CHAPTER XX.

EXPEDITIONS TO EGYPT AND ST. DOMINGO-EUROPE, FROM THE PEACE OF AMIENS TO THE RENEWAL OF THE WAR.

THE Turkish army which Napoleon destroyed at Aboukir, was but an advanced guard of the force collected by the Sublime Porte to recover Egypt from the Republican arms. The main body, consisting of twenty thousand janizaries and regular troops, and twenty-five thousand irregulars, arrived in the end of October, 1799, in the neighborhood of Gazah, on the confines of the Desert which separates Syria from Egypt. At the same time, a corps of eight thousand janizaries, under convoy of Sir Sidney Smith, arrived at the mouth of the Nile, to effect a diversion in that quarter. The leading division of this corps, four thousand strong, landed and took possession of the tower of Bogaz, where they began to fortify themselves; but General Verdier, with one thousand French troops, routed them with a loss of five pieces of cannon and all their standards.

Kleber now turned his attention to the main army approaching from the Syrian desert. The check at the mouth of the Nile rendered the Grand Vizier well disposed toward negotiation; and on the other hand, the declining numbers and desponding spirit of the French made them desirous, on almost any terms, to extricate themselves from a hopeless banishment. A convention was accordingly signed by the two parties on the 20th of January, 1800, which provided that the French soldiers should return to Europe with their arms and baggage in their own vessels or in those furnished by the Turkish authorities. But the British government had previously prohibited such a convention, as by their joint treaty with Turkey and Russia they were empowered to do, and sent orders to Lord Keith, commanding the English fleet in the Mediterranean, not to consent to any arrangement which should allow the French troops to return to Europe but as prisoners of war: and Kleber was advised of this after he had begun his preparations for embarking, in conformity to the agreement with the Turks.

The French general, naturally exasperated at this interference of England, resolved to renew hostilities; and, on the 20th of March, he reached and attacked the Turkish army in its intrenchments at Heliopolis. The disproportion of numbers between the two parties was very great; but European discipline prevailed, as usual, over Asiatic valor, and the Turks were defeated with prodigious loss. This victory, though it availed nothing toward aiding the French to return home, was of consequence in enabling them to remain in peace on the banks of the Nile, a treaty to that effect having been concluded with the Turks, soon after the battle: but Kleber reaped little personal benefit from this result, as he was assassinated by an Arab in the month of June. Menou succeeded to his command.

As soon as the British government learned the new position assumed by the French troops in Egypt, they resolved on an expedition to expel them from that country, and dispatched Sir Ralph Abercromby with a large fleet

and fifteen thousand men, to Alexandria. The leading frigate of the squadron made the signal for land, on the 1st of March, 1801, and on the following morning the whole fleet anchored in the Bay of Aboukir, on the same spot where Nelson had gained his great victory three years before. The state of the weather prevented for some days the landing of the troops; but on the 8th, five thousand five hundred men embarked in one hundred and fifty boats for the shore. The French, to the number of about two thousand, were posted on the heights, in a semicircular line about a mile in length, supported on one side by twelve pieces of artillery, and on the other, by the castle of Aboukir. The moment the boats came within easy range of the French fire, a tremendous storm of grape opened upon them, ploughing the water in every direction, and scattering the transports over the waves. But the sailors plied their oars, and the troops steadily advanced in spite of every obstacle; indeed, they moved with such precision, that the prows of nearly all the first division struck the beach at the same moment. The troops sprang on shore, formed before they could be charged by the enemy's cavalry, and moving rapidly up the ascent with fixed bayonets, carried the heights in the most gallant style. In an hour, the whole detachment was established on the French lines, and had taken eight of the twelve guns by which they were supported.

Abercromby proceeded to strengthen his position and effect the landing of the remainder of his forces. Several partial actions ensued between detachments of the two armies during the following days, and on the morning of the 21st, a general battle was fought in front of Alexandria, in which the French were defeated with a loss of two thousand men, and Menou retreated to the heights of Nicopolis; but the victory was dearly purchased by the English, who suffered an irreparable disaster in the death of Sir Ralph Abercromby. Some weeks now elapsed, in which both parties occupied themselves with reorganizing their forces. On the 9th of May, General Hutchinson arrived at Alexandria, with a reenforcement of three thousand fresh troops, and assumed command of the British army. He immediately took the offensive, and, pressing on the French division under Belliard, compelled them to retreat before him, until he finally drove them into Cairo, and laid siege to that city, on the 20th of May. On the following day, the French commander proposed a capitulation, stipulating that the troops, consisting of thirteen thousand six hundred and seventy two men, with their arms, artillery and baggage, should be conveyed to France. This was acceded to, and the English took possession of Cairo.

When Menou, who was at Alexandria with the other division of the French army, amounting to ten thousand men, heard of this capitulation, he professed himself highly incensed, and avowed his determination to die under the ruins of Alexandria, rather than surrender. But the British troops, on the 17th of August, laid siege to that place, and Menou soon forgot his bold resolution: for, on the 31st, he agreeed to evacuate the town on condition of being transported to France with his men, arms, baggage, and ten pieces of cannon. The military results of this conquest were very great. Three hundred and twelve pieces of cannon, chiefly brass, were found on the works of Alexandria, besides seventy-seven on board the ships of war. The magazines contained one hundred and ninety-five thousand pounds of powder and fourteen thousand gun-cartridges. The total number of troops. who capitulated in Egypt, was nearly twenty-four thousand of the tried

veterans of France, who thus yielded to an English force considerably inferior to their own.

Although Napoleon had now lost his footing in Egypt, he did not despair of regaining it, and made several abortive attempts to take possession of Alexandria, by fleets dispatched for that purpose, which accomplished nothing but escapes through the British squadron in the Mediterranean, and returned home without having reached Alexandria. Napoleon, exasperated at these failures, ordered a new expedition to be prepared of fifteen ships of the line, twelve of which, six Spanish and six French, were to unite at Cadiz, and be joined by Admiral Linois with three more from Toulon. The British government immediately dispatched Sir James Saumarez, with seven ships of the line and two frigates, to resume the blockade of Cadiz; and he had hardly arrived off that harbor, when he learned that Admiral Linois was approaching from the Mediterranean with three ships of the line, and one frigate. The English admiral immediately put to sea in search of this squadron, when Linois retreated into Algesiraz Bay, and took shelter under its powerful batteries. Sir James followed him and stood into the bay, but the wind soon failing, the Hannibal grounded on a shoal, in such a position as to be exposed to the fire both of the shore batteries and the French ships; and as the other vessels were unable to render her any assistance, they withdrew and left her to her fate. She made an honorable defence, but soon struck her colors.

Sir James now repaired to Gibraltar, refitted and recruited his squadron, and, on the morning of July 12th, set sail again, to avenge his loss and discomfiture; and, in the mean time, six ships of the line and three frigates, from Cadiz, had joined the French fleet in Algesiraz Bay, and the united squadrons were now on their return to Cadiz with their prize, the Hannibal, in tow. As soon as the British fleet, consisting of but five ships of the line, came in sight of the French and Spanish vessels, the latter, though comprising together nine line-of-battle ships, including two three deckers, made sail to escape toward Cadiz, leaving the Hannibal to drop astern. The British gave chase, and at eleven o'clock at night, the Superb opened its fire on the Real Carlos, of one hundred and twelve guns, which ship, after three broadsides, was discovered to be on fire. Deeming this gigantic adversary so far disabled that she must soon fall into the hands of the vessels behind, the commander of the Superb pressed on, and in half an hour overtook and captured the St. Antoine, of seventyfour guns. The Cæsar and Venerable came up in succession, and the chase was continued through the night, in the midst of a tempestuous gale. But while the British sailors were making every effort to overtake the retreating ships, a terrible catastrophe happened to the enemy. The Superb, after having disabled the Real Carlos, passed on and poured a broadside into the San Hermenigeldo, also of one hundred and twelve guns, and she thence proceeded to the attack of other vessels still farther advanced. In the darkness of the night, the commanders of these two Spanish three-deckers, mutually mistaking each other for an enemy, joined in a close action; the violence of the wind spread the flames from one to the other, the heavens were illuminated by the conflagration, and at midnight they both blew up with a tremendous explosion. Out of the two thousand men composing their crews, two hundred and fifty were saved by the English boats, the remainder perished.

When morning dawned, the fleets were very much scattered; and

eventually both drew off without prizes; but it was a triumph to the British to have engaged nearly double their numbers, and escape with all their vessels; while the combined fleet suffered the destruction of two of its largest ships.

About this time, a treaty between France and Spain was announced, having for its object "to compel the court of Lisbon to separate itself from its alliance with Great Britain, and cede, until the conclusion of a general peace, a fourth part of its territory to the French and Spanish forces." In this extremity, Portugal appealed for aid to Great Britain; but, as that power could not then grant it, Portugal was forced to submit; she purchased a treaty with her powerful neighbors by ceding to France one half of Guiana, paying twenty millions of francs for the support of the French troops, confirming Olivenza with its territory to Spain, and closing her ports against all English ships, whether of war or of commerce.

When Napoleon found himself relieved by the treaty of Luneville from all apprehension of a struggle with the Continental powers, he bent his attention to the shores of Great Britain, and made great preparation for invading that country: while England concentrated her resources for a general defence of the coast. But it was soon apparent that these efforts, on both sides, were a mere cover to the intentions of the respective cabinets; for while the shores of the Channel were covered with boats and transports on the one hand, and fleets of armed ships on the other, couriers passed incessantly to and fro with dispatches having reference to a general peace, preliminaries for which were eventually signed, on the 1st of October, 1801. By these preliminary articles it was agreed, that hostilities between the contracting parties should immediately cease by land and зea; that Great Britain should restore its colonial acquisitions in every part of the world; Ceylon in the East, and Trinidad in the West Indies, alone excepted: that Egypt should be restored to the Porte, Malta and its dependencies to the order of St. John of Jerusalem, the Cape of Good Hope to Holland; the integrity of Portugal was to be guaranteed, the harbors of the Roman and Neapolitan states evacuated by the French, and Porto Ferrajo by the English forces.

In the same year, treaties were concluded between France and Turkey, France and Bavaria, France and America, France and Algiers, and France and Russia. On the 27th of March, 1802, the definitive treaty with England was signed at Amiens; its conditions varied in no essential particular from the preliminaries signed at London, in October, 1801.

A feeling of joy overspread all Europe when intelligence of the treaty of Amiens was promulgated: the population of Paris forgot, in the splendor of military pageantry, the calamities of the Revolution, and visitors from other countries flocked to the French metropolis to examine the localities where such frightful scenes had been enacted, and to see the several heroes of the mighty drama.

But the active and indefatigable mind of Napoleon took no respite during this period of general relaxation. Thinking nothing done while aught remained to do, he no sooner attained the highest point of military glory, than he turned his thoughts to the restoration of the naval power of France; and as the recovery of the French colonies promised the only means that could be relied on for the permanent support of marine forces, he projected an expedition for the recapturing of St. Domingo, which had freed itself from the French yoke by a bloody insurrection during the misrule of the National Assembly.

The forces collected by Napoleon for this purpose were commensurate to the importance of the undertaking: thirty-five ships of the line, twentyone frigates and eighty smaller vessels, having also on board twenty-one thousand land troops, might have been deemed a sufficiently powerful armament to subjugate a rival kingdom, rather than one destined to reduce a distant colonial settlement. The fleet was commanded by Villaret Joyeuse; the army, by Le Clerc, Napoleon's brother-in-law; and the troops consisted, for the most part, of the veterans of Hohenlinden, accompanied by their own officers, Richepanse, Rochambeau, and others. The several detachments of the fleet sailed simultaneously from Brest, L' Orient and Rochefort, on the 14th of December; and these were followed by other vessels from Cadiz, Havre and Holland with additional troops, which eventually raised the whole land force to thirty-five thousand men. So completely were the people of St. Domingo at fault as to the destination of this armament, that, but for its detention for fifteen days in the Bay of Biscay, Toussaint, the negro general-in-chief of the new government, would have been taken entirely by surprise by the arrival of the fleet off the island, in the beginning of February. As it chanced, however, he learned from an American vessel that a large number of French ships of war had appeared in the southern latitudes; and, instantly divining their object, he made all possible preparation for defence.

Toussaint's entire military force, over the island, did not exceed twenty thousand men, hence, he could hope nothing from pitched battles with the conquerors of Austria; he therefore adopted a line of defence exactly conformable to his position. Orders were immediately given for removing everything valuable from Cape Town, where the French were expected to land, and to prepare combustibles for destroying the city by fire, the moment it was evacuated. These orders were faithfully executed. One division of the French troops disembarked on the 4th of February; during that night, the flames burst out in every direction, and in the morning, of eight hundred houses, but sixty remained standing, and all the stores and provisions that could not be removed were destroyed with the buildings that contained them: a noble act of devotion on the part of the negroes, and one of sinister import to the invading army.

The French troops soon overran and took possession of all the plains and seacoast of the island, driving the negro bands into the impracticable mountains and woods in the centre: but this apparent triumph was the result of the system of defence adopted by Toussaint, to cut off supplies from the French, and harass them with an incessant guerilla warfare, which rendered their discipline and experience unavailing. This state of things continued for three months, during which numberless actions took place, and in many, the French suffered severe loss; but both parties at length becoming exhausted, a general pacification was agreed upon, on the 5th of May, 1802; when the negroes submitted to the government of the invaders, surrendered their arms and disbanded their forces. But they soon found reason to repent their reliance on the faith of Napoleon; for, in compliance with his original instructions, Toussaint was treacherously arrested and transported to France; and this act was followed by a system of oppression which soon forced the negroes into revolt.

The situation of the French, in turn, became critical. Pestilence and the sword had reduced their numbers to thirteen thousand men in all; and