received orders, on the twenty-fe venth, to return from Offenburgli to Kehl, and, marching up front thence along the banks of the Rhine by forced marches, he arrived at Fribourg on the thirtieth of April. General St. Cyr, who had reached Fribourg without lofing a man, purfued, meanwhile, that courfe of march, which was neceflary to form the junction of the whole army, between Shwetlingen and Schaffhaufen, near the Lake of Conftance. The divifion, under the immediate command of Moreau, croffed the Rhine, at Bafle, and proceeded, without any confiderable oppofition, to the point where the various divifions were to meet. General Lecourbe, with the divifion under his command, croffed the Rhine between Schaffhaufen and Stein, and, after fome fighting and making a good number of prifoners, the whole army, with the exception of the corps under general St. Sufanne, was affembled at, and in the environs of, Schaffhaufen. In the course of these various marches, the French took fifteen hundred prison, ers, and fix pieces of cannon. The divifion, under Lecourbe, likewife took, by capitulation, the caftle of Hohenweil, in which there were eighty pieces of cannon. The great magazines of the Auftrians were at Kampten, a town in Upper Suabia. The French general directing his march towards this point, with a view to cut off general Kray from his principal depot, or, at leaft, in the mean time, to effect the main object of occupying the whole of his force and attention in Germany, drove all the Auftrian advanced posts before him, and advanced to attack the imperialifts at Stockach.

The masterly maneuvres of Mo.

rean had completely deceived ge neral Kray, refpecting the plan of attack meditated by the French. Iman official account, published in the Vienna Court Gazette, of the third of May, we find the general announcing the paffage of the Rhine, on the twenty-fifth, and that, in confequence of having foreseen this manœuvre, he had sent a great body of troops to prevent the French from following up their plan of extending themfelves in the neighbourhood of Raftadt. He confi dered the feint made, by general Sufanne's divifion, as the main attack, and concentrated all his forces at Donaweefchingen, at the moment when, under cover of that feint, Moreau was enabled, as juft obferved, to cross the Rhine at a point, which enabled him completely to turn the pofition of the Auftrian army.

The confequences of Moreau's plan were immediate. General Kray was compelled to decamp pre cipitately from Donaweelchingen, in order to-oppofe the progress of the French army, leaving in their hands, in abandoning his pofition at Donaweefchingen, a great part of what is called the angle of Suabia. The Auftrian magazines and ftores were either conveyed away in hafte, left behind, or deftroyed. The left wing of the French, under general Sufanne, on the third of May, entered Donaweefchingen, which had been evacuated by the Auftrians, and prefled upon their rear, ftretching out his flanks, at the fame time, to the main body of Moreau's army, endeavoured to eftablish themielees in the lines of Stockach, in order to oppofe the lines of the enemy. On the third of May, a part of the French army

attacked

main army.

attacked the poft at Stockach. The force that defended it, under the orders of price Jofeph of Lorraine, being too weak, was foon over powered, and obliged to retreat, with confiderable lofs. The poft, at Engen, was commanded by general Kray in perfon. He was at tacked, on the fourth, by Moreau, who, in repeated charges, loft a great number of men. In the courfe of these conflicts, a body of the Auftrian army, under the archduke Ferdinand, in their retreat from Donaweefchingen, were attacked, in their rear, by general Sufanne's divifion, and nearly cut off. The archduke, on this occafion, difplayed that perfonal bravery, which diftinguishes the princes of his houfe. By great exertions of judgement, and prefence of mind, as well as valour, he was enabled to join the General Kray maintained his poft, and prevented the enemy from making any great impreffion, and kept the field during the night. But, at day-break, he thought it prudent to commence a retreat; which he had continued to the length of about fifteen miles, when he was again attacked, on the fifth, by the indefatigable Moreau; one of whofe leading maxims it appears to have been, to hang on and harafs the enemy, at every turn, and in every fortune, and to give him no respite either for the execution, or even the formation, of new defigns. Being ably affifted by Lecourbe, he made fome impreffion on the Auftrian battalions, notwithftanding their intrepid exertions: but, though fuperior in numbers, he did not think it proper to renew the combat on the following day. His lofs was fuppofed to have been greater than that of general

Kray. The lofs on both fides must, by all accounts, have been great. Mr. Wickham, the British narrator of thefe engagements, affirmed, in his difpatches to our court, "that few prifoners were made on either fide;" while Moreau afferted, that, in the two engagements, the French made no lefs than about ten thoufand prifoners. The exaggeration in both thefe accounts is obvious. We have not been able, from any ftatements we have yet received, to afcertain the truth, or any thing near it, on this fubject.

In this last action, denominated the battle of Mofskirk, the Bavarian fubfidiaries fought with fuch fpirit, as excited the praife of their fellow combatants. The Swils regiment of Roverea allo particularly diftinguished itself.

Mr. Wickham reported, that, in the battle of Molskirk, the French were repulfed. The Auftrians, however, on the day thereafter, fixth of May, retreated across the Danube, here a fmall ftream, to the ground between Sigmaringen and Reitlingen, a distance of at least fifteen miles farther.

The Auftrians, in their retreat from Molskirk, were purfued by a divifion of the French, under general Ney, who took fifteen hundred prifoners. A very ferious engagement was the confequence of an opportunity afforded to the French of attacking the Auftrian advanced posts, on the ninth of May, at Biberach. The refult of this battle was, that the Auftrians were forced to retreat with the lofs of above one thousand killed on the spot, and above two thousand prifoners. Another bloody engagement took place, on the eleventh, near Memmingen, On the termination of this battle,

general

general Moreau wrote, by the tele graph, to the French minifter of war, as follows: "The right wing of the army, commanded by general Lecourbe, attacked the enemy on the twenty-firft of Floreal (eleventh of May), in their pofition at Memmingen. They were com pletely beaten. Memmingen has been taken, more than two thoufand prisoners have been made, and a great number of dead were left on the field of battle." The accounts of the Auftrians ftate, that the advantage in this action was on their fide. However this may be, general Kray, leaving a confiderable body of troops, under general Mereveldt, to keep up the communication with general Reufs in the Voralberg, retreated to Ulm, for the protection of his magazines there. At Ulm he was joined by general Sztarray, with the troops under his command, and fix thousand Bavarian and Wirtemburg auxiliaries, under the orders of the baron de Deux-Ponts. The main body of the imperial army was pofted at Phuel, half a league from Ulm. This city had a garrifon of ten thoufand men, commanded by general Petrarfch and major Davidovich. General Sztarray, with additional troops, railed the number of the garrifón, which came under his command, to the number of eighteen thousand. The gates were guarded by the auxiliaries.

The French were alfo concentrated on the territory of the imperial city of Ulm, near Rheineck, little more than a league from Ulm. In this fituation of the two armies, it seemed that the French were defirous of giving battle to general Kray, who, on the other hand, was efirous to avoid it, until the rein

forcements promised, and part of which were on their way, fhould arrive from Auftria. Six battalions of infantry, of the garrifon of Vienna, were on their march, and to be followed by fix more, and five fquadrons of cuiraffiers. The garrifons of the cities in Auftria, Bohemia, and Moravia, we repairing partly to the Danube, and partly to the Adige, on each of which rivers there was to be formed a body of reserve. As no inviting circumftances for an attack were prefented to either party, both generals contented themselves with mutual obfervation, while terror and confternation prevailed throughout the circle of Suabia.

But this ftate of inaction and repofe, if it comforted the Austrians with the hope of fuccours, was ftill more advantageous to the cause of the invaders, who laid the whole of Franconia and Suabia under fevere contribution, intercepted the fupplies, and took or destroyed not a few of the Auftrian magazines, fupported themselves at the expenfe of the Germans, kept the grand Auftrian army in check, and on a conftant alert, and prevented general Kray from fending any confiderable detachment to Italy.

In the mean time, the plan of co-operation, concerted between Buonaparte and Moreau, began to be pretty clearly developed. While Moreau ftill made a fhew of directing the main force of his army to the countries on the left bank of the Rhine, he began to detach part of his troops towards the Lake of Conftance: whither he afterwards withdrew with the main body, with an intention to remain on the defenfive, and favour, as much as poffible, the operation of the campaign in Italy

General

General St. Sufanne, with the divifion of the French army under his command, had always remained on the left bank of the Danube, in the neighbourhood of Geifligen, which was his head-quarters. While the attention of the Auftrians was occupied by a great deal of mancuvring and skirmishing in that quarter, and other demonftrations of a defign to penetrate into the heart of Germany, and to the capital, ftretched off, by degrees, along the courfe of the Iller, by Memmingen and Kampten, to the Lake of Conftance. By cutting off prince Reufs from general Kray, and keeping the commander-in chief fo long in check, he had already enabled divifions or detachments, from his army, to get poffeffion of Aufburgh, Lindau, Bregentz, Fieldkirk, and other pofts, which might be confidered as the keys of the Grifons and the Tyrol, through which countries it would now be in his power to communicate with Buonaparte, by this time defcending from the fummit of the Alps into the plains of Piedmont and Lombardy.

For nearly two months Moreau had fought nothing farther than to amufe general Kray by marches and countermarches, by threatened fieges, and fham irruptions, to alarm the Auftrians for the farety of the here. ditary states, and prevent them from paying any attention to the affairs of Italy. After the battle of Maringo, he was at liberty to act with more enterprize and vigour. The armistice in Italy did not extend to Germany; and the laft, and one of the most important articles in the convention, as above obferved, prevented either party from fending detachments to that quarter. This condition was evidently in favour

of the Auftrians; but there were other circumstances equally encou raging to the French commander. A fmall body of men remained, organized, at Dijon, after the departure of Buonaparte, and its numbers had been fince very confiderably increafed. This body had already made a movement from Dijon to wards a point from whence it could go to the affiftance of either army, and now it received orders to repair to the banks of the Iller; and the very fuccefs and splendour of Buonaparte's enterprize, raised the fpirits of Frenchmen to an enthu fiafm, which nothing could withftand, that was not in its nature impoffible. The victories, the conquefts, and the pofitions of the French at this time, were indeed fuch as might have infpired a lefs fanguine and volatile nation with confidence in government, political and military, and the genius of France under proper direction.Switzerland was in their hands, and formed a most important point of communication between the armies in Italy and Suabia. They were in poffeffion of both fides of the Lake of Conftance. All Suabia was in their hands. A corps of troops, in Switzerland, was ready to attack the Gritons. A detachment of twenty-five thousand men, from the Milanefe, was marching through the Valtelline for the fame purpofe.The right wing of Moreau's army, threatened the Auftrian pofitions in the Tyrol, upon the north-weft: in a word, the French armies, from the fhores of the Mediterranean to the Danube, and even the Lower Rhine, formed but one compact force, without any points to interrupt their correfpondence, and without any obftacle to their entire co

operation.