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could. The governor summoned them to surrender, but the British commander gallantly refused to capitulate; and the former is reported, not only to have entertained his unwelcome guests, but to have furnished them with the means of repairing on board their respective ships. The loss, unfortunately sustained upon this occasion, was great; 44 privates were killed, 105 wounded, 97 drowned, and 5 unaccounted for.

Rear-admiral Nelson lost his right arm by a cannon ball, and Captain Bowen, with his first lieutenant, and the whole of the boat's crew, went to the bottom, a shell falling into the boat while they were rowing to the shore. Captain Thompson, of the Leander, Captain Freemantle, of the Sea-horse, a lieutenant, and a midshipman were wounded.

An alternate series of good and bad fortune attended the campaigns in St. Domingo; the English on one hand, and the negroes and mulattoes on the other, contending for superiority with an unexampled degree of animosity. The British ministry had been for some time in search of an officer, calculated by professional knowledge to defend the acquisitions in St. Domingo, and honest enough to restrain peculation and abuses. Such a man was at length found in General Simcoe, who landed under great disadvantages; as he had brought no reinforcement with him, and as the English name was becoming unpopular. He, however, found means to foil Toussaint before St. Mark, to re-capture Miraballais, to storm the forts of Le Boutilliere and St. Lawrent, and to prevent Rigaud, a mulatto chief of notoriety, from obtaining possession of Irois.

This general, after a residence of five months, returned, and proposed to subjugate the whole island, provided he obtained a sufficient supply of men; but the negroes in arms were so numerous, and the expences required for such an undertaking so enormous, that the ministers prudently relinquished the project.

Much had been said, and in very pompous language, respecting an invasion of Britain by France; yet the first seeming attempt was such as to excite ridicule rather than terror. The coast of Devonshire was thrown into alarm on the 22d of February, by the appearance of three frigates, which entered the small harbour of Ilfracombe, scuttled some merchant ships, and attempted to destroy some other vessels. From this they soon departed, standing across the channel towards Pembroke. They were found to consist of two frigates and two smaller vessels, steering from the British channel to turn St. David's Head; from whence they steered towards

Fishguard, and came to an anchor in a small bay, BOOK II. where they hoisted French colours and put out their boats.

Having effected a debarkation on the morning of the 23d, near Fishguard, numbers of them traversed the country in search of provisions, plundering the houses they found abandoned, but offering little molestation to the inhabitants who remained in their dwellings. The number of men who had landed were about 1500. The gentlemen in the neighbourhood made great exertions to repel this formidable invasion, and before night they had collected about 700 men, consisting of militia, fencibles, or yeomen cavalry, who were joined by a number of peasants armed with scythes and pitchforks. Lord Cawdor assumed the command of these troops; but, on approaching the enemy, he received the following letter.

Cardigan Bay, 5th of Ventose, 5th year
of the republic.

SIR,
"The circumstances under which the body of
French troops commanded by me were landed at
this place, render it unnecessary to attempt any
military operations, as they would tend only to
bloodshed and pillage.

"The officers of the whole corps have therefore intimated their desire of entering into a negociation, upon principles of humanity, for a surrender.

"If you are influenced by similar considerations, you may signify the same by the bearer; and, in the mean time, hostilities shall cease. "Health and respect. "TATE, "Chef de Brigade."

"To the officer commanding his Britannic Majesty's troops."

A capitulation having been agreed to, about noon on the ensuing day, they laid down their arms, and surrendered themselves as prisoners of

war.

When the frigates had completed the debarkation, they sailed for the coast of France, but were captured on the 9th of the ensuing month by the St. Fiorenzo and Nymphe frigates. They proved to be La Resistance, of 48 guns, and La Constance, of 24. The men landed were thought by some to be insurgents from La Vendée, whose principles made it dangerous to place confidence in them. Others supposed them to be galleyslaves, and criminals collected from the prisons of Brest, and landed by way of insult, as if the French government meant to billet them on the

enemy.

СНАР. Х1.

1797.

BOOK III.

CHAPTER I.

State of France and of Great Britain.—Anxiety of the English for Peace.-His British Majesty
insulted.—Failure of Lord Malmesbury's Negociations.-Mutinies on board the Channel Fleet and
North Sea Fleet.-Petition from the City of Westminster to His Majesty for the Dismission of his
Ministers.—Arrogance of the French Government.-Another unsuccessful Negociation.-His
Majesty's Declaration on the Continuance of the War.

DURING some of the military and naval operations recorded in our preceding book, certain events occurred, both in France and in England, which demand the reader's attention. It has been the practice of late historians, and even of some of the present day, to give the pith of their narratives in notes, which being reckoned extraneous matter, are generally, if not always, overlooked by ordinary readers. We shall, however, devote a chapter to those occurrences, which could not have been united with the former without breaking the chain and grossly deviating from the scene of action.

CHAP. I.

1796.

tioned in the vicinity of the Luxemburg and the BOOK III. Thuilleries, by order of the directory; and the Pont Neuf was strongly guarded. On the morning of the 10th the guard of the directory and the legislative bodies were tripled, the streets were patroled, and the gardens of the Luxemburg were shut. On the same day, the council of five hundred received a message from the executive directory, informing them that a horrible conspiracy was prepared to burst forth the following morning at break of day; that the design of the conspirators was to murder the executive directory, the members of the two councils, the conAlthough, on the first establishment of the stituted authorities of Paris, and to deliver up the new constitution of France, the persons who city to pillage and massacre; and that the leading composed the executive government seemed in- conspirators were actually seized. Among these clined to favor the faction of the jacobins, con- persons were Drouet, remarkable as the man ceiving it expedient to adopt measures of severity who had arrested the king in his flight to Vawith respect to those concerned in the insurrec- rennes; Laignelot, an ex-deputy of the national tion of Vendemaire, who were regarded as ad- convention, and a member of the infamous comverse to the jacobins, it was soon apparent that mittee of public safety; Charles Ricard; and the bulk of this dangerous faction would never Babeuf, styling himself Gracchus Babeuf, once peaceably acquiesce in the present, nor indeed the associate of Marat, of infamous memory, who any permanent order of things. The greater had fallen under the virtuous dagger of a modern part of the jacobins, who had been placed in Judith; Rossignol, ex-general of La Vendée; offices inmediately under government, were gra- Amar, a notorious terrorist, &c. were also of the dually dismissed; the police and municipality of number; but Vadier, Robert Lindet, and Pache, Paris, where they possessed a decided supe- effected their escape. Judging, from the papers riority, underwent a severe examination; the severe examination; the transmitted by the directory to the council, none military force of that great city was reformed; of the various conspiracies which had convulsed and the alarm excited by these different measures the republic was more daring than the present, was at length wrought up to purposes of ven- or had been more completely organized. A nageance, when their assemblies were dispersed by tional convention, committees of general and order of government, and their places of meeting public safety, and a municipality of Paris, were shut up. For the space of six weeks, confused to be immediately formed, and to administer in a rumours prevailed of a projected insurrection of revolutionary manner till the establishment of the the jacobins. On the evening of the 9th of May, constitution of 1793. No doubt the aim of the 1796, considerable bodies of cavalry were sta directory was to make the present conspiracy

1795.

BOOK III. appear as black and atrocious as possible; and there is, indeed, reason to believe, that the founCHAP. I. dations of it were both deeply laid and widely extended; but the timely discovery of this plot occasioned the public alarm to subside almost as soon as it was excited. Babeuf, and numbers of his accomplices, were tried by the high criminal court at Vendomme, convicted, and put to death. Insurrections and disturbances in different parts of the country, excited by the jacobins, were quickly suppressed, the authority of the new government being, as usual in such cases, more firmly established by this abortive attempt to subvert it. But the jacobins and royalists throughout France joined in exclaiming against the tyranny of the directory, and in representing this plot, popularly styled the conspiracy of Floreal, as having no real existence.

The affairs of finance at this period very much engaged the attention of the French government. So much depreciated was the credit of the assignats, that this paper was become entirely useless. An order was of course made to dispose of the remainder of the national domains, at a low value, for which a new paper, called mandats, was to be received as money; but this also fell to a greater degree of depreciation than the assignats. A forced loan was the next measure to which they had recourse, but this was very unproductive; and the hopes of the British minister were again cherished by the loud complaints of the directory, respecting the impoverished state of the public

revenue.

The great expences and severe hardships which the war with France occasioned induced many in Great Britain to wish for peace, and consequently to deprecate the measures of government. The city of London presented the following petition to parliament.

"Your petitioners conceive, that none of the ends proposed by the present war either have been, or appear likely to be obtained, although it has been carried on at an unprecedented expence to this country. Your petitioners, from their present view of public measures, presume humbly, but firmly, to express to this honorable house their decided conviction, that the principle upon which the war appears now to be carried on neither is nor can be essential to the prosperity, the liberty, or the glory of the British empire. Your petitioners, therefore, humbly pray that this honorable house, disclaiming all right of interfering in the internal concerns of France, will be pleased to take such measures as they in their wisdom shall think proper, for the purpose of promoting a speedy peace."

This example of London was followed by York, Norwich, and some other cities; but they were not so general as to be productive of any effect; and the friends of administration found

means to procure a number of counter-petitions, which fully relied on the wisdom of government to treat for the restoration of peace at the most proper period.

The next British parliament was summoned to assemble on the 29th of October, 1795, which was during the mournful period that every article of consumption was extravagantly high-priced; and the idea prevailed universally among the lower classes of the community, that ministers would never listen to any rational terms of peace, which created and cherished a spirit of discontent; and, without the blessings of peace, they had small hopes of enjoying those of plenty. At the usual hour on the day appointed his majesty went from the palace of St. James's to the parlia ment-house. An immense concourse of people met in the Park, whether from accident or design it is difficult to determine, but they very soon discovered symptoms of bad humour and dissatisfaction. As his majesty's coach passed along the Mall, the multitude vehemently exclaimed, "Peace! Peace! Bread! No Pitt! No war!" After this, stones were thrown at the carriage of the sovereign as it went past the Horse-guards, and through the streets of Westminster; and, froma house in Margaret-street, a bullet was discharged, conjectured to be from an air-gun, as it was not attended with any noise, while something made its way with great velocity through the glass of the coach.

When the king returned from the house of peers, no additional force was ordered for his protection; and the multitude repeated their au dacious attacks. dacious attacks. His majesty having gone into his private carriage, to join the royal family at the palace of the queen, a part of the mob nearly demolished the state-coach on its return to the Mews, while the rest even attempted to stop the king's private coach, and force open the doors. The sovereign, at this last attack, appeared to have been deprived of his characteristic firmness, and fell a prey to consternation and amazement. A party of the life-guards arrived at this critical juncture, by whose exertions the multitude were dispersed, and the king reached the house of her majesty, not without both difficulty and danger.

Immediately after these daring outrages, a proclamation was issued, which offered a reward of a thousand pounds, to be given on the conviction of any person concerned in the assault; yet it is most astonishing, that not an individual could ever be found who was proved to have had any hand in this disgraceful transaction. A journeyman printer, indeed, of the name of Kidd Wake, together with some others, were found guilty of hissing and disturbing his majesty's peace, and were punished with just severity. This business being disposed of his majesty's speech was taken

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