CHAPTER X.

THE MEDITERRANEAN FROM 1799 TO 1801.

BONAPARTE'S SYRIAN EXPEDITION AND SIEGE OF ACRE.—THE INCURSION OF

THE FRENCH BREST FLEET UNDER ADMIRAL BRUIX.—BONAPARTE'S RETURN TO

FRANCE.—THE FRENCH LOSE MALTA AND EGYPT.

After the destruction of his fleet, Bonaparte resumed the task of

subduing and organizing Egypt, which had by that misfortune become

more than ever essential to his projects. In the original conception

of his eastern adventure the valley of the Nile had borne a twofold

part. It was, in the first place, to become a permanent acquisition

of France, the greatest of her colonies,—great not only by its own

natural resources, susceptible as was believed of immense development,

but also by its singular position, which, to a power controlling the

Mediterranean waters, gave the military and commercial link between

the eastern and western worlds. To France, bereft of the East and the

West Indies, childless now of her richest colonies, Egypt was to be the

great and more than equal compensation. But this first object obtained,

though in itself a justification, was but the necessary step to the

more dazzling, if not more useful, achievement of the destruction

of the British power in India, and the creation there of an empire

tributary to France. "Thus, on the one side Egypt would replace San

Domingo and the Antilles; on the other, she would be a step towards the

conquest of India."[227]

Measured by the successes of a few handfuls of British in the empire

of the Moguls, the army brought by Bonaparte into Egypt was more than

able to subdue that country, and to spread far and wide the obedience

to the French arms. Like the founders of the British Indian Empire,

the French general found himself face to face, not only with military

institutions incomparably weaker and less cohesive than those of

Europe, but with a civil society—if such it can be called—from which

the element of mutual confidence, and with it the power of combined

resistance, had disappeared. The prestige of success, the knowledge

that he could command the services of a body of men superior in numbers

as in disciplined action to any aggregation of units that could be kept

steadily together to oppose him, was sufficient to insure for him the

supremacy that concentrated force will always have over diffused force,

organized power over unorganized. In military matters two and two do

not make four, unless they are brought together in concerted action.

Unfortunately, at the very moment of the most brilliant demonstration

of his genius and of the valor of his troops, there had fallen upon one

part of his command a reverse more startling, more absolute, than his

own victories, and inflicted by a force certainly not superior to the

one defeated. The Orientals, who could count upon no sufficient stay

in men of their own race, now saw hopes of succor from without. They

were not disappointed. Again a British naval captain, in the moment of

triumphant progress, stopped the advance of Bonaparte.

The autumn and early winter of 1798 were passed in the conquest and

overrunning of upper Egypt by Desaix, who left Cairo for this purpose

on the 25th of August, and in the settlement of the affairs of the

lower Nile upon such a basis as would secure quiet and revenue during

the absence of the commander-in-chief. An insurrection in Cairo in

October, provoked partly by dissatisfaction with intended changes,

partly by the rumor of the Porte having declared war upon France,

gave Bonaparte in quelling it an opportunity to show the iron firmness

of his grip, and afterwards to manifest that mixture of unrelenting

severity towards the few with politic lenity towards the many, which is

so well calculated to check the renewal of commotion.

In November, when the weather became cooler, a detachment of fifteen

hundred men was sent to occupy Suez, and toward the end of December

Bonaparte himself made a visit of inspection to the isthmus, by which

he must advance to the prosecution of his larger schemes. While thus

absent he learned, through an intercepted courier, that Djezzar, the

Pasha of Syria, had on the 2d of January, 1799, occupied the important

oasis of El Arish in the desert of Suez, and was putting its fort in a

state of defence.[228] He at once realized that the time had come when

he must carry out his project of advance into Syria, and accept the

hostility of Turkey, which he had wished to avoid.

The singular position of isolation in which the French in Egypt were

placed, by the loss of the control of the sea, must be realized, in

order to understand the difficulties under which Bonaparte labored in

shaping his course of action, from time to time, with reference to the

general current of events. Separated from Palestine by two hundred

miles of desert, and by a yet wider stretch of barren sand from any

habitable land to the west, Egypt is aptly described by Napoleon

himself as a great oasis, surrounded on all sides by the desert and

the sea. The intrinsic weakness of the French navy, its powerlessness

to command security for its unarmed vessels in the Mediterranean, had

been manifested by the tremor of apprehension and uncertainty which ran

through the officials at Toulon and in Paris, when, after the sailing

of Bonaparte, they learned of Nelson's appearance. The restless

activity of the British admiral, and the frequent sight of his ships

in different places, multiplied, in the imagination of the French

authorities, the numbers of hostile cruisers actually on the sea.[229]

A convoy of twenty-six large ships, for the completion of whose lading

the expedition could not wait, lay in Toulon during the summer months,

ready to sail; but no one dared to despatch them. From time to time

during the outward voyage Bonaparte sent urgent messages for their

speedy departure; but they never came.

If this fear existed and exercised such sway before the day of the

Nile, it may be imagined how great was the influence of that disastrous

tidings. Not only, however, did a moral effect follow, but the

annihilation of the French fleet permitted the British cruisers to

scatter, and so indefinitely increased the real danger of capture to

French ships. Surrounded by deserts and the sea, the commander-in-chief

in Egypt saw, on and beyond both, nothing but actual or possible

enemies. Not only so, but being in utter ignorance of the attitude of

most of the powers as well as of European events, he could not know

what bad effect might result from action taken by him upon imperfect

information. His embarrassment is vividly depicted in a letter dated

December 17, 1798: "We are still without news from France, not a

courier has arrived since July 6; this is unexampled even in the

colonies."[230] The courier mentioned, leaving France in July, had

reached Bonaparte on the 9th of September; but the vessel which brought

him had been obliged to run ashore to escape the British cruisers, and

only one letter from the Directory was saved.[231] The next tidings

came on the 5th of February, when a Ragusan ship, chartered by two

French citizens, succeeded in entering Alexandria. "The news," he

said, "is sufficiently contradictory; but it is the first I have

had since July 6." He then first learned definitely that Turkey had

declared war against France.[232] His troops were at that moment in the

desert, marching upon Syria, and he himself on the point of following

them.

Up to that time Bonaparte had hoped to cajole the Porte into an

attitude of neutrality, upon the plea that his quarrel was solely

with the Mamelukes on account of injury done by them to French

commerce. On the 11th of December he had sent to Constantinople a M.

Beauchamp, recently consul at Muscat, with instructions how to act in

the twofold contingency of war having been declared or not. At that

time he expected that Talleyrand would be found in Constantinople as

Ambassador of France.[233] The news by the Ragusan enlightened him

as to the actual relations with Turkey; but the disquieting rumors

before received, coinciding with his ultimate purpose to advance

upon India through Syria, had already determined him to act as the

military situation demanded.[234] He had learned that troops were

assembling in Syria and in the island of Rhodes, and divined that he

was threatened with a double invasion,—by the desert of Suez and by

the Mediterranean Sea. True to his sound and invariable policy, he

determined to use his central position to strike first one and then the

other, and not passively to wait on the defensive until a simultaneous

attack might compel him to divide his force. During the violent winter

weather, which would last yet for six weeks or two months, landing on

the Egyptian coast was thought impracticable.[235] For that period,

probably for longer, he could count upon security on the side of the

sea. He would improve the interval by invading Syria, driving back the

enemy there, breaking up his army, and seizing his ports. Thus he would

both shut the coast to the British cruisers off Alexandria, which drew

supplies from thence, and make impossible any future invasion from the

side of the desert. He counted also upon the moral effect which success

in Syria would have upon the negotiations with the Porte, which he

conceived to be in progress.[236]

The first essential point in the campaign was to possess El Arish, just

occupied by the troops of Djezzar. General Reynier advanced against

it with his division on the 5th of February, 1799. The Turks were by

him routed and driven from the oasis, and the fort besieged. Bonaparte

himself arrived on the 15th, and on the 20th the garrison capitulated.

The corps destined for the expedition, numbering in all thirteen

thousand men, having now assembled, the advance from El Arish began

on the 22d. On the 25th Gaza was taken. On the 3d of March the army

encamped before Jaffa, and on the 7th the place was carried by storm.

A port, though a very poor one, was thus secured. The next day there

entered, from Acre, a convoy of Turkish coasters laden with provisions

and ammunition, which fell a welcome prize to the French, and was sent

back to Hayfa, a small port seven miles south of Acre, for the use of

the troops upon arrival. On the 12th of March the army resumed its

march upon Acre, distant about sixty miles. On the 17th, at five in the

afternoon, a detachment entered and held Hayfa, to provide a place of

safety for the flotilla, which, coasting the beach, slowly followed

the advance of the troops. From Hayfa Bonaparte could see the roadstead

of Acre, and lying there two British ships-of-the-line, the "Tigre" and

the "Theseus," both under the command of Sir Sidney Smith, the captain

of the former; who, as ranking officer on the spot, represented the

naval power of Great Britain, about again to foil the plans of the

great French leader.

Sir Sidney Smith, to whom now fell the distinguished duty of meeting

and stopping the greatest general of modern times, was a man who has

left behind him a somewhat singular reputation, in which, and in the

records commonly accessible, it is not always easy to read his real

character. He was not liked by St. Vincent nor by Nelson, and their

feeling towards him, though much intensified by the circumstances

under which he now came to the Mediterranean, seems to have depended

upon their previous knowledge of his history. The First Lord, in

assigning him to this duty, felt obliged to take an almost apologetic

tone to Earl St. Vincent. "I am well aware," he wrote, "that there

may perhaps be some prejudices, derived from certain circumstances

which have attended this officer's career through life; but, from a

long acquaintance with him personally, I think I can venture to assure

your lordship that, added to his unquestioned character for courage

and enterprise, he has a great many good points about him, which those

who are less acquainted with him may not be sufficiently apprised

of. I have no doubt you will find him a very useful instrument to

be employed on any hazardous or difficult service, and that he will

be perfectly under your guidance, as he ought to be."[237] In the

concluding sentence Earl Spencer sums up Sir Sidney's real character,

as far as it can be discerned in the dim light of the recorded facts—or

rather in the false lights which have exaggerated some circumstances

and distorted others. He was bold and enterprising to Quixotism;

he was a most useful instrument; but so far from having no doubt,

the First Lord must have had very serious, if unacknowledged, doubts

as to how far he would be under the guidance of St. Vincent, or any

one else, out of signal distance. A self-esteem far beyond what the

facts warranted, a self-confidence of the kind which does not inspire

confidence in others, an exaggerated view of his own importance and

of his own services, which was apt to show itself in his bearing and

words,[238]—such seem to have been the traits that alienated from Sir

Sidney Smith the esteem of his contemporaries, until his really able,

as well as most gallant, conduct at Acre showed that there was more in

him than the mere vainglorious knight-errant. His behavior even there

has been distorted, alike by the malevolence of Napoleon and by the

popular adulation in Great Britain, which, seizing upon the brilliant

traits of energy and valor he exhibited, attributed to him the whole

conduct of the siege;[239] whereas, by entrusting the technical

direction of the defence to an experienced engineer, he made proof of a

wisdom and modesty for which few of his contemporaries would have given

him credit. At this time Smith had received some severe snubbings,

which, administered by men of the standing of St. Vincent and Nelson,

could not be disregarded, and may have had a wholesomely sobering

effect.

The circumstances of his coming to the Mediterranean were as follows.

Having been a prisoner of war in Paris for nearly two years, he escaped

through the stratagem of a French royalist, Phélippeaux, about a week

before Bonaparte left the city for Toulon.[240] The incidents of his

release were dramatic enough in themselves, and, in common with all

his adventures, were well noised abroad. He became a very conspicuous

figure in the eyes of the government, and of the public outside the

navy. In October, 1798, he was given command of the "Tigre," with

directions to proceed to Gibraltar and put himself under St. Vincent's

orders. At the same time he was appointed minister plenipotentiary to

the Porte, being associated in that capacity with his younger brother,

Spencer Smith, who was already ambassador at Constantinople; the object

being that, with the diplomatic rank thus conferred, he should be able

to direct the efforts of the Turkish and Russian forces in the Levant,

in case the military officers of those nations were of grade superior

to his. This somewhat complicated arrangement, which presupposed in

the Turks and Russians a compliance which no British naval officer

would have yielded, was further confused by the instructions issued,

apparently without concert, by the Foreign Office to Smith himself, and

by the Admiralty to St. Vincent. The latter clearly understood that

Smith was intended to be under his command only, and that merely _pro

formâ_;[241] but under no obedience to Nelson, although his intended

scene of operations, the Levant, was part of Nelson's district. This

view, derived from the Admiralty's letter, was confirmed by an extract

from the Foreign Office instructions, communicated by Smith to Nelson,

that "his (Smith's) instructions will enable him to take the command

of such of his Majesty's ships as he may find in those seas (the

Levant) unless, _by some unforeseen accident_, it should happen that

there should be among them any of his Majesty's officers of superior

rank."[242]

Nelson, of course, was outraged. Here was intruded into his command,

where he had achieved such brilliant success, and to the administration

of which he felt fully equal, a man of indifferent reputation as

an officer, though of unquestioned courage, authorized to act

independently of his control, and, as it seemed, even to take his

ships. He was hurt not only for himself, but for Troubridge, who

was senior to Smith, and would, so Nelson thought, have done the

duty better than this choice of the Government. The situation when

understood in England was rectified. It was explained that diplomatic

rank was considered necessary for the senior naval officer, in order

to keep in the hands of Great Britain the direction of combined

operations, essentially naval in character; and that Smith had been

chosen to the exclusion of seniors because of his relationship to the

minister at Constantinople, who might have felt the association with

him of a stranger to be an imputation upon his past conduct. Meanwhile

St. Vincent, indignant at what seemed to him Smith's airs, had sent him

peremptory instructions to put himself under Nelson's orders. Thus,

in the double character of naval captain and minister plenipotentiary

to Turkey, Smith went up the Mediterranean; where he did first-rate

service in the former capacity, and in the latter took some action of

very doubtful discretion, in which he certainly did not trouble himself

about the guidance or views of his naval superiors.

In compliance with orders from Lord St. Vincent, Nelson in January

sent Troubridge with some bomb-vessels to Alexandria, to bombard the

shipping in the port; after performing which service he was to turn

over to Sir Sidney Smith the blockade of Alexandria and the defence

of the Ottoman Empire by sea, of which Nelson thenceforth washed his

hands.[243] The bombardment was maintained during several days in

February, doing but little harm; and on the 3d of March Sir Sidney,

having made his round to Constantinople, arrived and took over the

command. Troubridge left with him the "Theseus," seventy-four, whose

captain was junior to Smith, with three smaller vessels; and on the

7th sailed to rejoin Nelson. This was the day that the French stormed

Jaffa, and the same evening an express with the news reached the

"Tigre." Smith at once sent the "Theseus" to Acre, with Phélippeaux,

the French officer who had aided him to escape from Paris and had

accompanied him to the East.

Of the same age as Bonaparte, Phélippeaux had been his fellow-pupil

at the military school of Brienne, had left France with the royalists

in 1792, and returned to it after the fall of Robespierre. He had

naturally, from his antecedents, joined the party of reaction; and,

after its overthrow in September, 1797, was easily moved to aid in Sir

Sidney's escape from Paris. Accompanying him to England, he received

from the Crown a colonel's commission. To the guidance of this able

engineer the wisdom and skill of the defence was mainly due. Never did

great issues turn on a nicer balance than at Acre. The technical skill

of Phélippeaux, the hearty support he received from Smith, his officers

and crews, the untiring activity and brilliant courage of the latter,

the British command of the sea, all contributed; and so narrow was the

margin of success, that it may safely be said the failure of one factor

would have caused total failure and the loss of the place. Its fall was

essential to Bonaparte, and his active, far-seeing mind had long before

determined its seizure by his squadron, if the British left the Levant.

"If any event drives us from the coast of Egypt," wrote Nelson on the

17th of December, 1798, "St. Jean d'Acre will be attacked by sea. I

have Bonaparte's letter before me."[244] As the best port and the best

fortress on the coast, Acre was the bridgehead into Palestine. To Syria

it bore the relation that Lisbon did to the Spanish Peninsular War.

If Bonaparte advanced, leaving it unsubdued, his flank and rear would

through it be open to attack from the sea. If it fell, he had good

reason to believe the country would rise in his favor. "If I succeed,"

said he at a late period of the siege, when hope had not yet abandoned

him, "I shall find in the city the treasures of the Pasha, and arms for

three hundred thousand men. I raise and arm all Syria, so outraged by

the ferocity of Djezzar, for whose fall you see the population praying

to God at each assault. I march upon Damascus and Aleppo. I swell my

army, as I advance, by all malcontents. I reach Constantinople with

armed masses. I overthrow the Turkish Empire. I found in the East a new

and great empire which shall fix my place in posterity."[245] Dreams?

Ibrahim Pasha advanced from Egypt in 1831, took Acre in 1832, and

marched into the heart of Asia Minor, which the battle of Konieh soon

after laid at his feet; why not Bonaparte? Damascus had already offered

him its keys, and the people were eager for the overthrow of the pashas.

On the 10th of March Sir Sidney Smith himself left the blockade of

Alexandria, and on the 15th anchored with the "Tigre" off Acre.

He found that much had already been done, by Phélippeaux and the

"Theseus," to make the obsolete fortifications more fit to withstand

the approaching siege. Sending the "Theseus" now to cruise down the

coast towards Jaffa, it fell to himself to deal the heaviest and most

opportune blow to Bonaparte's projects. Some light coasters had sailed

with a siege train from the Damietta (eastern) mouth of the Nile,

which the British never had ships enough to blockade. On the morning

of the 18th they were seen approaching Acre, under convoy of a small

corvette. The "Tigre" at once gave chase, and captured all but the

corvette and two of the coasters. The cannon that should have been

turned against the walls were landed and served to defend them; while

the prizes, receiving British crews, thenceforth harassed the siege

works, flanking the two walls against which the attacks were addressed,

and enfilading the trenches. The French, having by this mishap lost

all their siege guns proper, had to depend upon field-pieces to breach

the walls until the 25th of April, when half a dozen heavy cannon

were received from Jaffa.[246] This time was simply salvation to the

besieged and ruin to the assailants; for, in the interval, the skill of

Phélippeaux and the diligence of the men under him prepared the place

to withstand attacks which at an early period would have caused its

fall.

Into the details of this siege, petty in itself but momentous in

its bearing upon events, it will not be expected that this work

shall enter. The crucial incident was the capture of the siege train

and the precious respite thus obtained. Orders were indeed sent to

Rear-Admiral Perrée to come as speedily as possible, with his small

squadron of three frigates and two corvettes, to Jaffa and land

guns; but Alexandria was already blockaded, and, from the narrowness

of the entrance, very difficult to leave in face of a foe. On the

5th of April, however, the blockading force had to go to Cyprus for

water,[247] and on the 8th Perrée got away. On the 15th he landed

at Jaffa six ship's guns, and so much ammunition as left his little

squadron with only fifteen rounds. He then received orders to cruise

to the westward of Acre and intercept the communications of the Turks

with Candia and Rhodes. Returning from this duty on the 14th of May, he

was seen and chased by the "Theseus." An accidental explosion on board

the latter forced her to give over pursuit; but Perrée, recognizing the

danger of capture, and being short of water and supplies, determined

to go to France, as his instructions allowed in case of necessity. On

the 17th of June, when only sixty miles from Toulon, he met a British

fleet, by which all five vessels were taken.

On the 4th of May, when the besieged and besiegers had been mining,

countermining, and daily fighting, for over six weeks—separated by but

a stone's throw one from the other—a breach thought practicable by

the French general was made, the mine for blowing in the counterscarp

was finished, and a general assault was ordered for the 5th; but

the engineers of the besieged countermined so industriously that by

daybreak they had ruined the mine before being discovered. This caused

the assault to be postponed to the 9th. On the 7th, towards evening,

some thirty or forty sail were seen on the western horizon. They bore

the long expected Turkish succors from Rhodes; whose commander even

now had only been induced to approach by a peremptory exercise of Sir

Sidney Smith's powers as British minister. Bonaparte saw that no more

time could be lost, and ordered the assault at once; the weather being

calm, twenty-four hours might still elapse before the re-enforcements

could enter the place. Under a heavy fire from one side and the other,

the attack was made; and in the morning the British seamen saw the

French flag flying on the outer angle of one of the towers. It marked

the high water of Bonaparte's Syrian expedition.

On the 8th the assault was renewed. As the French columns advanced,

the Turkish ships were still detained in the offing by calms, and

the soldiers were being brought ashore in boats, but still far from

the landing. Then it was that Sir Sidney Smith, seeing that a few

critical moments might determine the success or failure of his weary

struggle, manned the boats of his ships, and pulling rapidly ashore

led the British seamen, armed with pikes, to help hold the breach

till the troops could arrive. The French carried the first line, the

old fortifications of the town; but that done, they found themselves

confronted with a second, which Phélippeaux, now dead, had formed by

connecting together the houses and garden walls of the seraglio within.

The strife raged throughout the day, with varied success in different

quarters; but at nightfall, after a struggle of twenty-four hours,

the assailants withdrew and Acre was saved. On the 20th the siege was

raised, the French retreating during the night. Upon the 25th they

reached Jaffa, and on the 29th Gaza. Both places were evacuated; and

the army, resuming its march, next day entered the desert. On the 2d

of June it encamped in the oasis of El Arish. The garrison of the fort

there was re-enforced, the works strengthened with more artillery, and

the place provisioned for six months. It was the one substantial result

of the Syrian expedition,—an outpost which, like Acre, an invader must

subdue before advancing. On the 7th, after nine days' march through the

desert under the scorching heat of the June sun, the army re-entered

Egypt. It had lost since its departure fifteen hundred killed or dead

of disease, and more than two thousand wounded.

The reputation of Sir Sidney Smith with posterity rests upon the

defence of Acre, in which he made proof of solid as well as brilliant

qualities. Bonaparte, who never forgave the check administered to his

ambition, nor overcame the irritation caused by sixty days fretting

against an unexpected and seemingly trivial obstacle, tried hard to

decry the character of the man who thwarted him. "Smith is a lunatic,"

he said, "who wishes to make his fortune and keep himself always before

the eyes of the world. He is a man capable of any folly, to whom no

profound or rational project is ever to be attributed."[248] "Sir

Sidney Smith occupied himself too much with the detail of affairs on

shore, which he did not understand, and where he was of little use; he

neglected the maritime business, which he did understand, and where

he had everything in his power." This accusation was supported by the

circumstantial mis-statement that six big guns, with a large quantity

of ammunition and provisions, were landed by Perrée, undetected, seven

miles from Smith's ships.[249]

That there was a strong fantastic and vainglorious strain in Smith's

character seems certain, and to it largely he owed the dislike of his

own service; but so far as appears, he showed at Acre discretion and

sound judgment, as well as energy and courage. It must be remembered,

in justice, that all power and all responsibility were in his hands,

and that the result was an eminent success. Under the circumstances

he had to be much on shore as well as afloat; but he seems to have

shown Phélippeaux, and after the latter's death, Colonel Douglas, the

confidence and deference which their professional skill demanded, as he

certainly was most generous in recognizing their services and those of

others. When the equinoctial gales came on he remained with his ship,

which had to put to sea; an act which Bonaparte maliciously attributed

to a wish to escape the odium of the fall of the place. Whether

ashore or afloat, Smith could not please Bonaparte. The good sense

which defers to superior experience, the lofty spirit which bears

the weight of responsibility and sustains the courage of waverers,

ungrudging expenditure of means and effort, unshaken determination to

endure to the end, and heroic inspiration at the critical moment of

the last assault,—all these fine qualities must in candor be allowed

to Sir Sidney Smith at the siege of Acre. He received and deserved

the applause, not only of the multitude and the government, but of

Nelson himself. The deeds of Acre blotted out of memory the exaggerated

reports of the almost total destruction of the French fleet at his

hands when Toulon was evacuated; reports which had left upon his name

the imputation of untrustworthiness. But, whatever the personal merits

of Sir Sidney Smith in this memorable siege, there can be no doubt

that to the presence of the British ships, and the skilled support

of the British officers, seamen, and marines—manning the works—is

to be attributed the successful resistance made by the brave, but

undisciplined Turks.

During the last days of the siege of Acre and while Bonaparte was

leading his baffled army through the sands of the desert back into

Egypt, the western Mediterranean was thrown into a ferment by the

escape of the French fleet from Brest. This very remarkable episode,

having led to no tangible results, has been little noticed by general

historians; but to the student of naval war its incidents are most

instructive. It is scarcely too much to say that never was there a

greater opportunity than that offered to the French fleet, had it

been a valid force, by the scattered condition of its enemies on

this occasion; nor can failure deprive the incident of its durable

significance, as illustrating the advantage, to the inferior navy, of

a large force concentrated in a single port, when the enemy, though

superior, is by the nature of the contest compelled to disseminate his

squadrons. The advantage is greatest when the port of concentration is

central with reference to the enemy's positions; but is by no means

lost when, as was then the case with Brest, it is at one extremity

of the theatre of war. It was a steady principle in the policy of

Napoleon, when consul and emperor, to provoke dissemination of the

British navy by threatening preparations at widely separated points of

his vast dominions; just as it was a purpose of the British government,

though not consistently followed, to provoke France to ex-centric

efforts by naval demonstrations, menacing many parts of the shore line.

The Emperor, however, a master of the art of war and an adept at making

the greatest possible smoke with the least expenditure of fuel, was

much more than a match in the game of deception for the unmilitary and

many-headed body that directed the affairs of Great Britain.

Although in 1799 the Channel fleet had attached to it as many as

fifty-one ships-of-the-line,[250] of which forty-two upon the alarm

that ensued very soon got to sea,[251] Lord Bridport had with him but

sixteen when he took command off Brest, on the 17th of April, relieving

the junior admiral who, with eight or nine ships, had done the winter

cruising. On the 25th Bridport looked into the port and saw there

eighteen ships-of-the-line ready for sea. The wind being fresh at

north-east, the British admiral stood out until he reached a position

twelve miles west-south-west of Ushant Island. The entrance being thus

clear and the wind fair, the French fleet, numbering twenty-five of

the line and ten smaller vessels, slipped out that night under command

of Admiral Bruix, then minister of marine, who, by his close official

relations to the government, was indicated as a proper person to fulfil

an apparently confidential mission, for which his professional ability

and activity eminently fitted him.

Being bound south and the wind favoring, Bruix passed through the

southern passage, known as the Passage du Raz,[252] distant thirty

miles or more from the spot where Bridport had stationed his fleet,

which consequently saw nothing, though it had great reason to suspect

a movement by the French. At 9 A. M. on the 26th, however, a British

inshore frigate caught sight of the enemy just as the last ships were

passing through the Raz, and hastened toward her fleet. At noon she

lost sight of the French, and an hour later, the signal being repeated

from vessel to vessel, Bridport learned that the enemy were out. He at

once made sail for Brest, assured himself on the 27th that the news

was true, and then steered for Ireland to cover it from a possible

invasion, sending at the same time warning to Keith off Cadiz and to

St. Vincent at Gibraltar, as well as orders into the Channel ports for

all ships to join him off Cape Clear. The whole south coast of England

was at once in an uproar; but the government, knowing how scattered

were the vessels in the Mediterranean, had a double anxiety. On the

6th of May, five ships-of-the-line sailed from Plymouth to join St.

Vincent.[253] The rest of the Channel fleet got off as fast as they

could to Bridport, who, in spite of the reports from merchant vessels

that had seen the French to the southward, and steering south, refused

to believe that Ireland was safe. In this delusion he was confirmed by

a barefaced and much-worn ruse, a small French vessel being purposely

allowed to fall into his hands with dispatches for Ireland. On the

12th of May there remained in Plymouth but a single ship-of-the-line,

and that detained by sickness among the crew,—"a circumstance scarcely

ever remembered before."[254] Despite this accumulation of force, it

was not till June 1 that Bridport detached to the southward sixteen

sail-of-the-line,[255] of which twelve went on to the Mediterranean.

On the morning of the 3d of May Admiral Keith, off Cadiz, was joined by

a British frigate chased the day before by Bruix's fleet, of which she

had lost sight only at 4 P. M. The next morning the French appeared,

twenty-four ships to the British fifteen, which were to leeward of

their enemy. The wind, that had been blowing fresh from north-west

since the day before, rapidly increased to a whole gale, so that

though there were nineteen Spanish ships in Cadiz and twenty-four

French outside, the British remained safe; and not only so, but by

making it impossible for the French to enter without an engagement,

prevented this first attempt at a junction. "Lord Keith," wrote St.

Vincent, "has shown great manhood and ability, his position having

been very critical, exposed to a hard gale of wind, blowing directly

on shore, with an enemy of superior force to windward, and twenty-two

ships-of-the-line in Cadiz ready to profit by any disaster that might

have befallen him."[256] Bruix, who knew that his captains, long

confined to port by the policy of their government, were not able to

perform fleet manœuvres in ordinary weather, dared not attack on a

lee shore with a wind that would tax all the abilities of experienced

seamen.[257] He therefore kept away again to the south-east,

determining to lose no time, but at once to enter the Mediterranean;

and the following day Lord St. Vincent, gazing from the rock of

Gibraltar through the thick haze that spread over the Straits, saw,

running before the gale, a number of heavy ships which, from dispatches

received the day before, he knew must be French.

The situations of the vessels in his extensive command, as present

that morning to the mind of the aged earl, must be realized by the

reader if he would enter into the embarrassment and anxiety of the

British commander-in-chief, or appreciate the military significance

of Bruix's appearance, with a large concentrated force, in the midst

of dispositions taken without reference to such a contingency. The

fifteen ships off Cadiz, with one then lying at Tetuan, on the Morocco

side of the Straits, where the Cadiz ships went for water, were the

only force upon which St. Vincent could at once depend, and if they

were called off the Spanish fleet was released. At Minorca, as yet

imperfectly garrisoned,[258] was an isolated body of four ships under

Commodore Duckworth. Lord Nelson's command in the central Mediterranean

was disseminated, and the detachments, though not far out of supporting

distance, were liable to be separately surprised. Troubridge with four

vessels was blockading Naples, now in possession of the French, and

at the same time co-operating with the resistance made to the foreign

intruders by the peasantry under Cardinal Ruffo. Nelson himself, with

one ship, was at Palermo, and the faint-hearted court and people

were crying that if he left them the island was lost. Captain Ball,

with three of the line, blockaded Malta, the only hope of subduing

which seemed to be by rigorous isolation. Far to the eastward, up the

Mediterranean, without a friendly port in which to shelter, Sidney

Smith with two ships, unsuspicious of danger from the sea, was then

drawing to an end the defence of Acre.

Each of these British divisions lay open to the immensely superior

force which Bruix brought. Not only so, but the duties of an important

nature to which each of them was assigned were threatened with

frustration. So large a fleet as that of Bruix might, and according

to the usual French practice probably would, have numerous troops

embarked.[259] No amount of skill could rescue Troubridge's division

from such a disproportion of force, and with it would fall the

resistance of Naples. Only flight could save the ships off Malta, and

St. Vincent saw the blockade raised, the garrison re-enforced and

re-victualled; as within his own memory had so often been done for

Gibraltar, in its famous siege not twenty years before. Duckworth's

little squadron could not prevent the landing of an army which would

sweep Minorca again into the hands of Spain, and the British commodore

might consider himself fortunate if, in so difficult a dilemma, he

extricated his ships from a harbor always hard to leave.[260] Spain

also had in Cartagena and Majorca a number of soldiers that could be

rapidly thrown into Minorca under cover of such a fleet.

The British admiral instantly decided to sacrifice all other objects to

the concentration of his fleet in such a position as should prevent the

junction of the French and Spaniards; against which the presence off

Cadiz of Keith's squadron, though inferior in numbers to either, had so

far effectually interposed. He at once sent off dispatches to all his

lieutenants; but the westerly gales that were driving Bruix to his goal

made it impossible to get ship or boat to Keith. This admiral was only

reached by an indulgence from the Spanish officials, between whom and

the British an intercourse of courtesy was steadily maintained. These

granted to Admiral Coffin, who had been appointed to a post in Halifax,

passports to proceed to Lisbon through Spain; and Coffin on the way

contrived to get a boat sent off to Keith, with orders which brought

him to Gibraltar on the 10th. To Nelson the earl wrote that he believed

the enemy were bound to Malta and Alexandria; and that the Spaniards,

whom he was forced to release from Cadiz, would descend upon Minorca.

Nelson received this message on the 13th of May. The day before, a

brig coming direct from the Atlantic without stopping at Gibraltar had

notified him of the escape from Brest, and that the French had been

seen steering south. On the strength of this he drew from Naples and

Malta all the ships-of-the-line except one before each, directing a

rendezvous off Port Mahon, where he would join Duckworth; but when St.

Vincent's letter came, he called them all in, leaving only frigates

on each station, and ordered the heavy vessels to meet him off the

island of Maritimo, to intercept the French between Sicily and Africa.

He also sent to Duckworth to ask his help; but the commodore declined

until he could communicate with the commander-in-chief, from whom he

had received orders to keep his division in readiness to join the main

fleet when it appeared.

St. Vincent's position, in truth, was one of utter and dire perplexity.

If the French and Spaniards got together, he would have forty-four

enemy's vessels on his hands; against which, by sacrificing every other

object, he could only gather thirty until re-enforced by the Channel

fleet, upon whose remissness he could hardly fail to charge his false

position. To lose Minorca and Sicily, to see Malta snatched from his

fingers when ready to close upon it, the French position in Naples

established, and that in Egypt so strengthened as to become impregnable

to either attack or reduction by want, such were the obvious probable

consequences of Bruix's coming. Besides these evident dangers, he very

well knew from secret official information that the Spanish court were

in constant dread of a popular insurrection, which would give the

French a pretext for entering the peninsula,—not, as in 1808, to impose

a foreign king upon an unwilling nation, but to promote a change in

the government which the distress of the people, though usually loyal,

would probably welcome. In March he had received a communication from

the Spanish prime minister, asking that a British frigate might be

detailed to bring remittances from the Spanish colonies to Gibraltar,

to be afterwards conveyed into Spain. The reason given for making

this request of an enemy was that the want of specie, and consequent

delay in public payments, especially to the soldiery, made revolution

imminent. St. Vincent recommended his government to comply, because of

the danger, in case of disturbances, that both Spain and Portugal might

fall under subjection to France.[261]

Fortunately, amid the conflicting claims of diverse interests, the

path of military wisdom was perfectly clear to one understanding its

principles. St. Vincent might be agitated by apprehensions; but he

knew what he must do, and did it. To get his own fleet together and at

the same time prevent the allies from uniting theirs, was the first

thing; and the point of concentration indicated for this purpose

should be one that would cover Minorca, if he arrived before it was

reduced. For Sicily, Malta, and all to the eastward, he must trust to

the transcendent abilities of Nelson and his "band of brothers."[262]

On the 12th, after two days of hurried preparations, the British

fleet sailed from Gibraltar. On the 20th it reached Minorca, found it

still safe, and was joined by Duckworth's division, raising the force

to twenty ships-of-the-line. St. Vincent here received information

that the French had on the 12th been seen north of Minorca, heading

for Toulon.[263] Sending this news to Nelson he sailed on the 22d in

pursuit; but learning that the Spaniards after Keith's departure had

left Cadiz, as he had expected, he decided to cruise off Cape San

Sebastian on the Spanish coast. Seventeen sail of Spaniards had indeed

reached Cartagena on the 20th; but in the passage from Cadiz eleven had

been partly or totally dismasted, and this circumstance was sufficient

excuse for not proceeding to a junction, to which the policy of their

court was but little inclined.

On the 30th of May St. Vincent heard that the French had sailed again

from Toulon, but for what purpose was not known. As it might follow the

course of Bonaparte's expedition, east of Corsica, and fall upon Sicily

and Malta, he sent Duckworth with four ships to Nelson at Palermo,

and four hours later was joined by the first detachment of five

sail-of-the-line from the Channel,[264] of whose nearness he doubtless

had some intimation before parting with Duckworth. With twenty-one sail

he now stood south-west toward Barcelona, then north-east for Toulon.

On the 2d of June, when seventy miles from this port, his health gave

way altogether. He turned over the command to Keith and departed to

Port Mahon.

Keith continued steering to the northward and eastward. On the 5th of

June he was joined by a small cruiser, which had seen the French fleet

in Vado Bay the day before. Bruix had reached Toulon May 14, and sailed

again on the 26th, taking with him twenty-two ships; the others being

left in port for repairs. He steered east, carrying supplies and a few

recruits for the army of Italy. On the 4th of June he had anchored in

Vado Bay. A detachment from the fleet threw the supplies into Genoa,

and it would seem that Bruix there had an interview with General

Moreau, then commanding the army of Italy. On the 6th,[265] turning

short round, he doubled on his tracks, following close along the coast

of Piedmont and Provence to avoid the British,[266] passed again in

sight of Toulon to obtain information,[267] and from there pushed on to

Cartagena, where he anchored on the 22d; thus making with the Spanish

fleet the junction which had been frustrated before Cadiz.

On the same day that Bruix turned, Lord Keith, who had also passed

close along the French coast between Cannes and Nice,[268] standing to

the eastward, reached as far as Monaco. Then the wind shifted to the

eastward, and he wrote as follows to Nelson: "Soon after I despatched

the 'Telegraph'" (the vessel which saw the French in Vado Bay) "last

night, _the wind came fresh from the east_, which is of course a fair

wind for the enemy, if bound towards you" (by the east of Corsica) "and

a foul wind for me to follow them, which is unfortunate; for, if my

information was just, I had no doubt of overtaking them before they had

left the coast of Italy; ... but _the defenceless state of Minorca_,

without a fleet, the great force prepared (at Cartagena) to attack it,

added to my having so far exceeded my orders already, will oblige me to

relinquish the pursuit, and return to the protection of that island.

But I have detached to your lordship the 'Bellerophon' and 'Powerful'

(seventy-fours), which I hope will arrive in time, as I am confident

_the French are not thirty leagues hence at this moment_."[269]

Being close in with the shore with an east wind, Keith could only stand

off on the port tack, and it would appear that he still clung to the

hope of a shift favorable for reaching Bruix; for on the 8th he was

sixty miles south of Monaco,[270] not on the route for Minorca. There

he received from St. Vincent, who, though relinquishing the immediate

command of the fleet, retained that of the station, pressing orders

to take a position off the Bay of Rosas. This was evidently intended

to block the junction of the two fleets, though St. Vincent could not

have known Bruix's purpose to return. Keith did not obey the order; but

seems under its influence to have abandoned definitively his hope of

overtaking the French, for he made sail for Minorca, and arrived there

on the 12th.[271] Had he obeyed St. Vincent he could scarcely have

failed to meet Bruix, for at the moment of receiving his letter the two

fleets were hardly sixty miles apart, and both would have passed within

sight of Cape San Sebastian, the natural landfall of vessels going from

Toulon to Cartagena.

Keith remained at Minorca but a few days, during which St. Vincent

turned over to him the command of the station as well as of the

fleet.[272] He sailed again on the 15th for Toulon; but the British had

completely lost trace of the French from the time that they surrendered

the touch of them obtained on the 5th of the month. From the 15th of

June to the 6th of July[273] was passed groping blindly in the seas

between Minorca, Toulon, and Genoa. On the latter date Keith regained

Minorca, and there found the twelve ships-of-the-line which Bridport

had detached from Ireland on the 1st of June, and which seem to have

reached Port Mahon about the 17th of that month.[274] Scarcely an hour

after his arrival,[275] information was received of the French having

entered Cartagena. The ships that had accompanied Keith on the recent

three weeks' cruise had to fill with water; but on the 10th he started

for the Straits of Gibraltar with thirty-one ships-of-the-line, on a

stern chase—proverbially a long chase—after the allies, known to be

bound to the westward.

The latter, however, had a long start. Bruix, aware of the reluctance

of the Spaniards, and secretly informed that in case of attack they

could not be depended upon, hurried them away after a week's waiting,

in virtue of stringent orders wrung from Madrid by the persistence of

the French ambassador. On the 29th of June he sailed, having sixteen

Spanish ships-of-the-line in company. On the 7th of July, just as Keith

reached Minorca from his profitless cruise off Toulon, the allies

were passing the Straits; and it happened, somewhat singularly, that

the old Earl of St. Vincent, who had seen them pass Gibraltar, bound

in, had arrived in a frigate twenty-four hours before,—just in time

to hear their guns as they went out. They entered Cadiz on the 11th

of July, the day after Keith sailed in pursuit from Minorca. On the

21st, still numbering forty sail, they sailed from Cadiz, and on the

30th Keith with his thirty-one passed the Straits, after a moment's

delay at Gibraltar. The British pressed their chase, and, despite its

long start, came off Brest barely twenty-four hours after the French

and Spaniards, who entered the port on the 13th of August. Lord Keith

then went on to Torbay. The news of the junction of the French and

Spaniards, and of their entering the Atlantic, had preceded him, and

caused a renewal of the excitement about intended invasion to which

Great Britain at this epoch was always prone. The arrival of the

large force under his command restored confidence; but although, in

conjunction with the Channel fleet, there were now as many as fifty-six

ships-of-the-line assembled in Torbay, some time elapsed before the

country would part with any of them, while so many enemies lay in

Brest. Keith did not return to the Mediterranean until December, the

chief command there being exercised by Nelson during his absence.

The exact aims of the French in this cruise, which from the

inefficiency of their officers and seamen was as hazardous in its

undertaking as it proved barren of results, have never been precisely

ascertained. This uncertainty is probably due to the fact that the

Directory itself was not clear as to what could be accomplished, and

that Bruix had somewhat unlimited powers, based upon his confidential

knowledge of the views of the government. It would seem that the first

object, both in importance and in order, was a junction with the

Spaniards in Cadiz. This being frustrated by Keith's division and by

Bruix's distrust of the efficiency of his captains, the opportunities

for offensive action, offered by the scattered condition of the

British ships, were neglected in favor of going to Toulon; for Bruix

seems to have neither felt nor betrayed any doubt as to his course.

"The Brest squadron had such a game to play at Malta and Sicily," wrote

St. Vincent to the First Lord, "that I trembled for the fate of our

ships employed there, and for the latter island. Your lordship made a

better judgment by fixing their operations to the coast of Genoa."[276]

As a matter of fact, this is true; but as a question of military

forecast, St. Vincent was perfectly right, and the action of the

French can only be explained on the ground of distrust of their navy,

or by the old faulty policy—traditional in all French governments,

republican, royal, or imperial—of preferring ulterior objects to the

destruction of the enemy's ships.

That the relief or re-enforcement of Bonaparte was intended seems

improbable; although both St. Vincent and Nelson entertained this

suspicion, upon which the latter acted. M. Thiers, indeed, finds

Bruix's cruise inexplicable on any other supposition, but he does

not assert the fact.[277] The feelings of the Directory towards that

general were not strictly benevolent, and the ships carried neither

troops nor supplies of importance; but the destruction of Nelson's

scattered detachments, coupled as that might have been with the

victualling of Malta, would have been a most worthy object, and one

of very probable fulfilment. It is noteworthy that Nelson received

his first news of Bruix's approach on the 12th of May, at Palermo,

and on the 14th the French admiral entered Toulon. Now the distance

from Gibraltar to Toulon is only one hundred and fifty miles less

than that from Gibraltar to Palermo. Nelson could not have collected

his ships in time to present a united front; and even could he, his

whole force did not exceed ten or twelve to the enemy's twenty-four.

As it was, Bruix's adventure, though daring in conception and active

in execution, resulted merely in bringing back to France sixteen

Spanish ships-of-the-line to be hostages for the continuance of the

Spanish alliance, tottering under the adverse events of 1799; and this

possibly was the great purpose of the Directory. If so, the excursion

was political rather than military; and hence an opportunity, of a

kind which, when rightly improved, has always been most pregnant of

military consequences—concentration opposed to dispersion—remains to us

merely an impressive lesson of what might have been, but was not. "Your

lordship," wrote Nelson four years later to St. Vincent, "knows what

Admiral Bruix might have done had he done his duty."[278] "The cruise

of Admiral Bruix," says Captain Chevalier,[279] "was well conceived,

but failed through the weakness of our allies and the inexperience of

our own officers and crews.... The Spanish squadron brought to Brest,

the gage of an alliance then very tottering, was the only result of

this campaign. It is impossible to have any illusion as to the extent

of the services rendered by the fleet on the coast of Italy. A division

of frigates would have done as much."

The conduct of the British admirals in the Mediterranean, caught at

so serious a disadvantage through no fault of their own, deserves

to be considered. Dispersed in a fashion that was perfectly proper

and efficient under the previous conditions, the arrival of Bruix

imposed concentration, with a consequent enforced abandonment of some

positions. St. Vincent's first step was to order Nelson to concentrate

in the neighborhood of Sicily, while he himself drew Keith and

Duckworth together at Minorca. This effected, the British would present

two squadrons; one of twenty ships-of-the-line in the west, centring

about Minorca; the other, four hundred miles distant, of fifteen or

sixteen ships,[280] gathered off the west end of Sicily to dispute

the passage to Malta and Alexandria. This smaller division thus seems

to have been much exposed; but, independently of its greatly superior

efficiency to the French, it must be remembered that St. Vincent,

as soon as he reached Minorca, knew that Nelson was in no immediate

danger, for the French had given him the go-by and gone to Toulon.

Cruising therefore off Cape San Sebastian, to intercept the junction

of the Spaniards to the French, he was in constant touch of Minorca,

barely one hundred miles distant, and, at the same time, was as near

to Nelson as were the French in Toulon, whether they went east or west

of Corsica. Being only one hundred and twenty miles from Toulon, and

in such a position that a wind fair for the French to sail was also

fair to bring his lookouts down to him, he could hope to overtake

them,—if not in time to save Nelson, yet with the certainty of finding

the French so badly handled that they could scarcely escape him. He no

doubt reasoned as did Nelson to the ministry just before Trafalgar: "I

ventured without any fear [to predict] that if Calder [with eighteen

ships] got fairly alongside their twenty-seven or twenty-eight sail,

by the time the enemy had beat our fleet soundly, they would do us

no harm this year."[281] Save Malta, which could not have maintained

the twenty thousand men in their fleet for a month and was otherwise

barren of resources, the French would have had no port to fall back on

and would have been lost to the republic.[282] Had St. Vincent cruised

off Cartagena, where the Spaniards were, he would have been in better

position to check them, but he would have uncovered both Minorca and

Nelson to the French; both being nearer to Toulon than to Cartagena.

Not only so, but Cartagena being three hundred miles farther from

Toulon than Cape San Sebastian is, the British lookout ships would have

had all that greater distance to go to their admiral, who, when found,

would then be further from his chief points of interest than when off

the Cape. As soon, however, as St. Vincent learned that the French had

gone east from Toulon, being relieved from any immediate apprehension

concerning the Spaniards, he re-enforced Nelson with four ships,

raising his squadron to sixteen British against a possible French

twenty-four.

It was during the week following the detachment to Nelson that St.

Vincent left the fleet, and that Keith made the false move which

has been so severely blamed. It appears to the author, from all the

information accessible to him, that Keith took this step wholly

independent of St. Vincent's special orders, which are alleged as

controlling him. He acted in deference, partly, to the general orders

given before turning over the command, and partly to his own views

of the situation.[283] These seem to have differed from those of St.

Vincent, who laid most stress on disabling the enemy's fleets; whereas

Keith was dominated by the fear of losing Minorca. This feeling led

him to deviate from the order to cruise off the Gulf of Rosas, as it

also led him soon after, on two occasions, to direct Nelson to detach

ships for the defence of the island; which Nelson, with very doubtful

propriety, refused to do.[284] Minorca, in this case, very appositely

illustrates the embarrassment of a fleet upon which an important

seaport wholly depends for security. In the present instance the

beating of the French fleet and the protection of Minorca introduced

two apparently divergent motives, which became personified in St.

Vincent and his lieutenant. The former saw the best protection to the

island to be in beating the fleet; Keith subordinated the latter to the

former. With St. Vincent agreed Nelson's simple but accurate view of

naval strategy: "I consider the best defence for his Sicilian Majesty's

dominions is to place myself alongside the French."[285] Keith, on the

other hand, in a somewhat later letter, expresses almost pathetically

the embarrassment caused by his inferior strategic insight. "It is

very hard I cannot find these vagabonds in some spot or other, and

that I am so _shackled_ with this defenceless island."[286] Properly

every seaport should be able to hold out for a length of time, longer

or shorter, according to its importance, entirely independent of the

fleet. The latter will then be able to exert its great faculty, its

mobility, unfettered by considerations of what is happening at the

port. For so long the latter is safe; meanwhile the fleet may be

absent. The best coast-defence is a navy; not because fortifications

are not absolutely necessary, but because beating the enemy's fleet is

the best of all defences.

After the vain pursuit of Admiral Bruix, Lord Keith brought his fleet

into Torbay on the 17th of August. On the 18th Earl St. Vincent landed

at Portsmouth, thus formally quitting the Mediterranean command, which

he had held for three years and nine months. Four days afterwards, on

the 22d of August, 1799, Bonaparte secretly embarked at Alexandria to

return into France.

After the Syrian campaign the French army had re-entered Cairo on the

14th of June. On the 11th of July Sir Sidney Smith, with his two ships,

anchored in Aboukir Bay, accompanying, or being accompanied by, a

Turkish fleet of thirteen ships-of-the-line with a hundred other sail

of frigates and transports. Embarked on board the latter were troops

variously estimated at from ten to thirty thousand men.[287] On the

15th Bonaparte, at Cairo, learned that his anticipations of an attack

by sea, during the fine season, had been realized. He promptly ordered

Desaix to evacuate upper Egypt for the security of Cairo, and rapidly

drew together in the neighborhood of Alexandria the detachments in

lower Egypt. This concentration was effected on the 19th, but by that

time the Turks had landed and stormed the Castle of Aboukir, which fell

on the 16th. On the 25th the French attacked the enemy on the peninsula

of Aboukir, and the same scene that had witnessed the destruction of

Brueys's squadron a year before now saw the entire overthrow of the

Mahometan army. All who had landed were either killed, driven into the

sea and drowned, or taken prisoners. Among the latter was the Turkish

commander-in-chief.

After the defeat flags of truce passed between Bonaparte and the

British commodore, through which the former received English newspapers

up to the 10th of June.[288] By them he learned the victorious advance

of the second coalition, and the defeats of the French in Germany

and Italy. His resolution was speedily taken to return to France. It

has been disputed whether this was a sudden determination not before

entertained, as asserted by his secretary Bourrienne; or whether

it represents a purpose gradually and naturally formed. Napoleon

himself in later years attributed his decision to information obtained

from Phélippeaux in the trenches before Acre; when the combatants,

separated by but a few yards, often exchanged words.[289] It is,

however, certain that the thought had long been familiar to him;

for, in a letter to the Directory as early as October 7, 1798, he

had announced his intention of returning to Europe in certain very

probable contingencies.[290] The same message was repeated a few

months later.[291] In truth his keen military sagacity, resembling

the most delicate yet most highly cultivated intuitions, had divined

the misfortunes awaiting France at the time he learned by the Ragusan

ship that Naples had declared war and that all[292] the powers were

arming. During his own Italian campaign, even after the British had

left the Mediterranean, his mind had been preoccupied with the danger

from Naples; and he foresaw in Egypt the disasters that must result

from an ex-centric movement of the French army in that quarter, if

followed by any reverses in upper Italy. Bourrienne tells a story

which illustrates vividly the superstitious vein in his character,

as well as the foreboding of evil that he had carried with him into

Syria. While before Acre, news was received that a Nile boat named the

"Italy," in the employ of the French army, had after a gallant defence

been blown up by her crew to avoid capture by the Arabs. The incident

and the name made a strong impression upon Bonaparte. "My friend,"

said he to Bourrienne, "Italy is lost to France. All is over; my

presentiments never deceive me;" nor could any argument rid his mind of

this conviction, dependent rather upon his instinctive perceptions than

upon a slight and fortuitous coincidence.[293] So, when he read Sidney

Smith's gazettes, he cried again: "My presentiment did not deceive me!

Italy is lost!"[294]

Admiral Ganteaume was directed to prepare rapidly two of the frigates

which had fallen to France in her share of the spoil of Venice; and

the persons intended to accompany the general were quietly notified.

After the defeat of the Turks at Aboukir, Sidney Smith had resumed

the blockade of Alexandria; but on the 9th of August he withdrew

to Cyprus, probably for water. Taking advantage of the opportunity,

Bonaparte sailed, and after a tedious passage landed at Fréjus on the

9th of October. One month later the Directory was overthrown and the

supreme power in France passed into Bonaparte's hands.

Thus ended, so far at least as the great designer was concerned,

Bonaparte's Oriental Expedition; an undertaking which has been freely

stigmatized as a dream, marked by the eccentricities of its author's

genius, not by his usual keen intelligence. A dream it was, it is true;

but not for its Eastern impossibilities, nor for its wide flights of

imagination, the faculty which Bonaparte possessed in so eminent a

degree, without which he never could have conceived his extraordinary

policy, and to which he usually joined a width and depth of practical

wisdom which balanced his imagination and made possible the realizing

of his visions. That it was no dream to rouse and combine the nations

of the East under the headship of one man, witness the careers of the

adventurers who there, from age to age, have risen to empire; and who

certainly were not superior in genius, nor as leaders of men, to the

great Corsican. Witness, too, the motley host which he gathered under

one standard, from all the highly organized nations of continental

Europe, for that other great Eastern expedition in which he wrecked

his fortunes. The Egyptian enterprise and all its brilliant hopes

definitively failed at Acre, in the march against Turkey through

Syria; and it failed,—why? Because a British seaman, by his command

of the sea and his support to the garrison, maintained the possession

of a place, to advance beyond which, unsubdued, would entail ruin.

Forty years later an army, not of the superb soldiers of the French

revolution, but of native Egyptians, led by Ibrahim Pasha, whom none

will equal to Napoleon, undertook the same march, captured Acre, and

had progressed victoriously into the heart of Asia Minor when the

British navy again interfered and called a halt. How came it that a

naval captain, with two ships-of-the-line and a few small vessels,

controlled absolutely the far east of the Mediterranean? Because in

Aboukir Bay, nine months before, Nelson had destroyed the French fleet.

That magnificent battle not only signalized the genius for war of the

British admiral, but proclaimed aloud the existence of a power destined

ever, and in all parts, to clip the wings of the coming emperor. The

Eastern enterprise of Bonaparte failed, not because of miscalculations

as to what was possible in that far East, which Western people so ill

can understand; but because he, to the end of his career, was never

able rightly to appreciate the conditions of naval warfare. His perfect

military insight was not mistaken in affirming that the principles of

war upon the sea must be the same as upon land; it was by the failure

to comprehend the circumstances to which the principles must be

applied—the failure to realize the possibilities and the limitations

of the naval warfare of his day—that the general and the emperor

were alike led into fatal miscalculations. The Nile and Trafalgar,

each the grave of a great conception, proclaimed the same cause and

the same effect; underlying each was the inability of Napoleon to

understand what ships could do and what they could not, according to

the conditions of the sea and the capacity of the seamen.

There was, however, one radical fallacy underlying Bonaparte's

Egyptian, or rather Oriental, expedition,—for in his mind it far

outleaped the narrow limits of the Nile valley,—and that lay in the

effect he expected to produce upon Great Britain. It is all very

well to stigmatize, after Lanfrey's fashion, as the vagaries of a

distempered fancy, the vast projects of Eastern conquest and dominion,

which unquestionably filled his mind with dreams of a sweep to his arms

rivalling that of Alexander and of the Roman legions. An extraordinary,

perhaps even an extravagant, imagination was one of the necessary

conditions of Napoleon's wonderful career. That it should from time

to time lead him into great mistakes, and ultimately to his ruin, was

perhaps inevitable. Without it, or with it in a markedly less degree,

he might have died in his palace an old man and left his throne to

a son, if not to a dynasty; but also without it he would not have

produced upon his own age and upon all subsequent history the effects

which he has left. To it were due the Oriental visions, to which,

regarded as a military enterprise, the present writer is certainly not

ready to apply the word "fantastic." But, as a blow directed against

Great Britain, there was in them a fatal defect of conception, due more

to a miscalculation of the intellect, a prejudice of his day, than to a

wild flight of fancy.

In the relations of India to Great Britain, Bonaparte, in common with

all Frenchmen of his age, mistook effect for cause. The possession

of India and of other colonies was to them the cause of British

prosperity; just as at a later time, and now, the wide extent of

British commerce has seemed to many the cause of Great Britain's wealth

and eminence among the nations. That there is truth in this view is not

to be denied; but it is the kind of truth compatible with putting the

cart before the horse, mistaking the fruit for the tree, the flower

for the plant. There was less excuse for a blunder of this kind in a

quick-witted nation like the French, for they had before their eyes

the fact that they had long owned some of the richest colonies in

the world; and yet the British had, upon their own ground, amid all

disadvantages of position, absorbed the commerce of the West Indies,

French as well as Spanish. In local advantages, Great Britain in the

West Indies had not the tenth of what France and Spain had; yet she so

drank the wealth of the region that one fourth of her envied commerce

then depended upon it. So in India; Great Britain sucked the wealth

of India, because of the energy and commercial genius of her people.

Had Bonaparte's visions been realized and India dominated, Great

Britain would not have been overcome. A splendid bough would have been

torn from a tree, and, in falling, would have carried to the ground

the fruit depending from it; but not only was the amount of the fruit

exaggerated, but the recuperative power of the root, the aptitude

of the great trunk to throw out new branches, was not understood.

Had Bonaparte converted the rule of India from England to France, he

would have embarrassed, not destroyed, British traffic therein. Like

the banyan tree, a new sucker would have been thrown out and reached

the soil in some new spot, defying efforts at repression; as British

commerce later refused to die under the far more searching efforts of

the Continental System.

The strength of Great Britain could be said to lie in her commerce

only as, and because, it was the external manifestation of the wisdom

and strength of the British people, unhampered by any control beyond

that of a government and institutions in essential sympathy with

them. In the enjoyment of these blessings,—in their independence and

untrammelled pursuit of wealth,—they were secured by their powerful

navy; and so long as this breastplate was borne, unpierced, over the

heart of the great organism, over the British islands themselves, Great

Britain was—not invulnerable—but invincible. She could be hurt indeed,

but she could not be slain. Herein was Bonaparte's error. His attempt

upon India was strategically a fine conception; it was an attack

upon the flank of an enemy whose centre was then too strong for him;

but as a broad effort of military policy,—of statesmanship directing

arms,—it was simply delivering blows upon an extremity, leaving the

heart untouched. The same error pervaded his whole career; for, with

all his genius, he still was, as Thiers has well said, the child of

his century. So, in his later years, he was beguiled into the strife

wherein he bruised Great Britain's heel, and she bruised his head.

Yet his mistake, supreme genius that he was, is scarce to be wondered

at; for after all the story of his career, of his huge power, of

his unrelenting hostility, of his indomitable energy, unremittingly

directed to the destruction of his chief enemy,—after all this and its

failure,—we still find men harping on the weakness of Great Britain

through her exposed commerce. Her dependence upon trade, and the

apparent slackening of the colonial ties, foretell her fatal weakness

in the hour of trial. So thought Napoleon; so think we. Yet the

commercial genius of her people is not abated; and the most fruitful

parts of that colonial system existed scarcely, if at all, in those old

days, when her commerce was as great in proportion to her numbers as it

is now. To paralyze this, it must be taken by the throat; no snapping

at the heels will do it. To command the sea approaches to the British

islands will be to destroy the power of the State; as a preliminary

thereto the British navy must be neutralized by superior numbers, or by

superior skill.

Like the furtive intrusion and hasty retreat of Bruix's fleet, the

stealthy manner of Bonaparte's return to Europe proclaimed the control

of the Mediterranean by the British navy, and foretold the certain fall

of his two great conquests, Egypt and Malta. His own personal credit

was too deeply staked upon their deliverance, both by his original

responsibility for the expedition and by the promises of succor made to

the soldiers abandoned in Egypt, to admit a doubt of his wish to save

them, if it could be done. His correspondence is full of the subject,

and numerous efforts were made; as great, probably, as were permitted

by the desperate struggle with external enemies and internal disorder

in which he found France plunged. All, however, proved fruitless. The

detailed stories of the loss of Egypt and of Malta by France have much

interest, both for the military and unprofessional reader; but they

are summed up in the one fact which prophesied their fall: France had

lost all power to dispute the control of the sea. From February, 1799,

when a small frigate entered La Valetta, to January, 1800, not a vessel

reached the port. In the latter month a dispatch-boat got in, bringing

news of Bonaparte's accession to power as First Consul; which event,

though two months old, was still unknown to the garrison. On the 6th

of February Admiral Perrée, who had served on the Nile and in Syria to

Bonaparte's great satisfaction, sailed from Toulon with the "Généreux,"

seventy-four, one of the ships that had escaped from Aboukir Bay, three

smaller vessels, and one large transport. A quantity of supplies and

between three and four thousand troops for the relief of Malta were

embarked in the squadron. On the 18th they fell in with several British

ships, under Nelson's immediate command; and after the exchange of a

few shots, one of which killed Perrée, the "Généreux" and the transport

struck to a force too superior to be resisted. The other ships returned

to Toulon.

All further attempts to introduce relief likewise failed. During the

two years' blockade, from September, 1798, to September, 1800, only

five vessels succeeded in entering the port.[295] The "Guillaume

Tell," which had lain in Valetta harbor since the battle of the

Nile, attempted to escape on the night of the 31st of March, being

charged with letters to Bonaparte saying that the place could not

hold out longer than June. The ship was intercepted by the British,

and surrendered after a brilliant fight, in which all her masts were

shot away[296] and over a fifth of her crew killed and wounded. One of

the vessels sharing in this capture was Lord Nelson's flag-ship, the

"Foudroyant," but the admiral himself was not on board. Swayed by a

variety of feelings, to analyze which is unnecessary and not altogether

pleasant to those who admire his fame, he had asked, after the return

of Lord Keith, to be relieved and granted a repose to which his long

and brilliant services assuredly entitled him. He thus failed to

receive the surrender of the last of the ships which escaped from the

Nile, and to accomplish the reduction of Malta, whose ultimate fate had

been determined by his previous career of victory. The island held out

until the 5th of September, 1800. Nelson on the 11th of July struck his

flag in Leghorn, and in company with the Hamiltons went home overland,

by way of Trieste and Vienna, reaching England in November.

The story of Egypt is longer and its surrender was later,—due also to

force, not to starvation. An army powerful enough to hold in submission

and reap the use of the fertile valley of the Nile, could never be

reduced like the port of a rocky island, blocked by sea and surrounded

by a people in successful insurrection. Nevertheless, the same cause

that determined the loss of Malta operated effectually to make Egypt a

worse than barren possession.

Bonaparte, though wielding uncontrolled sway over all the resources

of France, found as great difficulty in getting news from his

conquest or substantial succor to it as he had had, when in Egypt, to

obtain intelligence from home. Unwearying official effort and lavish

inducements to private enterprise alike proved vain. In the first

week of September, 1800, the return of the "Osiris," a dispatch-boat

that had successfully made the round voyage between France and Egypt,

was rewarded by a gift of three thousand dollars to the captain and

two months' pay to the crew. This extravagant recompense sufficiently

testifies the difficulty of the feat; and over seven weeks later, on

October 29, Bonaparte writes to Menou, "We have no direct news of you

since the arrival of the 'Osiris.'" This letter was to be entrusted

to Admiral Ganteaume; but three months elapsed before that officer

was enabled by a violent gale to evade the British blockade of Brest.

Appeals were made to Spain, and government agents sent throughout

the south of France, as well as to Corsica, to Genoa, to Leghorn, to

the Adriatic, to Taranto, when Italy after Marengo again fell under

Bonaparte's control. Numerous small vessels, both neutral and friendly,

were from every quarter to start for Egypt, if by chance some of them

might reach their destination; but no substantial result followed. For

the most part they only swelled the list of captures, and attested the

absolute control of the sea by Great Britain.

Kleber, the illustrious general to whom Bonaparte left the burden he

himself dropped, in a letter which fell into the hands of the British,

addressed to the Directory the following words:[297] "I know all the

importance of the possession of Egypt. I used to say in Europe that

this country was for France the fulcrum, by means of which she might

move at will the commercial system of every quarter of the globe; but

to do this effectually, a powerful lever is required, and that lever

is a Navy. Ours has ceased to exist. Since that period everything

has changed; and peace with the Porte is, in my opinion, the only

expedient that holds out to us a method of fairly getting rid of an

enterprise no longer capable of attaining the object for which it was

undertaken."[298] In other words, the French force of admirable and

veteran soldiers in Egypt was uselessly locked up there; being unable

either to escape or to receive re-enforcement, they were lost to their

country. So thought Nelson, who frequently declared in his own vehement

fashion that not one should with his consent return to Europe, and who

gave to Sir Sidney Smith most positive orders on no account to allow

a single Frenchman to leave Egypt under passports.[299] So thought

Bonaparte, despite the censure which he and his undiscriminating

supporters have seen fit to pass upon Kleber. Six weeks before he

sailed for Europe[300] he wrote to the Directory: "We need at least

six thousand men to replace our losses since landing in Egypt.... With

fifteen thousand re-enforcements we could go to Constantinople. We

should need, then, two thousand cavalry, six thousand recruits for the

regiments now here; five hundred artillerists; five hundred mechanics

(carpenters, masons, etc.); five demi-brigades of two thousand men

each; twenty thousand muskets, forty thousand bayonets, etc. etc. _If

you cannot send us all this assistance it will be necessary to make

peace_; for, between this and next June, we may expect to lose another

six thousand men."[301] But how was this help to be sent when the sea

was securely closed?

Bonaparte and Kleber held essentially the same view of the situation;

but the one was interested, like a bankrupt, in concealing the state

of affairs, the other was not. Kleber therefore gladly closed with a

proposition, made by the Turks under the countenance of Sir Sidney

Smith, who still remained in the Levant, by which the French were to

be permitted to evacuate Egypt and to be carried to France; Turkey

furnishing such transports as were needed beyond those already in

Alexandria. A convention to this effect was signed at El Arish on the

24th of January, 1800, by commissioners representing Kleber on the

one hand and the commander-in-chief of the Turks on the other. The

French army would thus be restored to France, under no obligations

that would prevent its at once entering the field against the allies

of Great Britain and Turkey. Sir Sidney Smith did not sign; but it

appears from his letter of March 8, 1800,[302] to M. Poussielgue, one

of Kleber's commissioners, that he was perfectly cognizant of and

approving the terms of an agreement in direct contravention of the

treaty of alliance between Turkey and Great Britain, and containing an

article (the eleventh) engaging his government to issue the passports

and safe conducts for the return of the French,[303] which depended

absolutely upon its control of the sea, and which his own orders from

his superiors explicitly forbade.

The British government had meantime instructed Lord Keith that the

French should not be allowed to leave Egypt, except as prisoners of

war. On the 8th of January, over a fortnight before the convention

of El Arish was signed, the admiral wrote from Port Mahon to notify

Smith of these directions, which were identical in spirit with

those he already had from Nelson. With this letter he enclosed one

to Kleber, "to be made use of if circumstances should so require."

This letter, cast in the peremptory tone probably needed to repress

Smith, informed Kleber curtly that he had "received positive orders

not to consent to any capitulation of the French troops, unless they

should lay down their arms, surrender themselves prisoners of war, and

deliver up the ships and stores in Alexandria." Even in this event

they were not to be permitted to return to France until exchanged.

The admiral added that any vessel with French troops on board, having

passports "from others than those authorized to grant them," would

be forced by British cruisers to return to Alexandria.[304] Smith,

knowing that he had exceeded his authority, had nothing to do in face

of this communication but to transmit the letters apologetically to

Kleber, expressing the hope that the engagement allowed by him would

ultimately be sustained. In this he was not deceived. The British

cabinet, learning that Kleber had executed an essential part of his

own agreements, under the impression that Smith had authority to

pledge his government, sent other instructions to Keith, authorizing

the carrying out of the convention while expressly denying Smith's

right to accede to it. Owing to the length of time required in that age

for these communications to pass back and forth, such action had been

taken by Kleber, before these new instructions were received, that the

convention never became operative. The French occupation lingered on.

Kleber, being assassinated on the 14th of June, 1800, was succeeded

by Menou, an incapable man; and in March, 1801, a British army under

General Abercromby landed in Aboukir Bay. Abercromby was mortally

wounded on the 21st, at the battle of Alexandria; but his successor was

equal to the task before him, and in September, 1801, shortly before

the preliminaries of peace with Great Britain were signed, the last of

the French quitted Egypt.

The terms under which the evacuation was made were much the same as

those granted at El Arish; but circumstances had very greatly changed.

The battle of Marengo, June 14, 1800, and the treaty of Lunéville,

February 9, 1801, had restored peace to the Continent; the French

troops would not now re-enforce an enemy to the allies of Great

Britain. Not only so, but since the power of Austria had been broken,

Great Britain herself was intending a peace, to which the policy of

Bonaparte at that time pointed. It was therefore important to her that

in the negotiations the possession of Egypt, however barren, should not

be one of the cards in the adversary's hand. No terms were then too

easy, provided they insured the immediate departure of the French army.

[Illustration: English Channel and North Sea.]