The Artémise, after surrendering, was set on fire by her own crew-an act of perfidy which cannot be too severely reprobated; but, as it might not have been done by order of the captain, we shall not stain his memory with the reproach. The news of this important victory were received by the whole nation with the most rapturous expressions of joy. Illuminations, salutes, balls, and festivals, in honour of the victory, were given in every part of the kingdom; a subscription was opened at Lloyd's for the relief of the wounded, and the widows and orphans of the slain. The rear-admiral was created Baron Nelson of the Nile, and of Burnham Thorp in the county of Norfolk. The thanks of the Houses of Parliament were voted to him, and "his gallant band;" gold medals were presented to the captains; Hardy, of the Mutine (the only sloop in company) was made post into the vanguard, and all the first lieutenants of ships of the line (the Culloden excepted) were made commanders. A pension of £2,000 a-year was settled on Nelson for three lives; the Irish Parliament also voted him £1,000 a-year; the East India Company presented him with £10,000, the city of London a sword, valued at 200 guineas, and a

sword to each of his captains; that to Sir Edward Berry was accompanied with the freedom of the city in a gold box.

The captains in the Nile fleet also presented Nelson with a sword; the hilt was of gold, and made to represent a crocodile, on which was engraved the names of the donors. Captain Capel was the bearer of Admiral Blanquet's sword, which, by order of Nelson, he presented to the city of London, with the following letter to the lord mayor:—

Vanguard, Mouth of the Nile,
Aug. 8, 1798.

MY LORD, Having the honour of being a freeman of the city of London, I take the liberty of sending to your lordship the sword of the commanding French admiral (M. Blanquet), who survived after the battle of the 1st, off the Nile, and to request that the city of London will honour me with the acceptance of it, as a remembrance that Britannia still rules the waves; which that she may ever do, is the fervent prayer of your lordship's

Most obedient Servant,

HORATIO NELSON.

This trophy was placed in the council-chamber with a suitable inscription, commemorative of the brilliant victory by which it had been acquired.

The Culloden, having run on shore upon the reef early in the afternoon, was not in the action. Trowbridge, it appears, had no chart of the bay, which the other ships had. The accident almost broke the heart of her gallant captain; but Nelson assured him that no man could better afford to lose the laurel of that day. Trowbridge, as soon as he was afloat, exerted himself for the good of the service, and rendered all the assistance in his power to the sick and wounded, friends and foes. On the arrival of the despatches in England, among other marks of attention to the admiral, commissions were sent out to the first lieutenants of all the ships engaged. This seemed to preclude the Culloden, and produced a strong letter from Earl St. Vincent to Earl Spencer, in which the commander-in-chief pointed out, in clear and forcible language, the cruelty as well as injustice of depriving an officer of his well-earned promotion, because his ship, by an accident which he could neither foresee nor control, was kept out of gun-shot of the enemy. His lordship stated, and with much truth, that the grounding of the Culloden on the shoal saved the Swiftsure and Alexander from the same danger, and consequently contributed largely to the glorious victory. This argument prevailed, and the first-lieutenant of the Culloden was promoted.

On the 27th of June Captain Foote, in the Seahorse, of 38 guns, 18-pounders, captured La Sensible, French frigate, of

36

guns,

and 300 men. She had on board a general of division (Baraguay d'Hilliers), and was bound to Toulon to give an account of the capture of Malta. The Sensible had 18 killed and 35 wounded, the Seahorse two killed, and 15 wounded.

On the 15th of July Captain Manley Dixon, in the Lion of 64 guns, fought a very gallant action with four Spanish frigates off Carthagena, and succeeded in capturing one of them, called the Santa Dorothea, of 36 guns, and 300 men; the others made their escape. The Lion had only one man wounded.

Lieutenant Loftus Otway Bland, in his Majesty's brig the Espoir, having charge of a convoy bound to Öran, fell in, off Malaga, with a Ligurian pirate of very superior force, and, in order to save his convoy, brought him immediately to action, which lasted four hours, when the enemy was compelled to surrender, having seven killed, and 14 wounded. In this action the master of the Espoir was killed, and five men were wounded. The prize was called the Liguria. She had been a Dutch frigate sold to the Genoese, carrying 12 long 18-pounders, four 12-pounders, 10 6-pounders, 12 long wall-pieces, and four swivels, manned with 120 men. L'Espoir was a small brig of 14 6-pounders, and 70 men. Lieutenant Bland was most deservedly promoted to the rank of commander and postcaptain.

Captain Hallowell, of the Swiftsure, having picked up after the action a part of the mainmast of the Orient, had it converted into a coffin, which he sent to Nelson, and in which the hero was buried.

Having, on the 18th of August, refitted his ships, and directed Sir James Saumarez, the second officer in command, to see the prizes in safety to Gibraltar, and left Hood in the Zealous, with four sail of the line, and two frigates, to blockade Alexandria, Nelson proceeded in the Vanguard to Naples, where he was received by the king and people with every mark of gratitude and respect. His Majesty conferred upon him the title of Duke of Brontè in Sicily, with an income of £3,000 a-year. The Grand Seignior presented him with a diamond aigrette and chelengk, or plume of triumph, taken from the royal turban, together with a rich sable pelisse; he also directed 2,000 chequins to be distributed among the British seamen wounded at the battle of the Nile. The mother of the Sultan presented the admiral with a rose, set with diamonds of great value; and the island of Zante sent him a sword and a gold-headed cane, as an acknowledgment that to him they owed their liberation from the power of France.

Amongst the letters from the French which were intercepted

VOL. 1.

2 E

by the fleet under Sir Horatio Nelson, was found one from Rear-admiral Gantheaume, the officer on whom, after the terrible day of the 1st of August, the command of the shattered remains of the fleet at the mouth of the Nile had devolved. Gantheaume was, I am convinced, from the whole history of his career, a very brave and enterprising officer. His account of the disasters which befell the fleet, and of which, as a matter of course, the army so largely partook, is ably and feelingly detailed in his letter to the Minister of the Marine. "With piercing and heartfelt sorrow," he says, "he acquits himself of the melancholy duty. Eleven sail of the line taken or burnt, and lost to France, our best officers killed or wounded, the coasts of our new colony laid open to the invasion of the enemy." In a strain of manly eloquence he laments that, after having landed the army, the admiral (Brueys) had not thought proper to put to sea; but he waited for orders from the general (Bonaparte); and no doubt, as he says, the army derived much confidence from the presence of the fleet.

It appears that Bonaparte, as well as his admiral, was deceived by the very circumstance which Nelson so much deplored, his sailing to the westward after having made the coast of Egypt and not finding the fleet of the enemy there. This led the French to suppose that Nelson had no orders to attack them; "because," says Gantheaume, "he might, if he had pleased, have prevented the disembarkation." If he could have done this, it was fortunate that he did not, as it left the fleet less ably manned, and deprived of its best artillery-men. This amply confirms what I have before observed, that had the two fleets met at sea, or before the army landed, the event of the day might have been far more bloody, and perhaps less favourable to us. Not seeing the British fleet, says the unhappy admiral, "produced a boundless and fatal security."

Villeneuve, it appears, "by a bold manoeuvre, made his escape." I should have thought there would have been much greater temerity in staying where he was. The gallant Villeneuve, however, did not run away to save himself, but to preserve, as far as he could, the remains of the fleet under his immediate control; and for a very short time he succeeded. Besides the admiral, the chiefs of division, Casa Bianca, Thevenard, and Du Petit Thouars, were killed, and six others dangerously wounded. The admiral concludes his melancholy letter by saying that "nothing but a peace can consolidate the establishment of the new colony."

The Directory, after having despatched the armament under General Bonaparte, had endeavoured to deceive the king of Naples, and induce him to keep upon terms with them. They

had gained entire possession, by the surrender of Turin, of the continental dominions of Sicily, and Victor Emanuel was forced to retire with a few followers to the island of Sardinia, now all the territory that remained to him.

Their forcible junction of Helvetia to France induced Austria and Naples, allied in misfortune, to break the treaty of Campo Formio, and once more to appeal to arms.

France, in the mean time, was concentrating her troops in the vicinity of Rome, and an attack upon Naples appeared to be no distant event. Preparations being made to repel the blow, the French were greatly offended at the bare suspicion of their want of faith. This unceasingly aggressive policy of the Directory was producing a general alarm throughout Europe, when the account of the victory of the Nile raised the hope that it might at length be effectually checked by a general coalition. The Maltese, who had received the French as friends at their first landing, revolted, and drove the troops into the garrison, where they kept them in close blockade until a British force arrived to second the inhabitants, and expel the enemy from the island.

Before the British fleet had destroyed that of France at the mouth of the Nile, the French army had reached the shore in safety. The transports, to the number of 350, with many frigates, had entered the port of Alexandria, and landed all their artillery and field equipage. The victorious Bonaparte, with his usual success, had made himself master of that city and Grand Cairo.

The old or western harbour of Alexandria is the only one on the coast of Egypt capable of containing ships of war; it is six miles in extent from east-north-east to west-south-west, and in some places a mile, in others not half a mile wide. The whole of the French fleet, with all their transports, might have lain within it in perfect security from any attack, but there was not water enough on the bar to admit of L'Orient; the depth, indeed, was sufficient, but the channel was not wider than the deck of a 74-gun ship. It was on this account only that the intention of taking the fleet in was abandoned.

The harbour is open to the north-west winds, but the sea is much broken off by a reef of rocks and sands occupying the whole front from the two horns of the bay. It was surveyed with great accuracy by Mr. Thomas Mann, master of his Majesty's ship the Tigre, 1807. The depth of water in the harbour is from five to ten fathoms; the main channel is exactly in the centre, and extremely narrow, the least water in it being five fathoms. There is another channel about a mile to the eastward, but fit only for small yessels. The great mistake of