (all of whom predeceased him) and a daughter. Following the death of his first