XXI. 1796. the Direc tory and against that achieving greater benefits for his country than either CHAP. the victory of Fleurus or the triumphs of Rivoli. Truguet, the minister of marine, seconded him warmly with all his influence, and by their joint exertions an expedition was shortly prepared at Designs of Brest, more formidable than could have been anticipated from the dilapidated state of the French Hoche navy. It consisted of fifteen ships of the line, on country. board each of which were embarked 600 soldiers, twelve frigates and six corvettes, each carrying 250 men, and of transports and other vessels, conveying in all 25,000 land forces. This armament was to be joined by seven ships of the line, under Richery, from the harbour of Rochefort. The troops were the best in Hoche's army; the general-in-chief was sanguine of success; and, such were the hopes entertained of the result of the expedition, that the 1796, 195 Directory transmitted orders for it to sail several Th. viii. weeks before Lord Malmesbury left Paris, and their 487. Jom. expectations of its consequences were the principal Hard. iv. motive for breaking off the negotiation.' To distract the attention of the enemy, the most inconsistent accounts were spread of the object of the expedition; sometimes, that it was destined for the West Indies; sometimes, for the shores of Portugal; but, notwithstanding these artifices, the British government readily discerned where the blow was really intended to be struck. Orders were transmitted to Ireland to have the militia in readiness; a vigilant watch kept up on the coasts; and, in the event of a descent being effected, all the cattle and provisions driven into the interior; precautions which in the end proved unnecessary, but were dictated by a prudent foresight, and gave the French government an idea of the species of resist 1 Ann. Reg. 353, 486, ix. 250. 107. СПАР. 1796. 1 Jom. ix. 253. Th. viii. 485. ance which they might expect in the event of such an invasion being really effected.1 The expedition set sail in the middle of December, two days before the negotiation was broken off at Paris; but it encountered disasters from the very 1796. 198. moment of its leaving the harbour. A violent tem199. pest arose immediately after its departure; and The expedi- though the mist with which it was accompanied Ann. Reg. tion sets sail, 15th Dec. enabled the French admiral to elude the vigilance of the British squadron, yet one ship of the line struck on the rocks near the Isle of Ushant and perished; several were damaged, and the fleet totally dispersed. This tempestuous weather continued the whole time the fleet was at sea. Hoche himself, who was on board a frigate, was separated from the remainder of his squadron; and after a stormy passage, a part of the expedition reached the point of rendezvous, in Bantry Bay, eight days 24th Dec. after its departure from the French harbour. Admiral Bouvet, the second in command, resolved to land the troops, although only eight ships of the line, and some of the transports, were assembled, It is disper- having on board 6000 land forces; but the violence sed by the of the tempest, and the prodigious swell of the sea on and regains that iron-bound coast, rendered that impossible, and the crew of a boat, which was sent through the surf to reconnoitre, were speedily made prisoners by the numerous bodies of armed men who appeared on the coast to oppose a landing. Dispirited by such a succession of disasters, unwilling to undertake the responsibility of hazarding a part only of the land forces in the absence of the general-in-chief, and apprehensive that provisions for the crews of the vessels would fail, from the long time that they had been at sea, Bouvet resolved to make the best of his tempests, Brest. CHAP. XXI. 1796. back to the French harbours. He set sail acway cordingly, and had the good fortune to reach Brest on the last day of December, whither he was soon 31st Dec. followed by the scattered divisions of his fleet, after two ships of the line, and three frigates, had been lost; one of the former by the violence of the elements, and the other by the attacks of the English. Hoche himself, after escaping a thousand perils, was landed on the Island of Rhe, and, the Directory abandoning the expedition for the present, moved the 'Ann. Reg. greater part of his forces to the Rhine, to replace Th. viii. the losses of Jourdan's army, to the command of 489-490. which they destined that able general.' 1796, 198. Jom. ix. 252. Such was the issue of this expedition, which had so long kept Great Britain in suspense, and revealed to its enemies the vulnerable quarter in which it might be attacked with the greatest chance of success. Its result was pregnant with important instructions to the rulers of both countries. To the French, as demonstrating the extraordinary risks which attend a maritime expedition in comparison: with a land campaign; the small number of forces which can be embarked on board even a great fleet, and the unforeseen disasters which frequently on that element defeat the best concerted enterprises; to the English, as showing that the empire of the seas does not always afford security against invasion; that in the face of superior maritime forces, her possessions were for sixteen days at the mercy of the enemy, expedition. and that neither the skill of her sailors, nor the valour of her armies, but the fury of the elements, saved them from danger in the most vulnerable part of their dominions. While these considerations are fitted to abate the confidence of invasion, they are calculated at the same time to weaken an over Reflections on the fail ure of this XXI. 1796. CHAP. Weening confidence on naval superiority, and to demonstrate, that the only basis on which certain reliance can be placed, even by an insular power, is a well-disciplined army, and the patriotism of its own subjects. It is a curious subject for speculation, what might have been the result had Hoche succeeded in landing with sixteen thousand of his best troops on the Irish shores. To those who consider indeed the patriotic spirit, indomitable valour, and persevering character of the English people, and the complete command they had of the sea, the final issue of such a contest cannot appear doubtful; but it is equally evident that the addition of such a force, and so able a commander, to the numerous bodies of Irish malecontents, would have engendered a dreadful domestic war, and that the whole energies of the empire might for a very long period have been employed in saving itself from dismemberment. When it is considered, also, how widely the spirit of discontent was diffused even through the population of Great Britain at that period, in what a formidable manner it soon after broke out in the mutiny at the Nore, and what serious financial embarrassments were already pressing upon the treasury, and preparing the dreadful catastrophe which led to the suspension of cash payments in the following spring, it must be admitted that the nation then stood upon the edge of an abyss; and that if ever Providence interferes in human affairs otherwise than by the energy which it infuses into the cause of justice, and the moral laws to which the deeds of free agents are rendered subservient, its protection never appeared in so remarkable a manner to the British islands since the winds dispersed the Spanish Armada. XXI. 1796. Empress The close of this year was marked by the death of the Empress Catherine, and the accession of the Emperor Paul to the Russian throne; an event of Nov. 10. no small importance to the future fate of the war, Death of the and destiny of the world. Shortly before her death, Catherine. she had by art and flattery contrived to add Courland to her immense dominions: She had recently made herself mistress of Derbent in Persia; and the alliance with Great Britain and Austria secured to her the concurrence of these powers in her favourite project of dismembering the Turkish dominions, and placing her youngest son on the throne of Constantine. She thus seemed to be fast approaching the grand object of her ambition, and might have lived to see the cross planted on the domes of St Sophia, when death interrupted all her schemes of ambition, in the sixtyseventh year of her age, and the thirty-sixth of her reign. Her latest project was the formation of a powerful confederacy for the defence of Europe against the French Republic; and she had given orders for the levy of 150,000 men, destined to take a part in the German campaigns; a design which, if carried into effect by her firm and intrepid hand, might have accelerated by nearly twenty years the Ann Reg. catastrophe which closed the war.1 1 1796, 200, 202. Few sovereigns will occupy a more conspicuous place in the page of history, or have left in their Her Charac conduct on the throne a more exalted reputation. ter. Prudent in council, and intrepid in conduct; cautious in forming resolutions, but vigorous in carrying them into execution; ambitious, but of great and splendid objects only; passionately fond of glory, yet without a tincture of selfish or unworthy inclination; discerning in the choice of her counsellors, and swayed only in matters of state by lofty intellects; |