ted and that England should
restore 8,000 French and Dutch prisoners. The British troops returned
home and the Russians were assigned winter-quarters in the Channel
islands. Dearly as this ill-planned expedition cost England, both in men
and money, the country was consoled for its failure by the acquisition
of the Dutch fleet, which passed into the king's service in virtue of a
convention with the Prince of Orange. About the same time came news of
the surrender of the rich Dutch colony of Surinam to Admiral Lord Hugh
Seymour.

[Sidenote: _PAUL DESERTS THE COALITION._]

During the winter the coalition was broken up by the defection of
Russia. Paul was angered by the policy of Austria which, under Thugut's
direction, was dictated by anxiety for the acquisition of Piedmont; he
was irritated by the support Thugut received from the English government
which, so far as the continental war was concerned, based its hopes on
Austrian success, and he was disgusted by the failure of his arms. He
considered that his troops were sacrificed in Switzerland to Austrian
selfishness, that they were not well treated in the expedition to the
Helder, and, which seems to some extent true, that they were shabbily
provided for in the Channel islands.[305] He recalled his troops and
withdrew from the coalition. His political attitude exhibited "daily
tergiversation," the result of palace intrigues.[306] The hope of
gaining Malta for himself and the knights still allured him, and on
December 31, he assumed the grandmastership of the order. He kept his
fleet in the Mediterranean to assist in the blockade of Valetta, in the
hope of making other acquisitions, and to support the King of Naples.
Yet his unsettled mind sometimes veered towards France; the "virtues of
Bonaparte" would suddenly become his chief topic of conversation and
"everything would be in suspense" as regards his policy.[307] Bonaparte
had returned to France, and his return was to decide the issue of the
war on the continent, though that result could not be foreseen
immediately. From the newspapers sent him by Sidney Smith he learnt in
Egypt the news of the early successes of the Austrians and the
distracted state of France. The government was unpopular, the taxes
were heavy, the revenues fell short of the expenditure, commerce was
destroyed, the royalists were in arms in the north-west, and brigandage
was rife. He left his army in the charge of Kleber, embarked on August
23, evad