suspicion suddenly seized the massé, that the Neapolitans meant to desert them in the heat of the engagement, upon which they immediately secured the person of Cancelliere, the general set over them by his Sicilian majesty, and refused to deliver him up, when demanded, to the other generals. Many of the capi or chiefs of the insurgents were men of infamous character, who had justly forfeited their lives to the laws of their country. Pane di Grano, one of the most celebrated of their lead. ers, was a priest, whose crimes had been so enormous, that, though a clergyman, he had been condemned to the galleys. Fra Diavolo, who distinguished himself in the neighbourhood of Naples, had been guilty of robbery and murder. Galley slaves, polluted with every crime and prepared for every atrocity, were collected by order of the court of Palermo, and landed among its former subjects, in order to keep alive the insurrection, and render desperate the hope of accommodation with the enemy. The consequences of employing such agents to conduct the war may be easily imagined. Murder and rapine spread universally over the country, The lawless and vicious combined against the orderly and well.disposed. Those who had property were oppressed and plundered by those who had none, and many victims were sacrificed to private resentment, under the mask and prétence of public duty. The French, irritated by cruelties, which the humanity of sir John Stuart interposed ineffectually to prevent, retaliated on the insurgents with a barbarity equal to their own. Prisoners taken with arms in their hands were shot instantly, on the false and

monstrous pretext, that they were rebels against Joseph Bonaparte. Villages, which refused to admit French troops within their walls, or to pay the contributions demanded from them, were pillaged and burned; and in some atrocious cases, the wretched inhabitants were included, without mercy or distinction, in the conflagration, and, with their wives and children, prevented by French soldiers, from making their escape from the flames that consumed their habitations.

When sir John Stuart returned to Messina from his glorious expedi tion in Calabria, he found lieutenant-general Fox arrived there from Gibraltar, with a commission of commander-in-chief of the British forces in Italy. General Fox took upon him the command of the army on the 29th of July, and immediately appointed sir John Stuart to conduct the war, which he had begun with so much success, in the two Calabrias. This office sir John Stuart most readily undertook, and in the prosecution of it, made a second expedition to Calabria, for the purpose of restoring some degree of order in that country, and repressing the excesses of the massé; but, when sit John Moore, his senior officer, joined the army with reinforcements from England and became, of course, second in command, he preferred returning home to England, to continuing third in command in Italy.

Soon after the arrival of sir John Moore, that gallant and experienced officer was dispatched along the coast to the bay of Naples, to collect information of the state of the country, and to confer with sir Sidney Smith about operations, in which the assistance of the navy

might be wanted. The result of sir John Moore's inquiries was unfavourable to any new expedition to the continent. He found the populace of Naples discontented and ready to attempt an insurrection, if encouraged by the presence of a considerable British army; but, without some prospect of cooperation from the upper part of Italy, he saw no advantage to be gained by encouraging these dispositions; and with respect to the war in Calabria, he was satisfied that, by supplying the people with arms and ammunition and exciting them to insurrection, we were merely organising and keeping alive a predatory civil war, ruinous and destructive to individuals, while it was unattended with any real or permanent benefit to ourselves or to our ally. The information collected by general Fox at Messina, and the conduct of the massé in lower Calabria, coincided with the report of sir John Moore, and determined general Fox to make no expedition to the continent, unless some more favourable opportunity presented itself, and in the mean time to withhold from the massé supplies of arms and ammunition, which they were obviously employing in other uses, than such as a British general could approve of. This determination was far from being acceptable at Palermo, where the court listened greedily to every plan proposed to it for the recovery of Naples, and thought always the Past project laid before it the surest to succeed. The marquis di Circello, who had been appointed minister of foreign affairs on the resignation of sir John Acton, was a person of very middling abilities, but high in favour with the queen, and implicitly devoted to her service.

It was natural for such a minister, desirous of pleasing his sovereign, and indifferent or blind to all other consequences, to propose to the commander of the British forces, to engage, in conjunction with the troops of his Sicilian majesty, in a combined attack upon Naples. A temporary possession of that city, he argued, though it were for twentyfour hours only, if it did no other good, would at least enable their majesties to take vengeance on their rebellious subjects. Such a consideration was not calculated to dispose a British officer in favour of their plan; but there were other reasons, besides the disgust arising from the disclosure of such views, which determined general Fox to express, in the most peremptory manner, his decided disapprobation of the project, and to signify that it was totally impossible for the British army to co-operate in such an expedition.

The preservation of Sicily from the French, the great object for which a British army was stationed in the Mediterranean, was not to be hazarded for the uncertain prospect of recovering the useless and precarious possession of Naples. The season of the year was unfavourable for military operations in Calabria, where it was proposed that the British army should act, while the Neapolitan and Sicilian troops made an attack on Naples. The malaria of Calabria had been fatal to many officers and soldiers engaged in sir John Stuart's expedition; but if so pernicious at Midsummer, how much more destructive was its influence likely to be in the end of autumn, the season when this new expedition was to be attempted. It was no exaggeration to calculate, that after a campaign of three L.2

months

months in so unhealthy a climate, not one half of the army could be expected to be in a state fit for service. But, what was the object for which a British army was thus to be sacrificed, and the island of Sicily deprived of the forces destined for its defence? Supposing the expedition crowned with success and Naples recovered, was there any, the remotest possibility, in the present state of Europe, of the Neapolitan troops being able to maintain their conquest? But, if the recovery of Naples was contemplated as a temporary occupation only, what could be intended by it but the gratification of revenge, by the destruction and plunder of the city and massacre of its inhabitants. But there was no chance of even this degree of success, unless from the effects of surprise and panic among the French; and yet, (such in every view was the unpromising aspect of the affair,) it was certain that before the attempt could be made, the whole plan and details of the expedition would be known at Naples. For the court of Palermo was surrounded by French and Neapolitan emigrants, who found it easy, such was the indiscretion of those entrusted with its secrets, to penetrate into all its designs, which they as regularly communicated to the ministers of Joseph Bonaparte. But, unless the French were taken by surprise, and panic struck by an unexpected insurrection at Naples, little was to be expected from Sicilian and Neapolitan troops acting against them. The Neapolitan and Sicilian soldiers were brave and capable of discipline, but they were ill-officered, ill-appointed, ill cloathed, ill paid, and from bad usage ill affected to their

government. It had been the fatal policy of sir John Acton to discou rage Neapolitan and Sicilian gentlemen from engaging in the military service of their country, by a systematic preference of foreigners to natives in the army, without regard to character or merit, or to any other consideration, but that of not being a natural born subject of his Sicilian majesty. The officers of the Neapolitan army were, therefore, in general, foreigners, and many of them adventurers without education, taken from the lowest ranks and occupations of society. Such men, equally destitute of mi litary talents and experience, as of birth, fortune, acquirements, or probity, brought the profession to which they belonged into discredit; and were contemned for their mean ness, and hated for their dishonest and fraudulent practices by their own soldiers. So little confidence was to be placed in most of them, that when sir John Stuart had Sicilian troops acting under him in Calabria, a British commissary was employed to distribute their rations, as the only means of ensuring that the soldier received his allowance, and that it was not intercepted and detained by his officer. Nothing could exceed the aversion and contempt with which the subjects of his Sicilian majesty viewed the military service of their sovereign; but, though the corporal punishments used in the British army filled them with horror and disgust, as fit only for galley slaves, they were eager to engage in the English service, and proud of being treated and consi dered as English soldiers.

Thwarted in its plan of operations by the refusal of the English ge neral to co-operate in a project,

every part of which he disapproved of, the court of Palermo was ultimately compelled to abandon its designs upon Naples; though it affected for some time an intention of pursuing the enterprize with its own forces, the greater part of which it assembled on the north coast of Sicily, under the prince of Hesse, on pretence of inspecting, arming, and cloathing the troops. But, when the resolution of general Fox not to concur in the expedition, was found to be unalterably fixed, the project was entirely given up, though with much reluctance and ill-humour against the English.

While their Sicilian majesties were thus intent on the recovery of Naples, the importance of Sicily, the resources which it might be made to afford, and the means necessary to be taken for conciliating the affections of its inhabitants, and rousing them against the enemy, seem never to have entered into their contemplation. When the royal family were driven a second time to Sicily for shelter and protection, the Sicilians had vainly imagined, that in return for their assistance and fidelity they would be relieved from jealous and injurious restrictions on their commerce and navigation, and raised to greater weight and consideration in the councils of their sovereign, than they had hitherto attained. Their ancient constitution, the venerable forms of which were still existing, they were desirous to re-establish, and no less attached to the English by ancient traditions than by hatred of the French, they fondly expected from us assistance and countenance

in this great undertaking. But, it has been the misfortune of England, in the long war she has sustained against the different rulers of France,

that, whether contending with a republic, an oligarchy, or a monarchy, she has never had the people of any country on her side. The protectress and champion of the old governments of Europe, she has never availed herself of her power and influence, to mediate between the prejudices and fears of her allies, and the just claims and expectations of their subjects. Kingdom after kingdom has been subdued, throne after throne has been subverted, without teaching governments that there is no safety for them but in the affection of their people, and that the price of affection is to deserve it and return it. Two expulsions from Naples had not impressed these lessons on the court of Palermo. The Sicilians were neglected and despised; their grievances were not redressed; their complaints were not listened to; their government was in the hands of strangers, surrounded by traitors; and the power of England, instead of being extended to their relief, served only to uphold the authority of those who slighted and oppressed them.

As the transactions in Naples had little connection with the scenes passing in the rest of Europe, we have brought down the preceding narrative to the close of the year, without digression or interruption; and for the same reason we shall proceed next to give an account of the affairs in Cattaro and Ragusa between the French and Russians; and afterwards revert to the more important but fatal events in the north of Germany.

Cattaro, a small barren province, situated to the south of Ragusa, derives its value from the excellence of its harbour, which is the largest and safest in the Adriatic; and from

the skill of its seamen, who form the chief part of its population. This province was one of those transferred to France by the peace of Presburg, by the articles of which it was stipulated that France should take possession of Cattaro within six weeks after the exchange of the ratification of the treaty. At the expiration of that period, the French officers appointed to receive the province from the Austrians had not arrived at Cattaro. An agent of the court of Russia at Cattaro took advantage of this delay, and succeeded in persuading the inhabitants, who are chiefly Greeks, that France having failed to take possession of the place at the time appointed, Austria was released from the obligation of maintaining it, and justified in withdrawing her troops and leaving it to the first occupant. This reasoning, though satisfactory to the inhabitants of Cattaro, made no impression on the Austrian commandant, who occupied the forts with a garrison of 1500 men, till supported by the irruption of a band of Montenegrins from the mountains, and by the arrival of a Russian line of battle ship from Corfu. The marquis de Ghisilieri, commissary-general of the Austrian army, appointed to deliver up Dalmatia and Cattaro to the French, happened at that moment to arrive at Cattaro, whither he had preceded the French generals, on hear. ing of the mutinous spirit of the inhabitants; but, instead of resisting the Russians and their allies, as with the garrison in the forts he might easily have done till the arrival of the French, he consented, after a short negociation, to evacuate the

place, which was immediately occupied by the natives, and by them transferred to the Russians. This strange transaction took place on the 4th of March, when the French were within a few days march of the place. The Austrian officers in garrison at Cattaro were scandalized at this proceeding, and so indignant with Ghisilieri, that they made a formal protest against the evacuation of the forts; and when the conduct of that officer came afterwards to be enquired into at Vienna, the reasons he assigned for giving up the place appeared so unsatisfactory to the tribunal before which he was tried, that he was dismissed from the im. perial service, and sentenced to be imprisoned for life in a fortress of Transylvania. There can be no doubt, from a review of his conduct in this affair, that he was either bribed by the Russians, or actuated by a false persuasion, that he should render an acceptable service to his court, by frustrating the expectations of the French, without implicating its character or honour in the transaction.

The French, disappointed of Cattaro, with that profligate contempt of the rights of independent states, which so strongly characterizes the transactions of the present day, took possession of Ragusa *, to which they had no claim, on pretence of securing it against the incursions of the Montenegrins, who had not even threatened to violate its territory. The Montenegrins are a barbarous tribe of freebooters, inhabiting the chain of mountains ad joining to Cattaro, from one of which, called Monte-negro, they derive their name. They were at