For this Keppel was much blamed, as it was considered that the papers might have been made out in order to deceive him. The number of the French fleet, however, soon proved to be correct, for, during Keppel's absence, it sailed out of Brest, under the command of Admiral D'Orvilliers. Keppel, returning with his squadron augmented to thirty vessels of the line, found D'Orvilliers out at sea, and the Lively, twenty-gun brig, which he had left to watch the motions of the French, surprised by them in a fog, and captured. On the 27th of July Keppel came up with D'Orvilliers off Ushant, and instantly gave battle. The two fleets passed each other on different tacks, keeping up a furious cannonade for two hours. Keppel then signalled his second in command, Sir Hugh Palliser, to wear round and renew the attack; but Palliser had received so much injury, that he could not or did not obey the signal. Keppel, therefore, bore down to join Palliser's division, and formed afresh for the fight. But by this time D'Orvilliers was making for Brest as fast as he could, claiming a victory. Night came down, and the next morning the French fleet was nearly out of sight. On this, Keppel returned to England to refit, much out of humour with Palliser.
FROM THE PAINTING BY MARCUS STONE, A.R.A., IN THE CORPORATION OF LONDON ART GALLERY, GUILDHALL.
ONE:The same fate befell the troops of Ney, who had been sent to dislodge Bernadotte and Bülow before Berlin. He was beaten at Dennewitz on the 6th of September, with a loss of eighteen thousand men and eighty guns. Macdonald had lost on the Katzbach many thousands slain or dispersed, eighteen thousand prisoners, and a hundred and three guns. His army was nearly annihilated. Between this period and the end of September the French generals were defeated in every quarter: Davoust by Walmoden; another body of French by Platoff, on the 29th; Jerome by Czernicheff, on the 30th; and Lefebvre by Thielemann and Platoff, at Altenburg.Pitt's expeditions were not particularly well arranged. Instead of sending an army of thirty or forty thousand to the Baltic, and calling on Russia to do the same, which she could have done, notwithstanding the army under the Emperor Alexander, he sent only about six thousand, and sent another eight thousand from Malta, to co-operate with twelve thousand Russians in a descent on the kingdom of Naples. This expedition might have been left till the success in the North was secured; in truth, it had better have been left altogether. When General Don and Lord Cathcart landed in Swedish Pomerania, and were joined by the king's German legion and some other German hired troops, our army amounted only to sixteen thousand men, the Swedes to twelve thousand, and the Russians to ten thousandaltogether, not forty thousand men. But what was worse than the paucity of numbers was the disunion amongst the commanders. Lord Harrowby was sent to Berlin, to endeavour to induce Prussia to join this coalition, but Prussia was well aware of the want of unity in the Allied Army, and, weighing probabilities, she could not be moved. The King of Sweden was so incensed at the cold, shuffling conduct of the King of Prussia, that he wrote him some very indignant and undiplomatic letters, which only furnished him with a further excuse for holding aloof. Gustavus, seeing no good likely to be done, resigned his command of the Allied Army, where, indeed, he had enjoyed no real command at all, and retired with his forces to Stralsund. This was a fatal exposition of want of unity, and it was not till three weeks were gone that the breach was healed. By this time it was the middle of November. Ulm had surrendered, Napoleon was master of Vienna, and Prussia was still watching what would be the fate of the coming battle between Napoleon and the Emperors of Austria and Russia. The union of the Allies came too late; the force was altogether too small to turn the scale of the campaign. Had Gustavus marched into Hanover a month earlier, with sixty thousand men, he might have rendered Austerlitz a nonentity; as it was, he had only time to invest Hameln, where Bernadotte had left a strong garrison, when the news of Austerlitz arrived, and caused the Allies to break up the campaign, and each to hurry off to his own country.
[See larger version]ARRIVAL OF DR. BRYDON AT JELALABAD. (See p. 496.)WALPOLE'S QUARREL WITH TOWNSHEND. (See p. 60.)The effect of the American war, so extremely unsatisfactory to the nation, had now perceptibly reduced the influence of Lord North and his Ministry. Their majorities, which had formerly been four to one, had now fallen to less than two to one; and this process was going rapidly on. The changes in the Cabinet had been considerable, but they had not contributed to reinvigorate it. The removal of Thurlow to the House of Lords had left nobody equal to him in the Commons to contend with such men as Fox, Burke, Barr, and the several others. Wedderburn had taken Thurlow's place as Attorney-General, and Wallace had stepped into Wedderburn's as Solicitor-General. Lord Weymouth, who had held the posts of Secretary of State for the North and South Departments since the death of the Earl of Suffolk, now resigned, and Lord Hillsborough was appointed to the Southern Department, and Lord Stormont to the Northern Department. Neither of these changes was popular. The Duke of Bedford's party had become more and more cool towards Lord North, and in every respect there was a declining power in the Cabinet. It was at variance with itself, and was fast losing the confidence of the public. Lord George Germaine was still retained by the king as Secretary of the Colonies, notwithstanding the disgust he had excited by the unfortunate planning of the expedition of Burgoyne.
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