XIII. 109. of Buonaparte, were decisive of the fate of the place. The CHAP. garrison, it is true, still consisted of above ten thousand men, and the works of the town itself were as yet 1793. uninjured; but the harbour was untenable, as the shot Evacuation from the heights of Faron and Fort Eguillette ranged of the place. over its whole extent. Sir Samuel Hood, alone, warmly insisted upon the propriety of an immediate effort to regain the outworks which had been lost his advice was overruled by all the other officers, and it was resolved to evacuate the place. Measures were immediately taken to carry this determination into effect. The exterior forts, which still remained in the hands of the Allies, were all abandoned; and information was conveyed to the principal inhabitants, that the means of retreat would be afforded them on board the British squadron, while the fleet was moved to the outer roads beyond the reach of the enemy's fire. But much confusion necessarily ensued 416, 417, with a garrison composed of so many different nations; Th. vi. 57. and the Neapolitans, in particular, fled from their posts, James, i and got on board their ships with so much precipitation, that they incurred the derision of the whole garrison.1 1 Ann. Reg. xxxiii. P. Jom.iv. 224. Toul. iv. 88. 110, 115. Nap. i. 14. the inhabi Terrible were the feelings with which the unfor- 110. tunate inhabitants regarded the hasty evacuation of their Despair of city. To them it was the harbinger of confiscation, tants. exile, and death,-Republican conquest, and the reign of the guillotine. With anxious eyes they watched the embarkation of the British sick and wounded on the morning of the 18th; and when the fatal truth could no longer be concealed, that they were about to be abandoned, despair and anguish wrung every heart. The streets were soon in the most frightful state of confusion; in many, the Jacobins, and galley-slaves who had broken loose, were already firing on the flying groups of women and children who were hurrying to the quay; and the sides of the harbour were soon filled with a piteous James's crowd, entreating, in the name of every thing that was i. 115. sacred, to be saved from their implacable enemies.2 No 2 Ann. Reg. xxxiii. p. 416, 418. Th. vi. 59. Naval Hist. XIII. CHAP. time was lost in taking the unfortunate fugitives on board the vessels appointed for that purpose; an operation of no small labour and difficulty, for their numbers exceeded fourteen thousand. 1793. the arsenal and fleet. It was resolved in the council, that such part of the Burning of French fleet as could be got ready for sea, should be sent out under the Royalist Admiral Trogoffe, and that the remainder, with all the stores, should be destroyed. This was a service of great danger, for the Republicans were fast pressing on the retreating forces of the besieged, and their shot already began to plunge into the harbour. Sir SIDNEY SMITH, who here first appeared in arms against Buonaparte, whose destiny he was hereafter so materially to affect, volunteered to conduct the perilous enterprise, and at midnight proceeded to the arsenal to commence the work of destruction. He found the galleyslaves, to the number of six hundred, the greater part of whom were unfettered, inclined to dispute his entrance into the dock-yard: but, by disposing a British sloop so that its guns enfiladed the quay, he was able to overawe them, and at the same time restrain the Jacobins, who, in great numbers, and with loud shouts, were assembling round its outer palisades. At eight, a fireship was towed into the harbour; at ten the torches were applied, and the flames arose in every quarter. Notwithstanding the calmness of the night, the fire spread with rapidity, and soon reached the fleet, where, in a short time, fifteen ships of the line, and eight frigates, were blown up or burnt to the water's edge. The volumes of smoke which filled the sky, the flames which burst, as it were, out of the sea, 1 Ann. Reg, and ascended to the heavens, the red light which illuxxxiii. 418. minated even the most distant mountains, formed, says Buonaparte, a sublime and unique spectacle. About midnight, the Iris frigate, with several thousand barrels of powder, blew up with a terrific explosion, and shortly after the Montreal, fireship, experienced the same fate.1 Jom. iv.226. James i. vi. 58, 59, Nap. i. 25, 26. * See a biography of Sir SIDNEY SMITH, infra, chap. XXVI. § 82. XIII. 1793. The burning embers, falling in every direction, and the CHAP. awful violence of the shocks, quelled for a moment the shouts of the Republican soldiers, who now crowded to the harbour's edge, and beheld, with indignant fury, the resistless progress of the conflagration. 112. the evacua No words can do justice to the horrors of the scene which ensued, when the last columns of the Allied Horrors of troops commenced their embarkation. Cries, screams, and tion. lamentations, arose in every quarter; the frantic clamour, heard even across the harbour, announced to the soldiers in the Republican camp that the last hope of the Royalists was giving way. The sad remnant of those who had favoured the royal cause, and who had neglected to go off in the first embarkation, came flying to the beach, and invoked, with tears and prayers, the aid of their British friends. Mothers, clasping their babes to their bosoms, helpless children and decrepid old men, might be seen stretching their hands towards the harbour, shuddering at every sound behind them, and even rushing into the waves to escape the less merciful death which awaited them from their countrymen. Some had the generosity to throw themselves into the sea, to save, by their self-sacrifice, the lives of their parents, in danger of being swamped in the boats. Vast numbers perished from falling into the sea, or by the swamping of boats, into which multitudes crowded, loaded with their most valuable effects, or bearing their parents or children on their shoulders. Such as could seize upon boats rushed into them with frantic vehemence, pushed from the beach without oars, and directed their unsteady and dangerous course towards their former protectors. The scene des Gir. vii. resembled those mournful catastrophes recorded by the bert's Mehistorians of antiquity, when the inhabitants of whole moirs, p. 75. Ann. Reg. cities in Asia Minor or Greece fled to the sea at the 418. Fonveille,84,87, approach of their enemies, and steered away by the light 112. Prudof their burning habitations.1 Sir Sidney Smith, with 161. a degree of humanity worthy of his high character, 1 Lam. Hist. 222. Jou hom. vi. 149, XIII. CHAP. suspended his retreat till not a single individual who claimed his assistance remained on the strand, though the total number borne away amounted to fourteen thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven. 1793. 113. Total loss in ships to The lukewarmness or timidity of the Spanish officers, to whom the destruction of the vessels in the basin before the French. the town had been intrusted, preserved them from destruction, and saved a remnant, consisting of seven ships of the line and eleven frigates, to the Republic. These, with five ships of the line, sent round to Rochefort at the commencement of the siege, were all that remained of thirty-one ships of the line, and twenty-five frigates, which were lying in Toulon at the time it fell into the hands of the Allies. Three ships of the line, and three frigates, were brought away untouched, and taken into the English service; the total number captured or destroyed was eighteen ships of the line, nine frigates, and eleven corvettes. The French soldiers beheld with indescribable anguish the destruction of their fleet all vi.60. Ann. thinking men then foresaw that the war, lighted up between the rival states, could not be extinguished but by the destruction of one of them.2 1 Jom. iv. 225, 226. James, i. 117. Th. Reg. xxxiii. 420. 114. Dreadful cruelty of licans. The storm which now burst on the heads of the unfortunate Toulonese was truly dreadful. The infuriated the Repub- soldiers rushed through the gates, and, in their rage, massacred two hundred Jacobins, who had come out to welcome their approach. For twenty-four hours the town was given up to pillage, and such as remained of the wretched inhabitants were a prey to the brutality of the soldiers, and of the galley-slaves, who were let loose upon the town. A stop was only put to these 2. horrors by the citizens redeeming themselves for the Reg. xxxiii. enormous sum of 4,000,000 francs, or £160,000. 226. Ann. 421. James, Prudhom. Crimes de To i. 116, 117. the honour of Dugommier, it must be added that he did his utmost, both to check the violence of his soldiers, and to mitigate the severity of the Convention towards the captives; but he could not arrest the cruelty of la Rev. vi. 146, 149. XIII. 1793. the government commissioners. A vast multitude of CHAP. citizens, to the number of several thousands, of every age and sex, perished in a few weeks by the sword or the guillotine; two hundred were daily beheaded for a considerable time; and twelve thousand labourers were hired from the surrounding departments, to demolish the buildings of the city. * 115. decree of the against Toulon. On the motion of Barère, it was decreed that the name of Toulon should be changed to that of Port de la Mon- Atrocious tagne, that the houses should be razed to the foundations, Convention and nothing left but the naval and military establishments. . Barras, Fréron, and Robespierre the younger, were chosen to execute the vengeance of the Revolution on the fallen city. Military commissions were immediately formed, the prisons filled, a Revolutionary Tribunal established, and the guillotine put in permanent activity. The inhuman mitraillades of Lyons were imitated with fearful effect; before many days had expired, eight hundred persons had been thus cut off; a prodigious proportion out of a population not now exceeding ten thousand souls. One of the victims was an old merchant of the name of Hughes, eighty-four years of age, deaf, and almost blind. His only crime was the possession of a fortune of £800,000. He offered all his wealth but 500,000 livres to save his life; the judge, deeming that offer inadequate, sent him to the scaffold, and confiscated the whole. "When I beheld this old man executed," said Napoleon, "I felt as if the end of the world was at hand."1 1 Las Cases, Among those struck down in one of the fusillades was a gray-haired man, severely, but not mortally wounded. The executioners, conceiving him dead, retired from the scene of carnage: the persons who succeeded them to strip the dead, passed him by, through accident, in the darkness of the night, and he had strength enough * "Tout va bien; j'ai requis douze mille maçons, pour démolir et raser la ville: tous les jours je fais tomber deux cents têtes: et déja huit cents Toulonnais ont été fusillés."-FRERON au Comité du Salut Public; 24 Decembre 1793.-PRUDHOMME, vi. 118. i. 166. |