Chapter X: The Mediterranean From 1799 to 1801 (1)

BONAPARTE'S SYRIAN EXPEDITION AND SIEGE OF ACRE.—THE INCURSION OF THE FRENCH BREST FLEET UNDER ADMIRAL BRUIX.—BONAPARTE'S RETURN TO FRANCE.—THE FRENCH LOSE MALTA AND EGYPT.

After the destruction of his fleet, Bonaparte resumed the task of subduing and organizing Egypt, which had by that misfortune become more than ever essential to his projects. In the original conception of his eastern adventure the valley of the Nile had borne a twofold part. It was, in the first place, to become a permanent acquisition of France, the greatest of her colonies,—great not only by its own natural resources, susceptible as was believed of immense development, but also by its singular position, which, to a power controlling the Mediterranean waters, gave the military and commercial link between the eastern and western worlds. To France, bereft of the East and the West Indies, childless now of her richest colonies, Egypt was to be the great and more than equal compensation. But this first object obtained, though in itself a justification, was but the necessary step to the more dazzling, if not more useful, achievement of the destruction of the British power in India, and the creation there of an empire tributary to France. "Thus, on the one side Egypt would replace San Domingo and the Antilles; on the other, she would be a step towards the conquest of India."[227]

Measured by the successes of a few handfuls of British in the empire of the Moguls, the army brought by Bonaparte into Egypt was more than able to subdue that country, and to spread far and wide the obedience to the French arms. Like the founders of the British Indian Empire, the French general found himself face to face, not only with military institutions incomparably weaker and less cohesive than those of Europe, but with a civil society—if such it can be called—from which the element of mutual confidence, and with it the power of combined resistance, had disappeared. The prestige of success, the knowledge that he could command the services of a body of men superior in numbers as in disciplined action to any aggregation of units that could be kept steadily together to oppose him, was sufficient to insure for him the supremacy that concentrated force will always have over diffused force, organized power over unorganized. In military matters two and two do not make four, unless they are brought together in concerted action. Unfortunately, at the very moment of the most brilliant demonstration of his genius and of the valor of his troops, there had fallen upon one part of his command a reverse more startling, more absolute, than his own victories, and inflicted by a force certainly not superior to the one defeated. The Orientals, who could count upon no sufficient stay in men of their own race, now saw hopes of succor from without. They were not disappointed. Again a British naval captain, in the moment of triumphant progress, stopped the advance of Bonaparte.

The autumn and early winter of 1798 were passed in the conquest and overrunning of upper Egypt by Desaix, who left Cairo for this purpose on the 25th of August, and in the settlement of the affairs of the lower Nile upon such a basis as would secure quiet and revenue during the absence of the commander-in-chief. An insurrection in Cairo in October, provoked partly by dissatisfaction with intended changes, partly by the rumor of the Porte having declared war upon France, gave Bonaparte in quelling it an opportunity to show the iron firmness of his grip, and afterwards to manifest that mixture of unrelenting severity towards the few with politic lenity towards the many, which is so well calculated to check the renewal of commotion.

In November, when the weather became cooler, a detachment of fifteen hundred men was sent to occupy Suez, and toward the end of December Bonaparte himself made a visit of inspection to the isthmus, by which he must advance to the prosecution of his larger schemes. While thus absent he learned, through an intercepted courier, that Djezzar, the Pasha of Syria, had on the 2d of January, 1799, occupied the important oasis of El Arish in the desert of Suez, and was putting its fort in a state of defence.[228] He at once realized that the time had come when he must carry out his project of advance into Syria, and accept the hostility of Turkey, which he had wished to avoid.

The singular position of isolation in which the French in Egypt were placed, by the loss of the control of the sea, must be realized, in order to understand the difficulties under which Bonaparte labored in shaping his course of action, from time to time, with reference to the general current of events. Separated from Palestine by two hundred miles of desert, and by a yet wider stretch of barren sand from any habitable land to the west, Egypt is aptly described by Napoleon himself as a great oasis, surrounded on all sides by the desert and the sea. The intrinsic weakness of the French navy, its powerlessness to command security for its unarmed vessels in the Mediterranean, had been manifested by the tremor of apprehension and uncertainty which ran through the officials at Toulon and in Paris, when, after the sailing of Bonaparte, they learned of Nelson's appearance. The restless activity of the British admiral, and the frequent sight of his ships in different places, multiplied, in the imagination of the French authorities, the numbers of hostile cruisers actually on the sea.[229] A convoy of twenty-six large ships, for the completion of whose lading the expedition could not wait, lay in Toulon during the summer months, ready to sail; but no one dared to despatch them. From time to time during the outward voyage Bonaparte sent urgent messages for their speedy departure; but they never came.

If this fear existed and exercised such sway before the day of the Nile, it may be imagined how great was the influence of that disastrous tidings. Not only, however, did a moral effect follow, but the annihilation of the French fleet permitted the British cruisers to scatter, and so indefinitely increased the real danger of capture to French ships. Surrounded by deserts and the sea, the commander-in-chief in Egypt saw, on and beyond both, nothing but actual or possible enemies. Not only so, but being in utter ignorance of the attitude of most of the powers as well as of European events, he could not know what bad effect might result from action taken by him upon imperfect information. His embarrassment is vividly depicted in a letter dated December 17, 1798: "We are still without news from France, not a courier has arrived since July 6; this is unexampled even in the colonies."[230] The courier mentioned, leaving France in July, had reached Bonaparte on the 9th of September; but the vessel which brought him had been obliged to run ashore to escape the British cruisers, and only one letter from the Directory was saved.[231] The next tidings came on the 5th of February, when a Ragusan ship, chartered by two French citizens, succeeded in entering Alexandria. "The news," he said, "is sufficiently contradictory; but it is the first I have had since July 6." He then first learned definitely that Turkey had declared war against France.[232] His troops were at that moment in the desert, marching upon Syria, and he himself on the point of following them.

Up to that time Bonaparte had hoped to cajole the Porte into an attitude of neutrality, upon the plea that his quarrel was solely with the Mamelukes on account of injury done by them to French commerce. On the 11th of December he had sent to Constantinople a M. Beauchamp, recently consul at Muscat, with instructions how to act in the twofold contingency of war having been declared or not. At that time he expected that Talleyrand would be found in Constantinople as Ambassador of France.[233] The news by the Ragusan enlightened him as to the actual relations with Turkey; but the disquieting rumors before received, coinciding with his ultimate purpose to advance upon India through Syria, had already determined him to act as the military situation demanded.[234] He had learned that troops were assembling in Syria and in the island of Rhodes, and divined that he was threatened with a double invasion,—by the desert of Suez and by the Mediterranean Sea. True to his sound and invariable policy, he determined to use his central position to strike first one and then the other, and not passively to wait on the defensive until a simultaneous attack might compel him to divide his force. During the violent winter weather, which would last yet for six weeks or two months, landing on the Egyptian coast was thought impracticable.[235] For that period, probably for longer, he could count upon security on the side of the sea. He would improve the interval by invading Syria, driving back the enemy there, breaking up his army, and seizing his ports. Thus he would both shut the coast to the British cruisers off Alexandria, which drew supplies from thence, and make impossible any future invasion from the side of the desert. He counted also upon the moral effect which success in Syria would have upon the negotiations with the Porte, which he conceived to be in progress.[236]

The first essential point in the campaign was to possess El Arish, just occupied by the troops of Djezzar. General Reynier advanced against it with his division on the 5th of February, 1799. The Turks were by him routed and driven from the oasis, and the fort besieged. Bonaparte himself arrived on the 15th, and on the 20th the garrison capitulated. The corps destined for the expedition, numbering in all thirteen thousand men, having now assembled, the advance from El Arish began on the 22d. On the 25th Gaza was taken. On the 3d of March the army encamped before Jaffa, and on the 7th the place was carried by storm. A port, though a very poor one, was thus secured. The next day there entered, from Acre, a convoy of Turkish coasters laden with provisions and ammunition, which fell a welcome prize to the French, and was sent back to Hayfa, a small port seven miles south of Acre, for the use of the troops upon arrival. On the 12th of March the army resumed its march upon Acre, distant about sixty miles. On the 17th, at five in the afternoon, a detachment entered and held Hayfa, to provide a place of safety for the flotilla, which, coasting the beach, slowly followed the advance of the troops. From Hayfa Bonaparte could see the roadstead of Acre, and lying there two British ships-of-the-line, the "Tigre" and the "Theseus," both under the command of Sir Sidney Smith, the captain of the former; who, as ranking officer on the spot, represented the naval power of Great Britain, about again to foil the plans of the great French leader.

Sir Sidney Smith, to whom now fell the distinguished duty of meeting and stopping the greatest general of modern times, was a man who has left behind him a somewhat singular reputation, in which, and in the records commonly accessible, it is not always easy to read his real character. He was not liked by St. Vincent nor by Nelson, and their feeling towards him, though much intensified by the circumstances under which he now came to the Mediterranean, seems to have depended upon their previous knowledge of his history. The First Lord, in assigning him to this duty, felt obliged to take an almost apologetic tone to Earl St. Vincent. "I am well aware," he wrote, "that there may perhaps be some prejudices, derived from certain circumstances which have attended this officer's career through life; but, from a long acquaintance with him personally, I think I can venture to assure your lordship that, added to his unquestioned character for courage and enterprise, he has a great many good points about him, which those who are less acquainted with him may not be sufficiently apprised of. I have no doubt you will find him a very useful instrument to be employed on any hazardous or difficult service, and that he will be perfectly under your guidance, as he ought to be."[237] In the concluding sentence Earl Spencer sums up Sir Sidney's real character, as far as it can be discerned in the dim light of the recorded facts—or rather in the false lights which have exaggerated some circumstances and distorted others. He was bold and enterprising to Quixotism; he was a most useful instrument; but so far from having no doubt, the First Lord must have had very serious, if unacknowledged, doubts as to how far he would be under the guidance of St. Vincent, or any one else, out of signal distance. A self-esteem far beyond what the facts warranted, a self-confidence of the kind which does not inspire confidence in others, an exaggerated view of his own importance and of his own services, which was apt to show itself in his bearing and words,[238]—such seem to have been the traits that alienated from Sir Sidney Smith the esteem of his contemporaries, until his really able, as well as most gallant, conduct at Acre showed that there was more in him than the mere vainglorious knight-errant. His behavior even there has been distorted, alike by the malevolence of Napoleon and by the popular adulation in Great Britain, which, seizing upon the brilliant traits of energy and valor he exhibited, attributed to him the whole conduct of the siege;[239] whereas, by entrusting the technical direction of the defence to an experienced engineer, he made proof of a wisdom and modesty for which few of his contemporaries would have given him credit. At this time Smith had received some severe snubbings, which, administered by men of the standing of St. Vincent and Nelson, could not be disregarded, and may have had a wholesomely sobering effect.

The circumstances of his coming to the Mediterranean were as follows. Having been a prisoner of war in Paris for nearly two years, he escaped through the stratagem of a French royalist, Phélippeaux, about a week before Bonaparte left the city for Toulon.[240] The incidents of his release were dramatic enough in themselves, and, in common with all his adventures, were well noised abroad. He became a very conspicuous figure in the eyes of the government, and of the public outside the navy. In October, 1798, he was given command of the "Tigre," with directions to proceed to Gibraltar and put himself under St. Vincent's orders. At the same time he was appointed minister plenipotentiary to the Porte, being associated in that capacity with his younger brother, Spencer Smith, who was already ambassador at Constantinople; the object being that, with the diplomatic rank thus conferred, he should be able to direct the efforts of the Turkish and Russian forces in the Levant, in case the military officers of those nations were of grade superior to his. This somewhat complicated arrangement, which presupposed in the Turks and Russians a compliance which no British naval officer would have yielded, was further confused by the instructions issued, apparently without concert, by the Foreign Office to Smith himself, and by the Admiralty to St. Vincent. The latter clearly understood that Smith was intended to be under his command only, and that merely _pro formâ_;[241] but under no obedience to Nelson, although his intended scene of operations, the Levant, was part of Nelson's district. This view, derived from the Admiralty's letter, was confirmed by an extract from the Foreign Office instructions, communicated by Smith to Nelson, that "his (Smith's) instructions will enable him to take the command of such of his Majesty's ships as he may find in those seas (the Levant) unless, _by some unforeseen accident_, it should happen that there should be among them any of his Majesty's officers of superior rank."[242]

Nelson, of course, was outraged. Here was intruded into his command, where he had achieved such brilliant success, and to the administration of which he felt fully equal, a man of indifferent reputation as an officer, though of unquestioned courage, authorized to act independently of his control, and, as it seemed, even to take his ships. He was hurt not only for himself, but for Troubridge, who was senior to Smith, and would, so Nelson thought, have done the duty better than this choice of the Government. The situation when understood in England was rectified. It was explained that diplomatic rank was considered necessary for the senior naval officer, in order to keep in the hands of Great Britain the direction of combined operations, essentially naval in character; and that Smith had been chosen to the exclusion of seniors because of his relationship to the minister at Constantinople, who might have felt the association with him of a stranger to be an imputation upon his past conduct. Meanwhile St. Vincent, indignant at what seemed to him Smith's airs, had sent him peremptory instructions to put himself under Nelson's orders. Thus, in the double character of naval captain and minister plenipotentiary to Turkey, Smith went up the Mediterranean; where he did first-rate service in the former capacity, and in the latter took some action of very doubtful discretion, in which he certainly did not trouble himself about the guidance or views of his naval superiors.

In compliance with orders from Lord St. Vincent, Nelson in January sent Troubridge with some bomb-vessels to Alexandria, to bombard the shipping in the port; after performing which service he was to turn over to Sir Sidney Smith the blockade of Alexandria and the defence of the Ottoman Empire by sea, of which Nelson thenceforth washed his hands.[243] The bombardment was maintained during several days in February, doing but little harm; and on the 3d of March Sir Sidney, having made his round to Constantinople, arrived and took over the command. Troubridge left with him the "Theseus," seventy-four, whose captain was junior to Smith, with three smaller vessels; and on the 7th sailed to rejoin Nelson. This was the day that the French stormed Jaffa, and the same evening an express with the news reached the "Tigre." Smith at once sent the "Theseus" to Acre, with Phélippeaux, the French officer who had aided him to escape from Paris and had accompanied him to the East.

Of the same age as Bonaparte, Phélippeaux had been his fellow-pupil at the military school of Brienne, had left France with the royalists in 1792, and returned to it after the fall of Robespierre. He had naturally, from his antecedents, joined the party of reaction; and, after its overthrow in September, 1797, was easily moved to aid in Sir Sidney's escape from Paris. Accompanying him to England, he received from the Crown a colonel's commission. To the guidance of this able engineer the wisdom and skill of the defence was mainly due. Never did great issues turn on a nicer balance than at Acre. The technical skill of Phélippeaux, the hearty support he received from Smith, his officers and crews, the untiring activity and brilliant courage of the latter, the British command of the sea, all contributed; and so narrow was the margin of success, that it may safely be said the failure of one factor would have caused total failure and the loss of the place. Its fall was essential to Bonaparte, and his active, far-seeing mind had long before determined its seizure by his squadron, if the British left the Levant. "If any event drives us from the coast of Egypt," wrote Nelson on the 17th of December, 1798, "St. Jean d'Acre will be attacked by sea. I have Bonaparte's letter before me."[244] As the best port and the best fortress on the coast, Acre was the bridgehead into Palestine. To Syria it bore the relation that Lisbon did to the Spanish Peninsular War. If Bonaparte advanced, leaving it unsubdued, his flank and rear would through it be open to attack from the sea. If it fell, he had good reason to believe the country would rise in his favor. "If I succeed," said he at a late period of the siege, when hope had not yet abandoned him, "I shall find in the city the treasures of the Pasha, and arms for three hundred thousand men. I raise and arm all Syria, so outraged by the ferocity of Djezzar, for whose fall you see the population praying to God at each assault. I march upon Damascus and Aleppo. I swell my army, as I advance, by all malcontents. I reach Constantinople with armed masses. I overthrow the Turkish Empire. I found in the East a new and great empire which shall fix my place in posterity."[245] Dreams? Ibrahim Pasha advanced from Egypt in 1831, took Acre in 1832, and marched into the heart of Asia Minor, which the battle of Konieh soon after laid at his feet; why not Bonaparte? Damascus had already offered him its keys, and the people were eager for the overthrow of the pashas.

On the 10th of March Sir Sidney Smith himself left the blockade of Alexandria, and on the 15th anchored with the "Tigre" off Acre. He found that much had already been done, by Phélippeaux and the "Theseus," to make the obsolete fortifications more fit to withstand the approaching siege. Sending the "Theseus" now to cruise down the coast towards Jaffa, it fell to himself to deal the heaviest and most opportune blow to Bonaparte's projects. Some light coasters had sailed with a siege train from the Damietta (eastern) mouth of the Nile, which the British never had ships enough to blockade. On the morning of the 18th they were seen approaching Acre, under convoy of a small corvette. The "Tigre" at once gave chase, and captured all but the corvette and two of the coasters. The cannon that should have been turned against the walls were landed and served to defend them; while the prizes, receiving British crews, thenceforth harassed the siege works, flanking the two walls against which the attacks were addressed, and enfilading the trenches. The French, having by this mishap lost all their siege guns proper, had to depend upon field-pieces to breach the walls until the 25th of April, when half a dozen heavy cannon were received from Jaffa.[246] This time was simply salvation to the besieged and ruin to the assailants; for, in the interval, the skill of Phélippeaux and the diligence of the men under him prepared the place to withstand attacks which at an early period would have caused its fall.

Into the details of this siege, petty in itself but momentous in its bearing upon events, it will not be expected that this work shall enter. The crucial incident was the capture of the siege train and the precious respite thus obtained. Orders were indeed sent to Rear-Admiral Perrée to come as speedily as possible, with his small squadron of three frigates and two corvettes, to Jaffa and land guns; but Alexandria was already blockaded, and, from the narrowness of the entrance, very difficult to leave in face of a foe. On the 5th of April, however, the blockading force had to go to Cyprus for water,[247] and on the 8th Perrée got away. On the 15th he landed at Jaffa six ship's guns, and so much ammunition as left his little squadron with only fifteen rounds. He then received orders to cruise to the westward of Acre and intercept the communications of the Turks with Candia and Rhodes. Returning from this duty on the 14th of May, he was seen and chased by the "Theseus." An accidental explosion on board the latter forced her to give over pursuit; but Perrée, recognizing the danger of capture, and being short of water and supplies, determined to go to France, as his instructions allowed in case of necessity. On the 17th of June, when only sixty miles from Toulon, he met a British fleet, by which all five vessels were taken.

On the 4th of May, when the besieged and besiegers had been mining, countermining, and daily fighting, for over six weeks—separated by but a stone's throw one from the other—a breach thought practicable by the French general was made, the mine for blowing in the counterscarp was finished, and a general assault was ordered for the 5th; but the engineers of the besieged countermined so industriously that by daybreak they had ruined the mine before being discovered. This caused the assault to be postponed to the 9th. On the 7th, towards evening, some thirty or forty sail were seen on the western horizon. They bore the long expected Turkish succors from Rhodes; whose commander even now had only been induced to approach by a peremptory exercise of Sir Sidney Smith's powers as British minister. Bonaparte saw that no more time could be lost, and ordered the assault at once; the weather being calm, twenty-four hours might still elapse before the re-enforcements could enter the place. Under a heavy fire from one side and the other, the attack was made; and in the morning the British seamen saw the French flag flying on the outer angle of one of the towers. It marked the high water of Bonaparte's Syrian expedition.

On the 8th the assault was renewed. As the French columns advanced, the Turkish ships were still detained in the offing by calms, and the soldiers were being brought ashore in boats, but still far from the landing. Then it was that Sir Sidney Smith, seeing that a few critical moments might determine the success or failure of his weary struggle, manned the boats of his ships, and pulling rapidly ashore led the British seamen, armed with pikes, to help hold the breach till the troops could arrive. The French carried the first line, the old fortifications of the town; but that done, they found themselves confronted with a second, which Phélippeaux, now dead, had formed by connecting together the houses and garden walls of the seraglio within. The strife raged throughout the day, with varied success in different quarters; but at nightfall, after a struggle of twenty-four hours, the assailants withdrew and Acre was saved. On the 20th the siege was raised, the French retreating during the night. Upon the 25th they reached Jaffa, and on the 29th Gaza. Both places were evacuated; and the army, resuming its march, next day entered the desert. On the 2d of June it encamped in the oasis of El Arish. The garrison of the fort there was re-enforced, the works strengthened with more artillery, and the place provisioned for six months. It was the one substantial result of the Syrian expedition,—an outpost which, like Acre, an invader must subdue before advancing. On the 7th, after nine days' march through the desert under the scorching heat of the June sun, the army re-entered Egypt. It had lost since its departure fifteen hundred killed or dead of disease, and more than two thousand wounded.

The reputation of Sir Sidney Smith with posterity rests upon the defence of Acre, in which he made proof of solid as well as brilliant qualities. Bonaparte, who never forgave the check administered to his ambition, nor overcame the irritation caused by sixty days fretting against an unexpected and seemingly trivial obstacle, tried hard to decry the character of the man who thwarted him. "Smith is a lunatic," he said, "who wishes to make his fortune and keep himself always before the eyes of the world. He is a man capable of any folly, to whom no profound or rational project is ever to be attributed."[248] "Sir Sidney Smith occupied himself too much with the detail of affairs on shore, which he did not understand, and where he was of little use; he neglected the maritime business, which he did understand, and where he had everything in his power." This accusation was supported by the circumstantial mis-statement that six big guns, with a large quantity of ammunition and provisions, were landed by Perrée, undetected, seven miles from Smith's ships.[249]

That there was a strong fantastic and vainglorious strain in Smith's character seems certain, and to it largely he owed the dislike of his own service; but so far as appears, he showed at Acre discretion and sound judgment, as well as energy and courage. It must be remembered, in justice, that all power and all responsibility were in his hands, and that the result was an eminent success. Under the circumstances he had to be much on shore as well as afloat; but he seems to have shown Phélippeaux, and after the latter's death, Colonel Douglas, the confidence and deference which their professional skill demanded, as he certainly was most generous in recognizing their services and those of others. When the equinoctial gales came on he remained with his ship, which had to put to sea; an act which Bonaparte maliciously attributed to a wish to escape the odium of the fall of the place. Whether ashore or afloat, Smith could not please Bonaparte. The good sense which defers to superior experience, the lofty spirit which bears the weight of responsibility and sustains the courage of waverers, ungrudging expenditure of means and effort, unshaken determination to endure to the end, and heroic inspiration at the critical moment of the last assault,—all these fine qualities must in candor be allowed to Sir Sidney Smith at the siege of Acre. He received and deserved the applause, not only of the multitude and the government, but of Nelson himself. The deeds of Acre blotted out of memory the exaggerated reports of the almost total destruction of the French fleet at his hands when Toulon was evacuated; reports which had left upon his name the imputation of untrustworthiness. But, whatever the personal merits of Sir Sidney Smith in this memorable siege, there can be no doubt that to the presence of the British ships, and the skilled support of the British officers, seamen, and marines—manning the works—is to be attributed the successful resistance made by the brave, but undisciplined Turks.

During the last days of the siege of Acre and while Bonaparte was leading his baffled army through the sands of the desert back into Egypt, the western Mediterranean was thrown into a ferment by the escape of the French fleet from Brest. This very remarkable episode, having led to no tangible results, has been little noticed by general historians; but to the student of naval war its incidents are most instructive. It is scarcely too much to say that never was there a greater opportunity than that offered to the French fleet, had it been a valid force, by the scattered condition of its enemies on this occasion; nor can failure deprive the incident of its durable significance, as illustrating the advantage, to the inferior navy, of a large force concentrated in a single port, when the enemy, though superior, is by the nature of the contest compelled to disseminate his squadrons. The advantage is greatest when the port of concentration is central with reference to the enemy's positions; but is by no means lost when, as was then the case with Brest, it is at one extremity of the theatre of war. It was a steady principle in the policy of Napoleon, when consul and emperor, to provoke dissemination of the British navy by threatening preparations at widely separated points of his vast dominions; just as it was a purpose of the British government, though not consistently followed, to provoke France to ex-centric efforts by naval demonstrations, menacing many parts of the shore line. The Emperor, however, a master of the art of war and an adept at making the greatest possible smoke with the least expenditure of fuel, was much more than a match in the game of deception for the unmilitary and many-headed body that directed the affairs of Great Britain.

Although in 1799 the Channel fleet had attached to it as many as fifty-one ships-of-the-line,[250] of which forty-two upon the alarm that ensued very soon got to sea,[251] Lord Bridport had with him but sixteen when he took command off Brest, on the 17th of April, relieving the junior admiral who, with eight or nine ships, had done the winter cruising. On the 25th Bridport looked into the port and saw there eighteen ships-of-the-line ready for sea. The wind being fresh at north-east, the British admiral stood out until he reached a position twelve miles west-south-west of Ushant Island. The entrance being thus clear and the wind fair, the French fleet, numbering twenty-five of the line and ten smaller vessels, slipped out that night under command of Admiral Bruix, then minister of marine, who, by his close official relations to the government, was indicated as a proper person to fulfil an apparently confidential mission, for which his professional ability and activity eminently fitted him.

Being bound south and the wind favoring, Bruix passed through the southern passage, known as the Passage du Raz,[252] distant thirty miles or more from the spot where Bridport had stationed his fleet, which consequently saw nothing, though it had great reason to suspect a movement by the French. At 9 A. M. on the 26th, however, a British inshore frigate caught sight of the enemy just as the last ships were passing through the Raz, and hastened toward her fleet. At noon she lost sight of the French, and an hour later, the signal being repeated from vessel to vessel, Bridport learned that the enemy were out. He at once made sail for Brest, assured himself on the 27th that the news was true, and then steered for Ireland to cover it from a possible invasion, sending at the same time warning to Keith off Cadiz and to St. Vincent at Gibraltar, as well as orders into the Channel ports for all ships to join him off Cape Clear. The whole south coast of England was at once in an uproar; but the government, knowing how scattered were the vessels in the Mediterranean, had a double anxiety. On the 6th of May, five ships-of-the-line sailed from Plymouth to join St. Vincent.[253] The rest of the Channel fleet got off as fast as they could to Bridport, who, in spite of the reports from merchant vessels that had seen the French to the southward, and steering south, refused to believe that Ireland was safe. In this delusion he was confirmed by a barefaced and much-worn ruse, a small French vessel being purposely allowed to fall into his hands with dispatches for Ireland. On the 12th of May there remained in Plymouth but a single ship-of-the-line, and that detained by sickness among the crew,—"a circumstance scarcely ever remembered before."[254] Despite this accumulation of force, it was not till June 1 that Bridport detached to the southward sixteen sail-of-the-line,[255] of which twelve went on to the Mediterranean.

On the morning of the 3d of May Admiral Keith, off Cadiz, was joined by a British frigate chased the day before by Bruix's fleet, of which she had lost sight only at 4 P. M. The next morning the French appeared, twenty-four ships to the British fifteen, which were to leeward of their enemy. The wind, that had been blowing fresh from north-west since the day before, rapidly increased to a whole gale, so that though there were nineteen Spanish ships in Cadiz and twenty-four French outside, the British remained safe; and not only so, but by making it impossible for the French to enter without an engagement, prevented this first attempt at a junction. "Lord Keith," wrote St. Vincent, "has shown great manhood and ability, his position having been very critical, exposed to a hard gale of wind, blowing directly on shore, with an enemy of superior force to windward, and twenty-two ships-of-the-line in Cadiz ready to profit by any disaster that might have befallen him."[256] Bruix, who knew that his captains, long confined to port by the policy of their government, were not able to perform fleet manœuvres in ordinary weather, dared not attack on a lee shore with a wind that would tax all the abilities of experienced seamen.[257] He therefore kept away again to the south-east, determining to lose no time, but at once to enter the Mediterranean; and the following day Lord St. Vincent, gazing from the rock of Gibraltar through the thick haze that spread over the Straits, saw, running before the gale, a number of heavy ships which, from dispatches received the day before, he knew must be French.

The situations of the vessels in his extensive command, as present that morning to the mind of the aged earl, must be realized by the reader if he would enter into the embarrassment and anxiety of the British commander-in-chief, or appreciate the military significance of Bruix's appearance, with a large concentrated force, in the midst of dispositions taken without reference to such a contingency. The fifteen ships off Cadiz, with one then lying at Tetuan, on the Morocco side of the Straits, where the Cadiz ships went for water, were the only force upon which St. Vincent could at once depend, and if they were called off the Spanish fleet was released. At Minorca, as yet imperfectly garrisoned,[258] was an isolated body of four ships under Commodore Duckworth. Lord Nelson's command in the central Mediterranean was disseminated, and the detachments, though not far out of supporting distance, were liable to be separately surprised. Troubridge with four vessels was blockading Naples, now in possession of the French, and at the same time co-operating with the resistance made to the foreign intruders by the peasantry under Cardinal Ruffo. Nelson himself, with one ship, was at Palermo, and the faint-hearted court and people were crying that if he left them the island was lost. Captain Ball, with three of the line, blockaded Malta, the only hope of subduing which seemed to be by rigorous isolation. Far to the eastward, up the Mediterranean, without a friendly port in which to shelter, Sidney Smith with two ships, unsuspicious of danger from the sea, was then drawing to an end the defence of Acre.

Each of these British divisions lay open to the immensely superior force which Bruix brought. Not only so, but the duties of an important nature to which each of them was assigned were threatened with frustration. So large a fleet as that of Bruix might, and according to the usual French practice probably would, have numerous troops embarked.[259] No amount of skill could rescue Troubridge's division from such a disproportion of force, and with it would fall the resistance of Naples. Only flight could save the ships off Malta, and St. Vincent saw the blockade raised, the garrison re-enforced and re-victualled; as within his own memory had so often been done for Gibraltar, in its famous siege not twenty years before. Duckworth's little squadron could not prevent the landing of an army which would sweep Minorca again into the hands of Spain, and the British commodore might consider himself fortunate if, in so difficult a dilemma, he extricated his ships from a harbor always hard to leave.[260] Spain also had in Cartagena and Majorca a number of soldiers that could be rapidly thrown into Minorca under cover of such a fleet.

The British admiral instantly decided to sacrifice all other objects to the concentration of his fleet in such a position as should prevent the junction of the French and Spaniards; against which the presence off Cadiz of Keith's squadron, though inferior in numbers to either, had so far effectually interposed. He at once sent off dispatches to all his lieutenants; but the westerly gales that were driving Bruix to his goal made it impossible to get ship or boat to Keith. This admiral was only reached by an indulgence from the Spanish officials, between whom and the British an intercourse of courtesy was steadily maintained. These granted to Admiral Coffin, who had been appointed to a post in Halifax, passports to proceed to Lisbon through Spain; and Coffin on the way contrived to get a boat sent off to Keith, with orders which brought him to Gibraltar on the 10th. To Nelson the earl wrote that he believed the enemy were bound to Malta and Alexandria; and that the Spaniards, whom he was forced to release from Cadiz, would descend upon Minorca. Nelson received this message on the 13th of May. The day before, a brig coming direct from the Atlantic without stopping at Gibraltar had notified him of the escape from Brest, and that the French had been seen steering south. On the strength of this he drew from Naples and Malta all the ships-of-the-line except one before each, directing a rendezvous off Port Mahon, where he would join Duckworth; but when St. Vincent's letter came, he called them all in, leaving only frigates on each station, and ordered the heavy vessels to meet him off the island of Maritimo, to intercept the French between Sicily and Africa. He also sent to Duckworth to ask his help; but the commodore declined until he could communicate with the commander-in-chief, from whom he had received orders to keep his division in readiness to join the main fleet when it appeared.

St. Vincent's position, in truth, was one of utter and dire perplexity. If the French and Spaniards got together, he would have forty-four enemy's vessels on his hands; against which, by sacrificing every other object, he could only gather thirty until re-enforced by the Channel fleet, upon whose remissness he could hardly fail to charge his false position. To lose Minorca and Sicily, to see Malta snatched from his fingers when ready to close upon it, the French position in Naples established, and that in Egypt so strengthened as to become impregnable to either attack or reduction by want, such were the obvious probable consequences of Bruix's coming. Besides these evident dangers, he very well knew from secret official information that the Spanish court were in constant dread of a popular insurrection, which would give the French a pretext for entering the peninsula,—not, as in 1808, to impose a foreign king upon an unwilling nation, but to promote a change in the government which the distress of the people, though usually loyal, would probably welcome. In March he had received a communication from the Spanish prime minister, asking that a British frigate might be detailed to bring remittances from the Spanish colonies to Gibraltar, to be afterwards conveyed into Spain. The reason given for making this request of an enemy was that the want of specie, and consequent delay in public payments, especially to the soldiery, made revolution imminent. St. Vincent recommended his government to comply, because of the danger, in case of disturbances, that both Spain and Portugal might fall under subjection to France.[261]

Fortunately, amid the conflicting claims of diverse interests, the path of military wisdom was perfectly clear to one understanding its principles. St. Vincent might be agitated by apprehensions; but he knew what he must do, and did it. To get his own fleet together and at the same time prevent the allies from uniting theirs, was the first thing; and the point of concentration indicated for this purpose should be one that would cover Minorca, if he arrived before it was reduced. For Sicily, Malta, and all to the eastward, he must trust to the transcendent abilities of Nelson and his "band of brothers."[262] On the 12th, after two days of hurried preparations, the British fleet sailed from Gibraltar. On the 20th it reached Minorca, found it still safe, and was joined by Duckworth's division, raising the force to twenty ships-of-the-line. St. Vincent here received information that the French had on the 12th been seen north of Minorca, heading for Toulon.[263] Sending this news to Nelson he sailed on the 22d in pursuit; but learning that the Spaniards after Keith's departure had left Cadiz, as he had expected, he decided to cruise off Cape San Sebastian on the Spanish coast. Seventeen sail of Spaniards had indeed reached Cartagena on the 20th; but in the passage from Cadiz eleven had been partly or totally dismasted, and this circumstance was sufficient excuse for not proceeding to a junction, to which the policy of their court was but little inclined.

On the 30th of May St. Vincent heard that the French had sailed again from Toulon, but for what purpose was not known. As it might follow the course of Bonaparte's expedition, east of Corsica, and fall upon Sicily and Malta, he sent Duckworth with four ships to Nelson at Palermo, and four hours later was joined by the first detachment of five sail-of-the-line from the Channel,[264] of whose nearness he doubtless had some intimation before parting with Duckworth. With twenty-one sail he now stood south-west toward Barcelona, then north-east for Toulon. On the 2d of June, when seventy miles from this port, his health gave way altogether. He turned over the command to Keith and departed to Port Mahon.

Keith continued steering to the northward and eastward. On the 5th of June he was joined by a small cruiser, which had seen the French fleet in Vado Bay the day before. Bruix had reached Toulon May 14, and sailed again on the 26th, taking with him twenty-two ships; the others being left in port for repairs. He steered east, carrying supplies and a few recruits for the army of Italy. On the 4th of June he had anchored in Vado Bay. A detachment from the fleet threw the supplies into Genoa, and it would seem that Bruix there had an interview with General Moreau, then commanding the army of Italy. On the 6th,[265] turning short round, he doubled on his tracks, following close along the coast of Piedmont and Provence to avoid the British,[266] passed again in sight of Toulon to obtain information,[267] and from there pushed on to Cartagena, where he anchored on the 22d; thus making with the Spanish fleet the junction which had been frustrated before Cadiz.

On the same day that Bruix turned, Lord Keith, who had also passed close along the French coast between Cannes and Nice,[268] standing to the eastward, reached as far as Monaco. Then the wind shifted to the eastward, and he wrote as follows to Nelson: "Soon after I despatched the 'Telegraph'" (the vessel which saw the French in Vado Bay) "last night, _the wind came fresh from the east_, which is of course a fair wind for the enemy, if bound towards you" (by the east of Corsica) "and a foul wind for me to follow them, which is unfortunate; for, if my information was just, I had no doubt of overtaking them before they had left the coast of Italy; ... but _the defenceless state of Minorca_, without a fleet, the great force prepared (at Cartagena) to attack it, added to my having so far exceeded my orders already, will oblige me to relinquish the pursuit, and return to the protection of that island. But I have detached to your lordship the 'Bellerophon' and 'Powerful' (seventy-fours), which I hope will arrive in time, as I am confident _the French are not thirty leagues hence at this moment_."[269]

Being close in with the shore with an east wind, Keith could only stand off on the port tack, and it would appear that he still clung to the hope of a shift favorable for reaching Bruix; for on the 8th he was sixty miles south of Monaco,[270] not on the route for Minorca. There he received from St. Vincent, who, though relinquishing the immediate command of the fleet, retained that of the station, pressing orders to take a position off the Bay of Rosas. This was evidently intended to block the junction of the two fleets, though St. Vincent could not have known Bruix's purpose to return. Keith did not obey the order; but seems under its influence to have abandoned definitively his hope of overtaking the French, for he made sail for Minorca, and arrived there on the 12th.[271] Had he obeyed St. Vincent he could scarcely have failed to meet Bruix, for at the moment of receiving his letter the two fleets were hardly sixty miles apart, and both would have passed within sight of Cape San Sebastian, the natural landfall of vessels going from Toulon to Cartagena.

Keith remained at Minorca but a few days, during which St. Vincent turned over to him the command of the station as well as of the fleet.[272] He sailed again on the 15th for Toulon; but the British had completely lost trace of the French from the time that they surrendered the touch of them obtained on the 5th of the month. From the 15th of June to the 6th of July[273] was passed groping blindly in the seas between Minorca, Toulon, and Genoa. On the latter date Keith regained Minorca, and there found the twelve ships-of-the-line which Bridport had detached from Ireland on the 1st of June, and which seem to have reached Port Mahon about the 17th of that month.[274] Scarcely an hour after his arrival,[275] information was received of the French having entered Cartagena. The ships that had accompanied Keith on the recent three weeks' cruise had to fill with water; but on the 10th he started for the Straits of Gibraltar with thirty-one ships-of-the-line, on a stern chase—proverbially a long chase—after the allies, known to be bound to the westward.

The latter, however, had a long start. Bruix, aware of the reluctance of the Spaniards, and secretly informed that in case of attack they could not be depended upon, hurried them away after a week's waiting, in virtue of stringent orders wrung from Madrid by the persistence of the French ambassador. On the 29th of June he sailed, having sixteen Spanish ships-of-the-line in company. On the 7th of July, just as Keith reached Minorca from his profitless cruise off Toulon, the allies were passing the Straits; and it happened, somewhat singularly, that the old Earl of St. Vincent, who had seen them pass Gibraltar, bound in, had arrived in a frigate twenty-four hours before,—just in time to hear their guns as they went out. They entered Cadiz on the 11th of July, the day after Keith sailed in pursuit from Minorca. On the 21st, still numbering forty sail, they sailed from Cadiz, and on the 30th Keith with his thirty-one passed the Straits, after a moment's delay at Gibraltar. The British pressed their chase, and, despite its long start, came off Brest barely twenty-four hours after the French and Spaniards, who entered the port on the 13th of August. Lord Keith then went on to Torbay. The news of the junction of the French and Spaniards, and of their entering the Atlantic, had preceded him, and caused a renewal of the excitement about intended invasion to which Great Britain at this epoch was always prone. The arrival of the large force under his command restored confidence; but although, in conjunction with the Channel fleet, there were now as many as fifty-six ships-of-the-line assembled in Torbay, some time elapsed before the country would part with any of them, while so many enemies lay in Brest. Keith did not return to the Mediterranean until December, the chief command there being exercised by Nelson during his absence.

The exact aims of the French in this cruise, which from the inefficiency of their officers and seamen was as hazardous in its undertaking as it proved barren of results, have never been precisely ascertained. This uncertainty is probably due to the fact that the Directory itself was not clear as to what could be accomplished, and that Bruix had somewhat unlimited powers, based upon his confidential knowledge of the views of the government. It would seem that the first object, both in importance and in order, was a junction with the Spaniards in Cadiz. This being frustrated by Keith's division and by Bruix's distrust of the efficiency of his captains, the opportunities for offensive action, offered by the scattered condition of the British ships, were neglected in favor of going to Toulon; for Bruix seems to have neither felt nor betrayed any doubt as to his course. "The Brest squadron had such a game to play at Malta and Sicily," wrote St. Vincent to the First Lord, "that I trembled for the fate of our ships employed there, and for the latter island. Your lordship made a better judgment by fixing their operations to the coast of Genoa."[276] As a matter of fact, this is true; but as a question of military forecast, St. Vincent was perfectly right, and the action of the French can only be explained on the ground of distrust of their navy, or by the old faulty policy—traditional in all French governments, republican, royal, or imperial—of preferring ulterior objects to the destruction of the enemy's ships.