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The mileage covered by Schill was nearly as great as that covered by the part of Hoche's expedition which under Grouchy did reach an Irish port, though it was not landed. Instances of cavalry raids were frequent in the War of Secession in America.
The volume therefore, in addition to accounts of many projected, but never really attempted, descents on the British Isles, gives a very complete history of Hoche's expedition to Ireland; of the less important, but curious, descent in Cardigan Bay known as the Fishguard, or Fishgard, expedition; and of the formation of the first 'Army of England, a designation destined to attain greater celebrity in the subsequent war, when France was ruled by the great soldier whom we know as the Emperor Napoleon.
Though the round number, 1000, represents this figure fairly enough, there was a 10 per cent. shrinkage from the original embarkation strength. In Hoche's expedition the total number of troops embarked was under 14,000, of whom 633 were lost before the expedition had got clear of its port of starting, and of the remainder only a portion reached Ireland.
Grouchy's decision not to land the troops who had reached Bantry Bay was no doubt dictated in reality by a perception of this; and by the discovery that, even if he got on shore, sympathisers with him would be practically non-existent. On reading the letters now made public, one is convinced of Hoche's unfitness for the leadership of such an enterprise.
The adoration of mediocrities is confined to no one cult and to no one age. Hoche's canonisation, for he is a prominent saint in the Republican calendar, was due not so much to what he did as to what he did not do. He did not hold the supreme command in La Vendée till the most trying period of the war was past.
Malmesbury went home toward the close of December, and soon after, Hoche's fleet was wrecked in the Channel. The result of the British mission was to clarify the issues, to consolidate British patriotism once more, to reopen the war on a definite basis.
During the French Revolution, there were few examples of descents: the fire at Toulon, emigration, and the battle of Ushant had greatly injured the French navy. Hoche's expedition against Ireland with twenty-five thousand men was scattered by the winds, and no further attempts in that quarter were made.
Fifteen hundred of these Chouans were actually landed at Fishguard in February of 1798, but promptly surrendered, and France had to give good English prisoners in exchange for them on the threat that they would be turned loose again on French soil. Much more serious was General Hoche's expedition to Ireland of the winter before.
He himself at the time tells Joseph that he is attached to the topographical bureau of the Comite de Saint Public, for the direction of the armies in the place of Carnot. The artillery generals were in excess of their establishment, and Bonaparte, as junior in age, was ordered on 13th June to join Hoche's army at Brest to command a brigade of infantry.
In preparing his book he visited England and examined our records; and, besides, he has inserted in their proper place passages from Captain Mahan's works and also from those of English authors. The reader's interest in the book is likely to be almost exclusively concentrated on the detailed, and, where Captain Desbrière's commentary appears, lucid, account of Hoche's expedition.
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