222 Defeat of the LANDING OF SIR RALPH ABERCROMBY. CH. XXXIX. of about twelve thousand men under Sir Ralph Abercromby, embarked for the Helder on the 13th of August, but was prevented landing by stress of weather until the 27th. They were opposed by a force of more than ten thousand men under General Daendels, and, after an obstinate conflict of ten hours, which the British sustained without artillery or cavalry, the Dutch gave way, and abandoned the Helder with one hundred pieces of cannon, to the English General. A reinforcement of five thousand men, under General Don, arrived the next day; and on the 30th of the month, the thirteen men of war in the Texel, being chiefly the remnant of De Winter's squadron which had escaped after the battle of Camperdown, surrendered without firing a shot to Admiral Mitchell, who acted under the immediate orders of Lord Duncan. According to the statement of the Dutch Admiral, his crews mutinied, and refused to fight. From the 1st to the 8th of September, Abercromby continued his advance slowly and cautiously, still gaining the advantage in several minor encounters with the Dutch. On the 14th, the Duke of York landed at the Helder with three brigades of British troops, and the first division of Russians, consisting of seven thousand good troops. The allied army now amounted to thirty thousand men; and the Duke of York determined to push forward before the Dutch should have obtained reinforcements, still calculating on the dutiful response of the people to the proclamations of the Prince of Orange. Difficult nature of the country. No country in the world afforded such facilities for arresting the progress of an invading army as the Netherlands. The canals, the dykes, the banks with which the soil is traversed, render it almost impassable; and in the last resort, the ocean itself could be summoned as an ally. In addition to the difficulties created by the 1799. HIS ADVANCE." 223 art of civil engineers, hardly less formidable than the works of Vauban or Cohorn, there were numerous sand-hills and villages which afforded excellent positions for a defensive force; and of these the Dutch General had not omitted to avail himself. It was not the fault of the Duke of York that he found himself in the face of difficulties which would probably have baffled an able and experienced General. The campaign had been planned in London; and the British Commander had no discretion beyond the disposition of his forces in the field. Under these disadvantages, it became necessary to risk the fate of the enterprise on a general action. The Duke disposed his army in four divisions. The left wing, under Abercromby, was to turn the enemy's right, which rested on the Zuyder Zee. Two other positions were to be forced by the central division; but the most arduous duty, upon the due performance of which the fate of the day depended, was assigned to the Russian General D'Hermann, of whom, and the force under his command, the British Commander could know nothing. These troops were destined to attack the heights of Camperdyne, to storm the villages beneath the heights, and finally to occupy the town of Bergen. The divisions of Sir Ralph Abercromby and Sir James Pulteney, consisting of disciplined troops, and guided by skilful officers, performed the duties assigned to them; and had the right wing been equally steady, the fortune of the day would have been different to what it was. But the Russians rushed forward with wild impetuosity. Impatient to be the first in the field, they would not wait till daylight. The violence of their onset carried the first positions of the enemy; but they soon became involved in confusion; amidst the mist and darkness they could not distinguish friend from foe, and they suffered more from their own guns than from the fire of the French in front of them. The 224 BERGEN TAKEN. CH. XXXIX. French General, when he saw the state of affairs, judiciously fell back before his barbarous assailants, who pressed forward until they became an armed mob, separated from their officers, and far in advance of their supports. Hurrying forward in this manner, though galled by an incessant flanking fire from the French infantry, which had dispersed as riflemen among the hedges and behind the banks, the Russians at length reached the town of Bergen. Here they found artillery and cavalry drawn up in such a manner as to ensure their destruction if they advanced; and after a desperate resistance, during which their General, D'Hermann, was taken prisoner, the whole division made a rapid retreat, until they halted near the position which they had quitted before dawn. In a few days, the Duke of York made a second attack on Bergen, and after a hard struggle, in which the loss on either side was nearly equal, he succeeded in obtaining possession of the town. But far from having made any material progress, the position of the army was worse than at its first landing. The inhabitants gave them no encouragement, while the levy of the French was met with alacrity. Losses in battle, with the usual casualties of an army in the field, more destructive than fire and sword, had thinned the ranks of the invaders, while the opposing armies were rapidly augmenting. The season was far advanced; a forward movement was hopeless; and even a retreat could not be effected without great loss. In these circumstances, Sir Ralph Abercromby, with the concurrence of the other Generals, advised His Royal Highness to abandon the enterprise; and their representations having been submitted to the Cabinet,* the Duke of York was ordered to make terms for the withdrawal of the army from Holland. The negotiation was not protracted. The Dutch * Duke of Portland to Lord wallis Correspondence, vol. iii. Cornwallis, Oct. 14, 1799.-Cornp. 136. 1799. FAILURE OF THE EXPEDITION. 225 were unwilling to exasperate an enemy which might open the sluices and inundate the country. The French were satisfied with the utter failure of the enterprise. The restoration of the Dutch fleet was at first demanded; but these terms being peremptorily refused, it was ultimately agreed that the British should surrender the Helder in the same condition in which they found it; that eight thousand French and Dutch prisoners should be released, and that the allied armies should evacuate the Low Countries before the end of November. Such was the end of this ill-conceived expedition, which was only redeemed from utter failure by success in a subordinate detail unconnected with the main design. The capture of the ships in the Texel, had it been a separate undertaking, would have ranked among the brilliant exploits of the war; but it was weighed down by the disaster of the great military enterprise. Fortunately, however, for the fame of England, and the safety of the British dominions, if not the British Isles, her military blunders and disasters were compensated by the irresistible prowess of her fleets, and the skill and conduct of her naval commanders. 6 When Nelson removed his squadron to the Bay of Naples, he left a small force to blockade Sir Sidney the port of Alexandria; and the Govern- Smith. ment justly attached so much importance to this service, that they sent Captain Sir Sidney Smith with a broad pennant in the Tiger,' an eighty-four gun ship, to assume this particular command. Smith, however, soon after his arrival, ascertained that the French, instead of attempting to reach their transports, had marched into the interior with the design of overpowering St. Jean d'Acre, which would give them the command of Syria, and facilitate their progress, either to Constantinople, or to India. The Porte had invested a native chief Djezzar, lately a formidable rebel, but now actively engaged in opQ VOL. IV. 226 BLOCKADE OF ALEXANDRIA. CH. XXXIX. posing the common enemy, with the pachalics of Egypt and Syria. Djezzar was prepared to defend Acre, and the English commodore determined to proceed in the 'Tiger' to his assistance, having previously despatched the frigate Theseus' on that service. In his way, Sir Sidney Smith had the good fortune to fall in with and capture the French flotilla of gunboats, containing the battering train for the siege of Acre, which had eluded the blockade of Alexandria. Bonaparte, in his march to Acre, had reduced the forts of El Arish, Gaza, and Jaffa. At the lastmentioned place, he put the garrison to the sword, on the pretence that they were prisoners who had been liberated on parole at El Arish. But his attempt to justify the murder by traducing the honour of his victims only aggravates the atrocity of his conduct. Bonaparte was a genuine child of the Revolution. No fear of God or man influenced his actions. No feeling of humanity, no sense of honour ever checked the career of his ambition, or restrained him from any word or deed which his interest, or the exigency of the moment seemed to require. His proceedings in Egypt were a tissue of cruelty, blasphemy, and lying. The troops destined to march over sands and inhospitable deserts, were told that they were going to a land flowing with milk and honey, and that every soldier on his return to France would be rewarded for his services with six acres and a half of his native soil. The people of Egypt were told that the French were true Mussulmans, and that they came as the allies of the Sultan, to deliver the country from the tyranny of the Beys. The inhabitants who would not believe these professions, and who dared to resist the invader, were given up to plunder and massacre. The most atrocious acts of the army of Egypt were perpetrated either with the connivance, or at the instigation, or by the express orders of Bonaparte himself. His entrance to |