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Without much fighting, its garrison of six hundred men soon surrendered. We immediately set to work to land stores and provisions for the supply of the royalist troops. A day or two after this, the Comte led a body of five thousand men, including two hundred British marines, against the right flank of the army of General Hoche, which was strongly posted on the heights of Saint Barbe.
Everything was ready; and General Hoche had gone to Holland to make the final arrangements with his brother commanders, when the Legislative Assembly of France quarrelled with the Directory, and gained a temporary ascendancy. On the 16th of July, the new government displaced Vice-Admiral Truguet, the able Minister of Marine, and appointed M. Pléville le Peley his successor.
Now was the opportunity for Bonaparte to take up the rôle of Cromwell which Hoche had so awkwardly played. And how skilfully the conqueror of Italy plays it through subordinates. He was too well versed in statecraft to let his sword flash before the public gaze. By this time he had decided to act, and doubtless the fervid Jacobinism of the soldiery was the chief cause determining his action.
Hoche was all ardour and anxiety; Carnot cheered him on by expressing his belief that it would be "a most brilliant operation;" and certainly Tone was not the man to damp such expectations, or allow them to evaporate in mere complimentary assurances. During the autumn months the expedition was busily being fitted out at Brest, and the general head-quarters were at Rennes.
The ship containing Hoche had before this been forced to put back to France, and so ended the first and by far the most formidable of the perils which threatened England under this new combination.
Meanwhile the failure of the French descent under Hoche, and the defeat of the Dutch fleet at the battle of Camperdown in the autumn of 1797, had determined Lord Edward Fitzgerald and the other chiefs of the executive committee to attempt an independent rising.
A contemporary and rival of Moreau, Hoche, Kleber and Desaix, he had successfully commanded one wing of the French army of the Rhine at a time when Oudinot was scarcely a colonel or a brigade commander. I do not know anyone who could command troops in the field better than Saint-Cyr.
It must be confessed that in this he was very unlike Jourdan, Hoche, Kleber, and Moreau, who were ever ready to acknowledge the services of those who had fought under their orders. Within two hours of the time when the divisions commanded by Desaix left San Giuliano I was joyfully surprised by the triumphant return of the army, whose fate, since the morning, had caused me so much anxiety.
Hoche was all ardour and anxiety; Carnot cheered him on by expressing his belief that it would be "a most brilliant operation;" and certainly Tone was not the man to damp such expectations, or allow them to evaporate in mere complimentary assurances. During the autumn months the expedition was busily being fitted out at Brest, and the general head-quarters were at Rennes.
In a little time the Hoche was surrounded by four sail of the line and one frigate, who poured their shot into her upon all sides.
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