prisoners unexchanged, with the numbers mutilated by wounds, and the hostile armies must appear to have been diminished nearly to one half their original number. Europe, however, resounded with dreadful notes of preparation, which portended new calamities, and it was expected that by the middle of August, the allies would have three hundred thousand men on the frontiers of France, one hundred and forty thousand of whom were to be employed in Italy, and the remainder in Germany and Switzerland. A grand expedition was preparing at the same time against Holland, to consist of forty thousand British and Russian troops. The French, on the other hand, far from sinking under their reverses, and the imminent danger which threatened the republic, made a fresh display of that energy which marked the early days of the revolution. A levy of every class of the conscription was ordered, and it was resolved to raise the army now reduced to one hundred and ninety-five thousand men, to the number of five hundred thousand. It must be confessed that this dreadful mode of raising three hundred thousand men, after eight campaigns and the loss of more than a million of men, was a daring experiment, and the result by no means justified the sanguine expectations of its projectors.

This forced suspension of hostilities at the principal scene of action, affords an opportunity which we shall now embrace, of adverting to some im

portant events which about this time occurred in the south of Italy, where the majority of the popu lation had never been well disposed towards the republicans. After the capture of Naples by the French, Lord Nelson appointed Captain Trou bridge to commence operations against the enemy in the bay; being at the same time apprehensive of an attack upon Messina, he wrote to Sir Charles Stuart, the governor of Minorca, for a thousand troops to assist in the defence of Sicily, and his request was immediately complied with. A simple curate, named Rinaldi, had succeeded in preserving, among the Calabrians, a rallying point of insurrection in favour of royalty, and pressed the king to second him by sending officers, and some military supplies. The post of commanding the insurgents was eagerly embraced by Cardinal Ruffo, a singular ecclesiastic, who in consequence of some disputes with the Pope had taken refuge in the court of Naples, and was appointed Governor of Caserta. He departed for Calabria, accompanied by only five persons, but on his landing at Scylla, he was joined by the curate Rinaldi, and a vast number of the inhabitants, including priests, loyal peasants, galley slaves, the refuse of gaola and banditti.

This motley force, composed of the best and vilest materials, the warlike cardinal denominated the Christian army, nor did he neglect the exercise of those means which his ecclesiastical

privileges afforded to inspire them with zeal and energy. He excommunicated all those who refused to take up arms, and all his soldiers were enjoined to wear a red cross in their hats, as the emblem of their faith. As soon as he had introduced some degree of organization amongst them, he commenced his operations by seizing the towns of Catrona and Cantanzaro; and so successful was he in keeping alive the spirit of insurrection throughout Calabria, that the republicans, during their occupation of Naples, were unable to penetrate into that province. The news of the defeat of the French armies in the north of Italy, tended greatly to spread the spirit of revolt in other parts of the Neapolitan territory, and numbers who had hailed the arrival of the republicans, as the epoch of their freedom, had become aliens to their cause, in consequence of the arbitrary conduct of the French agents, who like a horde of robbers, seemed to be governed by no law, but the rage for plunder and confis cation. The advantages gained by Cardinal Ruffo, encouraged the people in every quarter to take vengeance on their oppressors, and scarcely a day passed, that some of the revolutionists did not become the victims of popular rage,

The evacuation of Naples by Macdonald, opened a wider field to the exertions of the enterprising ecclesiastic, who, at the head of twenty thousand men, advanced towards the capital. The English fleet, on board of which the bereditasy

prince and some Sicilian regiments had embarked, were expected at the same time, but this was prevented by the sudden appearance in the Mediter rauean, of a French fleet of twenty-four sail of the line, which had passed Cadiz in hazy weather, unseen by Lord Keith's squadron.* In these critical circumstances, Lord Nelson summoned Captain Troubridge, with all the ships of the line under his command, to join him at Palermo, where he had ouly his own vessel, and after the junction was effected, he proceeded with only six ships, to cruise off Messina, either to receive reinforcements there, if the French were bound upwards, or to hasten to Minorca, if that should be their destination.

Captain E. J. Foote, of the Sea-horse, who had been left in command of the smaller vessels in the bay of Naples, was directed to co-operate to the utmost of his power with the royalists. The French party in the city, despairing of being able to make any effectual resistance, retired on the approach of Cardinal Ruffo, into Fort St. Elmo, and the castles of Ovo and Nuovo. The first of these places which commands the town, was

The object of the French, was to form a junction with the Spanish fleet in Carthagena, and then attack Minorca and Sicily. The Spaniards, apprehensive of putting their ships into the power of the republicans, refused at first to come out, under various pretexts, but yielding at length, they met with a violent storm off the coast of Oran, which so disabled thein, as to prevent the intended junction

wholly garrisoned by French troops, and the other two which commanded the anchorage, were chiefly defended by Neapolitan revolutionists. As the reduction of these castles would greatly accelerate the fall of Fort St. Elmo, Ruffo proposed to the garrisons to capitulate on condition that their persons and property should be guaranteed, and that they should at their own option, either be sent to Toulon or retain at Naples, without molestation. This capitulation was accepted and signed by the cardinal, as well as the English, Russian, and Turkish commanders.

Unhappily for the revolutionists, contrary winds detained them in the roads seventeen days, and in this interval the King of the two Sicilies arrived from Palermo, and immediately issued an edict, by which he declared that no permission had been given to enter in negociations with rebels, and that Cardinal Ruffo had not the faculty of derogating from this principle of sovereignty. He annulled, consequently, the convention which had been made, and ordered the punishment of the rebels. The vessels were instantly boarded, and many of the principal republicans executed on the spot, while the remainder were dragged to the prisons and their houses pillag-. ed. Lord Nelson, who had by this time returned to Naples, blocked up during these transactions all the vessels destined for Toulon with a force of seventeen sail of the line. The sano. tion which his lordship thus gave to the breach