CHAPTER XVI.

THE REIGN OF GEORGE III. (_continued_).

Invasion of Holland by Dumouriez--He is defeated at Neerwinden

and goes over to the Enemy--Second Partition of Poland--The

Campaign in the Netherlands--And on the Rhine--The English

Fleets in the Channel and West Indies--Siege of Toulon--First

appearance of Napoleon Buonaparte--Fall of Lyons--The Reign of

Terror--Insurrection in La Vendée--Its brutal Suppression--Worship

of the Goddess of Reason--Opposition to the War in

England--Prosecutions for Sedition--Trials in Scotland--Discussions

on the subject in Parliament--Arrests of Horne Tooke, Thelwall,

Hardy, and others--Battle of the First of June--The War in the

West Indies--Annexation of Corsica--The Campaign of 1794--The

Prussian Subsidy--Successes of Pichegru against the Austrians--The

Struggle for the Sambre--Loss of Belgium--Danger of Holland--The

War in the South--The Reign of Terror continues--The Festival of

the Supreme Being--Death of Robespierre and his Associates--The

Thermidorians--Final extinction of Poland--The Portland Whigs

join the Ministry--Trials of Hardy, Horne Tooke, and their

Associates--Opening of Parliament--The Budget--Attempts at

Reform--Marriage of the Prince of Wales--His Allowance--The

French occupy Holland--It becomes a Republic--Prussia and Spain

leave the Coalition, but the War continues--Campaigns on the

Rhine and in Italy--The War in La Vendée and in Brittany--The

Expedition from England planned--Destruction of the Expedition

at Quiberon--Extinction of the War in La Vendée--Establishment

of the Directory--Attack on George the Third--The Budget--Pitt's

first Negotiations for Peace--Failure of Lord Malmesbury's

Mission--Successes in the West Indies and Africa--Expedition to

Bantry Bay--The Campaign of 1796--Retreat of the French--Napoleon's

Italian Campaign--The Battles of Arcole--A new British

Loan--Suspension of Cash Payments--Grievances of the Seamen--Mutiny

at Portsmouth--Its Pacification--Mutiny at the Nore--Descent on the

Welsh Coast--Campaign of 1797--Preliminaries of Leoben--Treaty of

Campo Formio--Lord Malmesbury's Mission to Lille.

Dumouriez was now making his projected attack upon Holland. On the

17th of February, 1793, he entered the Dutch territory, and issued a

proclamation, promising friendship to the Batavians, and war only to

the Stadtholder and his British allies. His success was brief, and he

was soon forced back at all points. He received peremptory orders from

the Convention to retire into Belgium. He obeyed with reluctance. On

Dumouriez' return to Belgium, he was greatly incensed at the wholesale

rapacity of the Commissioners of the Convention. They had plundered

the churches, confiscated the property of the clergy and the wealthy

inhabitants, and driven the people, by their insolence and violence,

into open revolt. He did not satisfy himself by simply reproving these

cormorants by words; he seized two of the worst of them, and sent them

to Paris under a military guard. General Moreton-Chabrillant, who

defended the Commissioners, he summarily dismissed; he restored the

plate to the churches, as far as he was able, and issued orders for

putting down the Jacobin clubs in the army. On the 16th of March he

was attacked at Neerwinden by the Prince of Saxe-Coburg, and after a

sharply-fought field, in which both himself and the Duke of Chartres

fought bravely, he was routed with a loss of four thousand killed and

wounded, and the desertion of ten thousand of his troops, who fled at

a great rate, never stopping till they entered France, and, spreading

in all directions, they caused the most alarming rumours of Dumouriez'

conduct and the advance of the enemy. The Convention at once dispatched

Danton and Lacroix to inquire into his proceedings, and, roused by

all these circumstances, no sooner had these two envoys left him than

he entered into communication with the Prince of Saxe-Coburg. Colonel

Mack, an Austrian officer, was appointed to confer with Dumouriez,

and it was agreed that he should evacuate Brussels, and that then the

negotiation should be renewed. Accordingly, the French retired from

Brussels on the 25th of March, and on the 27th they encamped at Ath,

where Dumouriez and Mack again met. The result of this conference was

the agreement of Dumouriez to abandon the Republic altogether, to march

rapidly on Paris, and disperse the Convention and the mother society

of the Jacobins. His designs, however, were suspected by the Jacobins,

and he was eventually compelled to go over to the enemy almost alone.

Dampierre, who had been appointed by the Convention to supersede

Dumouriez, took the command of the army, and established himself in

the camp at Famars, which covered Valenciennes. He was there attacked,

on the 8th of May, by the combined armies of Austrians, Prussians,

English, and Dutch, under Clairfayt, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, and the

Duke of York. He was defeated with terrible slaughter, four thousand

men being killed and wounded, whilst the Allies stated their loss at

only eight hundred men. Dampierre himself lost a leg and died the

next day. Lamarque, who succeeded him, might have easily been made

to retreat, for the French were in great disorder; but the Allies

had resolved to advance no farther till Mayence should be retaken.

Lamarque, therefore, fortified himself in his camp at Famars, and

remained unmolested till the 23rd of the month. He was then attacked

and beaten, but was allowed to retire and encamp again between

Valenciennes and Bouchain. The Allies, instead of pushing their

advantages, waited the advance of the King of Prussia upon Mayence.

Custine, who was put in command of the Rhine, was enabled to keep back

the Prince of Hohenlohe, who had but an inconsiderable force, the King

of Prussia having been compelled to send a large force to Poland,

instead of forwarding it according to agreement to the Rhine.

In fact, whilst these events had been proceeding on the frontiers of

France, Russia, Prussia, and Austria had been dividing Poland amongst

them. The King of Prussia, when contemplating his participation in

this vile business, issued a proclamation assigning the most virtuous

reasons for it. It was to check the spread of French principles in

Poland, which had compelled himself and his amiable allies, the

Empress of Russia and the Emperor of Germany, to invade Poland. But

these pretences were merely a cloak for a shameless robbery. Poland

abutted on Prussia with the desirable ports of Thorn and Dantzic, and

therefore Great Poland was especially revolutionary in the eyes of

Frederick William of Prussia. The Polish Diet exposed the hollowness

of these pretences in a counter-manifesto. This produced a manifesto

from Francis of Austria, who declared that the love of peace and

good neighbourhood would not allow him to oppose the intentions of

Prussia, or permit any other Power to interfere with the efforts of

Russia and Prussia to pacify Poland; in fact, his love of peace would

not allow him to discountenance an aggressive war, but his love of

good neighbourhood would allow him to permit the most flagrant breach

of good neighbourhood. As for the Empress of Russia, she had a long

catalogue of ingratitude against the Poles, in addition to their

Jacobinical principles, and for these very convenient reasons she had

now taken possession of certain portions of that kingdom, and called

on all the inhabitants of these districts to swear allegiance to

her immediately. The Empress having thus broken the ice of her real

motives, the King of Prussia no longer pretended to conceal his, but

called on all the inhabitants of Great Poland to swear allegiance to

him forthwith. The Russian Ambassador at Grodno commanded the Poles

to carry these orders of Russia and Prussia into effect by a circular

dated the 9th of April. The great Polish Confederation, which had

invited the interference of Russia in order to carry out their own

party views, were much confounded by these announcements of their

friends. They reminded the marauders of the engagements entered into by

Russia, Prussia, and Austria, at the time of the former partition, to

guarantee the integrity of the remainder. But this was merely parleying

with assassins with the knife at their throats. The aggressive Powers

by force of arms compelled poor King Poniatowski and the nobles to

assemble a Diet, and draw up and sign an instrument for the alienation

of the required territories. By this forced cession a territory,

containing a population of more than three millions and a half, was

made over to Russia; and another territory to Prussia, containing a

million and a half of inhabitants, together with the navigation of the

Vistula, with the port of Thorn on that great river, and of Dantzic

on the Baltic, so long coveted. As for the small remainder of what

once had been Poland, which was left to that shadow-king, Poniatowski,

it was bound down under all the old oppressive regulations, and had

Russian garrisons at Warsaw and other towns. But all these Powers were

compelled to maintain large garrisons in their several sections of the

appropriated country.

[Illustration: VIEW IN THE OLD TOWN, WARSAW.]

Thus it happened that the King of Prussia, with hands full of

aggression, did not appear on the Rhine to chastise the aggressions of

France, before the month of April. He brought with him about fifty

thousand men, Prussians, Saxons, Hessians, and Bavarians. He was joined

by fifteen or twenty thousand Austrians, under Wurmser, and five or six

thousand French Emigrants under the Prince of Condé. But the French

had on the Rhine one hundred and forty thousand men at least, of whom

twenty thousand were within the walls of Mayence. The Prussians laid

siege to that city, and the Austrians and British to Valenciennes. On

the 21st of July the French engaged to give up Mayence on condition

that they should be allowed to march out with the honours of war, and

this the King of Prussia was weak enough to comply with. They must,

of necessity, have soon surrendered at discretion; now they were at

liberty to join the rest of the army and again resist the Allies.

Valenciennes did not surrender until the 28th of July, and not till

after a severe bombardment by the Duke of York. Thus three months of

the summer had been wasted before these two towns, during which time

the French had been employed in drawing forces from all quarters to

the frontiers of Belgium, under the guidance of Carnot. The Duke of

York was recalled from Valenciennes to Menin, to rescue the hereditary

Prince of Orange from an overwhelming French force, against which his

half-Jacobinised troops showed no disposition to act. Having effected

his deliverance, the Duke of York marched on Dunkirk, and began,

towards the end of August, to invest it; but he was left unsupported by

the Prince of Orange, and being equally neglected by the Austrians, he

was compelled to raise the siege on the 7th of September, and retreated

with the loss of his artillery. The Prince of Orange was himself not

long unassailed. Houchard drove him from Menin, and took Quesnoy from

him, but was, in his turn, routed by the Austrian general Beaulieu, and

chased to the very walls of Lille. According to the recent decree of

the Convention, that any general surrendering a town or post should be

put to death, Houchard was recalled to be guillotined. There continued

a desultory sort of warfare on the Belgian frontiers for the remainder

of the campaign. On the 15th and 16th of October Jourdain drove the

Duke of Coburg from the neighbourhood of Maubeuge across the Sambre,

but the Duke of York coming up with fresh British forces, which had

arrived at Ostend under Sir Charles Grey, the French were repulsed, and

the Netherland frontiers maintained by the Allies for the rest of the

year.

[Illustration: RETREAT OF THE ROYALISTS FROM TOULON. (_See p._ 423.)]

On the Rhine, the war was carried on quite into the winter. The King of

Prussia did not stay longer than to witness the surrender of Mayence;

he then hurried away to look after his new Polish territory, and left

the army under the command of the Duke of Brunswick. Brunswick, in

concert with Wurmser and his Austrians, attacked and drove the French

from their lines at Weissenburg, took from them Lauter, and laid

siege to Landau. Wurmser then advanced into Alsace, which the Germans

claimed as their old rightful territory, and invested Strasburg. But

the Convention Commissioners, St. Just and Lebas, defended the place

vigorously. They called forces from all quarters; they terrified the

people into obedience by the guillotine, Lebas saying that with a

little guillotine and plenty of terror he could do anything. But he did

not neglect to send for the gallant young Hoche, and put him at the

head of the army. Wurmser was compelled to fall back; Hoche marched

through the defiles of the Vosges, and, taking Wurmser by surprise,

defeated him, made many prisoners, and captured a great part of

Wurmser's cannon. In conjunction with Pichegru, Dessaix, and Michaud,

he made a desperate attack, on the 26th of December, on the Austrians

in the fortified lines of Weissenburg, whence they had so lately

driven the French; but the Duke of Brunswick came to their aid, and

enabled the Austrians to retire in order. Hoche again took possession

of Weissenburg; the Austrians retreated across the Rhine, and the

Duke of Brunswick and his Prussians fell back on Mayence. Once there,

dissatisfied with the Prussian officers, he resigned his command, he

and Wurmser parting with much mutual recrimination. Wurmser was not

able long to retain Mayence; and the French not only regained all

their old positions, before they retired to winter quarters, but Hoche

crossed the lines and wintered in the Palatinate, the scene of so many

French devastations in past wars. The French also repulsed the enemy on

the Spanish and Sardinian frontiers.

Though war had long been foreseen with France, when it took place we

had no fleet in a proper condition to put to sea. It was not till the

14th of July that Lord Howe, who had taken the command of the Channel

fleet, sailed from Spithead with fifteen ships of the line, three of

which were first-rates, but none of them of that speed and equipment

which they ought to have been. He soon obtained intelligence of a

French fleet of seventeen sail of the line, seen westward of Belleisle.

He sent into Plymouth, and had two third-rate vessels added to his

squadron. On the 31st of July he caught sight of the French fleet, but

never came up with them, the French ships being better sailers. After

beating about in vain, he returned to port, anchoring in Torbay on the

4th of September. At the end of October Howe put to sea again with

twenty-four sail of the line and several frigates, and several times

came near the French fleet, but could never get to engage. He, however,

protected our merchant vessels and disciplined his sailors. One French

ship was taken off Barfleur by Captain Saumarez of the _Crescent_, and

that was all.

In the West Indies a small squadron and some land troops took the

islands of Tobago, St. Pierre, and Miquelon. At the invitation of the

planters, we also took possession of the western or French portion of

St. Domingo; but in Martinique, where we had had the same invitation,

the Royalist French did not support our efforts according to promise,

and the enterprise failed from the smallness of the force employed.

Besides these transactions, there occurred a severe fight between

Captain Courteney, of the frigate _Boston_, with only thirty-two

guns and two hundred men, and the _Ambuscade_, a French frigate of

thirty-six guns and four hundred picked men, in which both received

much damage, and in which Captain Courteney was killed, but in which

the Frenchman was compelled to haul off. In the East Indies we again

seized Pondicherry, and all the small factories of the French.

The great maritime struggle of the year was at Toulon. The south of

France was then in active combination against the Convention and the

Jacobin faction. There was a determination in Toulon, Marseilles,

and other places on the coast to support the Royalist party in Aix,

Lyons, and other cities. For this purpose they invited the British to

co-operate with them. Lord Hood, having obtained from the people of

Toulon an engagement to surrender the fleet and town to him, to be held

for Louis XVII., arrived before that port in July, with, however,

only seven ships of the line, four frigates, and some smaller vessels.

Nearly all the old Royalist naval officers were collected in Toulon,

and were so eager for revenge on the Jacobin officers and sailors--who

had not only superseded them, but had persecuted them with all the

savage cruelty of their faction--that they were all for surrendering

their fleet to Lord Hood, and putting him in possession of the forts

and batteries. There was a firm opposition to this on the part of

the Republicans, both in the fleet and the town, but it was carried

against them. Besides the Royalist townsmen, there were ten thousand

Provençals in arms in the town and vicinity. As General Cartaux had

defeated the Royalists at Marseilles, taken possession of the town,

and, after executing severe measures on the Royalists there, was now in

full march for Toulon, there was no time to be lost. Lord Hood landed

a body of men under Captain Elphinstone, to whom the forts commanding

the port were quietly surrendered. Lord Hood was thus at once put into

possession of the best French port in the Mediterranean, and a great

fleet, with all the stores and ammunition. But he knew very well that

the place itself could not long be maintained against the whole force

of Republican France. He resolved, however, to defend the inhabitants,

who had placed themselves in so terrible a position with their

merciless countrymen, to the utmost of his power. He therefore urged

the Spaniards to come to his assistance, and they sent several vessels,

and three thousand men. He received reinforcements of ships and men

from Naples--the queen of which was sister to Marie Antoinette--and

from Sardinia. Fresh vessels and men also arrived from England. Lord

Mulgrave arrived from Italy, and at Lord Hood's request assumed

command, for the time, of the land forces.

General Cartaux arrived and took up his position in the villages

around Toulon. He was reinforced by General Doppet, from the Rhone,

and General Dugommier, from the Var; and the latter had in his

corps-d'armée a young lieutenant of artillery, who contained in his yet

unknown person the very genius of war--namely, Napoleon Buonaparte.

Cartaux was a man who had risen from the ranks; Doppet had been a

physician in Savoy; and Dugommier was acting on a plan sent from the

Convention. Buonaparte suggested what he thought a much superior

plan. "All you need," he said, "is to send away the English; and to

do that, you have only to sweep the harbour and the roadstead with

your batteries. Drive away the ships, and the troops will not remain.

Take the promontory of La Grasse, which commands both the inner and

outer harbour, and Toulon will be yours in a couple of days." On this

promontory stood two forts, Equilette and Balaquier, which had been

much strengthened by the English. It was resolved to assault these

forts, and batteries opposite to them were erected by the French under

Buonaparte's direction. After much desperate fighting, vast numbers of

troops being pressed against the forts, that of Balaquier was taken.

This gave the French such command of the inner harbour, that Lord Hood

called a council of war, and showed the necessity of retiring with the

fleet, and thus enabling the Royalists to escape, who would otherwise

be exterminated by their merciless countrymen. This was agreed to, and

it was resolved to maintain the different forts till the ships had

cleared out. The Neapolitans behaved very ill, showing no regard for

anything but their own safety. They held two forts--one at Cape Lebrun,

and the other at Cape Lesset; these, they said, they would surrender

as soon as the enemy approached. They made haste to get their ships

and men out of harbour, leaving all else to take care of themselves.

The Spaniards and Piedmontese behaved in a much nobler manner. They

assisted willingly all day in getting on board the Royalists--men,

women, and children. All night the troops began to defile through a

narrow sallyport to the boats under the guns of the fort La Malaga.

This was happily effected; and then Sir Sidney Smith, who had recently

arrived at Toulon, and had volunteered the perilous office of blowing

up the powder-magazines, stores, arsenals, and the ships that could not

be removed, began his operations. He succeeded in setting fire to the

stores and about forty ships of war that were in the harbour.

After the departure of the British fleet, the Jacobin troops, townsmen,

and galley convicts, were perpetrating the most horrible scenes on the

unfortunate Toulonese. Even the poor workmen who had been employed by

the English to strengthen the defences, were collected in hundreds,

and cut down by discharges of grape-shot. Three Jacobin commissioners,

the brother of Robespierre, Barras, and Freron, were sent to purge the

place, and besides the grape-shot the guillotine was in daily activity

exterminating the people. The very mention of the name of Toulon was

forbidden, and it was henceforth to be called Port de la Montagne.

The troops of the Convention were equally successful against Lyons.

It was speedily invested by numerous troops, under the command of

Dubois-Crancé, one of the Commissioners of the Convention. On the 21st

of August he summoned the place to surrender, but the Lyonese held out

till the 2nd of October, when Couthon, one of the most ruthless of the

Jacobin deputies, arrived, with twenty-eight thousand armed peasants,

from Auvergne. He demanded that the city should be instantly bombarded,

and, if necessary, reduced to ruins. Dubois-Crancé said there was

no need for this merciless alternative, as the place must very soon

yield from famine. Couthon thereupon obtained an order from the

Convention to supersede Dubois-Crancé, as devoid of proper Republican

zeal; and on the 7th of October commenced a terrible bombardment. The

inhabitants came to a parley with Couthon, and agreed to surrender

without conditions. Couthon immediately appointed a committee to try

all rebels, and he sent his opinion of the population at large to the

Convention, describing the people as of three kinds--the wicked rich,

the proud rich, and the ignorant poor, who were too stupid to be good

Republicans. He proposed to guillotine the first class, to seize the

property of the second, and to remove the last into different quarters

of France. The Convention adopted his views cordially, and passed a

decree that Lyons should be destroyed; that nothing should be left but

the houses of the poor, the manufactories, the hospitals, the school of

arts, the public schools, and public monuments; that the name of Lyons

should be buried for ever, and that on its ruins should be erected a

monument bearing this inscription:--"Lyons made war against liberty:

Lyons is no more!" The name of the spot ever afterwards was to be the

Liberated Commune. The massacres were carried out by Collot d'Herbois.

The same scenes, but on a still larger scale, were exhibiting in

the capital. The Reign of Terror was fully inaugurated, and rapidly

extending itself. At first, on the expulsion of the Girondists from the

Convention--that is, in June--the guillotinings were only fourteen. In

July the number was about the same; but in August Robespierre became

a member of the Committee of Public Safety, which carried on the

machinery of government, and then the work went on swimmingly. From the

moment that Robespierre took his place on the Committee, the stream

of blood flowed freely and steadily. His friend--if such monsters can

be said to have any friends--Barrère, who belonged to the timid Plain

till the Girondists were overthrown, now became his active agent. He

proposed, on the 7th of August, that William Pitt should be proclaimed

the enemy of the whole human race, and that a decree should be passed

that every man had a right to assassinate him. On the 9th it was

announced that the Republic was completed; that Hérault de Séchelles

had produced a new and perfect constitution, which was at once adopted

by the Convention. It was a constitution containing all the doctrines

of the Mountain, in the bombast of that truculent faction. As it

was quickly set aside, we need not detail its principles. Then this

constitution was celebrated on the 10th of August, the anniversary

sacred to the downfall of monarchy. Next followed fresh executions,

among the most notable victims being Marie Antoinette (October 16) and

Madame Roland (November 9), while most of the prominent Girondists were

hunted down and killed.

Whilst blood was thus flowing by the guillotine, not only in Paris,

but, under the management of Jacobin Commissioners, in nearly all

the large towns of France, especially Lyons, Bordeaux, and Nantes, a

terrible work of extermination was going on against the royalists of La

Vendée. The simple people of that province, primitive in their habits

and sincere in their faith, desired no Republic. Their aristocracy, for

the most part of only moderate possessions, lived amongst them rather

like a race of kindly country squires than great lords, and the people

were accordingly cordially attached to them. In March of the year 1793

the Convention called for a conscription of three hundred thousand, and

the Vendéans, to a man, refused to serve under a Government that had

persecuted both their priests and their seigneurs. This was the certain

signal of civil war. Troops were ordered to march into La Vendée,

and compel obedience. Then the peasants flew to arms, and called on

the nobles and priests to join them. At first they were entirely

successful, but matters changed when Kleber was put in practical

command.

Their general, Lescure, was killed, and most of their other leaders

were severely wounded. Kleber triumphed over them by his weight of

artillery, and they now fled to the Loire. Amongst a number of royalist

nobles who had joined them from the army of the Prince of Condé on the

Rhine, was Prince de Talmont, a Breton noble, formerly of vast property

in Brittany, and now of much influence there. He advised them, for

the present, to abandon their country, and take refuge amongst his

countrymen, the Bretons. The whole of this miserable and miscellaneous

population, nearly a hundred thousand in number, crowded to the edge of

the Loire, impatient, from terror and despair, to cross. Behind were

the smoke of burning villages and the thunder of the hostile artillery;

before, was the broad Loire, divided by a low long island, also crowded

with fugitives. La Roche-Jaquelein had the command of the Vendéans

at this trying moment; but the enemy, not having good information of

their situation, did not come up till the whole wretched and famished

multitude was over. On their way to Laval they were attacked both

by Westermann and Léchelle; but being now joined by nearly seven

thousand Bretons, they beat both those generals; and Léchelle, from

mortification and terror of the guillotine--now the certain punisher of

defeated generals--died. The Vendéans for a time, aided by the Bretons,

appeared victorious. They had two courses open before them: one, to

retire into the farthest part of Brittany, where there was a population

strongly inspired by their own sentiments, having a country hilly and

easy of defence, with the advantage of being open to the coast, and

the assistance of the British; the other, to advance into Normandy,

where they might open up communication with the English through the

port of Cherbourg. They took the latter route, though their commander,

La Roche-Jaquelein, was strongly opposed to it. Stofflet commanded

under Jaquelein. The army marched on in great confusion, having the

women and children and the waggons in the centre. They were extremely

ill-informed of the condition of the towns which they approached.

They might have taken Rennes and St. Malo, which would have greatly

encouraged the Bretons; but they were informed that the Republican

troops were overpowering there. They did not approach Cherbourg for

the same cause, being told that it was well defended on the land side;

they therefore proceeded by Dol and Avranches to Granville, where they

arrived on the 14th of November. This place would have given them open

communication with the English, and at the worst an easy escape to the

Channel Islands; but they failed in their attempts to take it; and

great suspicion now having seized the people that their officers only

wanted to get into a seaport to desert them and escape to England,

they one and all protested that they would return to the Loire. In

vain did La Roche-Jaquelein demonstrate to them the fatality of such a

proceeding, and how much better it would be to make themselves strong

in Normandy and Brittany for the present; only about a thousand men

remained with him; the rest retraced their long and weary way towards

the Loire, though the Republicans had now accumulated very numerous

forces to bar their way. Fighting every now and then on the road, and

seeing their wives and children daily drop from hunger and fatigue,

they returned through Dol and Pontorson to Angers: there they were

repulsed by the Republicans. They then retreated to Mons, where

they again were attacked and defeated, many of their women, who had

concealed themselves in the houses, being dragged out and shot down

by whole platoons. At Ancenis, Stofflet managed to cross the Loire;

but the Republicans got between him and his army, which, wedged in at

Savenay, between the Loire, the Vilaine, and the sea, was attacked by

Kleber and Westermann, and, after maintaining a desperate fight against

overwhelming numbers and a terrible artillery, was literally, with the

exception of a few hundred who effected their escape, cut to pieces,

and the women and children all massacred by the merciless Jacobins.

Carrier then proceeded to purge Nantes in the same style as Collot

d'Herbois had purged Lyons.

[Illustration: NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, LIEUTENANT OF ARTILLERY.

(_After the Portrait by J. B. Greuze._)]

These godless atrocities, these enormous murders, beyond all historic

precedent, proclaimed a people which had renounced God as well as

humanity; and they soon proceeded to avow this fact, and to establish

it by formal decree. In their rage for destroying everything old, there

was nothing that escaped them. They altered the mode of computing

time, and no longer used the Gregorian calendar, but dated all deeds

from the first year of Liberty, which they declared to have commenced

on the 22nd of September, 1792. The next and greatest achievement

was to dethrone the Almighty, and erect the Goddess of Reason in His

place. Under the auspices of the Goddess of Reason they did a very

unreasonable thing: they deprived all working people and all working

animals of one rest-day in every month. Instead of having the four

weeks and four Sundays in a month, they decimalised the months,

dividing them each into three decades, or terms of ten days each, so

that there were only three rest-days, instead of four, in the month.

The British Parliament met on the 21st of January, 1794. The

Opposition, on the question of the Address, made a strong remonstrance

against the prosecution of the war. They urged the miserable conduct

of it, and the failures of the Allies, as arguments for peace. They

did not discourage the maintenance of a proper system of self-defence,

and therefore acceded to the demands of Ministers for raising the navy

to eighty-five thousand men. The production of the Budget by Pitt, on

the 2nd of February, gave additional force to their appeals for peace.

He stated that the military force of England, including fencibles

and volunteers, amounted to a hundred and forty thousand men, and he

called for nineteen million nine hundred and thirty-nine thousand

pounds for the maintenance of this force, and for the payment of sixty

thousand German troops. Besides this, he asked for a loan of eleven

million pounds, as well as for the imposition of new taxes. This was an

advance in annual expenditure of fifteen million pounds more than only

two years ago; and when the manner in which the money was spent was

inquired into, the objections became far more serious. It thus appeared

that we were not only fighting for Holland and Belgium, but that we

were subsidising German princes to fight their own battles. There had

been a large subsidy to the King of Prussia, to assist him, in reality,

to destroy Poland. We were, in fact, on the threshold of that system

of Pitt's, by which Britain engaged to do battle all over Europe with

money as well as with men. But remonstrance was in vain. Fox, Grey, and

Sheridan, and their party in the Commons, the Marquis of Lansdowne,

the Duke of Bedford, and the Whigs in the Peers, made amendment after

amendment on these points, but were overwhelmed by Pitt's majorities.

Burke, in the Commons, was frantic in advocacy of war, because France

was revolutionary and impious.

The anti-Gallic spirit was at the same time made violent use of to

crush opinion at home. It is true that there was a foolish zeal on

behalf of the French Revolution in a certain portion of the British

public, which ought, by this time, to have been cooled by the too

obvious nature and tendency of that Revolution; but this might readily

have been prevented from doing harm by a fair exposure of the folly

of the admirers of so bloody and dishonest a system as that of the

French Jacobins. But it was more in accordance with the spirit of

Government at that time to endeavour to crush the freedom of the press

and of speech, under cover of the repression of a Gallic tendency. The

persecution began in Scotland.

The first indictment was preferred against James Tytler, a chemist, of

Edinburgh, for having published an address to the people, complaining

of the mass of the people being wholly unrepresented, and, in

consequence, being robbed and enslaved; demanding universal suffrage,

and advising folk to refuse to pay taxes till this reform was granted.

However strange such a charge would appear now, when the truth of

it has long been admitted, it was then held by Government and the

magistracy as next to high treason. Tytler did not venture to appear,

and his bail, two booksellers, were compelled to pay the amount of his

bond and penalty, six hundred merks Scots. He himself was outlawed,

and his goods were sold. Three days afterwards, namely, on the 8th of

January, 1793, John Morton, a printer's apprentice, and John Anderson

and Malcolm Craig, journeymen printers, were put upon their trial for

more questionable conduct. They were charged with endeavouring to

seduce the soldiers in the castle of Edinburgh from their duty, urging

them to drink, as a toast, "George the Third and Last, and Damnation

to all Crowned Heads;" and with attempting to persuade them to join

the "Society of the Friends of the People," or a "Club of Equality

and Freedom." They were condemned to nine months' imprisonment, and

to give security in one thousand merks Scots for their good behaviour

for three years. Next came the trials of William Stewart, merchant,

and John Elder, bookseller, of Edinburgh, for writing and publishing a

pamphlet on the "Rights of Man and the Origin of Government." Stewart

absconded, and the proceedings were dropped against the bookseller.

To these succeeded a number of similar trials, amongst them those of

James Smith, John Mennings, James Callender, Walter Berry, and James

Robinson, of Edinburgh, tradesmen of various descriptions, on the

charges of corresponding with Reform societies, or advocating the

representation of the people, full and equal rights, and declaring the

then Constitution a conspiracy of the rich against the poor. One or two

absented themselves, and were outlawed; the rest were imprisoned in

different towns. These violent proceedings against poor men, merely for

demanding reforms only too much needed, excited but little attention;

but now a more conspicuous class was aimed at, and the outrageously

arbitrary proceedings at once excited public attention, and, on the

part of reformers, intense indignation.

The persons now indicted were Thomas Muir and the Rev. Thomas Fyshe

Palmer. Muir was a young advocate, only eight-and-twenty years of age.

He was brought to trial at Edinburgh, on the 30th of August, 1793.

He was charged with inciting people to read the works of Paine, and

"A Dialogue between the Governors and the Governed," and with having

caused to be received and answered, by the Convention of Delegates, a

seditious address from the Society of United Irishmen in Dublin, to

the Delegates for promoting Reform in Scotland. He was also charged

with having absconded from the pursuit of justice, and with having been

over to France, and with having returned in a clandestine manner by way

of Ireland. To these charges Muir replied that he had gone to France

after publicly avowing his object, both in Edinburgh and London, that

object being to endeavour to persuade the French Convention not to

execute Louis XVI.; that when in Paris he urged this both on the ground

of humanity and good policy, as tending to make constitutional reform

easier, as well as the keeping of peace with England; that the sudden

declaration of hostilities whilst there had warned him to return, but

had closed up the direct way; that that was the reason of his taking a

vessel from Havre to Ireland; that he had, however, returned publicly,

and surrendered himself for trial at the earliest opportunity.

The most respectable witnesses testified in his favour, that he

had always argued that the monarchy of the country was good; the

government far superior to that of France; that many opinions of Paine

were unsound and untenable; that an equal division of property was

a chimera, and that we here wanted no revolution, but only moderate

reform. The chief witness against him was a woman-servant, who had

lived in his father's family, who deposed to his telling people to

read the "Rights of Man;" to giving an organ-man something to play

"_Ça ira!_" and the like. It is clear that Mr. Muir was what would now

be considered a very moderate reformer indeed. But the Lord Advocate

treated him with the most scurrilous indignity, calling him "that

unfortunate wretch at the bar;" "that demon of mischief;" "that pest of

Scotland." The very proofs of Muir's moderation were turned by the Lord

Justice Clerk into crimes; it was only "policy;" and he proceeded to

pass on him the monstrous sentence of transportation for fourteen years!

This base and disproportionate sentence startled the people of England.

In Scotland then party spirit ran furiously high. As there were clubs

for advocating thorough reform, so there were others for discouraging

and crushing it. The Tory arbitrary principle was rampant, and Muir was

the victim of it.

Mr. Fyshe Palmer was not tried till the 12th of September. He was then

brought before the Circuit Court of Justiciary at Perth, and charged

with writing and publishing an "Address to the People," which had been

issued by the Society of the Friends of Liberty, at Dundee. Palmer was

an Englishman of good family, in Bedfordshire. He had taken his degree

at Cambridge, and obtained a fellowship at Queen's College; but he had

afterwards joined the Unitarians, and had resided and preached some

time at Montrose and Dundee, and had delivered lectures on Unitarianism

in Edinburgh and Forfar. It appeared that Palmer was not the author

of the Address, but had only been asked to correct the proof of it,

and that he had, whilst so doing, struck out some of the strongest

passages. One Mealmaker, a weaver, acknowledged himself the author

of the Address; but Palmer was a Unitarian, and this, to the bigoted

Presbyterianism of his judges, was rank poison. His advocate pleaded

that he was not quite sane, but neither did this avail; the jury

brought in an instant and unanimous verdict of guilty, and the judges

condemned him to be transported for seven years. This was a still more

outrageous sentence than that of Muir, for Palmer had corresponded with

no French or Reforming societies whatever; he had simply corrected a

proof!

Not at all dismayed by this unrighteous severity, the Scottish Friends

of the People met in convention, in Edinburgh, on the 9th of October.

At this Convention delegates appeared, not only from most of the large

towns of Scotland, but also from London, Sheffield, and Dublin. Letters

were also received from the Societies in England. Mr. William Skirving,

a friend of Muir and Palmer, as secretary to the Convention, read these

letters, and other papers, demanding annual parliaments and universal

suffrage. As the British Parliament was considered, and truly, merely a

corrupt clique of the representatives of boroughmongers, they proposed

to apply directly to the king, that he might urge those necessary

reforms on the Legislature. In Scottish fashion, the Reformers opened

and closed their sittings with prayer, presenting a striking contrast

to the French Revolutionists. On the 6th of November delegates appeared

from the Society of United Irishmen, and Margarot and Gerald from

the Society of the Friends of the People in London. Margarot stated

that five hundred constables had beset the meeting in London, to

prevent delegates from getting away to this Convention, but that the

manufacturing towns of England were almost all in favour of Reform;

that in Sheffield alone there were fifty thousand; that a general union

of the Reformers of the United Kingdom would strike terror into their

enemies, and compel them to grant annual parliaments and universal

suffrage.

The Irish delegates described the condition of Ireland as most

deplorable. They said that the Government interest, through the landed

aristocracy, was omnipotent; that the manufacturers were unemployed;

that an infamous coalition had taken place between the Irish Opposition

and Ministry; that the Catholics had been bought up so that all parties

might combine to crush Reform; that the United Irishmen were everywhere

persecuted, and that one of them had only just escaped from a six

months' imprisonment.

Amongst these, for the most part working men, sat a number of

gentlemen, and even one lord, Lord Dacre, who had lived in Paris

and was a regular Revolutionist. The Convention sat unmolested till

the 5th of December, arranging for a future meeting in England, and

organising committees and correspondents in different towns. They also

recommended to all Reform clubs and societies to invoke Divine aid on

their endeavours for just reform. On meeting on the morning of the 5th,

the president, Paterson, announced that himself, Margarot, and the

delegates had been arrested, and were only out on bail. Immediately

after this, the Lord Provost appeared with a force to disperse the

meeting, and though Skirving informed him that the place of meeting was

his own hired house, and that they had met for a purely constitutional

purpose, the Lord Provost broke up the meeting and drove out the

members. That evening they met again at another place, but only to be

turned out again. Still they did not disperse before Gerald had offered

up a fervent prayer for the success of Reform. Mr. Skirving then issued

a circular inviting the delegates to meet in his private house, and for

this he was arrested on the 6th of January, 1794, brought before the

Court of Justiciary, and sentenced to fourteen years' transportation.

On the 13th Margarot received the same sentence; and, in the month of

March, Gerald likewise.

Muir and Palmer, on the 19th of December, 1793, had been conveyed on

board the hulks at Woolwich, before being shipped off to the Antipodes,

and were put in irons; but before they were sent off, the matter was

brought before Parliament. It was introduced by Mr. Adams, on the 14th

of February, 1794, moving for leave to bring in a bill to alter the

enactment for allowing appeals from the Scottish Court of Justiciary in

matters of law. This was refused, and he then gave notice of a motion

for the revision of the trials of Muir and Palmer. Sheridan, on the

24th, presented a petition from Palmer, complaining of his sentence

as unwarranted by law. Pitt protested against the reception of the

petition, and Dundas declared that all such motions were too late; the

warrant for Palmer's transportation was already signed and issued.

Wilberforce moved that Palmer's being sent off should be delayed till

the case was reconsidered, but this was also rejected by a large

majority. Such was the determined spirit of Pitt and his parliamentary

majority against all Reform, or justice to Reformers. On the 10th

of March Mr. Adams again moved for a revision of the trials of Muir

and Palmer, declaring that "leasing-making" (verbal sedition), their

crime by the law of Scotland, was punishable by fine, imprisonment,

or banishment, but not by transportation, and that their sentence

was illegal. Fox exposed the rancorous spirit with which the trials

had been conducted, and to which the judges had most indecently lent

themselves; that the Lord Justice Clerk, during Muir's trial, had said,

"A government in every country should be just like a corporation; and,

in this country, it is made up of the landed interest, which alone has

a right to be represented. As for the rabble, who have nothing but

personal property, what hold has the nation on them? They may pack

up all their property on their backs, and leave the country in the

twinkling of an eye!" Lord Swinton said, "If punishment adequate to

the crime of sedition were to be sought for, it could not be found in

our law, now that torture is happily abolished." The Lord Advocate was

in his place to defend his conduct and doctrine, but Pitt and Dundas

supported these odious opinions. The House also sanctioned them by a

large majority, and Adams's motion was rejected. In the Upper House,

similar motions, introduced by Lords Lansdowne and Stanhope, were

similarly treated.

[Illustration: THE TOLBOOTH, EDINBURGH.]

The success of the Scottish courts in sentencing Reformers encouraged

the Ministers to try the experiment in England; but there it did not

succeed so well. First, one Eaton, a bookseller, of Bishopgate, was

indicted for selling a seditious libel, called "Politics for the

People; or, Hog's-wash." On the 2nd of April, Thomas Walker, a merchant

of Manchester--was, with six others, indicted at the Lancaster assizes;

but Eaton, in London, and these Manchester men, were acquitted. Rather

irritated than discouraged by these failures, Pitt and Dundas made a

swoop at the leaders of the Corresponding Society, and the Society

for Constitutional Information in London; and, in the month of May,

Horne Tooke, John Thelwall--a celebrated political lecturer--Thomas

Hardy, Daniel Adams, and the Rev. Jeremiah Joyce--private secretary to

the Earl of Stanhope, and tutor to his son, Lord Mahon--were arrested

and committed to the Tower on a charge of high treason. No sooner was

this done, than, on the 12th of May, Dundas announced to the House of

Commons that, in consequence of the Government having been informed

of seditious practices being carried on by the above-named societies,

they had seized their papers, and he now demanded that a committee of

secrecy should be appointed to examine these papers. This was agreed

to; and on the 16th Pitt brought up the report of this committee, which

was so absurd in its results that nothing but the most blind political

desperation could have induced the Government to make it known. The

committee found nothing amongst these papers but the reports of the

societies since the year 1791, which had been annually published and

made known to every one. Yet on this miserable evidence Pitt called

for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and it was accordingly

granted, Burke--who now seems to have grown quite politically mad

by dwelling on the horrors of the French Revolution--believing it

the only measure to insure the safety of the country. Windham and

others asserted that the mere suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act

was hardly sufficient: there required yet more stringent measures.

Similar language was held in the Lords, but did not pass without some

severe comments from the Duke of Bedford, and the Lords Stanhope,

Lauderdale, and Albemarle, who declared that Ministers, instead of

suppressing, were creating a veritable reign of terror. The Bill was,

notwithstanding, readily passed; and on the 13th of June an Address

was carried to his Majesty, expressing the determination of their

lordships to punish the men who had been concerned in the so-called

conspiracy. Fox and Lambton condemned this course energetically in the

Commons, declaring that, if there were any conspiracy, the ordinary

laws and tribunals were amply sufficient for their punishment. Fox

moved that all that part of the Address which expressed a conviction of

the existence of a conspiracy should be struck out, but it was carried

entire; and such was the alarm of the country at the reverses of the

Allies on the Continent and the successes of France, that far more

violent measures would have been readily assented to.

Meanwhile Lord Howe had been on the look-out some time for the French

fleet, which, it was understood, was about to leave Brest, in order

to meet a convoy of merchant ships from the West Indies, and aid it

in bringing that trade fleet into port. On reaching Brest, however,

he discovered that the French fleet had sailed, and it was not till

the 28th of May that he caught sight of it out at sea, opposite the

coast of Brittany. The French fleet, commanded by Admiral Villaret

Joyeuse, was greatly superior to Howe's in ships, number of seamen,

and weight of metal. Howe had twenty-five sail of the line and five

frigates, carrying two thousand and ninety-eight guns, in weight

of metal twenty-one thousand five hundred and nineteen pounds, and

sixteen thousand six hundred and forty-seven men. Joyeuse, now joined

by Admiral Neilly, had twenty-six line-of-battle ships and smaller

vessels, carrying two thousand one hundred and fifty-eight guns, in

weight of metal twenty-five thousand five hundred and twenty-one

pounds, and nineteen thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight men. After

some skirmishing, on the 1st of June--"the glorious first"--Howe came

to close quarters with the enemy, who was compelled to fight by the

presence of the Conventional Commissioner Bon St. André. He ordered his

fleet to follow his ship, the _Charlotte_, in cutting right through

the enemy's line. Only five ships, however, accomplished this so as

to engage the French to the leeward, and prevent them from escaping.

Howe afterwards complained that some of his captains had not obeyed

his orders, and threatened them with a court-martial; but some replied

that their ships were in such bad sailing condition that they could

not effect this movement, and others that they did not understand

the signal. Thus, five vessels fighting to the leeward, and the rest

to the windward, the battle raged furiously from nine in the morning

till three in the afternoon, when the French admiral sheered off for

Brest, leaving behind seven of his finest vessels in the hands of the

British. The British lost in the action two hundred and seventy-nine

men, and had eight hundred and seventy-seven wounded. The French lost

in six of the captured ships alone six hundred and ninety men, and had

five hundred and eighty wounded. The seventh, the _Vengeur_, went down

almost as soon as the British flag was hoisted on her, with, it is

supposed, three hundred men in her. Altogether, it is likely that the

French did not lose less than fifteen hundred men, besides wounded,

and two thousand three hundred prisoners. The British lost a number of

officers, who were either killed in the battle or died afterwards of

their injuries Amongst these were Sir Andrew Douglas, second captain

of Howe's own ship; Captains Montagu of the _Montagu_, Hutt of the

_Queen_, and Harvey of the _Brunswick_; Rear-Admirals Pasley of the

_Bellerophon_, and Bowyer of the _Barfleur_. Admiral Graves and Captain

Berkeley were severely wounded. Howe made every effort to pursue and

bring the French admiral again to action; but, owing to the bad sailing

qualities of English ships at that time, and the shattered state of

many of them, he could not overtake Villaret, who made the best of

his way to Brest. During the remainder of the year there were various

engagements between small squadrons in different quarters, in which the

advantage generally remained with the British, besides the training

thus afforded to the officers and sailors for the mighty victories

which awaited them.

During the spring of 1794 the British, under Lieutenant-General Sir

Charles Grey, took the French island of Martinique, in which attempt

the Duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria, distinguished himself. They

also took St. Lucia, Guadeloupe, and its dependencies, Marie-Galante,

Deseada, and the Saintes. But they were not so successful in assisting

the French Royalists in St. Domingo to expel the Republicans. They

beat the French in three successive battles, but our troops were

then attacked by the yellow fever. General Whyte made himself master

of the French capital, Port-au-Prince; but General Dundas, who was

appointed governor, was carried off by the fever, as also were numbers

of the troops. The French general also fell a victim to the fever;

but at this juncture arrived the Jacobin Commissioner, Victor Hugues,

with a reinforcement of from fifteen hundred to two thousand men. He

immediately assumed the command, proclaimed freedom to all the blacks,

and the plunder of the Royalists. The Royalists, terrified, submitted,

or only feebly supported their British allies, who were thereupon

compelled to yield them to their fate. Hughes, one of the bloodiest

of the French revolutionists, set the guillotine to work in the hands

of the negroes. The Royalists were beheaded or fusilladed in troops,

their houses burnt, and their estates ravaged. Before the end of the

year this monster had reduced the island to a dreadful desert. In

his ferocious fury, he had caused the very sick and wounded in the

hospitals to be massacred, and the dead to be thrown out of their

graves. Amongst these were the remains of General Dundas, and the

other dead British officers, which were flung into the river. Hugues

also recovered Guadeloupe, and perpetrated the same cruelties and

abominations there.

During this summer the island of Corsica fell into our hands, and that

by conduct as brilliant on the part of Nelson and the troops and seamen

under him, as was at the time the formal inefficiency of our generals

there. The Corsicans soon experienced the insolence and rapacity of

the godless French Republicans, and rose in general insurrection. The

patriot Paoli was the first to advise them to renounce all connection

with such a race of fiends, and was, in consequence, proscribed by

the Convention, but at the same time appointed General-in-Chief and

President of the Council of Government by his own people. As he well

knew that little Corsica was no match for France, he applied to the

British for assistance. Lord Hood was then engaged in the defence of

Toulon, but he sent a few ships and troops during the summer and autumn

to Paoli's aid, and by this assistance the French were driven out

of every part of the island except San Fiorenzo, Calvi, and Bastia.

The mother of Buonaparte, and part of the family, who were living

at Ajaccio, fled to France, imploring the aid of the Convention for

her native island. Lord Hood, however, having evacuated Toulon, made

haste to be beforehand with them. By the 7th of February, 1794, he

had blockaded the three ports still in the hands of the French, and

had landed five regiments, under the command of General Dundas, at

San Fiorenzo. The French were soon compelled to evacuate the place,

but they retreated to Bastia, without almost any attempt on the part

of Dundas to injure or molest them. Lord Hood now urged the immediate

reduction of Bastia, but Dundas, an incompetent officer, and tied up by

all the old formal rules of warfare, declared that he could not attempt

to carry the town till the arrival of two thousand fresh troops from

Gibraltar. But there was a man of very different metal and notions

serving there, namely, Nelson, who was indignant at this timid conduct.

He declared that if he had five hundred men and the _Agamemnon_

ship-of-war, he could take the place. Lord Hood was resolved that

he should try, whilst he himself blockaded the harbour. Nelson, who

declared his own seamen of the _Agamemnon_ were of the right sort, and

cared no more for bullets than for peas, had one thousand one hundred

and eighty-three soldiers, artillerymen, and marines, with two hundred

and fifty sailors, put under his command, with the title of brigadier.

They landed on the 4th of April, dragged their cannon up to the tops of

the rocks overhanging Bastia, to the astonishment of French, Corsicans,

and the timid Dundas. On the 10th Nelson was aloft with his whole

force, and with all his cannon in position. A body of Corsicans rather

kept guard than gave any active assistance on another side of the town;

for they had no cannon, or could not drag them up precipices like

British seamen. On the 11th Lord Hood summoned the town to surrender;

but the French commander and Commissioner, Lacombe-Saint-Michel,

replied that he had red-hot shot for the ships and bayonets for

the British soldiers, and should not think of yielding till he had

two-thirds of his garrison killed. But Nelson, ably seconded by Colonel

Vilettes, plied his artillery to such purpose, that, on the 10th of

May, Lacombe-Saint-Michel made offer of surrender, and on the 19th the

capitulation was completed. The French forces and the Corsicans in

their interest were shipped off to Toulon, after the signing of the

capitulation on the 21st; and now General D'Aubant, who had succeeded

General Dundas, but who had continued lying at San Fiorenzo instead of

assisting at the siege, came up with his troops and took possession

of Bastia. The whole loss of the British in this brilliant affair was

only fourteen men killed and thirty-four wounded. Calvi, the most

strongly-situated and fortified place, still remained to be taken. By

the middle of June it was thoroughly invested, both by sea and land,

and Nelson again serving on shore, assisted by Captains Hallowell and

Serecold, was pouring shells and red-hot shot into the fort. Captain

Serecold was killed at the very outset; but Nelson and Hallowell,

chiefly with the sailors and marines, continued the bombardment through

the terrible heat of the dog-days, and the enervating effects of

malaria from stagnant ponds in the hills, and compelled the surrender

on the 10th of August, but not before one-half of the two thousand men

engaged were prostrated by sickness. The island was now, by the advice

of Paoli, offered to the British Crown and by it accepted; but a gross

blunder was made in not appointing Paoli Governor, as was expected

both by himself and his compatriots. Instead of this most proper and

conciliatory measure, Sir Gilbert Elliot was appointed Governor, to

the disappointment and disgust of the Corsicans. Sir Gilbert attempted

to gratify the islanders by framing a new Constitution for them, and

granting them trial by jury; but neither of these institutions was

adapted to their ideas, and both failed to heal the wound which the

ignominious treatment of their great patriot occasioned.

[Illustration: CALVI, CORSICA.]

But this little episode of the war presented one bright spot amid

the vast picture of miserable mismanagement, want of concert and of

activity, amongst the Allies engaged against France. The campaign

of 1794 was most disgraceful and discouraging. The plan still was

for the different armies of the Allies to advance from the different

frontiers, north, west, east, and south, and concentrate themselves on

Paris; but all the activity and concentration were on the side of the

French. In the very commencement of it, it was observed that Prussia

was not bringing by any means the stipulated amount of forces into the

field. The king, thinking much more of securing his Polish robberies

than of co-operating against France, remained in Poland, and was even

discovered to be secretly negotiating with the French Convention for

peace. Britain was alarmed at this symptom of Prussian defection and

made strong remonstrances. Frederick William coolly replied that it was

impossible for him to go on without a large sum of money. The hint of

Prussia was not lost; money was promised, and in April of this year a

subsidy of two millions two hundred thousand pounds was paid to Prussia

to secure her more active operation, and on condition that she brought

into the field sixty thousand men. The bulk of this money was paid by

Britain, a small fraction by Holland; and what was the result? The King

of Prussia sent very few troops into the field, but employed the money

in paying and maintaining armies to keep down the invaded provinces of

Poland, and to invade more! Thus Britain was duped into the disgraceful

business of riveting the fetters of unhappy Poland; and it would have

been well had this taught the British Government wisdom. But it was now

intent on that astonishing career of subsidising almost all the nations

of Europe against France; of purchasing useless German soldiers at

astounding prices; of pouring out the wealth and blood of Britain like

water to enable the Germans and Russians to defend their own hearths

and homes, and in vain. The results of this subsidy ought to have

satisfied Britain, and would have satisfied any other nation; for it

did not long retain Prussia as an ally, even in name.

[Illustration: ST. JUST. (_After the Portrait by David._)]

Belgium, this summer, was the great battle-ground. In it were

Austrians, Dutch, British, and Hanoverians. At the opening of the

campaign the Allies had probably two hundred thousand men scattered

along the frontiers, and the French upwards of three hundred thousand.

But whilst the French were united in one object, and the Convention

kept pouring fresh masses of men in, the Allies were slow and

disunited. The Duke of York, who commanded the English and Hanoverians,

about thirty thousand men, was completely tired of the sluggish

formality of the Austrian general, Clairfait, and refused to serve

under him. To remove the difficulty, the Emperor of Austria agreed to

take the command of his forces in the Netherlands in person, so that

the Duke of York would serve under him. Francis II. arrived in April,

and great expectations were excited by his presence. Instead of urging

all the different divisions of the allied armies to concentrate in

large masses against the able generals, Pichegru and Jourdain, Francis

sat down before the secondary fortress of Landrecies, though the Allies

already held those of Valenciennes, Condé, and Quesnoy. This enabled

Pichegru to advance on West Flanders, and take Courtrai and Menin in

the very face of Clairfait. At the same time Jourdain had entered the

country of Luxembourg with a large force, and whilst the Austrians were

wasting their time before Landrecies, he was still further reinforced

from the army of the Rhine, which the absence of the King of Prussia

left at leisure, and he now fell upon the Austrian general, Beaulieu;

and though Beaulieu fought bravely for two days, he was overwhelmed by

successive columns of fresh troops, and driven from his lines. Jourdain

then advanced upon the Moselle, where the Prussians ought to have been,

and were not, in spite of the subsidy.

Pichegru, on his part, having driven back Clairfait, turned round

on the Duke of York, who lay at Tournay. There he met with a severe

repulse, and fell back with heavy loss; but Clairfait having again

advanced to regain Courtrai, Pichegru once more engaged and defeated

him. Clairfait then fell back into Flanders, to cover Ghent, Bruges,

and Ostend. Pichegru, urged on against his better judgment by St.

Just, who was the Commissioner from the Convention, sent Kleber and

Marceau across the Sambre to attack General Kaunitz; but Kaunitz gave

the French a severe defeat, killing four thousand of them; and had the

Austrians been as rapid as they were brave, they might have nearly

exterminated the whole of the French division. This success inspirited

the Allies to advance actively, but the Duke of York, not taking into

account the habitual slowness of German troops, shot ahead, expecting

to fall in with Clairfait's columns at Turcoing; but there he only

found the French, under Souham and Bonnaud, who well nigh enveloped

him by their vast numbers, totally defeated, and nearly took him

prisoner. This gave such a panic to the Austrians, that the entire

army fell back, and Francis II., thoroughly discouraged, withdrew from

the command and left it to the Prince of Coburg. The Duke of York

rallied, and maintained his ground at Tournay against Pichegru, and

Kaunitz followed up his advantage against Kleber and Moreau, driving

them across the Sambre; but these were only temporary successes.

Jourdain, finding no Prussians in the Moselle, drew nearer to the camp

of Pichegru. There were various conflicts at Ypres, Charleroi, and on

the plains of Fleurus. The Allies drove the French three times across

the Sambre, but they returned with fresh and never-ending forces, and

compelled the Allies to a general retreat. Bruges opened its gates to

the French; Pichegru, aided by Moreau, compelled the Duke of York to

retire successively on Oudenarde, Tournay, and Antwerp, places filled

with the fame of Marlborough. At Antwerp the Duke of York was joined by

Lord Moira, with ten thousand men, intended originally for La Vendée,

but too late to prevent the massacre of Savenay. The English garrison

quitted Ostend, and came round to Antwerp; and the British occupied

that town, whilst Clairfait lay at Louvain, and the two armies,

unitedly, protected Mechlin.

The French allowed the retreating Allies no rest. There was no want

of men. The Convention, by the menace of the guillotine at home, and

the promises of plunder and licence abroad, could raise any number of

thousands of men, could find millions of money, and they had not a

single feeling of humanity, as the streaming axes of the executioners

all over the country showed. They could also fight and daunt their

enemies by the same unhesitating ferocity. They had long published

to all their armies that no quarter was to be given to British or

Hanoverians--they were to be massacred to a man; and they now sent word

to the fortresses of Valenciennes, Condé, Quesnoy, and Landrecies, that

unless the garrisons surrendered every soul on their being taken should

be butchered. The fortresses were immediately surrendered, for the

menace was backed by one hundred and fifty thousand men--the combined

troops of Pichegru and Jourdain. Besides, the fortresses in the hands

of the Allies were so badly supplied both with ammunition and stores,

that they were but dens of famine and impotence. On the 5th of July

Ghent opened its gates to the French; on the 9th the French entered

Brussels, having driven the Duke of Coburg out of his entrenchments in

the wood of Soignies, near which the battle of Waterloo was afterwards

fought. They next attacked the Duke of York and Lord Moira at Mechlin,

and after a sharp conflict drove them thence. The very next day

Clairfait was defeated and obliged to abandon both Louvain and Liége.

General Beaulieu was driven out of Namur, solely because he had no

provisions there for his army, though otherwise the place could have

made a long defence. The Duke of York was compelled to abandon the

strong and important citadel of Antwerp from the same cause, and to

cross the Scheldt into Dutch territory, leaving the French to make

their triumphant entry into Antwerp on the 23rd of July. Such was the

brilliant campaign of the French in the Netherlands in the summer of

1794--such the ignominious defeat of the Allies, with an army of two

hundred thousand men. Pitt, however, bravely struggled to keep up the

Coalition. A loan of four million pounds was granted to Austria. At the

same time, in addition to the Hessian soldiers engaged, the Duke of

Brunswick, the king's relative, was to furnish two thousand two hundred

and eighty-nine men on the same liberal terms, and was himself to have

an annual allowance of sixteen thousand pounds sterling.

Those princes that did bring men into the field, such as the Hessians,

Brunswickers, etc.--the Menschen-Veräufer, or man-sellers, as they

were styled by their own people--were rapacious beyond example. During

the American war we had employed these Hessians, Brunswickers, and the

like, at a cost that excited general indignation. Besides paying seven

pounds ten shillings and a penny for every man, the Duke of Brunswick,

who furnished only four thousand and eighty-four men, had had an annual

subsidy of fifteen thousand five hundred and nineteen pounds. The

Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, who furnished twelve thousand men, had ten

thousand two hundred and eighty-one pounds a year.

It was towards the end of May before Marshal Möllendorf, the Prussian

general, began the campaign. He then attacked the French, and drove

them out of their entrenchments at Kaiserslautern with great slaughter.

There, however, his activity seemed to cease; and on the 12th of July

the French again fell upon him. He fought bravely for four whole days,

supported by the Austrians; but both these Powers were compelled to

retreat down the Rhine, the Prussians retiring on Mayence and the

Austrians crossing the river for more safety. The French marched

briskly after the Prussians, took Trèves, and then sent strong

detachments to help their countrymen to make a complete clearance

of Belgium and to invade Holland. Clairfait, who was still hovering

in Dutch Flanders, was attacked by overwhelming numbers, beaten

repeatedly, and compelled to evacuate Juliers, Aix-la-Chapelle, and

finally Cologne. The French were so close at his heels at Cologne that

they shouted after him that "that was not the way to Paris." Coblenz,

where the Royalist Emigrants had so long made their headquarters,

though strongly fortified, soon after surrendered. The stout fortress

of Venloo, on the Meuse, and Bois-le-Duc, as promptly surrendered, and

the French marched on Nimeguen, near which the Duke of York lay, hoping

in vain to cover the frontiers of Holland. The people of Holland, like

those of Belgium, were extensively Jacobinised, the army was deeply

infected by French principles, and to attempt to defend such a country

with a mere handful of British was literally to throw away the lives

of our men. Yet the duke stood stoutly in this hopeless defence, where

half Holland ought to have been collected to defend itself.

On the 19th of October the French attacked the duke with sixty thousand

men, and though his little army fought with its usual dogged bravery

it was compelled to give way. It did this, however, only to assume

a fresh position, still covering Nimeguen, where, on the 27th, the

French again attacked it, and compelled it to retire from the contest.

The duke led the wreck of his army across the Waal and the Rhine, and

posted himself at Arnhem in Guelderland, to throw some impediment

in the path of Pichegru, who was advancing, at the command of the

Convention, to reduce Holland. Nimeguen, full of Dutch traitors, soon

opened its gates; Maestricht did the same to Kleber; and at the end of

the campaign the gloomiest prospects hung over Holland.

In the south great successes had been won by the French. A formidable

attack was made on the territories of the King of Sardinia and the

position of Saorgio was turned. But another division of these French

descended from the Alps. It was the month of May when General Dumas,

with the army of the Alps, had forced his way through the defiles of

Mont Cenis. The Piedmontese garrisons of the forts there had fled

without much resistance, astonished and confounded at seeing the French

appear on the loftiest heights around them. The French pursued their

retreating troops as far as Susa, led on by Jacobinised Savoyards,

who hated the Piedmontese. But Dumas, finding that strong forces of

Piedmontese and Austrians, under the King of Sardinia and the Austrian

General Wallis, were drawn up at the foot of the Alps, did not venture

to descend into the plains. Another body of the army of Italy was

delayed some time in the Genoese territory, whilst Buonaparte was

employed in sounding the condition and intentions of the people of

Genoa. All the Alpine passes were in their hands, and Italy was doomed

to drink the cup of misery to the very dregs.

Whilst the French armies had been carrying bloodshed and misery into

the countries around them, their brethren at home had been equally

busy in pushing forward those mutual hatreds which appeared likely

to end in the extermination of the whole race of revolutionists. The

Girondists being destroyed, new divisions showed themselves in those

who had hitherto been allies--Robespierre and his coadjutors. Hébert,

Chaumette, Clootz, Ronsin, and others, began to raise their heels

against their chief, and their chief doomed every one of them to the

guillotine. His most important victim was Danton, a man by no means

contemptible (guillotined April 5th, 1794).

Robespierre believed that there was a majority of the Republicans who

thought they had gone too far in abolishing the Deity and setting up

the Goddess of Reason. He declared that the people needed festivals,

and immediately it was decreed that every decade should be celebrated

as a festival. A festival in honour of the Supreme Being inaugurated

this series of special holidays, and it was to be followed by festivals

to the Human Race, the French People, the Love of Country, Agriculture,

Necessity, Misfortune, Posterity, and various other qualities and

sentiments, each having one decade in the year. The first festival

to the Supreme Being was fixed for the 20th of Prairial, or 8th of

June. The painter David was commissioned to prepare the scenes and

ceremonies of the festival, which was enacted in the gardens of the

Tuileries. Robespierre, in his sky-blue coat and most showy waistcoat,

and carrying in his hand a grand bouquet of flowers mixed with ears of

wheat, led the procession and officiated as high priest. But though

Robespierre had proclaimed the reign of the Supreme Being, he had not

the least intention that it should on that account be any the more a

reign of mercy. In his speech at the festival of the Supreme Being,

he declared that the Republic must be still further purged--that they

must remain inexorable. On this point he and all his colleagues were

agreed, but they were agreed in nothing else. They immediately broke

into fresh schisms, as would necessarily be the case with such men,

who must go on exterminating one another to the last. Robespierre, St.

Just, and Couthon still hung together; but Barrère, Collot d'Herbois,

Billaud-Varennes, and most of the other members of the Committees of

Public Welfare and Public Safety, were in the very act of rushing into

opposition, and beginning a struggle with the triumvirate--Robespierre,

Couthon, and St. Just--to the death. St. Just advised Robespierre to

anticipate them, but he, relying on his authority with the Convention,

remained inactive. It was a fatal mistake. Barrère and his faction

determined to strike a decisive blow at Robespierre; and Tallien

volunteered to commence the attack on Robespierre in the Convention.

To Robespierre's utter astonishment, his friends were outnumbered, and

decrees were immediately passed for the arrest of Couthon, Lebas, St.

Just, Robespierre and his brother. He escaped and fled to the Commune.

For a moment it seemed as if a revolution would have restored him

to power. But the Parisians were weary of their tyrant, and on the

following day Robespierre with twenty members of the Commune perished

on the scaffold (July 28th, 1794).

No sooner had Collot d'Herbois, Barrère, and that party triumphed

over Robespierre than they summoned the members of the tribunal to

their bar--ay, on the very morning of the day of his execution--and

voted them honours amid much applause. The tribunal replied, that

though a few traitors like Coffinhal and Dumas had found their way

into the tribunal, the majority of them were sound and devoted to the

Convention. Accordingly, the next day the Convention handed over to

Fouquier-Tinville and his colleagues a list of fresh proscriptions of

sixty-nine municipals, and a few days afterwards--namely, the 12th of

Thermidor, being the 30th of July--they added twelve more, completing

eighty-one victims! These were all executed within twenty-four hours.

The Convention then fell into new divisions, some members contending

for its being time to cease these tragedies, others insisting on

maintaining them. Billaud-Varennes, Barrère, and Collot d'Herbois

defended the guillotine and Fouquier-Tinville, but the greater number

of the enemies of Robespierre denounced them, declared themselves the

overthrowers of Robespierre, and assumed the name of Thermidorians,

in honour of the month in which they had destroyed him. For the

Thermidorians saw that the better part of the public had become sick

of blood, and they set about contracting the Reign of Terror. They

reduced the powers of the two governing Committees; they decreed that

one-fourth of the members should go out every month; they reduced

the revolutionary sections of Paris from forty-eight to twelve, and

abolished the forty sous a day to the sansculotte patriots for their

attendance. A month after the execution of Robespierre, Tallien made a

fierce onslaught on the Terrorist system, and declared that there were

numbers yet living who had been equally merciless with Robespierre,

Couthon, and St. Just; and the next day Lecointre denounced by name

Barrère, Billaud-Varennes, and Collot d'Herbois. To put an end to the

Jacobin resistance, the Convention closed the Jacobin Club altogether,

which had thus only survived the fall of Robespierre about four

months. Thereupon the Jacobins began to denounce the Thermidorians as

anti-Republicans, but they retorted that they were Republicans of the

purest school--that of Marat.

[Illustration: PARIS UNDER THE REIGN OF TERROR: A VAIN APPEAL. (_After

the Picture by Paul Svedomsky_)]

Whilst these frightful horrors were taking place, Russia, Prussia, and

Austria had been completing the extinction of Poland. An ill-advised

attempt by the Poles for the recovery of their country had precipitated

this event. The Russian Minister in Poland had ordered the reduction

of the little army of that country, under its now almost nominal king,

Stanislaus Augustus, from thirty thousand to fifteen thousand. The

Poles resented this, without considering that they were unable, at the

moment, to resist it. Kosciusko was appointed Commander-in-Chief, and

he issued an order for the rising of the people in every quarter of

Poland, and for their hastening to his flag. At first, the enthusiasm

of the call to liberty and to the rescue of the common country gave

some brilliant successes. Kosciusko, on his march from Cracow to

Warsaw, at the head of only four thousand men, encountered a Russian

army of upwards of twelve thousand, and defeated it with a slaughter

of three thousand of the enemy. On the 17th of March, 1794, the Polish

troops in Warsaw attacked the Russian garrison, eight thousand strong,

and slaughtering more than half of them, drove the rest out of the

city, and Kosciusko marched in soon afterwards. A week later the

population of Lithuania, Kosciusko's native province, rose, and drove

the Russians with much slaughter from Wilna, its capital. But this

could not save Poland: its three mighty oppressors were pouring down

their multitudinous legions on every portion of the doomed country. The

Emperor of Austria marched an army into Little Poland at the end of

June, and an army of fifty thousand Russians and Prussians was in full

march on Warsaw. For a time, Kosciusko repulsed them, and committed

great havoc upon them on the 27th of July; again, on the 1st and

3rd of August. At the same time, Generals Dombrowski, Prince Joseph

Poniatowski, and other Polish generals, were victorious in different

quarters, and the King of Prussia was compelled to draw off his army,

forty thousand strong, from Warsaw, in order to recover Great Poland.

This gleam of success on the part of the Poles, however, was but

momentary. Their army in Lithuania, commanded by corrupt, gambling,

and gormandising nobles, was beaten at all points by the Russians,

and driven out of Wilna on the 12th of August. At the same time, the

savage Suvaroff, the man who had cried "Glory to God and the Empress!"

over the ruthless massacre of Ismail, was marching down on Warsaw.

Kosciusko had unwisely weakened his army by sending a strong detachment

under Dombrowski into Great Poland, and, attacking a Russian force

under Count Fersen, at Macziewice, about fifty miles from Warsaw, on

the 17th of September, he was utterly routed. He had only about twenty

thousand men, whilst Fersen had at least sixty thousand. But Kosciusko

was anxious to prevent the arrival of Suvaroff before the engagement,

and thus rushed into battle with this fatal inequality of strength. He

was left for dead on the field, but was discovered to be alive, and

was sent prisoner to St. Petersburg, where he was confined till the

accession of the Emperor Paul, who set him at liberty. The fall of

Kosciusko was the fall of Poland. Not even Kosciusko could have saved

it; but this catastrophe made the fatal end obvious and speedy. Still

the Poles struggled on bravely against such overwhelming forces for

some months. The ultimate partition treaty was at length signed on the

24th of October, 1795; some particulars regarding Cracow, however, not

being settled between Prussia and Austria till the 21st of October,

1796. Stanislaus Augustus was compelled to abdicate, and he retired,

after the death of Catherine, to St. Petersburg, with a pension of two

hundred thousand ducats a year. He died there in the month of February,

1798, only about fifteen months after his former mistress, the Czarina.

And thus Poland was blotted out of the map of nations.

In England there had been a coalition of what was called the Portland

section of the Whigs, with Pitt's Ministry. These Whigs had not only

separated from Fox and his friends, but they had, from the first

outbreak of the French Revolution, followed the lead of Burke and

supported all Pitt's measures. The Duke of Portland, therefore, was, in

July, made Third Secretary of State; Lord Fitzwilliam, President of the

Council, and, in December, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; Earl Spencer was

made, at the same time, Lord Privy Seal, and, in December, First Lord

of the Admiralty; Pitt's elder brother, Lord Chatham, being removed for

him, and made Privy Seal; and Windham became Secretary of War in place

of Sir George Yonge.

But this large infusion of Whiggery did not render the Administration

any the more liberal. It was determined to bring the politically

accused, now out on bail, to trial. On the 6th of October true bills

were found by the grand jury of Middlesex against Thomas Hardy,

the secretary of the Corresponding Society, John Horne Tooke, John

Augustus Bonney, Stewart Kyd, the Rev. Jeremiah Joyce, Thomas Wardle,

Thomas Holcroft, John Richter, Matthew Moore, John Thelwall, Richard

Hodgson, and John Baxter, for high treason. Hardy was put upon his

trial first at the Old Bailey, October 29th, before Chief Justice

Eyre, a judge of noted severity, Chief Baron Macdonald, Baron Hotham,

Mr. Justice Buller, and Mr. Justice Grose, with other judges. Sir

John Scott, afterwards Lord Eldon, as Attorney-General, opened the

case against him in a speech of nine hours. In this he laboured to

represent the Corresponding Society, and Hardy as its secretary, as

guilty of a treasonable intercourse with the French revolutionists,

and read numbers of documents expressing great admiration of the

French institutions. But these were merely the documents which had

long and openly been published by the Society, and were well known

through insertion in the newspapers. There was nothing clandestine

about them, nothing suggestive of a concealed and dangerous conspiracy.

Their invariable burthen was the thorough reform of Parliament, and

the utter disfranchisement of the rotten boroughs, by which the whole

representation of the country was transferred to the aristocracy. Next

a strong attempt was made to connect the secretary of the Society with

the men lately condemned in Scotland, especially Margarot, with whom,

as all undoubtedly engaged in the same object of Reform, Hardy, as

secretary, had considerable correspondence. The whole failed to impress

an English jury, and Hardy was acquitted after a trial of eight days.