1799.

SURRENDER OF ROME.

217

invaders, the Court returned to Palermo, to resume the pleasures which had been so rudely interrupted by the French. Rome, however, was still occupied by the enemy; but the garrison, with an effective strength of two thousand five hundred men, was wholly inadequate to the defence of the city together with the fortress of Civita Vecchia. Nelson applied to Sir James Erskine, the Commandant at Minorca, to aid an expedition against Rome, with twelve hundred men; but Sir James having declined to undertake such a responsibility without orders, Nelson determined to send Trowbridge with a small force to summon Civita Vecchia, while General Boucard, a Swiss officer in the Neapolitan service, should march with a few regiments on Rome. This daring attempt was completely successful. The French, who knew that an Austrian army was advancing upon Rome, preferred surrendering to the English. Accordingly, after some parley, Civita Vecchia was given up to Trowbridge; and Louis, another of Nelson's captains, took possession of the city of the Cæsars. Two days after * the capitulation had been signed, the Austrian General encamped under the walls of Rome, and could with difficulty be convinced that he had been disappointed of his plunder by the promptitude and energy of a British commodore. It was, however, to the military successes of the Imperial and Russian arms, and especially to the great victory of Novi, which had been won in August, that Italy was mainly indebted for her deliverance from the French yoke. The plan of the Russian General was to attack the French in Genoa, while the Archduke pressed them in Switzerland, and ultimately to invade France with the united armies. But this great plan was defeated; and the bright prospects of Europe were again obscured by the differences which had arisen between.

* 22nd September.

218

SELFISH CONDUCT OF AUSTRIA. CH. XXXIX.

the allied powers. The Imperial Court had renewed, with views more exclusively selfish, a policy more shallow and perverse than had ruined the common cause in former campaigns. The restoration of the French monarchy, which England had originally proposed, and which Russia now proposed, was not the object which Austria desired. Neither, on the other hand, did she wish well to a Government founded on the ruins of legitimate authority. She dreaded the propagation of revolutionary principles in Italy, lest her own arbitrary Government should be endangered; and she was not less unfriendly to the establishment of the Italian States, as being adverse to the aims of her avarice and ambition. The military capacity of Russia, so signally displayed in the late campaign, excited her jealousy; and the naval ascendency of Great Britain on the seas, which she could not emulate, she could nevertheless regard with malevolence. Suwarrow, after his brilliant campaign in Italy, had hastened to effect a junction with the Austrian army in Switzerland. arrival, after encountering great difficulties in his march, he found that Kersakoff, his lieutenant who had been previously detached with a division of the Russian army to co-operate with the Austrians, had suffered a disastrous defeat at Zurich. A quarrel took place between Suwarrow and the Archduke Charles; and the two Generals would hold no correspondence with each other. The old Russian Marshal, finding himself in a manner deserted, and his army reduced to thirteen thousand men, was forced, for the first time after forty years of command, to make a retreat. This movement he effected with his usual skill and success; but the Czar, indignant at the conduct of the Austrians, ordered his army to return to Russia; and his faithful General was involved in the indiscriminate fury with which Paul was transported, after the manner of barbarous despots. Suwarrow, whose

On his

1799.

EXPEDITION TO HOLLAND.

219

fame resounded through Europe, languished and died in disgrace soon after his return to St. Petersburg. The main result of the great campaign was the expulsion of the French from the Italian peninsula ; that they were not driven out of Switzerland was wholly due to the mean and perverse policy of the Cabinet of Vienna. The Austrians might, but for envy of a too glorious ally, have finished the campaign in France; but they chose to forego the military advantages they had themselves gained, rather than aid the rising reputation of a rival. In October, the Imperial and the Republican armies occupied much the same situation they had occupied in April on either bank of the Rhine.

Early in the year, the British Government projected an expedition to Holland with one of the largest armies that had ever been sent from the island. Thirty thousand men were destined for the service, and the Czar undertook to furnish seventeen thousand troops. Whatever might be the military fortune of such an enterprise, it is obvious that its ultimate success in a military, as well as in a political sense, must depend upon the favour of the people, whose territory was to be invaded. But no inquiry was made whether any aid might be expected from the Dutch themselves, or whether they would be disposed to welcome their deliverers. It was intended that the army should land on the northern coast of Holland, and march to Amsterdam; but on the last occasion, when the English had attempted to defend Amsterdam against the French, the people had risen upon them, and forced them to quit the country. Since that time, the English had destroyed the Dutch fleet. It was supposed, however, that the experience of the last six years had altered the sentiments of the people. But they had made no complaint; they had not asked for the interference of England, nor of any other power at war with the

220

SENTIMENTS OF THE DUTCH.

CH. XXXIX.

French. The English Government could not keep their secret so well as the enemy could keep his; and it was well known for what purpose preparations were making at Portsmouth. These preparations commenced early in the spring, and the summer was far advanced before the first division of the army had embarked; but, during that interval, no sign of encouragement was visible from any part of the United Provinces. The people were, no doubt, impatient under the exactions of the French; but they were accustomed to exaction, for they had long been subjected to higher taxation than any people in Europe. Holland was not one of those nations which had been suddenly and strangely forced to assume the name and forms of a republic by the Paris Propaganda. Centuries before the French Revolution, the United Provinces had been familiar with republican institutions; and, for many generations, the country had been distracted by the contentions of the party which professed to uphold the independence of the States against the ascendency of one illustrious house in which the office of chief magistrate was hereditary. The Stadtholderate of the house of Orange had been abolished mainly by the influence of Amsterdam, which was the centre of political action and power: and it was at Amsterdam that it was proposed that the banished Prince of Orange should be restored to the Stadtholderate by English and Russian bayonets. The Low Countries were, in fact, the last place in which the cause of the European powers against French democracy could be successfully fought; and of all the provinces, the great State of North Holland, of which Amsterdam was the capital, was the worst battle-ground which could have been chosen. complete this ill-planned expedition, the General selected for the chief command was the same General who had been recalled from the same scene of action for incompetence or ill fortune five years before.

To

1799. DUKE OF YORK APPOINTED GENERAL.

221

And during those five years, in which so much military experience might have been gained, the Duke of York bad not been employed in active service. It has been alleged that the King insisted on his son's appointment to this arduous duty. There can be no doubt that the King urged the appointment; for it would be absurd to suppose that the minister, who had felt it his duty to remove the prince from a subordinate command in 1796, would name him to the chief command of a great army destined for a most important service in 1799. But His Majesty's pleasure could not relieve the minister from his responsibility. It was for Mr. Pitt, and not for the King, to decide who should lead a British army in the field; and if Mr. Pitt had represented to His Majesty, with the firmness that became him, and which he could maintain when he thought fit, that His Royal Highness was not the proper person to be appointed, the King would probably have given way without much pressure. George the Third had many faults; but he was not wanting in public spirit, nor was he incapable of practising self-denial.** He was tenacious of patronage, and gave away more places than any Sovereign of this country, before or since. But his object was not so much to usurp the constitutional function of his minister, as to maintain his parliamentary interest; and he was the last man in his dominions who would wilfully jeopardise their interests by jobbing and favouritism.

The first division of the British army, consisting

*I asked Lord Melville the truth of an anecdote which had been told me respecting his father:-That when he entertained the King at Wimbledon, His Majesty filled a glass of wine, and drank the following toast"Here is the health of that minister who had the confidence to

oppose the King's opinion as to sending our troops to Egypt, and to whom, therefore, the success of our arms in that quarter is, under God, to be attributed." Lord M. said it was perfectly true; and it was the most flattering compliment his father had ever recorded.'-Locker MSS.