While preparations were making for the siege of this fortress, the Neapolitan Peasantry, who had taken up arms, obtained various advantages over different detachments of the French army, and harassed the enemy so.much that they were reduced to the greatest difficul ties. At this critical juncture, Commissioners arrived at the French Camp from Naples, with whom the French General Championnet gladly concluded an armistice, on the condition that Capua, with all its stores and artillery, should be surrendered to the French, together with the whole tract of country from thence to Acerra, in the vicinity of Naples. Some farther territorial advantages were ceded to the French by this treaty, who were also to receive ten millions of livres, about four hundred and sixteen thousand pounds sterling. This armistice was signed on the 21st of January, 1799. The King of Naples had left his capital at the beginning of the month, and had reached Sicily in safety, on board Admiral Nelson's ship.

The armistice afforded an opportunity to the French commander, Championnet, to bring into action those revolutionary resources which he had assured the Directory he had taken special care to secure. Popular tumults were immediately excited in the capital of the kingdom; the French faction prevailed; Cham

pionnet, in violation of the treaty, marched to their aid; forced the passes which guard the entrance to Naples; took possession of the city; secured all the forts; disarmed the inhabitants; and announced the revolution of the kingdom, in a proclamation, in which he told the Neapolitans, that they were at length free; that their liberty was the only reward which France claimed from its conquest; and the only clause of the treaty of peace which the army of the republic had just solemnly sworn, together with themselves, within the walls of their capital, and on the ruins of the Throne of their last King.

All who regretted the loss of a King were represented as maniacs; and all who rejected proffered liberty were regarded as unworthy of protection, and fit only to be cut off! On the ruins of the monarchy was erected the Neapolitan Republic, and the Government was vested in a provisional assembly of twenty-one Citizens, subject to the superintendance and controul of the French General. These events took place within five days from the conclusion of the armistice, and they were followed by all the customary effects of such revolutions, general confiscation and plunder. Soon after this, the revolutionary mania of the French extended itself even to the little Republic of Lucca, whose Con

stitution, which had resisted the shocks of two centuries and a half, was overthrown, and a new Government, with the modern appendages of a Directory and two Councils, established in its stead.

Such was the state of the Continent in the autumn of 1798. Mr. Pitt had exerted himself to give a favourable direction to the stimulus. produced by the victory of the Nile. The British Ambassador, at foreign courts, had received instructions to assure the respective powers to whom they were accredited, and who evinced any disposition to resist the encroachments of France, of the most potent and effectual assistance which it was in the power of this country to afford. On the twentieth of November, 1798, the British Parliament met. In the speech from the Throne, the King, adverting to the battle of the Nile, which was truly represented as a great and brilliant victory, observed that, by it, an enterprize, of which the injustice, perfidy, and extravagance, had fixed the attention of the world, and which was peculiarly directed against some of the most valuable interests of the British empire, had, in the first instance, been turned to the confusion of its authors; and the blow thus given to the power and influence of France, had afforded an opening which, if improved by suitable exer

tions on the part of other powers, might lead to the general deliverance of Europe. Reference was made to the wisdom and magnanimity displayed, at this conjuncture, by the Emperor of Russia, and to the decision and vigour of the Ottoman Porte, as having shewn that those powers were impressed with a just sense of the present crisis; and their example, joined to the disposition manifested, almost universally, in the different countries, struggling under the yoke of France, was considered as a powerful encouragement to adopt that vigorous line of conduct, which experience had proved to be alone consistent with security or honour.

The address experienced but little resistance in either House; thanks and suitable rewards were voted to the gallant Nelson, and his brave followers, and to the Admiral was given a title, calculated to carry the recollection of his heroic achievement to the remotest posterity. He was created Baron Nelson of the Nile. On the third of December, Mr. Pitt entered upon the most unpleasant, but not the least necessary, part of a Minister's duty, the detail of means necessary to be provided for the grand exigences of the war. The whole expences of the coming year were stated to be £29,272,000. To meet this demand, the land and malt tax would supply £2,750,000; the lottery £200,000; the

growing produce of the consolidated fund, £1,500,000; and the tax upon imports and exports, £1,700,000; making a total of £6,150,000, and leaving, of course, upwards of twenty-three millions to be provided for by other means.

In alluding to the duty on imports and exports, Mr. Pitt observed, that it had greatly exceeded the sum at which he had originally rated it; and that the total amount of the imports and exports of the year exceeded, in a large degree, the largest sum at which any man had ever ventured to compute it.* In considering the means of providing for the deficit of

* Mr. Rose, in a table annexed to "a brief examination into the increase of the revenue, commerce, and manufactures of Great Britain, from 1792 to 1799," which he published in the latter year, and which was the result of an elaborate inves tigation of the subject by some gentlemen connected with the administration, and who were well qualified for the task, thus tates the amount of imports and exports, from 1791 to 1799.