of their officers, failed to accomplish their share of the
work. The English and Spanish fleets sailed on the 19th, carrying off
some 6,000 refugees, and Hood's fleet anchored in Hyeres bay. The
remainder of the population was exposed to the cruel vengeance of the
jacobins.

There is good reason to believe that the government did not intend to
violate the terms of the surrender by keeping Toulon as a British
possession. As an isolated station it could not have been defended and
supplied without an enormous strain on England's resources. Its value to
Great Britain was purely temporary; it was of incalculable importance to
the enemy, and it was expected to serve as a base for the movement in
the south against the jacobin government. The issue of the insurrection
was decided by the fall of Lyons. Hopes of a success to be gained
through French disaffection were as ill-founded as those based on
American loyalism. The ministers pursued a mistaken policy, and pursued
it weakly; for as they believed that the occupation of Toulon was of
first-rate importance, they should have concentrated their efforts upon
its defence instead of squandering their resources by trying to do two
things at once, to co-operate with the Vendeans and to defend Toulon,
while the war on the Flemish frontier was a constant drain on England's
small army. Grenville ascribed the disaster to the "common cause" to the
failure of the Austrian government to fulfil its promise of sending a
reinforcement of 5,000 men to the garrison.[247] The loss of the place
was a bitter disappointment; it was mortifying in itself, and it
declared the futility of the high hopes built on the insurrectionary
movement in the south. Reckoning it with Dunkirk and the Vendean
expedition, the government had to confess to three failures in the year.
Yet England had some grounds for satisfaction. Tobago and the fishery
islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon were taken without difficulty,
Pondicherry and the other French factories in India were surrendered,
several French ships of war were captured in single-ship and other small
combats, and a substantial advantage was gained by the destruction of
the ships at Toulon.

[Sidenote: _REPRESSION._]

The success of the allies in the spring of 1793 gave Fox an opportunity
for moving for the re-establishment of peace. If, he argued, the war was
undertaken to preserve Holland and check the aggrandisement of France,
that object was attained. Franc