of January, 1797, carried by assault. Henningen was next invested, and evacuated by capitulation on the 31st of the same month.

This event terminated the campaign of 1796 in Germany: a campaign the most remarkable that had yet occurred, excepting that of Napoleon in Italy.

In August of this year, the treaty between France and Spain, already referred to, was brought to a conclusion. By this treaty, the two powers mutually guaranteed to each other their dominions, both in the Old and New World, and engaged to assist each other in case of attack, with twenty-four thousand land troops, thirty ships of the line, and six frigates. This was followed, in the beginning of October, by a formal declaration of war on the part of Spain against Great Britain; so that England, who had commenced the war with so many confederates, now saw herself not only deprived of her maritime allies, but the whole coast of Europe, from Texel to Gibraltar, was arrayed in fierce hostility against her. Impressed with the danger of these concurrent circumstances, and desirous, also, of silencing the clamor of the party who denounced the war as unnecessary and impolitic, Mr. Pitt, at the close of this year, renewed his overtures for a general peace. But the liberal terms proposed by Great Britain were haughtily rejected, and the negotiations brought to a summary conclusion on the 17th of December.

Ireland, about this period, was in an alarming condition.

The success

ful issue of the French Revolution, had stimulated a host of reckless adventurers to project a similar revolt against the authority of England, and more than two hundred thousand men were engaged in a conspiracy to overturn the established government. Overlooking the miseries and horrors which the convulsions in France had occasioned, and, without considering how an insular power was to maintain itself against the naval force of England, the disaffected in Ireland rushed blindly into the project. They were enrolled under generals, colonels, and other officers in all the counties, arms were secretly provided, and nothing was wanting but the arrival of the French troops. These preparations, too, were made with such secrecy, that the British government had little warning of their danger; while the French Directory, accurately informed of the whole, were prepared to turn it to the best account. Hoche, at the head of a hundred thousand men, on the shores of La Vendée and Brittany, was ready to make the descent; and an expedition was fitted out at Brest, consisting of fifteen ships of the line, to carry each six hundred soldiers, twelve frigates and six corvettes, to carry each two hundred and fifty, and transports and other vessels to carry, in all, twenty-five thousand. This armament was to be joined by seven ships of the line from Rochefort.

To distract the attention of Great Britain, the most contradictory accounts were circulated as to the object of this expedition; sometimes, it was intended for the West Indies; at other times, for Portugal; but the British government soon suspected where the blow was really to fall. Orders were transmitted to Ireland to hold the militia in readiness; a vigilant watch was kept on the coast, and all the cattle and provisions ordered to the interior counties, on the first appearance of the enemy. The expedition set sail on the 15th of December, but it encountered disasters from the very moment of its leaving the harbor. A violent tempest arose, and, although the mist which accompanied it enabled the French admiral to elude the vigilance of the British squadron, one ship of the line struck on

the rocks at Ushant, and went down, several others were much damaged, and the fleet was entirely dispersed. On the 31st of December, Admiral Bousset made his way back to Brest, where he was soon followed by the scattered divisions of his fleet, after two ships of the line and three frigates had been lost one of the former, by the violence of the tempest, and the others by the attacks of the British squadron.

The close of this year was marked by the death of the Empress Catheine, of Russia, and the accession of Paul to the throne. Few sovereigns will occupy a more conspicuous place in the page of history, and few have left in their conduct on the throne, a more exalted reputation, than the Empress Catherine: yet her high qualities as a sovereign were counterbalanced by the vices of her private life, and it might, perhaps, be said of her, even more truly than of Elizabeth of England, that "if to-day she was more than a man, to-morrow she would be less than a woman.'

The end of the same year witnessed the resignation of the presidency of the United States of America by General Washington, and his voluntary retirement into private life. Modern history has not another character so spotless to commemorate. Invincible in resolution, firm in conduct, incorruptible in integrity, he brought to the helm of a victorious Republic the simplicity and innocence of rural life; he was forced into greatness by circumstances, rather than led into it by inclination; and he prevailed over his enemies rather by the wisdom of his designs, and the perseverance of his character, than by any extraordinary genius in the art of war. He was the first to recommend a return to pacific councils when the independence of his country was secured, and he bequeathed to his fellow-citizens, on leaving their government, an address to which no composition of uninspired wisdom can bear a comparison. He was a Cromwell, without his ambition; a Sylla, without his crimes; and after having raised his country to the rank of an independent State, he closed his career by a voluntary relinquishment of the power which a grateful people had bestowed.

CHAPTER XII.

CAMPAIGN OF 1797.

THE aspect of affairs in England had never been so clouded since the commencement of the war, nor indeed during the whole of the 18th century, as at the opening of the year 1797. The negotiations for peace had just been unpropitiously terminated, and the national burdens were daily increasing under the operations of a war which held out no promise of success. Party spirit raged with uncommon violence in every quarter of the kingdom; insurrections prevailed in many districts of Ireland, discontent and suffering in all; commercial embarrassment was rapidly increasing, and the continued pressure on the Bank, threatened a total dissolution of public credit. The consequence of this accumulation of disasters was a rapid fall of public securities; the three per cents sold as low as 51, having fallen to that from 98, where they stood at the breaking out of the war.

For a long period, the Bank had experienced a pressure for money, owing partly to the demand for gold and silver, which resulted from the distresses of commerce, and partly to the great drains on the specie of the country, occasioned by the large loans made to the Imperial government. As early as January, 1795, the influence of these causes was so severely felt, that the Bank directors informed the Chancellor of the Exchequer of their wish, that he would so arrange his finances as not to depend on any further assistance from them; and during the whole of that and the following year, the peril of continued advances for the Imperial loans, were strongly and earnestly represented to the government. The pressure arising from these causes was brought to a crisis at the close of 1796, by a run upon the country banks, which arose from the dread of invasion, and the anxiety of every man to convert his paper into cash, in the troubled times which seemed to be approaching. These banks, as the only means of averting bankruptcy, applied from all quarters to the Bank of England; the panic extended to the metropolis; and, such was the run upon that institution, it was reduced to payment in sixpences, and stood on the verge of insolvency, when an order in council was interposed for its relief, suspending cash payments until the sense of Parliament could be taken on the best means of restoring the circulation, and sustaining the public and commercial credit of the country.

This measure of Mr. Pitt excited a vehement debate in the national legislature, and all over the country; but it was approved by both houses of Parliament, and a bill passed, providing that the Bank of England notes should be received as a legal tender by the collectors of taxes, and have the effect of stopping the issue of arrest on mesne process, for payment of debt between man and man. The bill was limited in its operation to the 24th of June; but it was afterward renewed from time to time, and in November, 1797, extended till the conclusion of a general peace. Indeed, the obligation on the Bank to pay in specie was not imposed until the act of Mr. Peel, in 1819. Such was the commencement of the paper system in Great Britain, which ultimately produced such astonishing effects; which enabled the government, for so long a period, to carry on so costly a war, and to maintain for years armaments greater than had been raised by the Roman Empire, in the zenith of her power.

The supplies voted by Parliament for the year 1797, were on a scale commensurate to the emergency. The land forces were raised to one hundred and ninety-five thousand, of whom sixty-one thousand were in the British Islands, and the remainder in the colonial dependencies of the empire. The ships in commission were one hundred and twenty-four of the line, eighteen of fifty guns, one hundred and eighty frigates, and one hundred and eighty-four sloops. This great force, however, being scattered over the whole globe, could not assemble on any one point a fleet which, numerically, was equal to those that her allied antagonists could bring against her. It was at this time that the famous mutiny in the fleet took place.

A feeling of discontent had for a long time prevailed in the navy, without having attracted the serious attention of the government. It was in part brought to a crisis by the insubordinate spirit of the times, but it had its origin in a variety of grievances, which had grown up with the naval system of England. The prevalence of these discontents was made known to Lord Howe and the Lords of the Admiralty, by a variety of

anonymous communications, but when inquiry was made of the captains of the individual ships, they all denied the existence of any mutinous disposition among the men. Meanwhile, however, a vast conspiracy, unknown to them, was already organized; and it was brought to maturity on the return to port of the Channel fleet, in the beginning of April; when, on making the signal, on board the Queen Charlotte, to weigh anchor, the crew, instead of obeying, gave three cheers, which were returned by every vessel in the fleet, and immediately the red flag of mutiny was run up to each mast head. The officers strove in vain to exert their authority; yet the mutineers, though refusing absolutely all obedience, resorted to no overt act of violence and bloodshed. They drew up a remonstrance, stating their grievances, and forwarded it in duplicate to the Admiralty and the house of Commons. The Board of Admiralty was at once transferred to Portsmouth; the demands of the seamen, having been found, for the most part, equitable, were acceded to; and Lord Howe at length persuaded the men to return to their duty, after promising them entire amnesty for the past. Order being thus happily restored, the fleet, consisting of twenty-one ships of the line, put to sea, and resumed the blockade of the harbor of Brest.

Hardly was this commotion at an end, however, when a still more serious mutiny broke out in Lord Duncan's squadron at the Nore, which extended to every vessel in the fleet excepting his lordship's own line-ofbattle ship and two frigates. A man named Parker was at the head of this mutiny, and the demands he made related in part to the distribution of prize money, which had been overlooked by the other mutineers; but he went to such extravagant lengths in other respects, and couched his demands in such a menacing strain, that the government could not possibly entertain his petitions. Fortunately for Great Britain and for the cause of freedom throughout the world, a monarch was on the throne whose firmness no danger could shake, and a minister was at the helm whose capacity was equal to any emergency. They denied the petition peremptorily, and adopted the most energetic measures to sustain their authority. All the buoys in the mouth of the Thames were removed; Sheerness, which was threatened by the insurgents, was garrisoned with four thousand men; red-hot balls were kept in constant readiness; Tilbury fort was armed with one hundred pieces of heavy cannon; and a chain of gun-boats was sunk to debar all access to the harbor. These measures were nobly responded to by Parliament, almost every one of the opposition following the lead of Mr. Sheridan, and throwing himself into the breach with the ministry. An act was promptly passed by both houses forbidding all communication with the sailors in mutiny, under penalty of death, and imposing a like penalty on any one who should attempt to seduce either soldiers or sailors from their allegiance. A negotiation was then entered into by the Admiralty, which was protracted from day to day, until by degrees the sailors became sensible of the desperate character of their enterprise, and man by man, and crew by crew, withdrew from their perilous compact, slipped the cables, one after another, of their respective ships, and took refuge under the cannon of Sheerness; until at length, on the 15th of June, twenty-four days after the mutiny began, every vessel was placed under the control of the government. Parker, the leader of the mutiny, and several of his more prominent associates were executed; but the greater part under sentence of death, were nardoned by royal proclamation.

But, whatever may have been the internal dissensions of the British navy, its external operations were fraught with terror to its enemies. Early in February, the Spanish fleet of twenty-seven ships of the line. and twelve frigates set sail for Brest, with a view of raising the blockade of that harbor, forming a junction with the Dutch fleet, and sweeping the British squadron from the Channel. Admiral Jarvis, who was stationed off the coast of Portugal with fifteen ships of the line and six frigates, immediately made sail in pursuit, and encountered the enemy off Cape St. Vincent.

The British admiral pushed boldly through the centre of the hostile fleet, doubled with his whole force on nine of the Spanish ships, and by a vigorous cannonade drove them to leeward, so as to prevent their taking any part in the engagement which followed. As soon as the Spanish admiral saw the effect of this manœuvre, which at a blow reduced the number of his effective ships so nearly to an equality with the British squadron, he wore around and endeavored to bring the remainder of his fleet into communication with this repulsed detachment; but Commodore Nelson, who was in the sternmost ship of the British line, disregarded his orders for the day, stood across the bows of the Spanish admiral's vessel, and ran his own ship between two of the enemy's three-deckers-the Santissima Trinidada, of one hundred and thirty-six guns, and the San Josef, of one hundred and twelve. The former of these two soon struck to Nelson's tremendous broadsides. Captains Collingwood and Trowbridge immediately followed the example of Nelson, engaged, indifferently, one or two at a time of the Spanish three-deckers, though their own vessels were but seventy-fours, and soon gave the Spanish admiral abundant occupation with the affairs of the main body of his fleet. The action now became general, and was continued through the remainder of the day, at the close of which the Spaniards retreated into Cadiz, leaving two three-deckers and two seventy-fours in the hands of the British. Two other ships had hauled down their colors in the action, but not being taken possession of in season by their captors, they made good their escape with the remainder of the fleet.

In the beginning of October, the Dutch fleet, taking advantage of the absence of the British blockading squadron, which had been driven to Yarmouth Roads by stress of weather, sailed from the Texel for Brest. It consisted of fifteen ships of the line and eleven frigates under the command of De Winter. As soon as Admiral Duncan was apprised by his cruisers that the Dutch fleet was at sea, he weighed anchor with all haste, and neared the hostile squadron before it was out of sight of the shore of Holland. Duncan's fleet comprised sixteen ships of the line and three frigates. His first care was to place his ships in such a position as to cut off the enemy from returning to the Texel; after which he bore down upon them and found them drawn up in order of battle about nine miles off the coast, between Camperdown and Egmont. He commenced the attack by breaking the enemy's line and running between them and the shore, which prevented the Dutch vessels from withdrawing into the shallows out of reach of the British fire-for the Dutch ships were of lighter draught than the English. The action was continued with great spirit for some hours, yard-arm to yard-arm, and in the event twelve ships of the line struck to the British fleet; but, owing to the gale, some of them were not secured in time and made their escape: and of those that were