Early on the 17th of December, by two in the morning, Fort Mulgrave, on the Height de Grasse, was stormed by an immense body of the enemy, after having kept up an incessant fire with shot and shells for 24 hours. The right occupied by the Spaniards soon gave way as before, by which means the French entered the works, and got entire possession of the Height: at the same time they attacked and carried the Heights of Pharon, immediately over Toulon.

In the forenoon of the 17th of December, a council of war was called, composed of the following members: Lord Hood, Admiral Langara, Admiral Gravina, General Dundas, General Valdes, Prince Pignatelli, Admiral Forteguerri, Sir Hyde Parker, Le Chevalier de Revel, and Sir Gilbert Elliot. After the most deliberate discussion, it was at length resolved, late in the afternoon, to retire from the different posts, and to evacuate Toulon at a fixed time; proper arrangements and regulations being made for that purpose. The resolutions

were:

1. To send orders to the troops occupying the redoubt, and the lunette of Pharon, to retire to the posts of Artigues and St. Catherine's, and to maintain them as long as they can without being cut off.

2. To send orders to the posts of Great and Little Antoine, St. André, Pomet, and the Mills, to retire.

3. The posts of Malbousquet, and Mississi, must be held as long as possible.

4. The Committee General to make the necessary arrangements for informing the inhabitants of the intended evacuation; and that they should receive every possible assistance.

5. The sick and wounded shall be embarked without delay.

6. The French ships of war, which are armed, shall sail out with the fleet; those which remain in the harbour, together with the magazines and the arsenal, shall be destroyed. Measures shall be taken this night, if possible, for that purpose; but this resolution must not be put in execution until the last moment.

Admiral Langara undertook to deliver the necessary directions for destroying the ships, in the inner liabour or bason; and to scuttle and sink the two powder vessels, which contained all the powder of the different French ships, as well as that belonging to the distant magazines within the enemy's reach.

During the sitting of the Council, information was received that the Neapolitan troops had deserted their posts, and were stealing on board the ships with their baggage in great confusion and disorder; to which they had been encouraged by the Spaniards, as well as their own officers; and the next morning, December 18, the Neapolitan commanding officer on the post of Sepet, signified to the governor,

that he would not remain there any longer: the retreat of the British troops, and the general evacuation of the place, could not therefore be now deferred beyond the ensuing night. Accordingly, during the night, the whole of the troops embarked without the loss of a single man; and 14,877 men, women, and children, of the loyal inhabitants of Toulon, were sheltered in the British ships. The Honourable Captain Elphinstone, in faithfully executing to the last moment the difficult service of embarking the troops, received high encomiums from Lord Hood, for his unremitting zeal and exertions in that important and dangerous duty.

The unaccountable panic which seized the Neapolitan troops during the deliberations of the Council, together with the shameful remissness of Don Langara, in not fulfilling what he had undertaken to perform, prevented the complete execution of an admirable arrangement, for destroying all the French ships that lay in the Inner Road, the arsenal, and bason before the town; together with the magazine, the arsenal itself, and the various stores it contained. Sir Sydney Smith having volunteered his services to burn the ships and arsenal, this hazardous duty was intrusted to his daring intrepidity, which he executed in a manner that justified his appointment to so arduous a task: by this means the treachery of the Spaniards was in a considerable degree counteracted. Ten ships of the line, with several frigates, in the arsenal and inner harbour, with the mast house, great store house, hemp house, and other buildings, were completely destroyed. Three ships of the line, three frigates, and seven corvettes, which had been manned and armed prior to the evacuation, accompanied the British fleet, with the French Rear Admiral Trogoffe; who nobly continued under Lord Hood's orders,, notwithstanding the insidious attempts of Don Langara, to prevail upon him to put himself under his orders, and to follow the directions of the Spanish Court; as being more congenial with the interests of the Family Compact, which had formerly united their respective kingdoms *.

Sir Sydney Smith, and the officers immediately under his orders, surrounded by a tremendous conflagration of the ships and arsenal, had nearly completed the hazardous services assigned to them, when the loud shouts, and Republican songs, of the approaching enemy, were heard at intervals amid the bursting of shells, and firing of mus quetry. In addition to the horror of such a scene, and which, for

A few days before the evacuation took place, Don Langara wrote a most pressing, and jesuitical, letter to Rear Admiral Trogoffe, requesting him on various plausible pretexts, to put himself and the French ships under his orders; but Admiral Trogoffe very properly, and with great firmness, resisted this on the ground of recognising no Chief but Lord Hood, with whom only he had treated; and he transmitted to Lord Hood Don Langara's letter, together with his spirited answer on this occasion.

some minutes, had the good effect of checking the career, and arresting in awful contemplation, the minds of a vindictive enemy, the dreadful explosion of many thousand barrels of gunpowder, on board the Isis frigate, in the Inner Road, will ever be remembered. The concussion it produced shook the houses in Toulon like an earthquake, and occasioned the sudden crash of every window in them; whilst the scattered fragments of burning timber, which had been blown up, descending with considerable force, nearly destroyed all our officers and men who were employed in the discharge of their respective duties. This powder ship had been injudiciously, and we will hereafter prove treacherously, set on fire by the Spaniards, instead of scuttling and sinking her, as had been previously concerted. Sir Sydney having completed all the conflagration within his reach, to his astonishment first discovered that the Spaniards had not set fire to any of the ships in the bason before the town; he therefore hastened with the boats under his command towards the bason, that he might endeavour, though at so late a period, to counteract the perfidy of the Spaniards; when lo! to his great mortification, he found the boom at the entrance laid across, and was obliged to desist in his attempts to cut it, from the repeated volleys of musquetry directed towards his boats from the flag ship, and the wall of the Royal Battery. He therefore proceeded to burn the Hero, and Themistocles, prison ships in the Inner Road, after disembarking all the men. This service was scarcely effected, when the explosion of the second powder ship took place, by means equally unsuspected, and perfidious, with a shock even greater than the first; the lives of Sir Sydney Smith, and the gallant men who served under him, were providentially saved from the imminent danger in which they were thus a second time placed. Had Lord Hood's judicious and able plans been seconded by the Spaniards, not a single ship would have escaped.

When from analogy we reason on the above facts, and consider the motives which influenced the conduct of our allies, the Spaniards, throughout the whole of the transactions at Toulon, we clearly discern the different features of a foul premeditated treachery, whose limit was designed to extend to the destruction of the British admiral and his fleet. The facts themselves justify this assertion, without resorting to other evidence: yet in order to fix this historical truth by proofs that will not admit the possibility of a doubt, even in the mind of the most sceptical reader, we subjoin the following extract from a pamphlet, containing an account of the secret negociations carried on under the direction of Roberspiere, with several of the principal states of Europe, written and signed by his own hand. Of this curious

• Translated from the French, and published by Rivington.

work, we intend taking further notice, in the Toulon Papers *, which are preparing for the press, and shall at present only insert what follows:-"Arguments of weight, and especially of golden weight, says Robespiere, seldom fail of having some effect; the Spanish admirals, and generals in the Mediterranean, had instructions sent them rather to watch, than to act with, the English." In another part he adds, "It was therefore once determined to withdraw the army from before the town, (Toulon) and retreat to the other side of the Durance, when fortunately the Spanish courier arrived, and every thing was settled between my brother + on our part, and Major S—— on the other, with respel to Toulon."

Robespiere then proceeds to remark-" The Spaniards, in consequence of this agreement, being attacked at an appointed time, fled on all sides, and left the English every where to bite the dust; and particularly at a strong bold called by them Fort Mulgrave. The ships which the Spaniards had to burn they did not set fire to. The British ships had however more than one escape at this period; conformably to the agreement, the Spaniards were to attempt the destruction of some of them, by cutting the cables, and blowing up in the harbour some old French men of war laden with gunpowder: this indeed they did, but too late to cause any damage to the English; and in this instance alone we have any reason to complain of the Spaniards."

Every thing therefore relating to Toulon may be considered as highly honourable to the British name, and to the noble admiral who so ably executed the trust which had devolved upon him. Actions of considerable merit, which embrace a variety of interests, and are consequently perplexed, demand a considerable length of time, before they are clearly discerned, and duly valued. Great advantages were eventually derived to this Country by the blow which the naval power of the enemy thus early received.-The republican hydra, though now writhing in all the anguish of despair, amid the last struggle of convulsive life, received her first mortal wound from the powerful arm of Lord Hood.

Early in the month of January (1794) whilst the British fleet lay in Hieres Bay, near Toulon, waiting for a convoy of transports and victuallers from Gibraltar, Sir Gilbert Elliot, one of the commissioners for Toulon, went to Corsica, accompanied by Colonel Moore, and Major Kochler, to consult with General Paoli upon a plan of operations for

No. XI.

+ Robespiere the younger was one of the commissaries attached to the French army before Toulon. Buonaparte at the same time commanded the artillery.

dispossessing the French of the different posts they held in Corsica. Lord Hood, on receiving a very favourable report from Colonel Moore, and Major Kochler, fully sensible of the importance which the conquest of the island of Corsica would be of to Great Britain, as containing several capital ports for the reception of his Majesty's ships in the Mediterranean, resolved to make every effort to drive the French from the island with the force entrusted to his command, aided by the troops brought from Toulon. The necessary preparations were accordingly made without delay; and on the 7th of February, the troops under the command of Lieutenant General Dundas were disembarked, from a division of ships and transports commanded by Commodore Linzee, in a Bay in the Gulph of St. Fiorenzo, to the westward of Mortello :- by the incredible exertions of the British scamen in dragging guns up precipices almost perpendicular, the Heights, which overlooked the tower of Mortello, were taken.

It was however judged advisable the next day to attack the tower from the Bay; and the Fortitude, Captain Young*, and Juno, Captain Samuel Hood †, were ordered against it; but after cannonading for two hours and upwards, they made no impression whatever on the prodigious thick walls of the tower; and the Fortitude having received much damage by red hot shot, both ships hauled off in a masterly manner, as if nothing had happened. Captain Young received great credit for his cool and intrepid conduct during the attack, as well as in hauling off, and setting sail out of the Bay, when his ship was on fire in different places by the red-hot shot: considerable praise was also due to his first lieutenant Mr. Ross, who, though wounded, exerted himself with unsubdued spirit, and underwent incredible fatigue.

Now Rear Admiral, and one of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, Mr. Ross, at present first lieutenant of the Impetueux, was then Captain Young's first lieutenant.

+ Nephew to Lord Hood, who has distinguished himself on various occa sions, particularly as commander of the Zealous in the Battle of the Nile.