this and several similar victories, Hofer resolved to attack Lefebvre's whole corps at Innspruck. He marched against that town early in the morning of August 12th, and, despite the numbers, discipline and wellapproved bravery of the French troops, carried it before nightfall at the point of the bayonet. The victors, whose numbers were diminished only nine hundred men, inflicted a loss on the invaders of no less than six thousand, of whom nearly two thousand were prisoners.

This victory for a time entirely cleared the country of its enemies; but it was vain for the brave Tyrolese to hope that they could long contend, with impunity, against the gigantic strength of Napoleon's armies. An overwhelming force was soon assembled on their frontiers, and the invasion commenced at so many points that Hofer resolved to submit, and published a proclamation, enjoining the people to obey a power which they could not resist. The inhabitants, however, refused to yield, and forced Hofer to resume the command, which he did with great reluctance, and gained a brilliant victory over General Rusca, at the old castle of Tyrol. After this event, the urgent entreaties of Eugene Beauharnois-who, foreseeing the desperate character of the struggle, generously urged the inhabitants to submission with a promise of amnesty-finally put an end to hostilities. Hofer now abandoned all thought of delivering his country, but he refused to accept the amnesty and submit to the French authorities, and was therefore proscribed. He for some time evaded the pursuit of his enemies; but at length, a detachment of sixteen hundred men surrounded his hiding-place, made him prisoner, and immediately took him to Mantua to be tried by a military commission. He was at once found guilty of resisting the French after Eugene's proclamation of amnesty; but the members were greatly divided as to the punishment he should receive. Their deliberations were cut short by a telegraphic dispatch from the French Emperor, ordering him to be shot within twenty-four hours. He received his sentence with unshaken firmness, and suffered its execution in a manner befitting his life and character.

Few events in the history of Napoleon have left a darker stain on his memory, than the slaughter of this brave man. It is vain to assert in his justification that Hofer was a rebel. The resistance of the Tyrolese was a national contest against foreign aggression: their object was not to rise in rebellion against a constituted government, but to maintain their allegiance to the Austrian monarchy. These people had, but a few years before, and against their wish, been forcibly transferred from the paternal rule of their lawful sovereign to the rude oppression of a foreign tyrant. A dominion of four years could not annul the political relations of four centuries. Hofer had never acknowledged Napoleon to be his master, and by all the rules of civilized warfare, as well as upon every principle of justice and honor, he was at the worst entitled to be treated like a prisoner of war.

The British government, in the summer of this year, undertook an enterprise of some moment on the banks of the Scheldt, having for its object the capture of Antwerp. This city was one of Napoleon's most important strong-holds, and contained in its harbor a powerful fleet. Its formidable strength, and increasing importance as a naval station, together with its proximity to the British shores, rendered it, in Napoleon's hands, eminently dangerous to England. At present, its fortifications were out of repair, and its cannon were dismounted; its garrison con

sisted of little more than two thousand invalids, and the regular army of France was so absorbed on the Danube and in the Peninsula, that it was questionable whether the town, if secretly and suddenly attacked, could receive a support adequate to its protection.

The expedition, therefore, was well-timed, and the forces employed were fully equal to the undertaking; but the vice in its prosecution was of the same nature as that which had already rendered abortive so inany schemes of hostility to France; namely, a wanton and needless delay in every movement. The armament consisted of thirty-seven ships of the line, twenty-three frigates, thirty-three sloops, eighty-two gun-boats, besides a fleet of transports, carrying, in addition to the crews of the ships, forty thousand land troops with two battering trains. This stupendous force reached the coast of Holland on the 29th of July. On the 35th, twenty thousand men were disembarked on the island of Walcheren, who speedily took possession of Middleburg, and drove the French troops within the walls of Flushing. At the same time, another detachment landed in Cadsand, expelled the enemy from that island, and opened the way for the passage of the fleet up the main branch of the Scheldt. Sir Richard Strachan, disregarding the batteries of Flushing, then passed the straits with eighteen ships of the line, and soon both branches of the river were crowded with British pennants. Ter Vere, a fortress commanding the Veergat, was next assailed by the land forces and taken with its garrison of a thousand men; Goes, the capital of South Beveland, also opened its gates; after which, Sir John Hope, with seven thousand men, pressed on to Bahtz; and, such was the consternation produced by the strength and hitherto rapid advance of the British forces, this fort, which commanded both channels, was evacuated by its garrison during the night. The success of the expedition now appeared certain. More than two-thirds of the distance to Antwerp had been traversed in three days, the British standards were only five leagues from the capital, and within four days, at farthest, the whole armament might have been assembled around its walls.

It is acknowledged by the French military writers, that, owing to the unguarded situation of Antwerp at this crisis, it must inevitably have fallen into the hands of the English troops, had they followed up their invasion with the same spirit as they commenced it. Besides, the orders communicated to Lord Chatham were explicit on this point: the capture of Antwerp, and the destruction of the ships building or afloat in the Scheldt, and of the arsenals and dock-yards in Antwerp, Terneuse and Flushing, were the principal objects of the expedition; while the reduction of Walcheren was of entirely subordinate importance. But England had not two Wellingtons in her service. Lord Chatham, the commander-in-chief of the armament, neither inherited the energy of his father, nor shared the capacity of his immortal brother, William Pitt. Destitute of experience and indolent in his habits, he was precisely the man to mislead a great undertaking. Reversing, therefore, the tenor of his instructions, and the dictates of sound sense, he directed his first elaborate effort to the attainment of the least important object; and instead of hastening to an easy victory at Antwerp, he arrayed his strength around Flushing, which surrendered after an investment of three days, with its garrison of six thousand men and two hundred pieces of cannon. This was doubtless a conquest of some value; but it was as dust in the balance com.

pared with the main objects which the English government had in view, and for which their orders so clearly provided. While the British soldiers were fighting bravely at Flushing, the French and Dutch troops were hurrying toward Antwerp; and after the reduction of Flushing, which event occurred on the 16th of August, the English general so delayed his movements, that he did not reach Bahtz until the 26th. In the meantime, the Antwerp fleet was moved farther up the river, out of reach of the British ships, and Antwerp itself, occupied in force by regular troops, was beyond the power of an assault.

As a further advance now became impossible, Lord Chatham fell back to Walcheren, where he proposed to maintain himself; but after a few weeks, a distemper, bred by the unhealthy marshes of that island, broke out among the soldiers, and its ravages were so fatal, that, after taking the opinions of his officers at a council of war, the commander-in-chiet resolved to abandon the place and return to England; which he accordingly did in the month of December.

It has already been mentioned, that when the pope, Pius VII., took the unusual step of going to the French capital to perform the ceremony of crowning Napoleon, he expected some great concessions in return; and subsequently, he had from time to time urged his claims on the Emperor, but always without obtaining either benefits or promises. Nor did Napoleon merely refuse to reciprocate the obligation: during the Austrian war of 1805, the French troops seized Ancona, the most important fortress in the Ecclesiastical dominions; and when his holiness remonstrated against this aggression, Napoleon, instead of heeding his complaints, avowed himself Emperor of Rome, and declared that the pope was only his viceroy. This explicit declaration of the French Emperor's intentions, at once opened the eyes and aroused the courage of the pope; who thereafter, on all occasions, intrepidly maintained a tone and attitude of defiance toward the conqueror. Napoleon, however, took little heed of his measures. In the Italian wars that ensued, he overrun and occupied at pleasure the papal dominions; and, in February, 1808, he permanently quartered a large body of French troops in Rome. In April of the same year, he declared the provinces of Urbino, Ancona, Macerata and Camerino-forming nearly a third part of the Ecclesiastical territories-irrevocably united to the kingdom of Italy. The pope was next confined a prisoner in his own palace; French guards occupied all parts of the capital; French officers assumed control of the posts, the press, the taxes, the whole government, in short; the papal troops were incorporated into the French ranks and their own officers dismissed. And while all these outrages were in progress, the French Emperor constantly importuned the pope to join the general league, offensive and defensive, with himself and the King of Naples.

At length, on the 17th of May, 1809, the last act of violence was perpetrated. Napoleon issued a decree from the camp near Vienna, setting forth that "the States of the pope are united to the French Empire; Rome, so interesting from its recollections and the first seat of Christianity, is declared an imperial and free city;" and these changes were ordered to take effect on the 1st of June following. The pope, in reply to this decree, published a bull of excommunication against Napoleon and all concerned in this high-handed measure. This bull was placarded on all the usual places, and with such secrecy as to escape the knowledge or sus

picion of the police. The pope, fearful that the individuals concerned in printing and circulating the paper might be discovered and punished by Napoleon's emissaries, used great precautions to avert such a catastrophe; but he entertained no fear for himself. On the contrary, he transcribed the original document with his own hand, that no one else could become implicated by a fortuitous discovery of the hand-writing.

Napoleon, though unprepared for so vigorous an act on the part of the sovereign pontiff, was not the less prompt in his measures. He had long ago conceived the project of uniting the tiara and the Imperial crown on his own brow; but fearing that in Modern Europe this could not be done directly, he resolved now to attempt it indirectly, by transferring the residence of the pope to France, where he hoped to control every ecclesiastical measure. On the night of the 5th of July, Miollis and Radet, acting indeed without the express orders of Napoleon in this instance, though in conformity to the spirit of his previous instructions, surrounded the Quirinal with three regiments; thirty men, in profound silence, scaled the walls of the garden, and took post under the windows of the palace; and fifty more effected an entrance by the window of an unoccupied room. This being done during the night, the gates at six o'clock in the morning were thrown open, and Radet entered at the head of his troops, proclaiming that his orders were to arrest the pope and the Cardinal Pacca, his chief counsellor, and conduct them out of Rome. The pope and the cardinal, awakened by the strokes of the hatchets used in breaking down the interior doors, immediately rose; and as his holiness expected to be murdered on the spot, he called for the ring which his predecessor, Pius VI., had worn when dying, and placed it on his finger. To prevent further violence, the remaining doors were thrown open and the troops entered the pope's apartment. Radet, pale and trembling with emotion, announced to the holy father, that he was charged with the painful duty of declaring that his holiness must resign the temporal sovereignty of Rome and the Ecclesiastical States, or accompany him to the head-quarters of General Miollis. The pope replied, that he had higher duties to perform than obedience to any military chieftain; and that "the Emperor, if he saw fit, might cut him in pieces, but he could never draw from him such a resignation." The alternative of arrest was therefore submitted to, and the pope and Cardinal Pacca took their seats in a carriage escorted by a pow. erful detachment of French cavalry. Their journey was hastened to such a degree, that for nineteen successive hours they were not allowed to rest or take any refreshment. On reaching Florence, they were separated from each other; the cardinal was conveyed to Grenoble, and thence, by a special order of Napoleon, transferred to the state prison of Fenestrelles, in Savoy; and the pope was hurried across the Alps by Mount Cenis into France.

CHAPTER XXXII.

MARITIME WAR; AND CAMPAIGN OF 1809 IN SPAIN AND Portugal,

THE event that first roused the British people from the despondency caused by the unsatisfactory result of the Peninsula campaign, was a brilliant achievement of their arms at sea. Early in the year, a French squadron of eleven ships of the line and seven frigates was assembled in Basque Roads, under the command of Admiral Villaumer, destined to relieve the Island of Martinique, in the West Indies, which was then threatened by a British fleet. The English government, immediately on receiving intelligence of this armament, dispatched Lord Gambier, with eleven ships of the line and a number of frigates, to blockade the French vessels. Admiral Villaumer, alarmed at the approach of so formidable a force, weighed anchor and stood for the inner and more protected roads of Isle d'Aix, and while executing this manœuvre, one of his line-of-battle ships went ashore and was lost. The British admiral followed him and anchored in Basque Roads; and, as the proximity of the hostile fleets, in so confined a position, rendered them especially exposed to the operation of fire-ships, the British resolved on that method of attack. Twelve ves sels of this description were soon fitted out in the English harbors, placed under the immediate command of Lord Cochrane, and dispatched to Basque Roads, where they arrived in the beginning of April.

Villaumer, to guard against this assault, had drawn across the line of his fleet a strong boom, composed of spars, cables and chains braced together, and secured at each end by anchors of an enormous weight. On the evening of the 11th of April, the wind blowing fresh, and from the most favorable quarter, the fire-ships got under weigh and bore down on the enemy; Lord Cochrane taking personal charge of the leading vessel, which had on board fifteen hundred pounds of powder and four shells. The moment that the attacking force came within range of the French fleet, the latter opened a terrible fire of heavy guns and bombs; and the danger of the British may be understood from the fact, that their vessels were all full loaded with gunpowder, and any one of the flaming projectiles issuing from the French mortars would suffice to explode them.

The Mediator frigate first struck the boom, and she dashed through it almost without pausing in her course. The fire-ships came on in quick succession, and the French officers, believing all to be lost, immediately slipped their cables and drifted ashore in wild confusion. At daybreak the next morning, one half the French fleet was discovered to be ashore, and at eight o'clock, only two vessels were afloat. Lord Cochrane, who had regained his own ship, now made signal to Lord Gambier to advance; but that officer, instead of acting with the promptitude that such an emergency required, waited to summon a council of war, and did not get under weigh until eleven o'clock; then, after having approached to within six miles of the French squadron, he cast anchor, alleging that he could not proceed until high water. Meantime, the French admiral, reassured by the dilatory movement of his antagonists, made great efforts to get his ships afloat, which the rising tide at length enabled him to do;