off the same port, and learnt that Nelson had sailed away in search of him. Nelson had returned to Sicily. The Sultan was at peace with France; a French minister was at Constantinople. Such trifling formalities in the laws of nations were little respected by Bonaparte. Four thousand of the French army were landed, and marched in three columns to the attack of Alexandria. It was quickly taken by assault. Bonaparte announced that he came neither to ravage the country, nor to question the authority of the Grand Seignor, but to put down the domination of the Mamlooks, who tyrannized over the people by the authority of the Beys. The fleet of Brueys remained at anchor in the harbour of Aboukir. Leaving a garrison of three thousand men in Alexandria, Bonaparte commenced his march to Cairo, through the desert of Damanhour, leading thirty thousand men-to each of whom he had promised to grant seven acres of fertile land in the conquered territories-through plains of sand without a drop of water. At Rahmameh, a flotilla, laden with provisions, baggage, and artillery, awaited them. The Mamlooks, with Mourad Bey at their head, were around the French. The invaders had to fight with enemies who came upon them in detach. ments; gave a fierce assault; and then fled. Mourad Bey was encamped, with twelve thousand Mamlooks and eight thousand mounted Bedouins, on the west bank of the Nile and opposite Cairo. The French had to sustain a fierce attack, but, in spite of the desperate courage of this formidable cavalry, the steadiness of the disciplined soldiery of the army of Italy repelled every assault; and after a tremendous loss Mourad Bey retreated towards Upper Egypt. His intrenched camp was forced. amidst a fearful carnage. The conquerors had no difficulty in obtaining possession of Cairo. Ibrahim Bey evacuated the city, which on the 25th of July Bonaparte entered. He now addressed himself to the principal scheiks, and obtained from them a declaration in favour of the French. On the 25th of July Nelson sailed from Syracuse, where he had been allowed to victual his fleet through the interposition of lady Hamilton, the wife of our minister at Naples. It was three days before he gained any intelligence of the French fleet, and he then made all sail for Alexandria. On the 1st of August he beheld the tri-coloured flag flying upon its walls. The fleet of admiral Brueys was at anchor in the bay of Aboukir, the transports and other small vessels were within the harbour. The French admiral had moored his ships in what he judged the best position; "at a distance from each other of about a hundred and sixty yards, with the van-ship close to a shoal on the north-west, and the whole of thel ine just outside a fourfathom sand-bank; so that an enemy, it was considered, could not turn either flank.' The number of ships in the two fleets was nearly equal, but four of the French were of larger size. At three o'clock in the afternoon the British squadron was approaching the bay, with a manifest intention of giving battle. By six o'clock Nelson's line was formed, without any precise regard to the succession of the vessels according to established forms. The shoal at the western extremity of the bay was rounded by eleven of the British squadron. The two van-ships of the French opened James-"Naval History." A.D. 1798. NELSON'S VICTORY IN ABOUKIR BAY. 731 their fire upon these vessels, but they were soon disabled. Four other British ships also took their stations inside the French line. Nelson, in the Vanguard, followed by five of his seventy-fours, anchored on the outer side of the enemy. When darkness fell, five of the French ships had surrendered. The Vanguard had been engaged with the Spartiate and the Aquilon. Her loss was severe. A splinter had struck Nelson on the head, and the effusion of blood being very great, his wound was held to be dangerous, if not mortal, by the anxious shipmates around him. The busy surgeons left their wounded, to bestow their care upon the first man of the fleet. "No," said Nelson, "I will take my turn with my brave fellows." The wound was found to be superficial. He was carried to his cabin, and left alone, amidst the din of the battle. Suddenly the cry was heard that l'Orient, the French flag-ship of 120 guns, was on fire. Nelson groped his way to the deck, and gave his orders that his boats should be lowered to proceed to the help of the burning vessel. At ten o'clock l'Orient blew up, the conflagration having lasted nearly an hour. About seventy only of the crew were saved by the English boats. The shock of the explosion injured some of our ships, but none of them took fire. Admiral Brueys had fallen, and had died the death of a brave man on his deck. The battle was resumed by the French ship, the Franklin; and it went on, at intervals, till daybreak. The contest was sustained by four French line-of-battle ships, and four of the English. Finally, two of the French line-of-battle ships and two frigates escaped. Of thirteen sail of the line, nine were taken, two were burned. Of the British, about nine hundred men were killed and wounded. About three thousand French prisoners were sent on shore. Kleber, the French general, wrote to Napoleon, "The English have had the disinterestedness to restore everything to their prisoners.' The victory of Nelson formed the great subject of congratulation in the royal speech, when the Session was opened on the 20th of November. Out of this victory new hopes were to arise-vain hopes, which statesmen formed in the enthusiasm of success. The system of buying hollow alliances was to be renewed again and again. On the 29th of December, 1798, a treaty was concluded between Great Britain and Russia. Russia was, of course, to be subsidized. On the 3rd of December Mr Pitt gave an estimate of the amount of Supply required. The total was upwards of twenty-nine millions. The estimate of 1793 was sixteen millions. To meet this everincreasing expenditure all sorts of devices of direct taxation had been resorted to. Mr. Pitt now proposed, for the first time in the history of British finance, an Income Tax-a tax of 10 per cent., commencing with incomes above 601. a year, but in a reduced ratio from 60l. to 2007. The measure was passed without any division in either House. Fox had, some time before, seceded from Parliament. CHAPTER LV. IN 1794, earl Fitzwilliam became lord-lieutenant of Ireland. On his arrival in Dublin, in January, 1795, he immediately displaced, with com. pensation, some of the holders of office who were the most hostile to the plan which he contemplated for the government of Ireland. On the 12th of February, Grattan obtained leave, in the Irish House of Commons, to bring in a bill for the repeal of all the remaining disqualifications of Catholics. A fortnight later, earl Fitzwilliam was recalled, and earl Camden appointed in his place. The moderate Catholics anticipated the most disastrous results from a measure so decided on the part of the British cabinet. On the 15th of May, 1797, Mr. Ponsonby brought forward a motion for the fundamental reform of the Representation. The general evils of the Representation in Ireland were similar in principle to those of England. "Of three hundred members, above two hundred are returned by individuals; from forty to fifty are returned by ten persons; several of the boroughs have no resident elector at all; and, on the whole, two-thirds of the representatives in the House of Commons are returned by less than one hundred persons.* Mr. Ponsonby proposed the abolition of all disabilities on account of religion. The government rejected the measure. The Whig leaders then seceded from the House of Commons, and the people were left to be acted upon by those who would have handed over their country to the French Directory. A most formidable association was organized under the denomination of United Irishmen. The executive power of this extensive organisation was a Directory. Its five members were Arthur O'Connor, lord Edward Fitzgerald, Oliver Bond, a merchant, Dr. Mae Nevin, a Catholic gentleman, and Thomas Addis Emmett, a barrister. "Many thousands, I am assured," writes Dr. Hussey to Burke, "are weekly sworn through the country, in such a secret manner and form as to evade all the law in those cases.' Through 1797 the northern districts were in a disturbed state. Houses were broken into and arms seized by bands of nightly marauders. At funerals, and at gatherings for football and other games, large numbers collected and marched in military array. The government was alarmed; severity and intimidation were alone resorted to; martial law took the place of civil justice. The administrators of martial law were undisciplined troops of yeomanry, headed by ignorant and reckless officers. The plans of a general insurrection were disclosed to the Irish government, and arrests of the Leinster delegates, and of Bond, MacNevin, and Emmett were effected in March, 1798. O'Connor and O'Coigley (a priest) were in England, discussing plans of sedition with "The London Corresponding Society." They were arrested on a charge of high treason, and were tried at Maidstone on the 21st of May, when O'Connor was acquitted, and O'Coigley was convicted, and was executed. The vacancies in the Irish Directory were filled up, and a general rising on * Grattan's Speech, Feb. 11, 1793. A.D. 1798. OUTBREAK OF THE UNITED IRISHMEN. 733 the 23rd of May was determined upon. Lord Edward Fitzgerald had remained concealed for two months. On the 19th of May, he was shot in resisting a warrant for his arrest, and died of his wounds on the 5th of June. In the meantime the insurrection broke out in the immediate neighbourhood of Dublin. A night attack on the city was projected by the United Irishmen. Two brothers, of the name of Sheares, and other chiefs, were arrested on the 23rd of May. A large number of insurgents were collecting on the north and south of the metropolis. An immediate attack was expected. The garrison and the yeomanry were under arms during that night, stationed in the cattle-market. The rebels, however, had learnt that the yeomanry of Dublin were ready to receive them, and deferred their attack, after destroying the mail-coaches that were approaching the city. Skirmishes between bands of rebels and the soldiery were then taking place daily. Martial law was proclaimed. The insurrection appeared to be somewhat quelled, when it broke out with unexpected fury in the county of Wexford. The rebels were generally successful when they fought in small bodies, but the system of these armed bands was little fitted for encounters with regular troops. They were in want of ammunition. Round stones and balls of hardened clay were the substitutes for bullets. By a rapid onset they sometimes seized the cannon of the royal troops, which they contrived to fire with lighted wisps of straw. They chose their stations on hills with a commanding prospect. Here they slept in the open air, both sexes intermingled, for many women were amongst them. Their commissariat was of the rudest description. Wexford surrendered to the insurgents on the 30th of May; but it was retaken by sir John Moore on the 21st of June. The principal battles were those of Arklow, Ross, and Vinegar Hill, near Enniscorthy, which town had surrendered to the rebels. On the 21st of June general Lake attacked the main body of the rebels at Vinegar Hill; dispersed them; and they never again rallied. The desolation of the districts to which this rebellion was confined, and particularly that of the county of Wexford, was excessive. The massacres, the military executions, were frightful. No quarter was given to the rebels; and when the contest assumed the sanguinary character of a religious warfare, the cry of revenge on "the bloody Orange dogs" was the signal for excesses which can better be imagined than described. Earl Camden had been recalled, to give place to marquis Cornwallis, who arrived in Dublin on the 20th of June. One of his first acts was to interfere to prevent the rash and often unjust severities of inferior officers of the militia and yeomanry. He further used his utmost endeavour "to suppress the folly which has been too prevalent in this quarter, of substituting the word Catholicism instead of Jacobinism, as the foundation of the present rebellion." Neither Catholicism nor Jacobinism was sufficient to have caused the revolt of several hundred thousands of the peasantry, both Catholics and Protestants, had there not been the great social evil of Landlordism-the tyranny of the landlords, and the wretched condition of the tenants to make men ready to fight for some vague good which was to be effected under a new order of things. On the 22nd of August a French squadron of three frigates landed eleven hundred men, under the command of general Humbert, in the bay of Killala, in the county of Mayo. The French Directory had purposed to send a second division of six thousand men, but some financial derange ments prevented its embarkation. General Hutchinson had assembled two or three thousand men at Castlebar. The French, with a large number of the country people, advanced to the attack; and "began a rapid charge with the bayonet in very loose order. At this moment the Galway volunteers, the Kilkenny and Longford militias, ran away."* In their precipitate retreat the depredations these men committed on the road exceeded all description; and they raised a spirit of discontent and disaffection which did not before exist in that party of the country. Upon learning that the French had landed, lord Cornwallis assembled some troops of the line, and made a rapid march from Dublin, so arranging his forces that he could cover the country, and afford an opportunity of rallying to any small bodies of soldiery that might be defeated. Humbert, after the affair of Castlebar, had moved into the heart of the country; and on the 8th of September had reached Ballynamuck, in the county of Longford. Here he was encountered by the troops under general Lake, and after an action of half an hour, the French surrendered at discretion. On the 16th of September a French brig landed Napper Tandy and some men on the north-west coast of Donegal. He issued manifestoes; but found that he had arrived too late. On the 11th of October, the armament that was intended to co-operate with Humbert appeared off the coast of Donegal. The squadron consisted of a seventy-four gun-ship, eight frigates, and two smaller vessels. Sir John Borlase Warren, with a superior force, had pursued the French, and after an engagement of three hours, in which the enemy fought with a desperate bravery, the ship of the line (the Hoche) and one frigate surrendered. The remaining frigates had made all sail to escape; but they were subsequently taken, with the exception of two. On board the Hoche was captured the famous Irish leader, Wolfe Tone. He was tried by court-martial in Dublin; was sentenced to death; cut his throat in prison; and died on the 19th of November. The rebellion was at an end. On the 6th of October an Act of general pardon received the royal assent; its exceptions were very numerous, being calculated to include nearly all the leaders who had taken an active part in the rebellion; but the greater number of these obtained a conditional pardon, and their followers had little to apprehend from the terrors of the law. During the short period of this unhappy conflict, it is calculated that seventy thousand perished, either in the field, by military execution, or by popular vengeance. Of these it is held that fifty thousand were insurgents; and that twenty thousand were soldiers and loyalists. In the king's message to the British parliament on the 22nd of January, 1799, the proposed measure of a Legislative Union with Ireland was first formally announced. A similar announcement, though in less direct terms, was made by the Lord-Lieutenant to the Irish parliament, in the speech from the throne on the same 22nd of January. The question had formed the constant subject of correspondence between the English ministry and lord Cornwallis. In the British parliament there was an *Cornwallis, "Correspondence." |