the French government, entered into negotiations with the allied generals, and arrested the deputies sent by the convention to watch his movements. But the army did not share the anti-revolutionary feelings of Dumouriez, and he was forced to seek shelter in the Austrian

camp.

Custine, the successor of Dumouriez, was unable to check the progress of the allied armies; being reinforced by a British force under the duke of York, they captured the important fortress of Valenciennes, and seemed to have opened a way to Paris. The revolutionary government punished Custine's failure by a public execution, and employed the terrors of the guillotine as an incentive to patriotism. But the separation of the allied forces was more serviceable to the cause of the convention than the cruelties of the "Committee of Public Safety," to which the supreme power in France was intrusted. Austria, Prussia, and England, had separate interests, in the pursuit of which the common cause was forgotten; the imperialists laid siege to Le Quesnoi, while the English and Dutch proceeded to invest Dunkirk. The duke of York attacked Dunkirk with great spirit, but not receiving the support by sea that he had expected, and the Hanoverian force that covered his operations having been routed by Houchard, he was obliged to raise the siege and abandon the greater portion of his artillery and mil itary stores. The Austrians were for a time more successful, but when Hoche, the defender of Dunkirk, was promoted to the command of the republican armies, they were driven from all their conquests in Alsace, and forced to seek shelter within the imperial frontiers. In Italy, the French maintained their hold of Savoy, but they experienced some severe reverses on the Spanish frontier.

The revolutionary excitement produced the most dreadful effects beyond the Atlantic; the colored population in the French division of St. Domingo took arms to force the whites to grant them equal privileges; their claims were supported by the three deputies sent by the convention to regulate the affairs of the colony, the negroes were seduced, by offers of liberty, to revolt against their masters, and St. Domingo, which had been one of the most flourishing islands in the West Indies, was devastated by a civil war, scarcely to be paralleled for its sanguinary fury and the wanton destruction of life and property.

The wars of southern and western Europe permitted Catherine of Russia to accomplish the favorite object of her policy, the dismemberment of Poland. ́ Austria and Prussia joined in this iniquitous scheme, for the purpose of sharing the plunder, but the Poles made a gallant struggle to maintain their independence. Kosciusko, who had served in America, under Washington, was the chief of the patriots, and his heroic efforts protracted a struggle which from the first was hopeless. Kosciusko, severely wounded, fell into the hands of his enemies, Warsaw was stormed by the brutal Suwaroff, and the kingdom of Poland, erased from the list of nations, was divided between the three confederates (A. D. 1795). The king of Prussia, more anxious to secure his new acquisitions than to support the objects of the coalition, made peace with the French, and offered to mediate between the republic and Austria.

Scarcely had the Austrians been driven from France, when tha

country was convulsed by civil war (A. D. 1793.) The jacobins having, by the aid of the Parisian populace, triumphed over the rival faction in the convention, mercilessly proscribed their political adversaries as traitors, and after a mockery of trial, hurried them to execution. Among the victims to their fury was the unfortunate queen of France, Marie Antoinette, but death was to her not a punishment, but a release from suffering. The tyranny of the Jacobins provoked formidable insurrections in the south of France, and encouraged the royalists of La Vendée to take up arms in the cause of their church and their king. Nothing could exceed the fury of the Jacobins when they heard of these revolts; severe decrees were passed against the cities which had resisted their authority, but no place was so cruelly punished as Lyons, which had continued for four months in a state of insurrection. After having endured a furious bombardment, it was forced to surrender at discretion, five deputies, of whom Callot and Fouché were the chief, received a communication from the convention to punish the Lyonese revolters by the summary process of military law, and about four thousand victims were shot or guillotined after the mockery of trial before this savage tribunal. But, in the midst of their butcheries, the Jacobins did not neglect the military defence of their country; a decree of the convention declared, that all the French were soldiers, and a levy of the population, en masse, was ordered. To support such numerous armies, private property was seized and paid for in promissory notes, called assignats, whose value was speedily depreciated, a circumstance which ruined public credit in France.

Toulon having revolted, an English garrison, strengthened by Spanish and Neapolitan detachments, occupied that important seaport. It was soon besieged by the troops of the convention; the artillery of the besiegers was directed by a young Corsican, Napoleon Bonaparte, who had risen by his merits from an inferior station. Owing to his exertions, the English soon found the place untenable; they evacuated Toulon, without loss, after having destroyed the arsenal and shipping, but they abandoned the inhabitants to the fury of the conquerors, who punished their revolt with indiscriminate severity.

In the Netherlands and Germany, the French, under Pichegru and Jourdan, gained many important advantages over the imperialists and their allies; but though many battles were fought, nothing of any consequence was effected in the early part of the campaign (A. D. 1794). A more important event was the downfall of the sanguinary faction which had so long deluged France with the blood of its best citizens; Robespierre's enormities were too numerous and too shocking to be borne, even by many of the Jacobin party; a conspiracy was formed against him; the convention was induced to resume its authority, and order his arrest, and, after a brief struggle, he and his accomplices were hurried before the revolutionary tribunal, which they had themselves organized, and sent to the scaffold. This revolution did not produce the beneficial results that had been expected; Robespierre's successors were little better than himself, and they were confirmed in their hostility to Britain by the recent defeat of their navy. Lord Howe, who had been distinguished as a naval commander in the two preceding wars, encountered a French fleet of rather superior force (June 1), and

having broken the enemy's line, took six ships-of-war and sank two This success revived the declining spirits of the English nation, discouraged by the ill success of the war in Holland. Corsica was soon after annexed to the dominions of England, but the French were victorious on the Spanish frontier, and Holland was completely subdued by Pichegru and Moreau. The prince of Orange and the English forces escaped by sea; the Dutch abolished the office of stadtholder, and adopted a new form of government, similar to that of the French republic. If there were any in Holland who expected to derive advantage from this revolution, they were grievously disappointed; the French despised their new confederates, and treated them as a conquered people, while the English seized the colonies and destroyed the remains of the once unparalleled commerce of Holland.

The alarm which the French revolution excited in England, led the government to prosecute some er thusiastic advocates of reform in parliament for high treason; three of them were brought to trial and acquitted, upon which the prosecutions of the others were abandoned. There were few in the country anxious to make a change in the established institutions, the crimes and follies of the French Jacobins had rendered innovation unpopular, and many who had hitherto been in opposition to the court, tendered their aid to the minister; the most remarkable of these converts was the eloquent Burke, whose denunciations of French principles, produced a powerful effect on the national mind.

The dismemberment of Poland, and the desertion of the coalition by the king of Prussia, gave great dissatisfaction to the British parliament, and the character of our faithless ally was made the theme of severe and not unmerited censure. He had accepted a large subsidy from England, and employed the money lavishly granted him, against the Polanders instead of the French. But the defection of Prussia did not dishearten the English or the Austrians, who were encouraged to continue the war by the distracted state of France. In Paris, the convention partially succeeded in throwing off the yoke of the Jacobins, but the city was frequently endangered by their machinations, and the insurrections of the ferocious populace who supported them. The royalist war was renewed in La Vendée, and the south of France continued discontented. But the allies profited little by these commotions. The Spaniards, completely humbled, were forced to make peace with the republicans; the Austrians barely maintained their ground in Italy, and success was evenly balanced on the side of Germany. Great Britain, however, maintained its supremacy at sea; Admiral Cornwallis compelled a fleet of very superior force to retire, and Lord Bridport, with ten sail-of-the-line, attacked twelve of the enemy, three of which were compelled to strike their colors. The French were deprived of Martinique, Gaudaloupe, and St. Lucie, in the West Indies, and their reluctant allies, the Dutch, lost their settlements at the Cape of Good Hope, and in the island of Ceylon.

The convention, by an attempt to perpetuate its authority, provoked a formidable insurrection in Paris; Bonaparte had a considerable share in subduing the revolters, more than two thousand of whom were mercilessly slaughtered. Soon afterward, France had a new constitu

tion, consisting of a legislative assembly, an upper house, called the council of ancients, and a directory of five members, intrusted with the executive functions of government. The directors soon began to limit the powers of the legislative body, and the new constitution was found to be a delusion. But an approach had been made to regular government, and the war was carried on with fresh vigor by the directory (A. D. 1796). Marshals Jourdan and Moreau made successful irruptions into Germany, but they encountered a formidable antagonist in the archduke Charles of Austria. He stopped the invaders in their mid-career of victory, completely routed Jourdan at Kornach, and then suddenly marching against Moreau, he nearly succeeded in surprising and overwhelming that general. Moreau's celebrated retreat was more honorable to his abilities than the most brilliant victory; he led his forces through the black forest, from position to position, often compelled to yield his ground, but never thrown into confusion, until he safely crossed the Rhine with all his artillery and baggage.

The campaign in Italy, where the French were commanded by Napoleon Bonaparte, was more eventful. The king of Sardinia, completely routed and cut off from his communications with the Austrians, was forced to purchase a dishonorable peace from the republic, by the cession of his most important fortresses. Napoleon then led his forces against the Austrians, forced, but with great loss, a passage over the bridge of Lodi, and gained possession of Milan and the principal cities of Lombardy. The victors made a harsh use of their triumph, the unfortunate Lombards were treated with great cruelty, the duke of Tuscany was compelled to exclude the English from the port of Leghorn, and the pope was forced to purchase the forbearance of the republicans by ceding to them Bologna, and several other towns, paying a heavy ransom, and sending three hundred precious manuscripts and pictures to enrich the national museum at Paris. The dukes of Modena and Parma were subjected to similar exactions, but the king of Naples had providently made a truce with the French before they approached his frontiers. Mantua, the last stronghold of the Austrians in Italy, was closely besieged, but the court of Vienna made vigorous preparations for its relief. Marshal Wurmser twice pushed forward against the French, but was each time defeated with great loss, a calamity owing to his unwisely dividing his forces. Alvinzi, who succeeded to the command of the Austrians, committed the same fault, and was compelled to retire; Mantua, however, was still obstinately defended, but the garrison ceased to entertain sanguine hopes of

success.

In the meantime, the Corsicans grew weary of their connexion with Great Britain, drove the English from the island, and placed themselves under the protection of France. Ireland was exposed to the horrors of an invasion; a formidable squadron, having a large body of troops on board, appeared in Bantry Bay. Hoche, who had acquired considerable fame by his suppression of the insurrection in La Vendée, commanded the expedition, and, could he have effected a landing, the safety of the British empire would have been perilled; but a violent storm dispersed the ships, most of which were subsequently either sunk or captured. The death of the emperess Catherine

inspired the English minister with the hope of gaining more effective assistance from Russia; but her successor, the emperor Paul, disregarded all the solicitations addressed to him by the courts of London and Vienna.

A new enemy appeared against England; the Spanish government, always jealous of British naval power, and overawed by the French directory, entered into alliance with the republic, and began to increase its navy (A. D. 1797). At this moment, when the existence of England depended on its sailors, a formidable mutiny broke out in the fleet at Spithead ; the officers were suspended from their authority and dismissed from their ships; the malcontents blockaded the mouth of the Thames, and committed several acts of depredation. Fortunately the sailors grew alarmed themselves and hastened to return to their allegiance; a few of the ringleaders were hanged, but the great body of the revolters was conciliated by an act of amnesty.

The war in Italy was not discontinued during the winter; Alvinzi made a desperate effort to retrieve the fortunes of Austria, but he was again defeated, and Mantua soon capitulated. Having very severely punished the pope for his attachment to the imperial interests, Napoleon resolved to carry the war into the hereditary states of Austria. The territory of Friuli was quickly subdued, and a great part of the Tyrol occupied by the French; the archduke Charles made a bold defence, but the emperor Francis, terrified by the advance of Hoche and Moreau in Germany, sued for peace, in spite of the remonstrances of his English allies. While the terms of pacification were under discussion, Napoleon subverted the ancient constitution of Genoa and Venice, and made both republics virtually dependant on France.

Spain suffered severely in the war she had so rashly commenced. Admiral Jervis encountered a Spanish fleet of very superior force off Cape St. Vincent, and by a dexterous manœuvre cut off nine of their ships from the line, so that he could engage the rest on more equal terms. Four ships-of-the-line were taken in this brilliant engagement, to the success of which Nelson, who was now commencing his brilliant career, mainly contributed. The Spaniards lost also the valuable island of Trinidad, but an attack made by the British on Teneriffe was unsuccessful. The Dutch, too, were punished for their alliance with France. Three ships-of-the-line and four frigates were taken by the British, after an unsuccessful attempt to recover the cape. But they suffered a more severe loss on their own coast; an English squadron, commanded by Admiral Duncan, got between their ships and the shore, and took eleven out of fifteen sail-of-the-line. Two of the prizes, however, in consequence of the difficulties of the navigation, were abandoned.

A new revolution in France invested the directory with supreme power, and their opponents were banished to the unhealthy swamps of Guiana, where they were treated with great rigor. Negotiations for peace were commenced, but those with England were broken off abruptly by the extravagent demands of the French plenipotentiaries. This did not prevent the conclusion of a treaty between the republic and Austria, when the emperor was renumerated for the loss of Mantua by the cession of Venice, which he meanly accepted, and the frontiers of France were extended to the Rhine.