THE NILE
AUTHORITIES.—See Chapter XII., and _La Jonquière Expedition d’Egypte_.
The failure of Hoche, the defeat of the proposed combination with the
Spaniards by the battle of St. Vincent, the shattering of the Dutch
fleet at Camperdown, had proved that an invasion of the British Isles
was a venture only to be achieved by such a combination of good fortune
for the French, and bad management on our part, as no sane ruler of men
could expect. Yet during eight years, including the short fallacious
Peace of Amiens, the successive Governments of France, the Directory,
the Consulate, and the Empire continued to make the attempt. All their
efforts at sea and some of their enterprises on land were directed to
that end. The expedition to Egypt in 1798 was as much a part of the
invasion scheme as the raid of Humbert. It was meant to turn the flank
of England by assailing her in India. The Northern Coalition of 1801
was but another plot to turn England’s flank—promoted by the French,
and made possible by the help of her erratic ally, the Czar Paul. The
Boulogne flotilla was to have made the direct attack. It was all one
undivided story which ended in 1805—leaving behind it a heritage of
madness in the shape of Napoleon’s maniacal determination to conquer
England on the Continent—in other words, to make the independence
and well-being of Europe incompatible with the existence of his own
government. The army of England was not dissolved. It remained rather a
paper than an effective force, but still in existence as a possibility
and a threat. As if to emphasise their determination to strike at the
heart of England, the Directory appointed Napoleon himself as general
of the Army of England on the 26th October 1797. The nomination was
little more than a formality. Napoleon did not even visit his command
till early in February 1798, and then only in passing and on his way
to Belgium. The conqueror of Italy did not need his great sagacity to
see that the venture was insane with such resources as the Directory
could command. In the month of May their coast defence forces led
by Muskeyn were beaten in an effort to retake the Marcouf islands,
off La Hougue, where England had an advance post of observation held
by bluejackets and marines. Napoleon, who knew well enough that the
Directory feared him as a possible military despot, was no more
disposed than Hoche to play Don Quixote on the sea to please men who
would gladly have seen him at the bottom of it. He turned to the great
flanking movement which was to destroy England through India, leaving
lesser, and less fortunate, men to tilt at windmills.
The turning movement was essentially no less a delusion than the direct
attack, but it looked feasible, it offered promising vistas of glory
and adventure in the East, and it gave Napoleon a field wherein he
might do showy things to fascinate the French imagination, and withal
bide his time. It was indeed feasible up to a certain point, because
the British Mediterranean fleet was tied down to blockade Cadiz.
Jervis, content with heading off and driving back the Spaniards, had
retired first to Lagos, and then to Lisbon, carrying with him his four
prizes, the cherished reward of the toils and perils of officers and
men, to be divided in becoming proportions. What those proportions were
we can learn pleasantly from the estimate made by Nelson in a letter
to Lord Spencer dated 7th September, of what the shares due for three
French prizes he caused to be destroyed would have come to, if he had
ordered their preservation:—to the commander-in-chief £3750; to the
junior admirals each £1625; to captains each £1000; to the lieutenants
class each £75; to warrant officers each £50; to petty officers each
£11; to seamen and marines each £2, 4s. 1d. The men had their share to
a penny, and we can understand the jest of the Irish sailor who was
seen saying his prayers before Trafalgar. When asked by a lieutenant if
he was afraid, he answered that he was not, but was only praying that
the enemy’s bullets might be distributed on the same scale as the prize
money—the lion’s share to the officers. St. Vincent, as he must now be
called, did not leave Lisbon till the 31st March, and then applied
himself to watching the twenty-six or twenty-eight Spanish ships in the
port and to that repression of the spirit of mutiny described in the
previous chapter.
Cadiz was twice bombarded at night. On the 3rd and the 5th July
some damage was done to shipping and to houses. Some conflicts took
place with Spanish guard-boats and galleys, in one of which Nelson
was in great peril. News came that a Spanish treasure-ship had taken
refuge at Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and on the 15th July Nelson was
detached to seize it. He had with him his flagship the =Theseus=,
74, the =Culloden=, 74, the =Zealous=, 74, and the =Leander=, 50,
with the =Seahorse=, =Emerald=, and =Terpsichore=, 32-gun frigates,
and the cutter =Fox=. But he was not provided with the detachment
of troops he thought necessary. Mainly for want of them, the attack
failed disastrously. On the 22nd July an attempt was made to occupy
a height overhanging the town, but the post was too strongly held to
be carried by a mere landing party. On the evening of the 24th and
in the small hours of the 25th, a double direct attack on the mole,
and by the Citadel, was made with the =Fox= and boats. The =Fox= was
sunk by cannon-shot off the mole, and so were some of the boats with
her. Nelson lost his right arm. A few officers and men struggled on
to the mole only to be shot down by musketry. The attack near the
Citadel was no more fortunate. Troubridge, who commanded, succeeded in
landing through the surf which stove his boats, but only to find he was
helpless and to be compelled to purchase leave to return to the ships
by promising that no further attack should be made on the islands. We
lost in all 141 men and officers shot or drowned, and 105 wounded.
Nelson was compelled to return home to months of suffering. From April
1797 to May 1798 the Mediterranean was unvisited by an English naval
force, the French were free to cross it in every direction to fix their
grip on the Ionian Islands, their share of the plunder of Venice, and
to prepare for their great venture. Jervis, who spent much of his time
at Lisbon, was joined by a Portuguese squadron, but the necessity for
watching the Spaniards kept him to the west of the Straits.
Therefore did it seem feasible to the French to apply themselves to
the profitable task of turning the Mediterranean into “a French lake,”
by seizing Egypt, and then to revenge themselves on England by making
Egypt the starting place for an attack on India. Preparations were made
all through the earlier part of the year, and the expedition might have
sailed before it did if an alarm of renewed war with Austria had not
turned the attention of the French Government to another direction. The
English ministers knew that preparations were being made, but did not
know for what particular purpose. It seemed not improbable, though it
surely ought to have appeared unthinkable, that the fleet at Toulon was
going to try to run past Jervis and make for Ireland, where rebellion
had broken out. There were from thirty to forty French ships of the
line at Brest and other ocean ports, and the Army of England was still
in being, at least on paper. To go to see what was being done at Toulon
was the obvious course.
Nelson returned from home to the fleet off Cadiz on the 29th April
1798. Lord Spencer, the First Lord of the Admiralty, guided by his
own good sense and the advice of Sir Gilbert Elliot, Lord Minto,
had already selected him as the officer to be entrusted with the
duty of intercepting the Toulon armament. His judgment coincided
with the opinion of Jervis, who spontaneously detached Nelson on a
reconnaissance into the Mediterranean on the 2nd May. Nelson sailed
in his flagship, the =Vanguard=, 74, and on the 4th he picked up, at
Gibraltar, the =Alexander=, 74, the =Orion=, 74, the =Emerald= and
=Terpsichore=, and the =Bonne Citoyenne= sloop. On the 9th he sailed
for Toulon. On the 19th St. Vincent received orders from home to send
twelve line-of-battle ships into the Mediterranean to destroy the
French armament, and he was recommended to give the command to Nelson.
He was promised reinforcements to replace the ships he detached. They
reached him on the 24th, under command of Sir R. Curtis, and that night
the inshore squadron watching Cadiz, was replaced, under cover of the
dark, by the newcomers, and was detached up the Mediterranean so that
the Spaniards should see nothing to excite their suspicions and give
them news to report to the French.
In the meantime Nelson had gone ahead and had been off Cape Sicié on
the 17th. He learnt from a captured privateer that a great armament was
indeed in preparation, but could learn nothing of its destination. On
the 21st the =Vanguard= was dismasted in a north-westerly gale, which
had begun to blow on the 19th, and was compelled to anchor to refit
at San Pietro in Sardinia. His ships had been seen at a distance by
the French in Toulon, but they put to sea on the 19th by favour of the
north-west wind which drove him off. The armament consisted of twelve
sail of the line under Admiral Brueys d’Aigalliers, an officer of the
old French royal corps. The warships were crowded with Napoleon’s
troops, and accompanied by transports. The French warships as usual
had been manned with difficulty, and were short-handed. Though three
months’ provisions were carried for the soldiers, only two months’ were
carried for the crews, a fact which had an influence on the movements
of Brueys later on. Immediately after leaving Toulon the armament was
joined by a convoy from Genoa on the 21st May. The north-westerly gale
blew it on its course, and as it went down the eastern side of Corsica
and Sardinia it was sheltered from the violence of the storm. On the
27th it was joined at the mouth of the Straits of Bonifacio by another
convoy from Ajaccio, while a third from Civita Vecchia, followed a
parallel course, and joined the main body off Malta on the 9th June.
If the fleet of Jervis had not been tied down to watch Cadiz, it would
have been easy to prevent the army for the invasion of Egypt from
ever coming together. The possession of Malta, in the opinion of the
French, who share the common belief of mankind that whoever holds a
port commands the sea about it, would have gone far to forward their
scheme for making the Mediterranean a French lake. The Order of St.
John of Jerusalem, to which it belonged, had been nearly ruined by the
loss of its estates in France during the Revolution, and was too poor
to maintain troops. The French army took possession on the 13th June,
and on the 18th sailed on its way to Egypt, leaving a garrison in the
island.
While the French were profiting by the delay of the English to take
early measures to intercept them, Nelson was refitting at San Pietro.
On the 27th May, the day on which the Ajaccio Convoy joined Brueys and
Napoleon, he left San Pietro to resume his watch off Toulon. He was
back on his cruising ground on the 31st to learn that the armament
was gone to a destination he could not discover. On the 5th Captain
Hardy, of the =Mutine= brig, brought him the news that Troubridge was
coming with reinforcements, which would raise his command to fourteen
sail. On the 7th they joined him. In a time when the movements of ships
were controlled by the wind the seaman had certainties on which to
calculate. Nelson knew that a fleet hampered by a swarm of transports
could not have gone westward in the late north-westerly gale. Therefore
he sought them on the east of Corsica and Sardinia. When off Gianute
he was misinformed by a Moorish vessel, which told him that the French
were at Syracuse. At Naples, on the 17th June—four days after the
French had taken Malta—he learnt that the enemy had gone south past
Sardinia. At Messina, on the 20th, he heard of the capture of Malta and
Gozo. On the 22nd he was twelve leagues to the S.W. of Cape Passaro
in Sicily, and was there told by a neutral, who had seen them at sea,
that the French had left Malta on the 18th and were going to the east.
Napoleon was as little a friend to delay as Nelson. He knew since the
1st June of the presence of English ships at San Pietro, and that he
was liable to interruption. Knowing that he pressed on, but did not
take the normal course from Malta to Alexandria. He followed a route
to the north of it along the southern shore of Crete. When therefore
Nelson, concluding most justly that the French would not go east except
to attack Egypt, pressed on in pursuit along the shortest line, he
crossed the route of his enemy, and they sailed in parallel lines. On
the 25th, when the French were off Gozo di Candia, Nelson was directly
to the south of them, barely sixty miles away, near Cape Dernah, in
Africa. As he was not weighted by transports and was sailing on the
more direct route he headed his opponent, and reached Alexandria on
the 28th June to find the port empty, and the Turks wholly ignorant
that they were menaced by any danger. He was in a fever of excitement.
Of eager, vehement temperament, and by nature a striker of fierce
strokes, he had overshot the mark, and his blow had been wasted in the
air. His frigates had parted from him in the gale which dismasted the
=Vanguard=, and had not rejoined. He was groping for his foe in the
dark, and had missed him. His mind was agitated by his imagination. He
saw himself, in his first important command, chosen over the heads of
his seniors to meet a great crisis, and it seemed as if he had failed.
He already heard in fancy the howl of disappointment which would go up
in England, worded with all the ruffian fluency of the newspapers; and
he loved honour—he loved popularity. Agitation clouded his sagacity. He
could not consider how probable it was that his unhampered squadron had
passed the enemy, how unlikely it was that they were heading for any
other point than Egypt, an old object of French ambition, a post from
which India could be menaced. On the 29th he hurried away to the coast
of Anatolia, from the place where British interests could be injured,
to one where the French could have gone only in a fit of childish
folly. Forty-eight hours after he had left, and when his topsails were
hardly over the horizon to the north-east, the French were seen in the
west, and the invasion of Egypt began.
It was allowed to go on for a month undisturbed, and Napoleon was at
liberty to gain the victories which prepared the way for his rise to
despotic power in France. Nelson, meanwhile, had reached the coast
of Anatolia on the 4th July, had battled his way back against head
winds to Cape Passaro by the 18th, had obtained water and stores at
Syracuse by the connivance of the Neapolitan Government and in defiance
of its treaty with France, and had gone to sea again by the 25th,
still ignorant of the whereabouts of his enemies save that they were
somewhere in the Levant. On the 28th the Turkish Pasha at Coron, in the
Morea, told him that they had been seen four weeks before to the south
of Crete, heading to the south-east. That they had gone to Egypt did
not admit of a doubt. Nelson steered once more for Alexandria, and on
the 1st August the =Zealous= signalled that the French were at anchor
in Aboukir Bay to the west of the Rosetta mouth of the Nile.
Napoleon had preferred to keep the squadron on the coast to co-operate
with his army, though he gave the admiral conditional leave to sail
for Corfu, if he could not take his fleet into the old harbour of
Alexandria or find a safe anchorage elsewhere on the coast. Brueys
could not leave for Corfu even if the general had been honest in giving
him leave to go, for he was short of water and provisions, and most of
what the shore could supply was taken for the army. To get into the old
harbour was difficult. To get out of it in the face of a blockading
force would have been impossible. A squadron once shut in it might be
destroyed by bombs. So he sought for a safe anchorage and thought he
found it at Aboukir, to the N.E. of Alexandria. Aboukir, the ancient
Canopus, is the western point of the bay which lies west of the Rosetta
branch of the Nile, and it has a shallow harbour stretching from N.W.
to S.E. with an island at the N.W. point. Brueys, as an officer of the
old royal corps, serving revolutionary France from necessity, disliked
his captains as members of the class which had ruined and degraded
his own. He thought them boors, and knew them to be ignorant. He had
no confidence in his command, for his ships were all short-handed,
and several lacked a fourth or even a third of their complement. The
proportion of genuine seamen was small and the discipline bad. No
practice could be given while the ships were crowded with soldiers and
military stores. When the ships were cleared of the army there had
been little time to drill the men, and little will on their part to be
drilled, for the anarchical spirit of the Revolution was strong among
them, and it was difficult to secure obedience. Therefore Brueys was
justified in believing that his squadron was unequal to an encounter
with an English force of approximately the same strength. His wisest
course was to meet battle, if meet it he must, in conditions which
would put the least possible strain on its weakness. The measures he
took say little for the military intelligence of the famous royal
corps. He might have placed his ships at the N.W. corner of the bay,
close to the bank which lines the shore, and where the English could
not place ships on both sides of his. He did anchor them so far from
the bank that there was room for an enemy to pass between them and
the land, and he arranged them in a very obtuse angle, with its apex
pointing to the N.E. If an attack was made at either end, the other
would not be able to support the part assailed. The history of war
contains no more tragic example of a force weak in itself and so
handled that all the causes of defeat were heaped upon its weakness.
And this was done in the face of an English squadron trained in a fine
school of discipline, rendered confident by long success, perfected
by practice in nerve and judgment, led by that man of all men who
was best qualified to give its strength free play. One of the most
idle of idle discussions has chattered round the imaginary problem
whether the course of doubling on the head of the French line, actually
adopted by the English fleet, was taken by Nelson’s order or inspired
by the example of Captain Foley of the =Goliath=. It was perhaps
the greatest of Nelson’s great qualities, his truest claim to be a
consummate leader of men, that he lived in genial harmony with his
subordinates, discussing all possible contingencies with them, laying
down the principles, and leaving to every man the inspiring freedom to
co-operate within the just bounds of his duty, to act as circumstances
served in the spirit of his orders, as a free man, and not as one
bound to follow the letter like a mere instrument. Whether the French
line would be doubled on must depend on its position at the moment
of battle. The advantage of doubling and putting an opponent between
two fires had been obvious to average human intelligence from of old.
On a previous page of this book it has been shown how Tourville did
it at the battle of Beachy Head. The manœuvre, like all the work of
man, fell short of perfection. There was a risk that when two ships
were firing into a third placed between them they would fire into one
another. It was a risk which weighed with good officers, notably with
Captain Saumarez of the =Orion=. He thought that, given the superiority
of our gunnery, we developed a superior force whenever an English
ship came into action with a French ship of the same rate or one not
greatly superior in armament. It is possible that part of the loss
suffered by the English squadron was inflicted by English hands. It
is a not incredible might-have-been, that if our ships had stretched
along the outside of the French line, each anchoring as she came up and
covering the passage of the comrade behind, we might have reached their
rear ships before they got away, and so have taken them all. But the
advantages of the course followed were palpable. It was certain that
the French ships, attacked on both sides, would be rapidly crushed,
for their insufficient crews were overtaxed when compelled to fight
both broadsides. The nominal strength of the crews of the French ships
was 11,000 men. Their actual force was 7850. Twenty-five men per ship
were absent guarding the watering place on shore, and many were away in
the boats engaged in bringing off water when the English appeared.
They had sighted the coast of Egypt about Alexandria on the morning of
the 1st August. The =Alexander=, 74, Captain Ball, and =Swiftsure=,
74, Captain Hallowell, were sent in to reconnoitre, and reported
at 10 a.m. that they saw the harbour full of vessels, but that the
French squadron was not there. At 1 p.m. the =Zealous=, 74, Captain
Samuel Hood, signalled that the enemy was at anchor in Aboukir. The
=Swiftsure= and =Alexander= were recalled, and the squadron headed for
the enemy. By about 5.30 it was to the north of Aboukir Island, which,
from the battle of the night, was to receive the name of Nelson Island.
The Mediterranean charts of the time were generally untrustworthy,
and seamen had to rely on their own observation to learn the depths
of water. Nelson hailed the =Zealous= to ask of Captain Hood if he
thought the ships could turn with the security that they would clear
the shoal. Hood replied that he did not know, but would stand in and
try. The orders were to attack the enemy’s van and centre, and to
anchor. It was at six o’clock that the order was given to stand in,
and the squadron which had come from the west turned to the south to
throw itself on the French van. At that moment eleven ship were in
line. The =Goliath=, 74, Captain Foley; =Zealous=, 74, Captain Samuel
Hood; =Orion=, 74, Captain Sir James Saumarez; =Audacious=, 74, Captain
Davidge Gould; =Theseus=, 74, Captain Miller; =Vanguard=, 74, Nelson’s
flagship, of which Edward Berry was captain; =Minotaur=, 74, Captain
Louis; =Defence=, 74, Captain Peyton; =Bellerophon=, 74, Captain Darby;
=Majestic=, 74, Captain Westcott; and the =Leander=, 50, Captain
Thompson. The =Culloden=, 74, Captain Troubridge, always an unlucky
ship, was outsailed and was behind, and the =Alexander= and =Swiftsure=
were still further off.
The French squadron consisted of thirteen vessels and was anchored
as follows:—The _Guerrier_, 74, a very old ship, Captain Trullet,
was at the head, and lay nearly two miles to the south-east of
Aboukir island. Behind her and stretching to the south-east lay the
_Conquerant_, 74, Captain Dalbarade, a vessel so rotten with age that
her armament had been reduced, and manned by a crew of only four
hundred. The _Spartiate_, 74, Captain Eimeriau; the _Aquilon_, 74,
Captain Thevenard; and the _Peuple Souverain_, 74, Captain Raccord,
which was as much worn out as the _Conquerant_. The _Franklin_, 80,
Captain Gillet, the flagship of Rear-Admiral Blanquet Duchayla, and the
_Orient_, 110, the flagship of Admiral Brueys, whose flag-captain was
Casabianca, and who had with him Ganteaume as captain of the fleet.
The line turned to the south beyond the _Orient_, and consisted of the
_Tonnant_, 80, Captain Dupetit Thouard; the _Heureux_, 74, Captain
Etienne; the _Mercure_, 74, Captain Cambon; the _Guillaume Tell_, 80,
flagship of Rear-Admiral Villeneuve, whose flag-captain was Saunier;
the _Généreux_, 74, Captain Lejoille; and the _Timoléon_, 74, Captain
Léonce Trullet. Four frigates of forty guns were anchored inside the
line, and one of them carried the flag of Rear-Admiral Decrès. When
Nelson was sighted by the French at 2 p.m. a hasty council of war was
held in the _Orient_. There was discussion what ought to be done,
though lack of means and of time forbade the doing of anything save one
thing—that was to lie and wait for the English attack in the hope that
it would not be made till next morning, and with the expectation that
it would not be made on the van, though that, as being the windward
end of the squadron, was precisely the point at which attack would be
most effective, and least liable to interruption by the French ships to
leeward.
The attack was made that night, and was made on the van. At six
o’clock, just as the sun was touching the horizon, the =Goliath=
crossed the bow of the _Guerrier_, pouring in her fire with such effect
that the Frenchman’s foremast came down. The men on the deck of the
=Goliath=, who could see that they had drawn the first blood, cheered
the happy omen, and the cheer was taken up by the crews at the guns
below. The =Goliath= was to have been anchored with a spring at her
cable, abreast of the _Guerrier_, but the anchor did not hold, and she
was brought up abreast of the _Conquerant_. The =Zealous= followed
in her wake and took the place she had failed to hold abreast of the
_Guerrier_. The =Orion= followed, and, passing inside of the =Goliath=
and =Zealous= (so wide was the space between the French ships and the
shoal water), anchored by the _Spartiate_. The =Audacious= came along
the same track and anchored by the _Peuple Souverain_. The =Theseus=
passed astern of the _Guerrier_, through the overwide interval of 150
metres between the French ships, and ahead of the _Conquerant_, then
swept inside of her comrades and assailed the _Aquilon_. Nelson came
into action behind the =Theseus=, but passed outside the French line,
and, neglecting the already overpowered _Guerrier_ and _Conquerant_,
anchored on the starboard side of the _Spartiate_ which was already
attacked on the port side by the =Orion=. The =Minotaur= passed outside
the =Vanguard= and joined the =Theseus= in firing into the _Aquilon_.
The =Defence= came on behind the =Minotaur= and assailed the _Peuple
Souverain_. She had no colleague, but the French ship was so weak as
to be hardly able to fire her guns without danger to herself and was
no formidable antagonist. Thus eight English ships were in action with
five French, of which three were more or less unfit to be in a line of
battle. So the French van was rapidly crushed and the victory was won.
The destruction of the French squadron was not to be completed with the
same ease. The next in order to the _Peuple Souverain_ in the French
line was the _Franklin_, 80, next to her came the _Orient_, 110, and
the _Tonnant_, 80. These three powerful ships formed, as it were,
a central citadel to the French line, and our most severe loss was
suffered in action with them. The =Bellerophon=, which followed the
=Vanguard=, passed the _Franklin_, and came under the broadside of the
_Orient_. The =Majestic= went beyond the =Bellerophon= and came into
action with the _Tonnant_. Both were severely mauled. The =Bellerophon=
was shattered by the fire of the _Orient_, and drifted off down the
bay. The =Majestic= was fiercely dealt with by the _Tonnant_, fell
away from her, and became entangled with the next in the line, the
_Heureux_. The _Heureux’s_ captain, Etienne, had called up his men to
repel boarders, or to board, when the =Majestic= broke away and was
brought up beside the _Mercure_. These two ships suffered far more
severely than any of the others engaged. The =Bellerophon= lost 49
men killed and 148 wounded. The =Majestic=, 50, killed, including her
captain Westcott, and 143 wounded. Between them they suffered a greater
loss than all the ships of Jervis’s squadron at the battle of Cape St.
Vincent. But now the vessels which had not been near enough to take
part in the first attack began to come in. The =Swiftsure= attacked the
_Franklin_ and the =Alexander=, _L’Orient_. They were joined by the
little =Leander= which had been delayed by her efforts to drag off the
ever unlucky =Culloden=, which had grounded on the Aboukir shoal. The
=Leander= anchored ahead of the _Franklin_ and raked both her and the
_Orient_. As the fire in the French van ceased by the surrender of the
overpowered ships, our vessels dropped down and helped to crush the
enemy’s centre. They were aided by the frightful disaster which befell
the _Orient_. She caught fire and blew up. The French ships beyond
her cut their cables and drifted away. The isolated _Franklin_ fought
long and gallantly but was overpowered at last. In the French rear
Villeneuve, hesitating, contemplating difficulties, thinking of safety
and seeking it not by grasping the nettle, but by evasion, as he was to
do seven years later, did nothing to help his comrades. He thought it
much that he could escape next morning with his flagship the _Guillaume
Tell_, the _Généreux_ and two frigates. Nelson, who had been wounded
in the head by a langrage shot while engaged with the _Aquilon_,
thought, that if he had not been disabled, even they would have been
taken. But the case was indeed one for saying they had done very well.
During the night and the following morning all the French ships, except
Villeneuve’s four, were taken or destroyed. Brueys fell on the deck of
his flagship. The total loss of the French is difficult to estimate. It
has been put by themselves at 1451 killed and 1479 wounded. The loss in
Nelson’s squadron was 218 killed and 678 wounded, and to that total of
896, the =Bellerophon= and the =Majestic= contributed 390. Of the ships
which were active in crushing the van the =Zealous= lost only 1 killed
and 7 wounded, the =Theseus= 4 killed and 7 wounded, the =Defence= 4
killed and 11 wounded, while the =Leander= had only 14 men wounded and
none killed.
Six days after the great turning movement had been wrecked in Aboukir
Bay, the attack on England from the ocean ports of France began to be
put into execution. It was to be directed through Ireland, and was to
be double. One squadron under Savary was ordered to carry troops from
Rochefort, while another and stronger squadron was to carry a division
from Brest. Combined operations are liable to fail from obstacles which
upset the most promising combination, and this was no exception to a
common experience. Savary did indeed sail unseen from Rochefort on the
6th of August. He reached Killala Bay, between Sligo and Mayo, on the
21st. He had with him the _Concorde_, 40, the _Franchise_, 36, the
_Medée_, 36, and the _Venus_, 28, and they carried General Humbert, an
officer of much spirit and ingenuity, and 1150 soldiers. Now, as for
the raid Humbert made, the victory he won at Castlebar, his surrender
at Ballinamuck, and the difficulty he said he found in discovering a
real general among the many English officers of that title he heard of,
are they not written in the books of the chronicles of Ireland? The
story inspires a profound gratitude to the Providence which confined
the invasion to Humbert and 1150 men, and spared us Hoche with ten
times (or more) that number. Having landed his charge, Savary was
quickly away on the 23rd and anchored safely at Royan, in the Gironde,
on the 9th September, from whence he returned to Rochefort on the 20th.
Bompard, who was to sail from Brest, was not so fortunate. His start
was delayed first by want of money, for the finances of France were
still in such a distressed state that the Government could not send
him so small a sum as £6000 to pay the soldiers, and the men refused
to sail without an advance. Then there was an alarm of an English
inroad into Holland, and troops were held back to meet that danger.
But the worst obstacle was the watch of the English blockading fleet.
Its frigates cruised in the Iroise, and the line-of-battle ships were
at hand. Bompard made one attempt to get away by the passage between
the Black Rocks and Ushant, saw Bridport ahead of him, and went back.
During the night of the 16th September he did get away, for though
the wind blew strongly from the N.E. off shore, Bridport had taken his
ships away to the northward of Ushant. So Bompard was free to sail out
through the Raz du Sein to the southward, under cover of the dark. Next
morning he was clear of the land in hazy weather, but he saw, and was
seen, by the =Ethalion= frigate, Captain Countess, who had with him the
=Boadicea= frigate, Captain R. Keats, and the brig =Sylph=, Captain
White. They were between him and the Bee du Raz. Captain Countess
attached himself to the French squadron, which consisted of the
_Hoche_, 74 (the old Pégase), the _Immortalité_, _Romaine_, _Loire_,
_Bellone_, _Coquille_, _Embuscade_, _Resolue_, and _Semillante_
frigates and a schooner. The squadron carried 3000 troops under
Generals Hardy and Ménage. Captain Countess despatched the =Boadicea=
to warn Bridport, who, after looking into the Iroise to obtain the
evidence of his own eyes, sent warning home that a French squadron had
escaped what a very polite fiction would call his vigilance.
The =Ethalion= followed Bompard, retiring when menaced, and coming back
again when the French went on. Bompard took the seeming cautious, but
in reality very rash, course of endeavouring to shake off his pursuer
by steering wide out to the south. He could hardly have provided
more effectually for his own defeat. His one chance of success (and
it was a poor one now that Savary’s success had aroused his enemy’s
vigilance and had turned his attention to the Irish Coast) was to head
an intercepting force. Every hour he added to his voyage increased
the danger that he would be intercepted, and he was. When Bridport’s
message reached England Sir J. B. Warren was sent from Cawsand Bay
to the west coast of Ireland to bar the road. He sailed on the 23rd
September, and on the 10th October was off Achill Head. If Bompard had
gone direct to his destination, Killala Bay, trusting, as from the
nature of his task he had to trust, to fortune, he would have been
off Tory Island some days before Warren was in a position to attack
him, and might have landed Hardy in Killala Bay. As he preferred to
try artful management, where speed and boldness were wanted, he was
sighted on the 11th October, near the Island, by Warren, who then had
with him the =Canada=, 74, =Robust=, 74, =Foudroyant=, 80, =Magnanime=,
=Ethalion=, =Anson=, =Melampus=, and =Amelia= frigates. The English
officer pursued and overtook his enemy on the following day. The
_Hoche_, Bompard’s one line-of-battle ship, was easily overpowered, and
six of the frigates with her were captured in a succession of fights
off the west coast of Ireland. The utmost audacity could have brought
no worse fate on Bompard and his command.
Isolated French ships reached the Irish coast—as, for instance, the
brig _Anacreon_, which in September visited the coast of Donegal,
went back on hearing of the surrender of Humbert, and returned to her
starting-point, Dunkirk, bringing a valuable prize with her. On the
12th October Savary sailed again from Rochefort with a larger squadron
and 1090 soldiers. He looked into Killala, found that a landing was
hopeless, and went back to Rochefort. He was chased and had to throw
guns overboard to lighten his vessels, but he got back safe.
The direct invasion scheme had broken down. Yet the whole story puts
these two questions—Did it break down because of the strength of our
guard? What does the failure teach us to expect in the future? No
fair-minded man can assert that fortune had no share in our success.
Hoche’s expedition would have succeeded as fully as the expedition
of Savary and Humbert, but for some measure of bad management on the
part of Morard de Galle, and the persistence of bad weather. Of the
expeditions of 1798, both of Savary’s reached the coast of Ireland and
returned in safety. So did the _Anacreon_. Bompard alone was defeated
at sea. The most obvious lesson of it all is of course that better
management than Bridport’s will always be needed, and the better the
enemy the greater the want. Other nations study these stories. We
must not take it for granted that a French Revolution will help us by
disorganising our foes.
The double failure in Egypt and on the coast of Ireland suspended all
schemes of invasion for a time. France and England alike had their eyes
fixed on Napoleon’s army in Egypt. The news of the disaster in Aboukir
Bay produced a profound effect throughout Europe. A storm broke out in
France against the Directory, who were accused of having “deported”
the best general and the best army of the Republic. Public men who had
been loud in promoting the expedition began to throw the blame for it
on one another. Public excitement and anger were aggravated by the
speedy discovery that a new coalition was forming, and that France
would again be called upon to fight for her very existence, at least
for all she had gained by the Revolution. To recover Napoleon and his
army became a leading object with the French. To keep them in Egypt
was no less the object of England. The best that could have happened
would have been that Napoleon should have made a serious attempt to
carry out his grand scheme of marching on the footsteps of Alexander
the Great, through Persia and Afghanistan to India. He would have
perished on his march, and Europe would have escaped years of misery.
But to keep him away from the battlefields of Europe was a real gain.
The most effectual of all ways of doing this would have been to retain
a large force on the coast of Egypt, and send out troops. It was not
the course taken. Nelson sent the =Leander= home with his despatches
carried by Captain Berry. She fell in with the _Généreux_ on the 18th
August, and was captured. On the 14th August Sir James Saumarez sailed
with the =Orion=, =Bellerophon=, =Minotaur=, =Defence=, =Audacious=,
=Theseus=, and =Majestic=, to escort the French prizes the _Franklin_,
_Tonnant_, _Aquilon_, _Conquérant_, and _Peuple Souverain_. Three of
the prizes were destroyed, and it would have been better that all
should have been burnt. But the just reward of the toils and dangers of
officers and men, and more especially of commanders-in-chief, junior
admirals, and captains, was not to be thrown away. So Saumarez made a
slow, painful voyage westward with his convoy of battered hulks. He
summoned Malta, was defied by the French general, and gave arms to the
islanders who had risen against the French, driven to desperation by
pillage and the violation of their women. Malta was blockaded by the
Portuguese ships which had served with Jervis, and the =Lion=, 64. On
the 19th Nelson sailed with the =Vanguard=, =Culloden=, and =Alexander=
for Naples. He left the =Zealous=, =Goliath=, and =Swiftsure=, the
=Seahorse=, =Emerald=, and =Alcmene= frigates, and the =Bonne Citoyene=
sloop to watch the coast of Egypt. He himself, in an evil hour, sailed
for Naples. It is not superfluous to point out that though Nelson
was ardently desirous to weaken the French in Egypt he landed his
prisoners, for whom he could with difficulty provide, and they afforded
Napoleon a welcome reinforcement for his army. If the prizes had all
been burnt after whatever stores were of use had been taken out of
them, if Nelson had sought a basis of operations in some Turkish port
in Crete or Cyprus, the prisoners could have been kept in one of those
islands and Egypt better watched.
Our ships would at least have been better employed than many of them
were destined to be on the coast of Naples. The operations in which he
was engaged till he left the Mediterranean occupy a justly promoted
place in the biography of Nelson. They need few words here, and those
few only to show that they were a pure waste of force. The kingdom
of Naples on the mainland was indefensible against a French army in
central Italy by naval force. The Government was rotten and the troops
were worthless. The obvious deduction from these facts was that we
ought to have confined ourselves to blockading Malta, and ought to have
warned the king of Naples that he was not to expect any help from us if
he plunged into adventures. What happened was that Nelson, acting under
influences which must be looked for in his biographies, egged on the
king of Naples to make an attack on the French force occupying Rome,
which brought on him an ignominious thrashing, and drove him to abject
flight to Sicily in November and December of 1798. Henceforth a British
squadron reinforced to eight sail of the line and four Portuguese were
employed looking on idly at the occupation of Naples, till the advance
of the Austrian and Russian armies in Northern Italy compelled the
French to retreat. Then they rendered superfluous assistance to the
Neapolitan Government to recover what could not be defended against
it. While they were so employed their separation from other English
forces in the Mediterranean helped to create a position of very serious
danger. Meanwhile, an English squadron, under Rear-Admiral Duckworth,
carrying troops under General Stuart, took possession of Minorca.
The Turks took up arms against the French, and Russia intervened.
The Ionian Isles, except Corfu, were regained from the French. The
Government at Paris was driven to see that an effort must be made in
the Mediterranean.
Lord Palmerston is credited with the shrewd saying that whenever a
man is heard to say that “something must be done,” it is safe to
calculate on his doing something foolish. To strike out with no
definite aim is rarely the way to deliver an effective stroke, though
it may at times, and with help from fortune, be a more hopeful course
than lying still. Whether the French Government matured any coherent
scheme during the last months of 1798 and the first of 1799 is highly
doubtful. We can only be sure as to what was actually done by them and
for them. It was in substance this, that their fleet at Brest was sent
into the Mediterranean, if not to do some definite thing, at least
to see what could be done. The Minister of Marine, Eustache Bruix,
came down from Paris to take command himself. He was well supplied
with money, and it was in his power to pay the sailors and dockyard
hands. Great and ardent exertions were made. The ships were better
appointed and far better manned than any French fleet had been during
the war. The admiral was popular with the men, and he had cause to look
with confidence on the force which he had equipped by the middle of
April. It consisted of the following ships of the line. The _Ocean_,
_Invincible_, _Républicain_, _Terrible_ of 110 guns; the _Formidable_
and _Indomptable_ of 84; the _Jemmapes_, _Montblanc_, _Tyrannicide_,
_Batave_, _Constitution_, _Révolution_, _Fongueux_, _Censeur_, _Zélé_,
_Redoutable_, _Wattignies_, _Tourville_, _Cisalpin_, _Jean Bart_,
_Gaulois_, _Convention_, _Duquesne_, _J. J. Rousseau_, _Dix Août_ of
74, together with ten frigates, sloops, and ships armed _en flûte_ as
store ships.
Bridport had joined the small squadron which was watching Brest in
April, and had with him sixteen sail of the line. He had looked into
the Iroise, and knew that the French were preparing for sea, but
according to his usual practice he cruised at some distance to the
W.S.W. of Ushant. On the very day on which he took up his position—the
25th April—Bruix sailed through the Raz du Sein. He was sighted by the
=Nymphe= frigate, Captain Fraser, who at once reported to Bridport.
The English admiral, punctual as ever in his own fashion, looked into
Brest once more on the 26th, and then went off to Cape Clear. He was
convinced that the enemy were bound for Ireland, and they confirmed his
belief by putting a small vessel carrying an officer entrusted with a
misleading dispatch in his way, an old but well-preserved stratagem.
Bridport sent warnings to Cadiz and to England, and Bruix was left at
liberty to go south.
The situation in front of him was nearly all he could wish. There was
indeed no French force he could join. The _Généreux_ was at Corfu, and
the _Guillaume Tell_ at Malta. Nine vessels taken from the Venetians
were scattered between Alexandria, Ancona, and Toulon, but they were of
no value. On the other hand, the Spaniards had a squadron of uncertain
number and certain inefficiency at Cadiz, which had to be watched by
the English, and was therefore of indirect help to Bruix. Nothing need
be said of the Russians and Turks, save that they were moving in the
Mediterranean. Bruix’ real opponents were the English, and they were
scattered. Fifteen sail of the line under Lord Keith were blockading
Cadiz. One was at Tetuan. Four were with Duckworth at Minorca. Nelson
had eight English sail of the line and four Portuguese, divided between
the blockade of Malta, the harbour of Palermo, where he himself lay
at the urgent prayer of King Ferdinand to calm the nerves of the old
women of both sexes in the runaway Neapolitan Court, and the coast of
Southern Italy, where the Royalists were gaining ground against the
Republic set up by the French. As the French troops had been called off
to meet the allies in Northern Italy, the Republic was collapsing from
internal weakness. Minorca was of real value as a basis for a strong
fleet blockading Toulon. As an isolated post hastily occupied by a
handful of soldiers, it was a mere burden. The whole disposition of our
forces was as unintelligent and as vicious as it well could have been.
Our naval forces in the Levant engaged in watching the coasts of Egypt
and Syria may be left aside as not being immediately affected, and as
being too far off to render prompt help.
On the 3rd May, Keith was told by the =Success= frigate that she had
sighted the French off Oporto coming south. With a big fleet coming
against him from the Ocean, and nineteen, or so, Spaniards more or less
ready for sea in Cadiz, his position looked hazardous. He had need for
steady nerve, but the admiral though not a brilliant nor quick-witted
man possessed that solid virtue in a useful degree. He waited, ready
for fight or retreat, till he saw what was going to happen. On the 4th,
in the morning, the French were sighted, thirty-three sail of them, in
the W.N.W. The wind was blowing hard from the west, rising to a storm,
and it drove curtains of confusing sea fog before it. As it blew right
into Cadiz Bay, the Spaniards could not move. Keith kept between them
and the French. His expert ships maintained their formation and lost
no spars in the stormy weather, which threw the French into confusion
and caused them much minor damage. The fleets lost sight of one another
in the fog, and on the 5th Bruix ran through the Straits before the
gale. Two or three of his liners had suffered damage by collision and
loss of spars, but he might have sent all three into Carthagena and
still have had twenty-two for a bold stroke. It was not till the 12th
that Nelson at Palermo heard of the inroad of the Brest fleet into the
Mediterranean. If Bruix had employed those seven days in steering for
Southern Italy, he had ninety-nine chances out of a hundred to souse
down on the vessels blockading Malta before they knew of his approach,
to capture them, to cut off Nelson at Palermo, leaving him to rage
single-handed with the =Vanguard= among the old women of both sexes
of the Neapolitan Court, to fall on the ships on the coast of Naples,
capturing, driving ashore, or driving off every one of them. Then he
might have gone on to the Riviera and Toulon by the east of Sardinia
and Corsica, after doing his cause a substantial service. He knew the
divided state of the English forces. He had laid some such plan as
this. But like his brother French admirals in this war, he was chilled
by the first check. The damage suffered by his ships on the 4th and
5th froze his ardour, and he steered piteously for Toulon, where he
anchored on the 14th May with his two crippled ships, the _Batàve_ and
the _Fougueux_. And now for two months these numerous fleets, French
and English, were engaged in missing one another in a game of blind
man’s buff.
St. Vincent saw the French pass the Straits on the 5th, and at once
summoned the =Edgar= from Tetuan, and Keith from his cruising ground
between Cadiz and Cape Spartel. On the 12th he followed Bruix—or
rather, he steered for Minorca to join Duckworth, who was in danger
of being cut off, and to cover the island, which in the absence of
a covering naval force might have been retaken by the Spaniards. He
joined Duckworth on the 20th, and had twenty sail of the line on hand.
On that day Nelson had concentrated his ships at Maritimo. On that day,
too, the Spaniards, who on finding the blockade of Cadiz raised by
the withdrawal of Keith, had come to sea hoping to be able to retake
Minorca, staggered into Carthagena half dismasted by the gale. On
the 22nd, St. Vincent left Minorca for Toulon, but hearing that the
Spaniards were coming round, put himself on their road to Toulon at
Cape San Sebastian on the 26th. On that day Bruix left Toulon for the
Riviera with twenty-two sail to co-operate with the French armies now
fighting in retreat before the allies. On the 30th May, St. Vincent
was joined by Rear-Admiral Whitshed with five sail of the line sent
out from home to reinforce him. On the same day he sent Duckworth
with four ships to join Nelson. He now moved up the coast towards
Toulon, but on the 2nd June he found his health unequal to the strain
of service at sea, and left the fleet for Minorca in his flagship the
=Ville de Paris=, 100—for he would not go, so he said, in a frigate
“like a convict,” and his regard for his dignity was strong enough to
make him weaken his successor by the loss of a very powerful ship.
Keith, to whom the command now fell, went towards Toulon, while Bruix
after convoying a fleet of transports with provisions to the French
garrison of Genoa, went to Vado, and anchored there on the 4th. His
movement to the east was revealed to Keith by the crew of a prize, and
he went in pursuit on the 5th. When off Cape Delle Melle, he received
orders from St. Vincent to detach two more ships to Nelson, and to
cruise off Rosas to intercept Bruix, who was, rightly enough, supposed
to be bound for Carthagena. If the commander-in-chief had abstained
from meddling, Keith would probably have met Bruix with twenty ships
against the Frenchman’s twenty-two. On the 8th June, Bruix left Vado
for Carthagena, which was what St. Vincent calculated he would do. If
he were bound in that direction, what need was there to reinforce the
distant squadron of Nelson at the expense of the immediately threatened
fleet of Keith, which was reduced by the detachment to eighteen sail
of the line? If to divide your forces in the presence of an enemy
is a blunder, and what Napoleon when criticising Cornwallis called
an “_insigne bêtise_” then St. Vincent committed that blunder, that
_insigne bêtise_. If Keith had obeyed his orders precisely, he would
in all probability have met Bruix with eighteen ships to twenty-two.
But Keith was aware of his inferiority in numbers, and he came to
Minorca to pick up the =Ville de Paris=. The Frenchman slipped through
the gap he left, and reached Carthagena on the 22nd June. While he was
going on his way, and the _Batàve_ and _Fougueux_, repaired at Toulon,
followed and joined him, Keith first picked up the =Ville de Paris= on
the 15th June, and went back to watch Toulon. On the 19th he secured
more reward for toils and dangers by capturing a small French squadron
of three frigates and two brigs under Rear-Admiral Perrée, who had
escaped from Syria and was on his way home. He cruised off Toulon from
the 20th to the 23rd, while Bruix was anchoring at Carthagena, while
Nelson was still watching for him, and while the Royalist forces were
completing the ruin of the Republicans at Naples. On the 24th he went
to Vado, just as Nelson, relieved from anxiety about Bruix, came into
the Bay of Naples in time to secure his dear King and Queen of Naples
a fine feast of hangings and torturings to console them for their
spasms of terror during the last few months. The Republicans had been
beaten without need of our help, but if Nelson had not been at hand to
see that due vengeance was taken on Jacobins, they would have saved
their lives by capitulation. On the 25th, Bruix sailed from Carthagena
with the refitted Spanish ships. Next day Keith went to Vado, and
from thence to the east end of Minorca. On the 27th June he wrote to
Nelson asking him to send such ships as he could spare to assist in
defending Minorca, and Nelson refused on the ground that the safety of
His Sicilian Majesty’s dominions must be secured. Bruix, the only enemy
who could have assailed either, was then on his way from Carthagena to
Cadiz, which he reached on the 11th July. On the 8th, Keith had been
joined near Minorca by Sir Charles Cotton, who brought twelve sail of
the line from home. On the 10th he left in pursuit of the French, of
whose presence at Carthagena he had been informed. On the 21st July,
Bruix sailed from Cadiz, dragging with him a reluctant Spanish squadron
which was forced to accompany him by its intimidated Government. When
Keith sailed from Gibraltar on the 30th July the Frenchman had a long
start, and it was lucky for him that he had. The French sailed ill,
and the Spaniards still more badly, so that when Bruix and his Spanish
colleague, Mazaredo, anchored in the roadstead of Brest they were just
ahead of Keith, who sailed a greater distance and started nine days
behind them.
Such was the famous cruise of Bruix—one of the passages of the great
Revolutionary war which best deserves study. The French gained a
material advantage, for they carried off a Spanish squadron, and so
secured a hostage for the obedience of the Spanish Government and
people, who were becoming restive under the disasters brought on them
by the Alliance. But what is to be said of the English officers who
allowed them to gain this advantage, such as it was? Bridport, who was
negligent, and was befooled, is defended by nobody. Can anything be
said for St. Vincent? for Nelson? even for Keith, the least responsible
of the three? St. Vincent made it inevitable that he would be weak in
the Straits of Gibraltar when he allowed so large a proportion of his
fleet to be detached to Naples. Nelson intensified the bad consequences
of the initial mistake when he egged the Neapolitan Government on to
make its silly attack on the French, thereby bringing down a torrent of
disasters. Two English liners and the Portuguese could have blockaded
Malta in the then prostrate state of the French. If six of the eight
ships of the line with Nelson had been in the Straits on the 5th May,
they with the sixteen already there would have been in a position to
give battle to Bruix at once, and thereby to give the best possible
protection both to Minorca and to Naples. When the French did appear,
St. Vincent divided his fleet by sending Duckworth to Naples, and then
weakened Keith by forcing him to detach two other vessels. And that he
did just when he was doing all that lay in his power to bring about
a battle with forces which he knew to be superior. The conduct of
Nelson can be explained, but is a commander to be held excused when we
say that he was but a fallible man, liable to be besotted by erotic
delusion and megalomania? We suffered no disaster. We only failed, and
for that escape from the natural consequences of our acts we have to
thank the Providence which had served us already by blowing Hoche and
Morard de Galle away from the coast of Ireland.
The escape of Bruix was followed within a month and a few days by the
escape of Napoleon from Egypt. As war, according to his own maxim, is
an affair not of men but of a man, this was a disaster of the first
magnitude for the enemies of France. Hood, who had been left to watch
the coast of Egypt in August, was superseded on the 2nd of February
1799 by Troubridge with the =Culloden= and =Theseus=. A month later—on
the 3rd March—Troubridge was in turn superseded by Sir Sidney Smith,
who brought with him the =Tigre=, 74, and some small craft. By a
piece of most eccentric management, Smith had been appointed Envoy
Plenipotentiary to the Porte in combination with his brother, Spencer
Smith, who already held the post. Being what our ancestors called a
“bold undertaking fellow” and we call a “very pushing man,” Smith gave
himself the airs of a commander-in-chief, to the extreme exasperation
of Nelson, who snubbed him with emphasis. All these officers
successively, or in combination, contrived almost, but not quite, to
cut off Napoleon from communication with France. They bombarded the
ships in Alexandria repeatedly with no great effect. From March to
the 21st of June, Smith was busily engaged in helping the Pasha of
Acre, Djezzar (the Butcher), to repel the attack of Napoleon, who had
marched out of Egypt to follow on the footsteps of Alexander the Great.
After his return to Egypt, Smith helped a Turkish army to land at
Aboukir—an adventure comparable with the Neapolitan advance on Rome,
and similar in its results. The Turks were cut to pieces on the 25th
July. Napoleon, who was informed of the renewal of the war on land in
Europe, was preparing to escape before the Turks landed at Aboukir. As
the vital work of confining him to Egypt had been subordinated to the
security of His Sicilian Majesty’s dominions, the blockading squadron
was small. The two liners, the =Tigre= and =Theseus=, Sidney Smith had
with him, were taken by him to Cyprus for stores on the 9th August.
On the 23rd Napoleon sailed from Alexandria, the coast being clear,
and got away. On the 1st October he touched at Ajaccio, and on the 9th
he landed at Fréjus. His return marks an epoch in the history of the
war, of Europe, and of mankind. It was followed by the overthrow of
the Directory and his assumption of despotic power as First Consul.
From that day all the power of France was directed by his great and
maleficent genius. He might have escaped in any case, but he was helped
to escape by the British Government and its admirals. They were loud in
proclaiming the necessity of imprisoning him in Egypt, but they kept an
insufficient force to blockade him, because they preferred to employ
their ships to peddle in the Bay of Naples, or to patrol round the
island of Minorca.