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328

BONAPARTE'S FIRST ITALIAN CAMPAIGN.

[1796. all the goods belonging to "the enemies of the republic" who had fled to their ships; and levied a contribution of five millions of francs upon the native merchants as the permission for them to keep the other property which had been entrusted to them by English and Portuguese houses. In these odious transactions Bonaparte was the instrument of the Directory; and he sometimes remonstrated against the impolicy of their violence and rapacity, but never against the iniquity. The Austrian government superseded Beaulieu, and sent a gallant veteran, Wurmser, to take the chief command of a new army in Italy. With the old traditional strategical mistake of dividing their forces, whilst the young French general invariably concentrated all his power for attack or defence, the Austrians moved towards Mantua in two separate divisions. Bonaparte attacked and routed the army under general Quasdanowich, and the army under general Wurmser.

But the Austrians were not yet disposed to give up the great struggle. The French main army under Bonaparte was weakened by the necessity of maintaining divisions to blockade Mantua, to occupy Verona and Legnano, and to guard some of the passes of the Tyrol. Another Austrian army of sixty thousand men advanced in two divisions, one under general Alvinzy, the other under general Davidowich. On the 12th of November Bonaparte attacked Alvinzy at Caldiero; but he sustained very heavy loss, and was compelled to retire into Verona. He wrote a desponding letter to the Directory; but that mood was not of long duration. He was one of that order of minds who "out of the nettle, danger, can pluck the flower, safety." On the night of the 4th he marched in silence out of Verona, as if retreating. He moved rapidly by the right bank of the Adige, which he crossed at Ronco, where he had made a temporary bridge. He was now in a marshy tract, between the Adige and the Alpone; which river it was necessary to cross before he could reach Villanova, where the Austrian baggage and stores were stationed, in the rear of Alvinzy's army. One of the causeways of the morass led to the bridge of Arcole. Three times the passage of this bridge was obstinately contested on the 15th of November, Bonaparte himself leading his grenadiers in one of the desperate attempts to contend against the Austrian batteries. For three days this battle of Arcole, the most severe of the Italian war, went on. The third day concluded the terrible conflict, when Alvinzy retreated towards Vicenza. Bonaparte had prevented the junction. of the two Austrian armies. The battle of Arcole made a profound impres sion upon Europe. It ought to have shown the continental powers where their safety lay. It should have taught them a lesson which they too often forgot in a long series of fruitless endeavours: "Matched against a competitor of such extraordinary activity, it was incumbent on them to lay aside the embarrassments of ancient forms and ancient prejudices; and to gird up the skirts of their luxurious and effeminate magnificence.'

The combined operations upon the Rhine of the French generals, Jourdan and Moreau, were not favourable to the Republic. The archduke Charles encountered Jourdan when he had crossed the Rhine in June, and had advanced to Lahn. The French army was driven back, and recrossed Moreau carried his army over the Rhine at Strasbourg,

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AUSTRIAN SUCCESSES IN GERMANY.

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and defeated the Austrian general Latour. The archduke fell back to the Danube. Jourdan, reassured by the operations of Moreau, again advanced towards Bohemia. The archduke fought a battle with Moreau; crossed the Danube; and drove back Jourdan in a series of well-concerted attacks. Moreau, separated by a long interval from Jourdan, and exposed to the assaults of the archduke on his front, and to those of Latour on his rear, ascended the Danube, and accomplished his retreat through the Black Forest. This celebrated movement saved his army from an imminent danger. After fighting several battles, Moreau finally reached Strasbourg. The wonderful success of Bonaparte in Italy is partly to be attributed to the contempt in which he held the orders of the Directory. The pian of the German campaign. was laid down in Paris, and hence its failure.

The successes of the Austrians in Germany appeared to the English government more important than the career of Bonaparte in Italy. Lord Grenville thought in September, that if Moreau were "dispatched, and that quickly, there will be time and means to make Bonaparte suffer severely for his late advanced move." Our situation, he considered, was very much improved. The moment was deemed favourable to open negotiations with the French Directory for peace; although some previous overtures had been contemptuously received. Lord Malmesbury was appointed as plenipotentiary on the part of his Britannic majesty, and he arrived in Paris on the 22nd of October. Burke held that any attempt to negotiate for "a Regicide Peace " was a disgrace and a humiliation for England. He wrote under the full influence of his own enthusiasm, and of the passions of the emigrants by whom he was surrounded. M. Thiers, half a century after 1796, when national prejudices ought to have been softened down by historical truth, adopts as insolent a tone in relating the progress of this negotiation as if the mantle of Barras had descended upon his shoulders. Pitt, he says, demanded passports for an envoy to be sent on the part of Great Britain. Pitt had no real wish for peace; he only wanted to satisfy public opinion; he knew that his terms would not be accepted; but to obtain sixty thousand militia, and fifteen thousand sailors, he would pretend that he had done all he could for peace-" son possible pour traiter." Without the hope of obtaining peace, he made an advance towards the Directory. Thus M. Thiers repeats, in almost the same words, the mean insinuations with which the Directory announced to the Council of Five Hundred the proposal of Great Britain to negotiate. He adds, "this surprising step of the most implacable enemy of our republic was a glory for her. The English aristocracy was thus reduced to demand peace from the regicide republic."+ The historian of "the Revolution" has taken as little pains to look at the authentic relations of this episode of diplomacy, as he has taken to understand the family name of the negotiator chosen by Pitt, when he calls him "lord Malmesbury, autrefois sir Harry." ‡

For nearly four years the condition of France, as exhibited in the appearance of the country, had been as little known to the English as Japan. Lord Malmesbury had his eyes open, and Mr. Talbot, a gentleman connected with

"Court and Cabinets of George III.," vol. iii. p. 351.

Thiers, livre xxxiv,

‡ Sir James Harris was raised to the peerage as Earl of Malmesbury.

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NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE-DEATH OF CATHARINE II. [1796.

the embassy, has left a very interesting account of what he observed. Many of the houses on the road from Calais to Paris were shut up; very few of the churches appeared to be open; but the land throughout was in a state of high cultivation, though there were comparatively few men at work. The farmers had become wealthy proprietors, by receiving depreciated assignats for their produce, and buying estates-national domains-with that paper money, at the sum which it represented. In Paris the streets were crowded, the shops tolerably well supplied, the theatres well attended, some private carriages, and a great number of public vehicles: "All this," says the sensible attaché, "brought to my reflection how very difficult a matter it must be to destroy a great country."*

It would be tedious to follow the course of this negotiation. Lord Malmesbury arrived at Paris on the 22nd of October; he left Paris on the 21st of December. The points of difference between the two governments were too serious to be overcome by any anxiety of the prime minister of Great Britain for peace, even if the French Directory, rendered more warlike than ever by the successes of Bonaparte, could have regarded the real welfare of France more than its false glories. Lord Malmesbury required, as a sine quá non, that the Netherlands should not be annexed to France. M. Delacroix, the French minister for Foreign Affairs, held that the banks of the Rhine were the natural limits of France. It was in vain to diplomatize. Mr. Pitt had to call upon his country for new sacrifices, and the French Directory had to send new armies to seize the means of subsistence in the lands which Bonaparte was revolutionizing.

At a period of less public excitement than was occasioned by other events which marked the close of the year 1796, the death of Catharine II., Empress of Russia, on the 10th of November, and the retirement of Washington from the Presidency of the United States, in December, would have been fruitful sources of political speculation. The sudden decease of Catharine, who for thirty-six years had been the autocrat of all the Russias, was in some degree a triumph for the French republic; and that event probably decided the Directory in suddenly breaking off the negotiation for peace with England. She was preparing to take part in the coalition against France. Her successor, Paul, was inclining to the French interests. The retirement of Washington interrupted the continuance of that system of neutrality by which he had preserved the American republic from the dangers attendant upon the extreme opinions of the federalist and the democratic parties-the one disposed, however timidly, to take part with England in the great European crisis; the other, of which Jefferson was the head, manifesting hostility to the mother-country and favour to France, in a manner that savoured more of evil passions than of wise statesmanship. Washington regarded with alarm the Societies, modelled upon the Jacobin clubs, which had sprung up in the United States; and his expression of this feeling produced in the democratic party a violent hostility to the treaty which had been concluded under his auspices with Great Britain in 1795. Washington's retirement was preceded by manifestations of party spirit against the policy

* "Court, &c., of George III.," vol. iii. p. 355.

1796.] RETIREMENT OF WASHINGTON-FRENCH FLEET IN BANTRY BAY. 331

of the great founder and preserver of the republic. Had his nature been different had his ambition been less under the control of his virtue,-he might have taken up the sword, and, sweeping away his enemies, have raised himself to supreme power upon the ruins of his country's liberty. He retired to his estate of Mount Vernon, to pass the rest of his days as a private citizen. At this period, the young conqueror of Italy was meditating upon plans of rising to what some would deem the pinnacle of human greatness. His scheme of glory was accomplished. He founded a military despotism. Washington's scheme of glory was also realized. He had been a ruler of free men-ruling by the power of law. He laid down his authority when he had done the work to which he was called, most happy in this, that ambition of a selfish order could never be justified by his example.

On the 17th of December, two days before lord Malmesbury left Paris, an expedition went out from Brest, consisting of seventeen sail of the line and thirteen frigates. Its destination was Ireland, with an army of twenty thousand men, under the command of Hoche, who had succeeded in the pacification of La Vendée. A great storm dispersed this formidable fleet. A portion of the squadron entered Bantry Bay on the 24th of December. It consisted of seven sail of the line and ten smaller vessels. The general who was to advance with the troops into the interior-who was to support the disaffected, and revolutionize the government-had been separated from the rest of the armament. The officers who were with the troops in Bantry Bay were desirous to effect a landing. The admiral refused to comply with their requisition, and sailed back to Brest. The other divisions of the French fleet also sought to return. Several ships were captured, and others reached the French ports in a shattered condition. Some amongst our statesmen knew the danger, if such a landing as that contemplated by the Directory had been effected. Lord Mornington wrote, in September, "My great fear is a blow in Ireland, before sufficient preparation has been made for our defence in that most vulnerable, and at the same time mortal, part."* Lord Malmesbury, in the middle of November, gave an intimation to lord Grenville that an expedition was meditated against Ireland; that the troops were encouraged to embark by the most exaggerated reports of the temper of the country. Loyal Irishmen were grateful that "the goodness of Providence to us has exhibited a second armada." But even loyal men inquired why the coast had been left wholly unprotected by our fleet for seventeen days; why admiral Colpoys could not follow the French fleet, for want of water and provisions; why lord Bridport was lying at Spithead, not even ready for sea, instead of being off Ushant ?" †

* "Life of Sidmouth," vol. ii, p. 474.

+ Ibid.

p. 181.

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Landing of French in Pembrokeshire-Commercial Distrust-Run upon the Banks-Suspension of Cash Payments by the Bank of England-Extension of the National Industry-War with Spain-Battle of St. Vincent-Nelson boards and takes two ships-Discontent in the Navy-Mutiny at Spithead-Mutiny at the Nore-Proceedings in Parliament-Negotiations at Lisle for Peace-Bonaparte's triumphs in Italy-Revolution at Paris of the Eighteenth Fructidor-End of the Negotiations at Lisle-The "Anti-Jacobin."

THE public expectation of a peace, as the result of the negotiations at Paris, passed into an apprehension of an invasion by France, for which the Directory had been making preparations whilst these negotiations were lingering on. The descent upon Ireland failed, as we have seen. But the fact that a large fleet could cross the Channel from Brest, and a portion of the armament prepare to land on the south-west coast of Cork, shook the national confidence in the power of our navy to protect our shores. On Saturday, the 25th of February, the Secretary of State informed the Lord Mayor of London that four French ships had appeared in the Bristol Channel, and had anchored in the harbour of Ilfracombe; that on the 23rd about twelve hundred men had been landed on the east coast of Pembrokeshire; and that a strong force having been collected by the Lord Lieutenant of the county, the invaders had surrendered at discretion. This absurd

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