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CHAPTER IV.

Enters the Turkish service-Fits out a man-of-war at his own risk-Gets a reinforcement of seamen at SmyrnaJoins Lord Hood at Toulon-Some account of the transactions at that place.

IMPATIENT of the inactivity of peace, and despising the blandishments and dissipation of fashionable society, his mind could find sustenance and satisfaction only in the bustle and excitement of actual service. We find him, therefore, in 1793, serving as a volunteer in the Turkish marine, and, when thus employed, he happened to be at Smyrna when the war broke out with France. This intelligence was to him like the sound of the trumpet to the war-horse. Whether he had received the usual notice from the Admiralty, issued on similar occasions, we know not-to Sir Sidney it would have been of little moment. Nothing now occupied his thoughts but the best and most advantageous method of repairing to his post

among the defenders of his country. His thirst now for the " pomp and circumstance of war"

was a virtue.

In this emergency, his mind always teeming with resources, he determined to repair to England with some advantage to his country. He came not single-handed. At this time there were several valuable seamen out of employ at Smyrna. He was resolved that they should not be lost to his sovereign. Accordingly, at his own risk, he purchased one of the latteen-rigged, fast-sailing craft of the Archipelago, and with equal humanity and patriotism manned it with these men, who would otherwise have been, at this critical juncture, lost to the service.

Without the protection of a letter of marque, he shipped himself, with about forty truculent fellows, in this diminutive man-of-war, and hoisting the English flag and pennant, he named it the Swallow Tender, and sailed down the Mediterranean in search of the English fleet, which he found at Toulon, a short time before the evacuation of that sea-port, and the destruction of its magazines, dockyard, and arsenals.

It was at this memorable epoch, and on this fatal spot, that Bonaparte first signalised himself. Many and sufficiently accurate are the accounts extant of the siege of this strongly fortified

place by the French, when it was temporarly held by the combined British and Spanish forces, for the partisans of the Bourbons. It is not our office to enter fully into the operations, or to give a minute detail of the events that led to the calamitous results; but we must give some account of them, the better to understand the position in which Lord Howe found himself, and the English and allied forces co-operating with him. Oppressed, irritated, and almost driven to despair by the multiplied and still multiplying atrocities of the democrats who were then devastating France under the direction of the ferocious Robespierre, the southern sections of that distracted kingdom openly displayed a monarchical feeling. They ardently longed for the peaceful and mild tyranny of the Bourbons.

On the 23rd of August, 1793, commissioners representing the sections of the department of the Rhone went on board the Victory, the flag-ship of Lord Howe, then lying off Marseilles, expecting to meet commissioners from Toulon, deputed by the sections of the department of Var, for the same purpose that of recalling Louis XVIII., and re-establishing a monarchical government.

With this view, on the 26th of August, the deputies of all the sections agreed to proposals made by Lord Howe, and signed a declaration

which consisted of eighteen articles, investing him, at the same time, personally with the command of the harbour, the forts, and the fleet at Toulon. Lord Howe, having received assurances of the good disposition of the principal part of the officers and seamen of the French ships, resolved to land fifteen hundred men, and take possession of the forts which commanded the ships in the road.

Acting up to this intention, notwithstanding a display of opposition by their Admiral St. Julian, a stanch republican and withal a most turbulent spirit, the honourable Captain Elphinstone, afterwards Lord Keith, at midday on the 28th of August, took possession of the fort of La Malgue.

In pursuance of Lord Hood's directions, he took the command as governor, and sent a flag of truce, with a preparatory notice to St. Julian, that such French ships as did not proceed without delay into the inner harbour, and put their powder on shore, would be treated as enemies. St. Julian, however, was found to have escaped during the night, with the greater part of the crews of seven line-of-battle ships, which were principally attached to him; all but these seven ships removed into the inner harbour in the course of the evening.

The Spanish fleet, under the command of Don Juan de Langaras, appeared in sight as the

British troops were in the act of landing to take possession of Fort la Malgue.

Having thus made himself master of Toulon and the adjacent forts, Lord Hood issued, on the same evening, another proclamation which greatly soothed the minds of the inhabitants. The English troops received, on the 29th of August, a reinforcement of one thousand men, who were disembarked from the Spanish fleet on the same day the British fleet worked into the outer roads of Toulon, followed by the Spanish, and anchored at noon without the smallest obstruction.

The junction of two such powerful fleets, that had often met in fierce contention, but which now rode peacefully in one of the finest harbours in the world, formed a singular and cheerful sight, inspiriting to the loyal inhabitants, and proving to the republicans that they owed their late supremacy more to terror than to affection.

On the 30th of August, Lord Hood judged it expedient, for the more effectual preservation of good order and discipline in the town, to appoint Rear-Admiral Goodall governor of Toulon and its dependencies. This was the more necessary, as a detachment of the republican army, commanded by Casteaux, consisting of seven hundred and fifty men, with some cavalry and ten pieces of cannon, approached the village of Ollioulle, near Toulon.

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