would have had any salutary effect. The landlords themselves for the most part let their land at a low rent, but their tenants usually let it out again at a higher rent, and the sub-tenants again let it at a rent higher still, till in some places 67. was charged as the rent of an acre of potato ground. In the lower classes the bitterness of religious animosity had never been extinguished and blazed up into fierce hatred. In the summer of 1795, when hope of obtaining fair treatment from Parliament was extinguished, outrages committed by Catholics upon Protestants became frequent. Angry Protestants, calling themselves Orangemen in memory of William III., retaliated, with all the strength of the Government behind them. Violence and illegality appeared on both sides. The United Irishmen took up the cause of the Catholics, and, early in 1796, sent Wolfe Tone to France, to urge the Directory to invade Ireland and to establish a republic. 5. Bonaparte in Italy. 1796-1797. Before the end of 1796 France had reached a position of overwhelming strength on the Continent. At the beginning of that year her only serious enemies were England, Austria and Sardinia. In the spring, Bonaparte was sent to attack the Austrian and Sardinian armies in Italy. "You," he told his soldiers, “are ill-fed and naked. I will lead you into the most fertile places of the world, where you will find glory and riches." He defeated both Austrians and Sardinians, compelled the king of Sardinia to make peace, drove the Austrians out of Milan, and laid siege to Mantua their strongest fortress in Italy. Again and again Bonaparte, with marvellous skill, defeated Austrian armies attempting to save Mantua. It was not, indeed, till February 3, 1797, that Mantua, and with it the mastery of Italy, passed into his hands; but for some time before that its surrender had been a mere matter of time. 6. Pitt's First Negotiation with the Directory. 1796.-On October 22, 1796, a British ambassador, Lord Malmesbury, reached Paris to negotiate a peace. He asked that France should abandon the Austrian Netherlands, and should withdraw from Italy. As Pitt ought to have foreseen, if he did not actually foresee, the Directory repelled such overtures with scorn. Believing that they had England at their mercy, they struck at Ireland. On December 17, a great fleet carrying an army of 20,000 men sailed from Brest under the command of Hoche, one of the ablest of the French generals, who had set his heart on winning Ireland from the English. It was, however, dispersed at sea, and only some of its vessels reached Bantry Bay, out of which they were driven by a violent 1797 A NAVAL VICTORY 835 storm before a landing could be effected. The most satisfactory thing about this expedition, from the British point of view, was, that the Irish themselves had shown no signs of welcoming the invaders. 7. Suspension of Cash Payments. 1797.-Pitt was too exclusively an English minister to appreciate the real state of things either in Ireland or on the Continent. His treatment of Ireland was not such as to secure the internal peace of that country, and his treatment of France gave him neither peace nor victory. His main support lay in the extraordinary financial resources supplied by the rapidly increasing manufactures of England (see p. 814). Yet even on this ground he did not escape difficulties. In addition to the military and naval expenses incurred by his own country, he spent large sums upon its allies, and in the year 1796 sent no less than 4,000,000/. to Austria. Early in 1797 the Bank of England ran short of gold, and was authorised by the Government, and subsequently by Parliament, to suspend cash payments. For twenty-four years banknotes passed from hand to hand, though those who took them knew that it would be a long time before the Bank would be again able to exchange them for gold. 8. Battle of St. Vincent. 1797.-Success in Italy emboldened France in 1797 to attempt a great naval attack on Great Britain. The Batavian Republic-by which title the Dutch Netherlands were now known-had since 1795 been a dependent ally of France, and since October 6, 1796, France had been allied with Spain, which, as soon as the excitement caused by the horrors of the Revolution came to an end, was brought back to the French side, by alarm at the preponderance of England at sea. If the French and Spanish fleets could effect a junction, they would be able to bring an overwhelming force into the English Channel, whilst the Dutch fleet was to be employed to convey to Ireland an army of 14,000 men. To prevent this, Admiral Sir John Jervis, on February 16, attacked the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent. His ships were fewer and smaller than those of the Spaniards, but they were better equipped and better manned. Commodore' Nelson, disobeying orders, dashed with his own and one other ship into the midst of the enemy's fleet. Two other ships followed him after a while, but still the chances of war seemed to be against him. Yet he boarded and captured, first the 'San Nicolas' of 80 guns, and then the 'San Josef,' the flag-ship of the Spanish Admiral, of 112. As the swords of the Spanish officers who surrendered were too many for 1 i.e. A captain having command of other ships besides his own. him to hold, he gave them to one of his bargemen, who coolly tucked them in a bundle under his arm. Jervis was made Earl St. Vincent for the victory; but he was so nettled at Nelson's disobedience, that he did not even mention his name in the despatch which was published in the 'Gazette.' Nearer home the main business of the British fleet was to prevent a junction between the French and the Dutch. Admiral Duncan was sent to blockade the Dutch in the Texel, whilst Lord Bridport, at the head of the fleet at Spithead, was expected to look after the French. 9. Mutiny at Spithead. 1797.-The plans of the Government were nearly upset by an unexpected mutiny in the fleet. The sailors were paid at a rate settled in the reign of Charles II., though the price of clothes and provisions had risen considerably. They were badly fed, and when they were sick or even wounded, their pay was stopped. Order was kept by constant flogging, often administered for slight offences. The sailors at Spithead finding, after petitioning the Admiralty for redress of grievances, that no notice was taken of their petition, refused to go to sea. On this the Lords of the Admiralty instructed Lord Howe to assure them that justice should be done. Howe was a favourite amongst them, and they agreed to return to their duty. A short while afterwards, suspecting the Admiralty of a design to break the promise given to them, they again broke out into mutiny; but subsequently abandoned their hostile attitude on discovering that the Admiralty had no intention of dealing unfairly with them. 10. Mutiny at the Nore. 1797.-A more serious mutiny broke out in the fleet stationed at the Nore to guard the mouth of the Thames, where the sailors asked not merely to have actual grievances redressed, but to vote on the movements of their own ships even in the presence of an enemy, and blockaded the mouth of the Thames to enforce their demands. The mutiny spread to Duncan's ships off the Texel, the greater number of which sailed to join the fleet at the Nore. At one time Duncan was left to blockade the Dutch with only one ship besides his own. With this one ship he kept the Dutch in port, by constantly running up flags to make them think that he was signalling to the rest of his fleet, which they imagined to be just out of sight. In the meanwhile, the Government at home got the better of the mutineers. Parker, the chief leader of the revolt, was hanged, with seventeen others, and the crews submitted to their officers and did good service afterwards. 11. Pitt's second Negotiation with the Directory. 1797.-Soon 1797-1798 THE PEACE OF CAMPO-FORMIO 837 after the submission of the fleet at the Nore, Pitt made one more effort to obtain peace. Negotiations were held at Lille, but they broke down as completely as the negotiations in the preceding year. Austria had already signed preliminaries of peace with France at Leoben, and as Austria then engaged to abandon its possessions in the Netherlands, Pitt agreed to leave them under French dominion. He was also prepared to surrender some West Indian islands which British fleets had conquered from France, but he would not give up Trinidad, which they had taken from Spain, or the Cape of Good Hope, which they had taken from the Dutch. On his refusal the negotiations were broken off by the Directory. England had the mastery by sea, and France by land. On October 11 Duncan defeated the Dutch fleet off Camperdown, on the coast of Holland, thus putting an end to the projected invasion of Ireland (see p. 835); and on October 18 Bonaparte signed peace with Austria at Campo-Formio. The Austrian Netherlands were abandoned to France, whilst the Austrian territories in North Italy were made part of a republic called the Cisalpine Republic, and practically dependent on France. To compensate Austria— as the phrase went—the old Venetian Republic was suppressed, and the greater part of its territory given over to Austria, whilst the remainder went to the Cisalpine Republic. In the partition of Poland, the old governments had set the example of despoiling the weak, and Bonaparte did but carry out their principles. 12. Bonaparte's Expedition to Egypt. 1798.-When Bonaparte returned to France the Directory urged him to conquer England, but he preferred to go to Egypt. His vast abilities seldom failed him when he was called on to do what was possible to be done, but there was in him a romantic vein which constantly beguiled him into attempting impossible achievements. He hoped by the conquest of Egypt to found an empire in the East, from which he could hold out a hand to the native rulers of India who were struggling against British authority. Foremost amongst these rulers was Tippoo, the son of Hyder Ali (see p. 805), who had inherited his father's throne without his father's military abilities. Tippoo had in 1792 been defeated by Cornwallis and stripped of half his territory, but he was now burning to revenge the disaster, and hoped that Bonaparte would assist him to do so. On May 19 Bonaparte with a large fleet and army sailed from Toulon, seizing Malta on his way from the Knights of St. John. On his arrival in Egypt he marched against the Mamelukes-a splendid body of cavalry, the Beys or chiefs of which ruled the country under the nominal supremacy of the Sultan-defeated them at the Battle of the Pyramids, and made himself master of the land. 13. The Battle of the Nile. 1798. —On August 1, Nelson-now an admiral-found the French fleet which had conveyed Bonaparte anchored in Aboukir Bay. Instead of following the old fashion of fighting in which the hostile fleets engaged one another in parallel lines; he improved upon the example of breaking the line set by Rodney in 1782. Sending half his fleet through the middle of the enemy's line, he made it take up a position between half of the French ships and the shore, whilst the other half of his own ships placed themselves outside the same part of the enemy's line. He thus crushed part of the enemy's fleet by placing it between two fires before the other part had time to weigh anchor and to come up. The battle raged far into the night. Nelson himself was wounded, and carried below. A surgeon ran up to attend on him. "No," he said, "I will take my turn with my brave fellows." Before long he heard a cry that the French Admiral's ship was on fire. Hurrying on deck, he gave orders to send boats to help the French who threw themselves into the sea to escape the flames. The Battle of the Nile ended in a complete British victory, which, by cutting off Bonaparte's army from France, threw insuperable difficulties in the way of his scheme for the establishment of a French empire in the East. 14. Bonaparte in Syria. 1799.—Bonaparte, however, refused to abandon the hopes which he had formed. On January 26 he wrote to Tippoo announcing his preparations to relieve him. In the spring of 1799, Lord Mornington, the Governor-General of India, sent an army under Harris against Tippoo, and on May 4 Tippoo's capital, Seringapatam, was stormed and himself slain. Bonaparte was too far off to attempt a rescue. In February, learning that a Turkish army was coming against him through Syria, he set out to meet it. For a while he was victorious, but he was baffled by the desperate resistance of the Turkish garrison of Acre, which had been encouraged in its defence by an English Commodore, Sir Sidney Smith. On April 11, Bonaparte abandoned the siege of Acre and withdrew to Egypt. There he held his own, but Sir Sidney Smith sent him a file of newspapers to inform him of the events which had been passing in Europe during his absence. So startling was the news, that on August 22 Bonaparte sailed for France, leaving his army in Egypt to its fate. 15. Foundation of the Consulate. 1799-1800.-What Bonaparte learned from the newspapers was that a new coalition had been formed against France, this time between England, Austria and |