tempts of the French. Its communication with the strong fortress of Cassel, on the opposite banks of the Rhine, secured it a constant supply of troops and necessaries: and till that was taken, it could hardly be reduced by any force. Hence it became evident, that unless the French were masters of the other side of the Rhine, they would vainly lay siege to this city. They had now invested it for several months; but the multiplicity of undertakings they had projected, interfered so much with each other, that they had not been able to attend to this one with a sufficient degree of care, and a great part of the summer elapsed, before they commenced that plan of operations by which alone they could hope to obtain pos

session of Mentz.

The fact was, that the preceding campaign had exhausted France more than either their enemies or friends seemed to have discovered. Both were of opinion, that the present year would be an accumulation of successes, finish the work of French grandeur, and put a period to this destructive war, by a treaty, of which they would dictate the conditions. But their victories had cost them such numbers of their best troops, that, although their armies were continually supplied with recruits, it required time to inure these to discipline. The profusion of their own blood was become so inseparably annexed to their tactics, that the loss of lives was no longer an object of much consideration in the system of French warfare. It was by sacrificing their people with out remorse on every occasion, that they carried almost every point they proposed but as those that fell in the desperate enterprises they were

employed in, were the bravest of their troops, though they might re place the numbers they were con tinually losing, they could not supply their places with an equal proportion of good soldiers. The French officers and commanders were fully aware of this deficiency, and, for this reason, were become less venturous and enterprising, especially towards the Netherlands and the Rhine, where the bloodiest actions had taken place, and their successes had been purchased at the heaviest cost of men.

From motives of this nature proceeded the seeming inactivity of the French in several instances. The inconsiderate were inclined to attri

bute it to that unsteadiness which is

thought to mark the French character; and the French were not displeased it should be ascribed to any but the real cause, which, in the present juncture, might have operated to the discouragement of their own people, and have, at the same time, prompted their enemies to exertions that might have proved superior to their own. It was not till the month of August that the French generals determined to open effectually the campaign upon the Rhine. They began by an attack upon Dusseldorf, where a considerable body of Austrians was posted. The French, however, were in such force, and crossed the Rhine so unexpectedly, that the Austrians were obliged to abandon that city, and retire to a large body that lay entrenched on the river of Lahu. Jourdan, who had effected this pas sage, pressed these Austrian bodies so closely, that they fell back with. out hazarding any action; so great at this time, was the terror inspired by the French. Encouraged by this

success,

The projects of the French on the right banks of the Rhine, were now entirely defeated. Jourdan was unable to continue the blockade of Mentz, and forced to re-cross the Main. He retreated to Dusseldorf, harassed by Clairfait, who kept close to him during the whole of his march, which was perpetually interrupted by skirmishes, wherein the Austrians had almost constantly the advantage. So strongly was the tide of success now turned against the French, that the army which had crossed the Rhine at Manheim, under Pichegru, was obliged in like manner to return to the other side, leaving in that city a garrison of ten thousand men. The garrison of Mentz, was, in the mean while, reinforced by large divisions of the Austrian army, while others were making good their passage over the Rhine, in order to attack the French encamped before that city. The intention of Pichegru had been, to put the French camp into such a posture of defence, as to repell the attacks which he foresaw would be made against it by the victorious enemy. He hastened accordingly his march from Manheim: but before the preparations he had formed against the Austrians were completed, these attacked the French with so superior a force, that they were unable to resist it. They were assailed in front by the garri. son, and taken in flank on the right and left by two numerous divisions. Their works and batteries were demolished, all their artillery taken, and they were driven from every post they occupied. It was not without difficulty, and through the most obstinate exertions, that they were able at last to effect a retreat.

Jourdan was no longer in a con.

dition to act offensively on the right side of the Rhine. He had lost a considerable part of his artillery, and numbers of his best troops. The remainder was much dispirited.. Clairfait was now master of the field. Leaving a sufficient force to guard the country from which he had expelled the French, he crossed the Rhine, and formed a junction with Wurmser. They retook the Palatinate and most of the countries between the Rhine and the Moselle. Alarmed at their progress, Jourdan collected all the troops that were stationed in the proximity of the Rhine, and by forced marches reached, in a short time, the scene of action. United with Pichegru, he had the good fortune to put a stop to the rapid career of the Austrians.

They could not, however, preserve the city of Manheim. It was, on the departure of Pichegru, immediately besieged by the Austrians. The French garrison made a resolute defence; but as the town was invested on every side, and cut off from all hope of succour, it was thought proper, in order to prevent it from total destruction, to capitulate with the enemy, who had already greatly damaged it, by a terrible bombardment, in revenge for the facility with which it had been surrendered to the French. The reduction of Manheim hap. pened about the close of November. The number of French who were made prisoners, amounted to eight thousand.

The successes of the Austrians emboldened them to form the project of penetrating as far as Luxem burg. They made preparations to this intent; and a large division of their best troops was provided

with all the requisites for such an attempt. The town of Luxemburg itself was supplied with a nu. merous garrison, and with stores and provisions for a twelvemonth; but the apprehensions excited by the divers movements of the Austrians, terminated in some incursions in the neighbourhood of that fortress, and of Treves, and the adjacent districts. The resistance of the French became at last so vigorous and successful, that the Austrians could not extend themselves beyond the li. mits which they had occupied, when they first compelled the French to retire to the left side of the Rhine. They continued to dispute the ground with great obsti, nacy and loss of blood on both sides, till the severity of winter induced both parties to suspend hostilities for the space of three months.

On the Italian frontiers of France, the arms of the republic did not perform any achievements equal to those in the foregoing campaign. The superiority of strength lay on the side of Austria, and the utmost that could be done by the French was, to maintain themselves in the posts which they had already occupied. All parties, in truth, seemed willing to indulge in some respite of the dreadful trials and labours they had undergone, and to wait for the arising of some event that might open a prospect of their cessation. The only two powers combined against France were not sufficiently recovered from the alarm occasioned by the declaration of their associates, to frame any great and decisive designs against France: and the republic had wasted so much of its strength in the wonderful exertions it had made, that whatever the friends of that system might pretend,

it wanted rest even more than its neighbours.

While the republican armies had, in the commencement of 1795, and the close of 1794, been employed in reducing so many countries, and spreading every where the terror of the French arms, ther condition of the interior, in that vast country, was still wretched and deplorable, through the animosities between the two parties that divided the nation. The republicans held out to the public the trophies of so many victories won, and so many people subdued, and loftily demanded at what period of the monarchy the French had ever arrived at such a summit of glory? But the royalists, no less indignantly, asked, when it was that France had seen such torrents of blood of its inhabitants shed by any of its former rulers? The very worst of preceding administrations, under the very worst of their kings, were models of virtue, of uprightness, of lesity, when compared to the very best of those fleeting phantoms of government that had arisen and disappeared like meteors, and left nothing but the remembrance of the iniquities through which the vilest of men rose to power, and maintained themselves in it, and through which they had been deprived of it by others as wicked as themselves.

The mass of the French people, though remarkably fond of national honour, and willing to suffer much for the attaining of it, had, under the dreadful government of Roberspierre, forgotten almost every sen. sation but that of terror. None but the most violent abettors of the severest republicanism had expressed any other sentiments than

those