plementary to the trench. Perceiving from this point that the enemy had formed to the right and left of the battery, he conceived the idea of leading a battalion which was stationed near him through the boyau. By this plan he succeeded in coming out unperceived among the brambles close to the battery, and immediately commenced a brisk fire upon the English, whose surprise was such, that they imagined it was their own troops on the right, who through some mistake were firing on those on the left. General O'Hara hastened towards the French to rectify the supposed mistake, when he was wounded in the hand by a musquet-ball, and a sergeant seized and dragged him prisoner into the boyau; the disappearance of the English General was so sudden, that his own troops did not know what had become of him.

In the mean time, Dugommier, with the troops he had rallied, placed himself between the town and the battery: this movement disconcerted the enemy, who forthwith commenced their retreat. They were hotly pursued as far as the gates of the fortress, which they entered in the greatest disorder and without being able to ascertain the fate of their General. Dugommier was slightly wounded

in this affair. A battalion of volunteers from the Isere distinguished itself during the day.

General Cartaux had conducted the siege at its commencement; but the Committee of Public Safety had found it necessary to deprive him of the command. This man, originally a painter, had become an adjutant in the Parisian corps; he was afterwards employed in the army; and, having been successful against the Marseillese, the deputies of the Montagne* had in the same day obtained him the appointments of Brigadier-general and General of division. He was extremely ignorant, and had nothing military about him; otherwise he was not ill-disposed, and committed no excesses at Marseilles on the taking of that city.

General Doppet succeeded Cartaux: he was a Savoyard, a physician, and an unprincipled man he thought of nothing but denunciations: he was a decided enemy to all who possessed talent: he had no idea of war, and was any thing but brave. This Doppet nevertheless, by a singular chance, in forty-eight hours after his arrival had very nearly taken Toulon. A battalion of the Côte d'Or and a battalion of the regiment of Burgundy, being on duty in the trenches before Little Gibraltar,

had one of their men taken by a Spanish company on guard at the redoubt: they saw their companion ill-treated and beaten, and at the same time the Spaniards offered them every insult by shouts and indecent gestures. The French, enraged, ran to their arms, commenced a brisk fire, and marched against the redoubt.

The Commandant of the artillery immediately hastened to the General-in-chief, who was ignorant of what was going on. They gallopped to the scene of action, and there perceiving how the matter stood, Napoleon persuaded the General to support the attack, assuring him that it would not be productive of greater loss to advance than to retire. The General, therefore, ordered the different corps of reserve to be put in motion: all were quickly on the alert, and Napoleon marched at their head. Unfortunately, an aide-decamp was killed by the side of the Generalin-chief. Doppet was panic-struck; and ordering the drums in all directions to beat a retreat, recalled his soldiers at the very moment when the grenadiers, having repulsed the skirmishers of the enemy, had reached the gorge of the redoubt, and were about to take it. The troops were highly indignant, and complained that painters and physicians were

sent to command them. The Committee of Public Safety recalled Doppet, and at length perceived the necessity of employing a real military man they accordingly sent Dugommier, an officer who had seen fifty years of service, who was covered with scars, and who was as dauntless as the weapon he

wore.

The enemy were every day receiving reinforcements the public watched the operations of the siege with anxiety. They could not conceive why every effort should be directed against Little Gibraltar, quite in an opposite direction to the town. There has been nothing done yet," it was said all over the country, but laying siege to a fort which has nothing to do with the permanent fortifications of the place. They will afterwards have to take Malbosquet, and open trenches against the town." All the popular societies made denunciation after denunciation on this subject. Provence complained of the long duration of the siege. A scarcity began to prevail, and increased to such a degree that Freron and Barras, having lost all hopes of the prompt reduction of Toulon, wrote in great alarm from Marseilles to the Convention, to persuade them to take into consideration whether it

would not be better that the army should raise the siege and repass the Durance—a manoeuvre which had been planned by Francis the First at the time of the invasion of Charles the Fifth. He retired behind the Durance, while the enemy laid Provence waste; and when famine compelled them to retreat, he then attacked them with fresh vigour. The Representatives urged, that, if our troops should evacuate Provence, the English would be obliged to find provisions for its support, and that after the harvest, offensive operations might be renewed with considerable advantage by an army completely recruited and invigorated by rest. This measure was, they said, absolutely necessary; for as yet, after four months' operations, Toulon had not even been attacked; and as the enemy were perpetually receiving reinforcements, it was to be apprehended that we should in the end be obliged to do precipitately and in confusion, what at the present moment might be effected with regularity and order. However, in a few days after the letter had been received by the Convention, Toulon was taken. The letter was now disowned by the Representatives as a forgery. This was unfair; for it was genuine, and gave a just idea of the