340 MUTINY AT THE NORE. [1797. requested to revise these regulations. The pay and pensions of the army had been increased, whilst the seamen continued neglected. To the Lords of the Admiralty the petitioners further alleged the grievance which sailors endured in receiving only fourteen ounces to the pound in the provisions served out to them. The two ounces were retained as the perquisite of the purser, who received no other pay. They had short quantities in every article served out by measure. Their food was bad. The necessaries supplied to the sick were embezzled. When they had completed the duty of their ship after their return from sea, they claimed the opportunity to taste the sweets of liberty on shore. If a man was wounded in action they required that his pay should be continued until he was cured and discharged. The crisis was too serious to allow of hesitation on the part of the naval authorities. The Board of Admiralty assembled at Portsmouth, and gave an immediate answer, promising to recommend to his majesty to propose to parliament an immediate increase of the wages of seamen in certain proportions, and to redress the grievance of withholding pay from seamen wounded in action. The other allegations of the petition remained unnoticed; and the seamen reiterated their demands, declaring that until an Act of Parliament was passed, and pardon granted to them, they would not lift an anchor. Three admirals went on board the Queen Charlotte, and had a conference with the Delegates. One gave way to passion, seized a Delegate by the collar, swore he would hang them all, and narrowly escaped with his own life. Then was hoisted the terrible signal of the red flag-the pirates' signal, which implied that no quarter would be given. After two or three days' suspense, lord Bridport came on board his flag-ship, and promised complete redress and full pardon. Meanwhile, no official notice had been taken of these proceedings by the ministry or the parliament; and the seamen were persuaded that they were betrayed. For a fortnight a silence which was considered politic, but which was truly dangerous, had been maintained; and the mutiny again broke out on the 7th of May. Blood was then shed, and for another week the country was held in terror. act vigorously. A Bill was rapidly carried through both increase of pay and allowance to the seamen and marines. Howe, with the Act of Parliament in his hand, and the king's proclamation of pardon, met the Delegates at Portsmouth. The presence of this veteran, the hero of the first of June, touched the hearts of the Delegates. The bloody flag was struck. Subordination was wholly restored; and on the 17th the fleet put to sea. The example of tranquillity at Spithead was sufficient to quell a similar mutiny at Plymouth. It was time to Houses for an On the 14th lord But the danger was not yet overpast-the greatest danger, perhaps, that England had encountered since the Spanish Armada sailed into the Channel, and the guns of the Dutch told of their presence in the Medway. On the 22nd of May, after some previous symptoms of disaffection, that revolt broke out which is known in history as the Mutiny at the Nore. On that day the crews took possession of the ships; elected Delegates; and prepared petitions that in their demands went far beyond those of the previous mutineers. The redress of grievances alleged by the fleet at Spithead applied to the whole British navy. The mutineers at the Nore repeated these complaints as if they had not been redressed, and assumed an attitude which made conciliation impossible. Some of their demands might be just, others were wholly 1797.] PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT. 341 extravagant. The Delegates of the fleet at Spithead had said in their first petition, "we agree in opinion that we should suffer double the hardships we have hitherto experienced before we would suffer the crown of England to be in the least imposed upon by any power in the world." Very different was the view of their duty taken by the crews of four men of war, and a sloop, who had deserted from the fleet blockading the Texel under admiral Duncan, and had sailed to join the mutineers at the Nore. Duncan called his own ship's crew together, and amongst many other earnest words said, "It has often been my pride with you to look into the Texel, and see a foe which dreaded coming out to meet us: my pride is now humbled indeed." But the brave commander maintained his blockade with those who were faithful to him. At the Nore the acts of the fleet were as those of a foreign enemy. The Delegates had chosen a daring man as their President-Richard Parker-who signed the demands of his associates as if he were invested with supreme powers. Conferences between the Lords of the Admiralty and the Delegates had no result beyond embittering the dispute. The red flag was hoisted. The mutineers moored their ships in a line across the river, and intercepted every merchant-vessel. Pitt had his sleep broken; but he took the most decisive mode to sleep securely in future. He brought in bills to provide for the more effectual punishment of those who should excite mutiny and sedition in the navy; and to prevent all communication with the ships that should remain in a state of mutiny. The bills were quickly passed, amidst some party opposition, to which the patriotic conduct of Sheridan was a signal exception. The mutineers quickly discovered that the government was too strong for them; that they had not the support of the other fleets; and that they were not united amongst themselves. On the 9th of June, two of the ships concerned in the mutiny abandoned the fleet, and were fired upon by those remaining at the Nore. On the 13th five more vessels left the insurgents, and took refuge under the batteries of Sheerness. On the 15th all the ships at anchor struck the red flag. Obedience was soon completely reestablished. Parker and the more prominent of his associates were found guilty, after a solemn trial. Parker had been a small shop-keeper in Scotland; was confined for debt in Perth gaol when he accepted the parochial bounty of thirty pounds to volunteer into the navy; had served two years, and was promoted to be a petty officer, but was disrated and turned before the mast about three months before the mutiny broke out. He was executed on board the Sandwich on the 30th of June. The alarm inspired by these mutinies may be gathered from the expressions of public men. Sheridan said in the House of Commons, "If there was, indeed, a rot in the wooden walls of Old England, our decay could not be very distant." Lord Mornington could see no way out of these troubles. "How discipline and subordination are ever again to be restored, on any permanent basis, surpasses my understanding to conceive." * the 9th of May, lord Cornwallis wrote, "Unless the business of the fleet can be speedily adjusted, a few days must place a French army in Ireland." The alarm of the moneyed and commercial interests was sufficiently expressed by the fall in the funds. Throughout the four years of war, indeed, the price of *Court and Cabinets of Geo. III." vol. ii. p. 373. On 342 NEGOTIATIONS AT LISLE FOR PEACE. [1797. stocks may be taken as the index of public confidence. In January, 1793, the three per cents were at 79; in January, 1796, they were at 67; in January, 1797, they were at 57; and in April, May, and June, of that year, they had fallen to 47. The crisis was indeed alarming. Public bodies, including the Common Council of London, called for the dismission of the king's ministers, as the most likely means of securing a speedy and permanent peace. Lord Grenville wrote to his brother at the end of April, "The panic here is so disgraceful that the country will not allow us to do them justice." He thought how pleasant it were for the nation " to be quiet and suffer themselves to be saved." He looks at "the good people of England" from a point of view which sees much, but does not see all, and which sees many things "through a glass darkly." There is truth in what he says, but not the whole truth: "To desire war without reflection, to be unreasonably elated with success, to be still more unreasonably depressed by difficulties, and to call out for peace with an impatience which makes suitable terms unattainable, are the established maxims and the regular progress of the popular mind in this country."* Pitt, with all his sanguine hopes of success in a prolonged resistance to France, had far more respect for "the popular mind in this country" than the cold and haughty Grenville. There was a war party in the Cabinet and a pacific party. Pitt, encouraged by his attached disciple Canning, was resolved to brave the hostility of Grenville, Windham, and the war party, and once more to open negotiations for peace with France. Lord Malmesbury, after the mutiny in the fleet had been suppressed, was again appointed to conduct negotiations; with the assurance from Pitt that "he would stifle every feeling of pride to the utmost to produce the desired results."+ Malmesbury met the Plenipotentiaries of the French Republic at Lisle, in the beginning of July. On the 9th of July, the great seer, who would have again raised his voice to cry "No Peace with Regicide," ceased to live. On the 14th, Canning wrote to his friend Ellis, who formed one of the suite of this embassy, "I ought to tell you something of what has been passing here since you left us. There is but one event, but that is an event for the world,-Burke is dead. . . It is of a piece with the peddling sense of these days, that it should be determined to be imprudent for the House of Commons to vote him a monument. He is the man that will mark this age, marked as it is in itself by events, to all times." The British government, in entering upon the negotiations at Lisle, was not embarrassed, as in the previous negotiations at Paris, by its engagements with other powers. Our sole ally was Portugal. The court of Vienna, under the pressure of the victorious arms of Bonaparte, had on the 18th of April signed at Leoben the preliminaries of peace with the French Republic. At the beginning of the year Mantua, continuing to hold out against its besiegers, Alvinzi advanced to its relief with a new Austrian army of fifty thousand men. He crossed the Adige, and having attacked the French general, Joubert, compelled him to retreat to Rivoli. Bonaparte, who had "Court and Cabinets of George III." vol. ii. p. 376. + Malmesbury's "Diaries and Correspondence," vol. iii. p. 355. 1797.] BONAPARTE'S TRIUMPHS IN ITALY. 343 waited at Verona till he had ascertained the direction in which the Austrian general would advance, now moved with his wonted rapidity to the aid of Joubert. The battle of Rivoli began on the morning of the 14th of January. The Austrians fought with a determination which rendered the issue for a long time doubtful. Rivoli was taken by the Austrians, and retaken by the French, twice in that day of carnage. A judicious movement of Alvinzi on the left of Rivoli might have changed the fortunes of that field; but the effort was an hour too late. The Austrians, said Bonaparte, did not sufficiently calculate the value of time. Alvinzi retired to the Tyrol, pursued by the victorious republicans. Meanwhile Provera had marched to the relief of Mantua. On the field of Rivoli Bonaparte heard that this Austrian general was before the place on the 15th. He at once took his resolution. He left Joubert to pursue the fugitive troops of Alvinzi, and by a march of thirtyfive miles in twenty-four hours, was engaged with Provera on the morning of the 16th, and compelled him to surrender with five thousand men. Mantua capitulated on the 2d of February. Bonaparte treated his aged antagonist, Wurmser, who had gallantly defended Mantua, with a delicacy almost chivalrous. In the interval between the surrender of Provera and the fall of Mantua, Bonaparte had marched into the Papal States, and when within forty miles of Rome had granted peace to the terrified Pope. Another Austrian army had been collected under the Archduke Charles, against which the French marched in three divisions. Bonaparte advanced on the 10th of March to encounter the Archduke, who had formed his line of defence on the Tagliamento. Bernadotte joined him with twenty thousand men from the army of the Rhine. On the 16th of March the French forced their way across the Tagliamento, the Austrians retreating before them. The retreat of the Archduke continued through March, as if it were a pre-determined plan of operations to draw the French on to the hereditary States of the Emperor, where a battle might be fought with advantage; whilst Hungarians, and Tyrolese, and Venetians were gathering round the invaders. Bonaparte on the 31st of March wrote to the Archduke Charles, to implore him to induce the Emperor to listen to the terms of peace which the French Directory had offered. The Archduke returned for answer that he would communicate with Vienna. Bonaparte continued to advance; and on the 2d of April defeated the Archduke at Neumarkt. Alarm and despondency now prevailed in the imperial counsels, instead of a determination to hazard a battle under the walls of Vienna. A suspension of arms proposed by the Emperor was agreed to on the 7th of April. The preliminaries of peace. were signed at Leoben on the 18th. The interval in the greater operations of the Italian campaign gave the indefatigable general of the French the opportunity of avenging himself upon the republic of Venice, which, of all the Italian States, had displayed the greatest disinclination to fraternize with France. When Bonaparte was supposed to be in danger in the Austrian provinces, the hatred of the Venetians displayed itself in acts of cruelty and outrage towards the French who remained amongst them, particularly at Verona. On the 3rd of May Bonaparte issued a manifesto declaring war against the Venetian Republic. The French troops overran all the Venetian territory; took a signal vengeance on the Veronese; finally entered Venice on the 16th of May, and put an end to that famous government which had 344 REVOLUTION OF THE EIGHTEENTH FRUCTIDOR. [1797. maintained its independence and its power during centuries of change. The last and greatest convulsion of Europe made the Queen of the Adriatic, first a prize to a revolutionary democracy, and then the slave of an unteachable absolutism. Such was the position of Europe when lord Malmesbury opened his negotiation at Lisle. As the French Directory was then constituted, there was a partial disposition to meet with an equal sincerity the evident desire of the British government to put an end to this desolating conflict. The demands first put forth by the French plenipotentiaries were extravagant -that Great Britain should relinquish all her conquests, whether of French, Dutch, or Spanish possessions, and that France should retain all she had acquired by the war. It was the opinion of the British negotiators that these demands would be gradually reduced; that Carnot and Barthelemi, two of the five Directors who were decidedly advocates for peace, would win over Barras; and that the majority would be disposed to accept the conditions resolved upon by the British government, namely, to give up all the conquests made from France, and to retain the Spanish possession of Trinidad, and the Dutch possessions of Ceylon and the Cape of Good Hope. Lord Malmesbury had a channel of private information which he could trust; and he wrote to lord Grenville on the 25th of July, "The fate of the negotiation will depend much less on what passes in our conferences here than on what may happen very shortly in Paris." # Another revolutionary crisis was approaching. Barras, Reubell, and La Réveillière Lépaux, were preparing to eject Carnot and Bar. thelemi, and to purge the two Legislative Councils of members who were suspected of royalist designs, and of those who, without desiring the restoration of the monarchy, were opposed to the venality and abuse of power by the majority of the Directors. Bonaparte was cognizant of the dangers of the Triumviri,-Barras, Reubell, and Lépaux,-and was ready to support them by his soldiery. The military arm, which was soon to supersede every other authority in France, was now to be the instrument of accomplishing one of those acts of violence with which we have become familiar under the name of a coup-d'état. General Augereau was sent by Bonaparte to Paris to do the bidding of the majority of the Directors. On the morning of the 4th of September, Augereau surrounded the Tuileries with troops, and arrested about sixty mem bers of the Legislative Councils, with orders also to arrest Carnot and Barthelemi. Carnot escaped; but his brother Director, the members of the Councils who had been seized, and many journalists and other writers, were banished to Guiana. Amongst the number was Pichegru. This was the Revolution of the Eighteenth Fructidor. It was decisive as to the issue of the negotiations at Lisle. Lord Malmesbury wrote to Mr. Pitt on the 9th of September, "The violent revolution which has taken place at Paris has overset all our hopes, and defeated all our reckonings. I consider it as the most unlucky event that could have happened. We were certainly very near obtaining the great object of our wishes, and I fear we are now more driven out to sea again than ever." Mr. Pitt was inclined "to believe and hope that the party now predominant will think the enjoyment of their triumph more likely to be both complete and secure in peace than in war." He was grievously mistaken. "Diaries and Correspondence," vol. iii. p. 406. + Ibid. p. 520. Ibid. p. 532. |