1794 campaign, between the ships employed in the protection of their own and the annoyance of their enemy's merchantmen. Many of these were calculated to display the superior skill of the British officers, and the superior steadiness and discipline of their seamen. A particular recital of these being incompatible with the nature of this work, we must be content to do honour to the names of Warren, Smith, Pellew, Strachan, Saumarez, Laforey, Paget, Watkins, Curtis, Trollop, Williams, and Beauclerk, who were distinguished by their services in the command of squadrons or single ships. But the achievement performed by admirals Howe, and his subordinate commanders, Hood, Gardner, Bowyer, and Pasley, in the channel, deserves our particular notice. rear. After the French government had long threatened to erect their standard on the English coast, and to hoist the cap of liberty on the tower of London, a fleet of twenty-six sail of the line was at last sent to sea, to protect a large fleet laden with merchandise and stores from the West Indies. And the result was such as corresponded with the wishes of the firmest friends of the British government. -Lord Howe, who commanded the channel fleet of twenty-five ships of the line, was cruising off the coast of Bretagne. On the twenty-eighth of may, he descried the French fleet, off Ushant; and making all the sail he could, he approached so near to them, the same day, that his two van ships engaged with the enemy's The revolutionaire, in this encounter, struck to the audacious; but escaped under cover of the darkness in the ensuing night.-Their movements on the three following days were not marked with any memorable event. But an opportunity presenting itself on the first day of june, the English admiral offered his adversary battle. His challenge being accepted, a close engagement ensued, which was fought with signal valour on both sides. The issue, however, evinced the superior merit of the British seamen and their commanders. Lord Howe broke the Enemy's line in the beginning of the action; and by that means gained an advantage which his antagonist could not recover during the whole day. Without the loss of a single ship on the side of the English, the enemy had six ships taken and one sunk and, although the victors had scarcely a ship capable of pursuing the vanquished fleet, yet the French admiral fled for refuge to the harbour of Brest.-This achievement, glorious in itself, was of the utmost importance importance in its consequences: for by it the French fleet was reduced to a crippled state during several campaigns, and their designs against the English coasts were completely defeated.' 1794 GENEVA. THE revolution of 1792 having been brought about by the intrigues and violences of the girondists, and France having at that epoch established a complete ascendency in this small republic, it was reasonable to expect that whatever change of principles took place in the French government would be extended to the subjugated state. This really happened. When the jacobins became triumphant in France, the Genevese constitution, as before modified by more temperate republicans, was not esteemed sufficiently democratic. To gratify the prevailing faction in the French convention, the constitution of Geneva was again new modelled: a part of the executive power was thrown into the hands of the legislative assembly of the people; and one of the two councils, the concurrence of which was necessary to the making of laws, was suppressed; and a revolutionary tribunal, similar to that of France, was erected. So prevalent were the principles of democracy in this city, or so complete the ascendant of the leading citizens who professed them, that there appeared in the sovereign council a majority of 4200 to 200 voices in favour of a constitution from which they promised themselves the perfect restoration of good order and domestic peace.+b 1794 1794 RUSSIA, POLAND, AND PRUSSIA. ALTHOUGH Catharine had apparently established her ascendency in Poland, yet she deemed it essential to the final success of her ambitious views in that country to devote her chief attention to the accomplishment of them, and to accommodate her foreign policy to it. She was aware that a great majority of the Poles were hostile to her interests; that her dominion was odious to them: but she knew that the patriots must eventually be subdued by her arms, unless supported by some foreign power. To prevent any such interposition, and to weaken the German powers whilst she was recovering her own strength, it was the general drift of her foreign policy to encourage the coalition against France, whilst she, at the same time, declined taking an active part in it, till a change of circumstances should demand her support.-How necessary this wary and circumspect line of conduct was for the maintenance of her usurped power, the subsequent measures of the patriots evinced. We have seen them foiled in a generous effort to establish such a monarchical government as might redeem them from that wretched state of subjection into which the weakness of anarchy and intestine tumults had brought them. But they were destined, before their name was blotted out from the list of nations, to prove by one more vigorous attempt to reinstate themselves, that, although degraded through misfortunes, they were yet actuated by a spirit deserving of a better fate. The Russian empress, not satisfied with the proceeding of the late diet, so injurious and so humiliating to the republic, filled with those fears with which injustice and tyranny are ever attended, and apprehensive that the •patriots patriots would again assert their rights, proceeded, at this time, to other acts of oppression which were necessary to confirm her ascendency.-The most memorable of these was an order for the reduction of the Polish troops to 16,000 men.-This mandate was resisted by several regiments: and the malecontents, ranging themselves under the banners of Madelinski, a Polish noble in the service of the republic, refused to disband. This refractory disposition threatened to extend. Therefore, in order to repress it, 15,000 Russian troops were sent into Poland: and, to prove the obsequiousness of the government, d'Ingelstrohm, the empress's ambassador, demanded of the war department, that a body of Polish troops should be sent against Madelinski and the mutineers. He also demanded of the permanent council, that every suspected person should be taken into custody. To which they boldly answered "that, according to the constitutional laws of the republic, no Polish nobleman could be arrested without being judicially convicted." These evident indications of Catharine's intention to tyrannize, instead of subduing, served only to rouse the spirit of liberty. When the patriot chiefs saw that their countrymen were incensed at the insults and maraudings of those Russian troops which were brought into Poland to be the instruments of oppression, they once more determined to erect the standard of revolt. The patriots had fought with great disadvantage in the late war from the want of an able commander: but such an one was now found in the brave Kosciusko. This remarkable personage was by birth a Polish nobleman of small fortune. He was bred to the profession of arms at a military academy at Versailles after serving in the Polish army, he went, an adventurer, to America, and gained repute under the standard of Washington during the civil war in that country.-Kosciusko would have shone with distinguished lustre in the ages of chivalry; having all the virtues and endowments of an hero, with an enthusiastic fondness for liberty, in its most genuine sense. Gallant, generous, intrepid, and strictly just, he commanded obedience by the respect in which he was held; he attached the troops to his person by his popular deportment and courteous manners; he taught them discipline, patience of fatigue, and contempt of danger by his own example; and inspired 1794 1794 inspired them with confidence by his own composure of mind, and dauntless fortitude.-Such was the man whom the patriots now chose for their commander in chief. Repairing to Cracow, he was there received by the Polish nobility, and was formally invested by them with the commission of general. And when he had issued a proclamation, † exhorting the Poles to fly to his standard, in order to break the chains of slavery, he there, in common with the troops who gave him their support, took a solemn oath to deliver their country or perish in the attempt.-They moreover, swore that they would defend the constitution of 1791; they instituted a revolutionary government for the preservation of good order; and took especial means to prevent any wrong from being done to the subjects of the emperor. b Warsaw was now destined to be the chief scene of war.-On intelligence that the Russian ambassador had demanded that the arsenal should be surrendered to him, Kosciusko, whose standard had been joined by some regiments which had been in the empress's service, marched towards that city, with his small army composed of regular troops and peasants armed with scythes and pikes, and defeated a Russian army of far superior force on his route.--The fame of this victory, which flew through the provinces, soon brought Kosciusko an accession of strength: and he proceeded, in consequence of it, to make arrangements with the subordinate commanders for the defence of different quarters of the kingdom. d In the mean-time the commotions at the capital increased: and the king, by his want of firmness in resisting the insolent demands of the Russian *ambassador and other circumstances in his conduct, created such suspicion of his lukewarmness in the patriotic cause and his intention to escape from Warsaw, as lost him the esteem and confidence of the patriots, and induced them to keep such a watchful eye over him as reduced him to the situation of a prisoner of state.-When d'Ingelstorhm still insisted on the surrender of the arsenal, the enraged citizens flew to arms in support of the garrison, and attacked the empress's troops then in the city. A furious battle ensued |