pared to help them, and a force of 12,000 men, emigres, British
troops, and others under the Earl of Moira, the Lord Rawdon of the
American war, arrived off the Norman coast on December 2. They made
signals but no answer was returned. The Vendeans had failed before
Granville and had retreated a few days before. As they were attempting
to return to their homes they were caught by a republican force; a large
number was massacred and the rest dispersed. The English expedition
returned without accomplishing anything.

[Sidenote: _EVACUATION OF TOULON._]

Toulon was threatened by the republicans both on the east and west,
while on the north Lyons was closely besieged. Hood despatched Nelson to
Naples for reinforcements which were sent by the king. Even with them
the garrison, made up of 2,000 British troops, Spaniards, Sardinians,
Neapolitans, and French royalists, many of them untrained, amounted to
only about 12,000 men fit for duty, a wholly insufficient number, for
the defences were widely extended. Hood sent off four of the French
ships, full of republican prisoners, who were allowed to return to their
homes because it was inconvenient to keep them. By the middle of
September the republicans were pressing the siege, and on October 1 the
garrison under Lord Mulgrave smartly drove them from a commanding
position which they had seized on Mont Faron. The fall of Lyons on the
9th set free a large force to act against the place, and the besieging
army under Dugommier finally numbered 37,000 men, with artillery
organised and directed by a young Corsican officer, Napoleon Bonaparte,
who since September 16 had taken an active part in the siege. General
O'Hara, then in command in the town, was wounded and taken prisoner
while leading a sortie, and on the night of December 16-17 the enemy
forced the line of defence and planted their batteries in commanding
positions. Neither the harbour nor the town was tenable any longer, and
orders were given for the embarkation of the troops. Of the twenty-seven
French ships of the line in the harbour, nine, together with smaller
vessels, were burnt by British seamen under Sir Sidney Smith, in spite
of a furious bombardment from the heights, and three accompanied the
retreat. The remaining fifteen were left to the enemy, and an attempt to
destroy the dockyard was only partially successful, for time was short
and the Spaniards, either through treachery or more probably through the
incompetence