revolution, and against LA FAYETTE personally, by intriguing with the Girondins. Their real reliance, however, was on the European powers. LEOPOLD, emperor of Austria and brother of the queen Marie Antoinette, and FREDERICK WILLIAM II. king of Prussia, issued a declaration against the revolution, at Pilnitz, August 1791; and FRANCIS II., who succeeded Leopold in 1792, sent an ultimatum to Paris, which was answered by the formation of a Girondin ministry and a declaration of war (March 20, 1792). A combined army of Austrians and Prussians invaded France under the duke of Brunswick, and, what was most hateful to the people, attended by a band of emigrants who had fled early in 1790, and among whom was the king's brother, the count of Artois (afterwards Charles X.). The flight of the French armies before them, the threatening manifesto of the duke of Brunswick, and the dismissal of the Girondin ministry, hastened the fall of Louis. The mob of Paris twice stormed the Tuileries (June 20 and Aug. 10); and on the second occasion the king took refuge in the assembly, which deposed him, declared a republic, and sent him to the fortress of the Temple, with the queen, the dauphin, the king's sister (madame Elizabeth, and his daughter, afterwards the duchess of Angoulême. The rest of the royal family had emigrated, except the duke of Orleans and his sons, who had joined the revolution. Then followed the horrible massacres of September, the repulse of the invaders by DUмOURIEZ at Valmy (Sept. 20), the victory of Jemmapes (Oct. 20), and the conquest of Belgium, which was proclaimed a republic (Nov. 1792). The NATIONAL CONVENTION of the French republic met on Sept. 21, 1792, and proceeded to the trial of the king, whom the Girondins and Jacobins united to condemn, the duke of Orleans (or, as he now called himself, Philippe Egalité) giving his vote for death. The execution of Louis by the guillotine (Jan. 21, 1793) severed all ties with the monarchies of Europe. The convention had already offered their help to all nations who desired to recover their liberty (Nov. 19), and to English republicans in particular (Dec. 31, 1792). Democratic clubs were corresponding with France; and while Pitt, who had been steadily pursuing his financial reforms, hesitated between his desire for peace and the necessity of self-defence, the convention declared war against England and Holland (Feb. 3, 1793). While, by incredible efforts, the French, amidst the REIGN OF TERROR at home, overran Holland, the banks of the Rhine, Piedmont, and the Spanish side of the Pyrenees, their chief settlements in the East and West Indies surrendered to the English. An army was sent under the king's second son, FREDERICK duke of YORK, to co-operate with the Austrians in Belgium, and Dunkirk was besieged, but without success. A fleet under lord Hood took possession of Toulon, which had revolted, and the siege of which first displayed the military genius of NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, a young officer of artillery, born in Corsica. In 1794 the French victory at Fleurus (June 26) decided the campaign in Belgium. Holland was conquered by Pichegru in the winter, and the English army re-embarked at Bremen in March 1795. To compensate these disasters on the land, lord HooD took Corsica, where great distinction was gained by HORATIO NELSON; and lord Howe defeated the Brest fleet of twenty-six sail of the line off Ushant (June 1, 1794). An attempt to aid the royalist insurgents in Brittany by an expedition to Quiberon was defeated by HOCHẸ (July 1795). In 1796 Spain joined France in an alliance against England and Portugal; and Napoleon Bonaparte made his splendid campaign in Northern Italy. Lord Malmesbury was sent to Paris to negociate a peace with the Directory; but the effort failed. Schemes were now organized for the invasion of Britain. A fruitless descent was attempted on Ireland by Hoche, and another at Fishguard in Pembrokeshire (1796); but the grand effort was to be made by the union of the Dutch, French, and Spanish fleets lying at the Texel, Brest, and Cadiz. By the vigilance of commodore Nelson, the Spanish fleet of twenty-seven sail was brought to action, off cape St. Vincent, with the English fleet of fifteen sail under sir JOHN JERVIS (Feb. 14, 1797). Though the Spanish ships were also vastly superior in size, the English gained a complete victory, for which Jervis was made earl St. Vincent, with a pension of 30001. a year, and Nelson received promotion and the order of the Bath. Earl St. Vincent was one of the greatest admirals and naval administrators we have ever had. Great alarm was caused by the Mutiny at the Nore and that at Spithead in April, for which there was too much provocation; and the English sailors regained their character at Camperdown, where Duncan defeated the French and Dutch fleet of the Texel, which had sailed under De Winter, with 15,000 men on board, to invade Ireland (Oct. 11). Duncan was rewarded with a peerage and a pension of 3000l. a year. In 1798 general Bonaparte sailed on his celebrated expedition to EGYPT. His object, as he afterwards declared, was "to conquer the East, and take Europe in the rear." He escaped the vigilance of Nelson, who only reached the bay of Aboukir after the army had disembarked, but then almost totally destroyed the French fleet in the BATTLE OF THE NILE (Aug. 1, 1798), which gained him a peerage and a pension of 2000l., besides presents from the sovereigns of Turkey, Russia, and Sardinia, and that unbounded fame which gratified him most of all. Bonaparte's expedition was foiled in Syria by the defence of Acre under sir SYDNEY SMITH; and he left Egypt in August, 1799, to accomplish his wonderful destiny in France. After mentioning the failure of an expedition to Holland (in conjunction with the Russians) under sir Ralph Abercromby and the duke of York (1799), we must glance at domestic politics. The government were sufficiently occupied in administering the war, providing for its financial necessities, and combating the growth of principles esteemed revolutionary. Pitt displayed all his splendid powers of debate in defending his policy against the opposition; and his law officers undertook numerous prosecutions for sedition, the most remarkable being those of Hardy, Horne Tooke, and Thelwall, who were acquitted; while in Scotland Watt was hanged, and Muir and Palmer transported (1793-1795). Towards the end of 1795 there were serious riots, and the king was mobbed on his way to parliament. In 1797 the Bank of England was authorized to suspend cash payments, and notes of 11. and 21. were made a legal tender, and remained so till 1819. Meanwhile IRELAND was in the most dangerous state. In 1791 was formed the society of United Irishmen, consisting chiefly of Protestants, who aimed to set up a republic independent of England. Their leader, THEOBALD WOLFE TONE, fled to America, and thence to France, where he contributed to the attempted invasions of 1796 and 1797. In March, 1798, a plan of insurrection was betrayed to the government, who arrested Emmett, Bond, and other leaders, and soon afterwards the chief of the whole plot, lord EDWARD FITZGERALD. The rebellion was only put down after much bloodshed and cruelty; and the insurgents were finally defeated by general Lake at Vinegar Hill near Wexford (June 21, 1798). This outbreak determined Pitt on proposing the long-desired measure of the legislative UNION OF IRELAND WITH GREAT BRITAIN, which passed the English parliament in May, 1800, and was carried through the Irish parliament by the same means as had proved effectual in Scotland. The House of Commons received an addition of 100 Irish members; and 32 Irish peers (including 4 prelates) obtained seats for life in the House of Lords. At the same time the sovereign dropped the title and arms of "King of France." The Union took effect on the first day of the present 19th century (Jan. 1, 1801).* The 18th century closed in England with scenes of famine and discontent. In France, the power which Bonaparte had usurped on Nov. 9, 1799, was consolidated by the great victories of MARENGO in Italy (June 14, 1800), and HOHENLINDEN in Bavaria (the latter gained by Moreau, Dec. 2, 1800), which led to peace with Austria *The young reader should perhaps be cautioned against the ridiculous blunder of supposing 1800 to be the first year of the new century, instead of the last year which completed the 18th century. at LUNEVILLE (Feb. 9, 1801). MALTA was surrendered to the English in Sept. 1800; but a new danger threatened from the north, where the emperor PAUL, a fanatical admirer of Bonaparte, seized British ships and property, and united Russia with Sweden and Denmark in an armed neutrality. At this crisis the king's scruples against the removal of the Catholic disabilities, a measure which Pitt deemed necessary for the settlement of Ireland, combined with that minister's desire to remove an obstacle in the way of peace, led to his resignation (Feb. 1801). He was succeeded by Mr. ADDINGTON, with lord ELDON (John Scott) as chancellor. In March, 1801, Prussia joined the northern league, and took possession of Hanover, Hamburg having already been seized by Denmark. A British fleet was sent into the Baltic, and Nelson's great victory at COPENHAGEN (April 2, 1801) detached Christian VII. from the league, which was soon broken up by the assassination of Paul, whose son and successor, ALEXANDER I., made a treaty with Great Britain, Sweden, and Denmark, to regulate the rights of neutrals (June 17, 1801). In the same spring an English army landed in Egypt (March 1, 1801); and after the victory of Alexandria, which cost the life of sir RALPH ABERCROMBY (March 21), the French army capitulated (Aug. 31). Bonaparte had carried with him a body of savans to collect manuscripts and monuments, which now became the prize of war, and were presented by George III. to the British Museum as the foundation of a gallery of Egyptian antiquities. Among them was the trilingual inscription known as the Rosetta Stone, which forms the key to hieroglyphic writing. The peace, for which Bonaparte had made overtures when he became First Consul, was at length arranged (Oct. 1, 1801), and signed at AMIENS (March 18, 1802). While England ceded nearly all her conquests, France retained Belgium, the left bank of the Rhine, Avignon, Savoy, Geneva, and Nice. Bonaparte, who was elected consul for life on May 9, annexed Piedmont to France on the abdication of Charles Emmanuel (June 4), seized on the duchy of Parma, found a pretext for keeping his troops in Holland, and made great naval preparations in the ports of France and Holland. He complained of the countenance given by England to French emigrants, and of the delay in surrendering Malta to the knights of St. John, and publicly insulted the British ambassador lord Whitworth, who at length left Paris, May 13, 1803. The rupture was followed by the seizure of all the English whom the peace had attracted to France, to the number of 10,000. Hanover was overrun by general Mortier (June, 1803), and a great camp was formed at Boulogne for the invasion of England. The menace was met by a most patriotic response, and 300,000 volun teers were enrolled, some of whom have survived to return to their standards at the present day. The British fleet swept the Channel, and recaptured the French and Dutch colonies; and the naval preparations of Spain led to a collision which was followed by a declaration of war on the part of that power (Dec. 12, 1804). Addington had already resigned, and Pitt returned to the helm to conduct the war against NAPOLEON I., who had assumed the title of emperor of the French (May 15, 1804), and whose murder of the duc d'Enghien (a Bourbon prince), with other outrages, made him the object of the bitterest personal animosity. All the powers of Europe now combined against him, except Prussia, which the bait of Hanover kept aloof. His invasion of England was completely organised, and only awaited the junction of the fleets of Toulon, Cadiz, and Brest, to sweep the Channel. Nelson blockaded Toulon through the winter of 1804. On his retiring to Barcelona to draw out the enemy, the French fleet, under Villeneuve, passed the Straits of Gibraltar, was joined by the fleet of Cadiz, and sailed for the West Indies, pursued by Nelson, who had at first mistaken its destination. The terror of his name chased them back again, but Nelson returned to England without meeting them. To the west of Cape Finisterre, however, Villeneuve fell in with sir ROBERT CALDER, who gained a victory and took two Spanish ships (July 22, 1805). Calder was brought to a court-martial for not doing more, but was acquitted. Villeneuve got back to Cadiz, where his fleet of 35 sail was blockaded by lord Cornwallis. NELSON was now called from his retirement at Merton to win his last battle. He hoisted his flag on board the Victory, and arrived off Cadiz on his birthday (Sept. 29, 1805). Villeneuve put out from the harbour on Oct. 19; and on the 21st ensued the BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR, memorable alike for Nelson's presentiments of his death-for his thrilling signal, ENGLAND EXPECTS EVERY MAN WILL DO HIS DUTY "-for his masterly tactics in breaking the double line of Villeneuve by a double column of attack-for the fury of the conflict, the completeness of the victory, and his own glorious death. The "mighty seaman, tender and true," was buried in St. Paul's, amidst a pomp of ceremony and a depth of sorrow which few live to remember, but which can be in part conceived by those who saw the victor of Waterloo laid beside him. "Not once or twice, in our rough island story, 66 Not even the victory of Trafalgar and the blood of Nelson could save Europe. Eager to chastise Austria, and doubtful of his success in the attack on England, Napoleon suddenly marched the Grand Army" from the shores of the Channel to the banks of the Danube |
