THREE:Dumouriez was now making his projected attack upon Holland. On the 17th of February, 1793, he entered the Dutch territory, and issued a proclamation, promising friendship to the Batavians, and war only to the Stadtholder and his British allies. His success was brief, and he was soon forced back at all points. He received peremptory orders from the Convention to retire into Belgium. He obeyed with reluctance. On Dumouriez' return to Belgium, he was greatly incensed at the wholesale rapacity of the Commissioners of the Convention. They had plundered the churches, confiscated the property of the clergy and the wealthy inhabitants, and driven the people, by their insolence and violence, into open revolt. He did not satisfy himself by simply reproving these cormorants by words; he seized two of the worst of them, and sent them to Paris under a military guard. General Moreton-Chabrillant, who defended the Commissioners, he summarily dismissed; he restored the plate to the churches, as far as he was able, and issued orders for putting down the Jacobin clubs in the army. On the 16th of March he was attacked at Neerwinden by the Prince of Saxe-Coburg, and after a sharply-fought field, in which both himself and the Duke of Chartres fought bravely, he was routed with a loss of four thousand killed and wounded, and the desertion of ten thousand of his troops, who fled at a great rate, never stopping till they entered France, and, spreading in all directions, they caused the most alarming rumours of Dumouriez' conduct and the advance of the enemy. The Convention at once dispatched Danton and Lacroix to inquire into his proceedings, and, roused by all these circumstances, no sooner had these two envoys left him than he entered into communication with the Prince of Saxe-Coburg. Colonel Mack, an Austrian officer, was appointed to confer with Dumouriez, and it was agreed that he should evacuate Brussels, and that then the negotiation should be renewed. Accordingly, the French retired from Brussels on the 25th of March, and on the 27th they encamped at Ath, where Dumouriez[419] and Mack again met. The result of this conference was the agreement of Dumouriez to abandon the Republic altogether, to march rapidly on Paris, and disperse the Convention and the mother society of the Jacobins. His designs, however, were suspected by the Jacobins, and he was eventually compelled to go over to the enemy almost alone. Dampierre, who had been appointed by the Convention to supersede Dumouriez, took the command of the army, and established himself in the camp at Famars, which covered Valenciennes. He was there attacked, on the 8th of May, by the combined armies of Austrians, Prussians, English, and Dutch, under Clairfayt, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, and the Duke of York. He was defeated with terrible slaughter, four thousand men being killed and wounded, whilst the Allies stated their loss at only eight hundred men. Dampierre himself lost a leg and died the next day. Lamarque, who succeeded him, might have easily been made to retreat, for the French were in great disorder; but the Allies had resolved to advance no farther till Mayence should be retaken. Lamarque, therefore, fortified himself in his camp at Famars, and remained unmolested till the 23rd of the month. He was then attacked and beaten, but was allowed to retire and encamp again between Valenciennes and Bouchain. The Allies, instead of pushing their advantages, waited the advance of the King of Prussia upon Mayence. Custine, who was put in command of the Rhine, was enabled to keep back the Prince of Hohenlohe, who had but an inconsiderable force, the King of Prussia having been compelled to send a large force to Poland, instead of forwarding it according to agreement to the Rhine.On the 19th Collingwood signalled Nelson that the French fleet was coming out of Cadiz. On the morning of the 21st, when the British fleet lay about seven leagues north-west of Cape Trafalgar, the hostile fleet was discovered about seven miles to the eastward. Nelson ordered the fleet to bear down on the enemy. As Villeneuve approached, he veered so as to bring Cadiz under his lee, and thus secure a retreat into it. This compelled Nelson to shift his course a little more northward. Villeneuve had preconcerted a plan of action which he boasted would prevent Nelson from cutting his line, as was his custom. He determined to advance in two lines, with each alternate ship about a cable's length to the windward of her second ahead and astern, so that his fleet would represent the chequers of a draft-board. This plan, however, did not succeed. Nelson found now the shoals of San Pedro and Trafalgar under the lee of both fleets, and, dreading that he might be carried upon them at the end of the battle, he signalled, from the Victory, for the fleet to anchor at the close of the day. He then told Blackwood that he should not be satisfied unless he took twenty of the enemy's ships, and asked him whether he thought a general signal of action were not wanting. Blackwood replied that he thought the fleet all understood what they were about. But Nelson hoisted on his mizen top-mast his last signal"England expects every Man to do his Duty." It was seen, and responded to with loud hurrahs.
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THREE:The retreat was made, and the men found themselves again in the morning on the bleak, black heath of Drummossie, hungry and worn out, yet in expectation of a battle. There was yet time to do the only wise thingretreat into the mountains, and depend upon a guerilla warfare, in which they would have the decided advantage. Lord George Murray now earnestly proposed this, but in vain. Sir Thomas Sheridan and other officers from France grew outrageous at that proposal, contending that they could easily beat the English, as they had done at Prestonpans and Falkirkforgetting that the Highlanders then were full of vigour and spirit. Unfortunately, Charles listened to this foolish reasoning, and the fatal die was cast.
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THREE:THE AGENTS OF BRITAIN AND SWEDEN SIGNING THE TREATY AGAINST NAPOLEON. (See p. 7.)MEN OF WAR OFF PORTSMOUTH.
THREE:MR. (AFTERWARDS LORD) MACAULAY. (From a photograph by Maull and Fox.)King of the prow, the ploughshare, and the sword!
THREE:The death of no English statesman had ever produced a deeper feeling of grief throughout the nation, or more general expressions of lamentation at the irreparable loss which the country had sustained. Mr. Hume had a motion on the paper for the day following his death; but instead of proceeding with it, he moved the adjournment of the House, which was agreed to unanimously. Mr. Gladstone paid an eloquent and touching tribute to his memory, concluding with the lines
