disease was at its height, Victor Hughes was
dispatched from France with an expedition. The islands fell one by one
into his hands, and the campaign was utterly thrown away.

The romantic portion of the European campaigns now began. The French
Directory, unpopular at home, wearied by the sanguinary successes of
the Vendean insurrection, and baffled in their invasion of Germany,
were in a condition of the greatest perplexity, when a new wonder of
war taught France again to conquer. Napoleon Bonaparte, since so
memorable, but then known only as commanding a company of artillery at
Toulon, and repelling the armed mob in Paris, was appointed to command
the army on the Italian frontier. Even now, with all our knowledge of
his genius, and the splendid experience of his successes, his sudden
elevation, his daring offer of command, his plan of the Italian
campaign, and his almost instantaneous victories, are legitimate
matter of astonishment. In him we have the instance of a young man of
twenty-six, who had never seen a campaign, who had never commanded a
brigade, nor even a regiment, undertaking the command of an army,
proposing the invasion of a country of eighteen millions, garrisoned
by the army of one of the greatest military powers of Europe, which
had nearly 300,000 soldiers in the field, and which was in the most
intimate alliance with all the sovereigns of Italy. Yet, extravagant
as all those conceptions seem, and improbable as those results
certainly were, two campaigns saw every project realized--Italy
conquered, the Tyrol, the great southern barrier of Austria,
overpassed, and peace signed within a hundred miles of Vienna. The
invasion of Italy first awoke the British ministry to the true
direction of the vast naval powers of England. To save Italy if
possible, was the primary object; the next was to prevent the
superiority of the French fleet in the Mediterranean. A powerful fleet
had been prepared in Toulon, for the purpose of aiding the French army
in its invasion, and finally taking possession of all the ports and
islands, until it should have realized the project of Louis XIV., of
turning the Mediterranean into a French lake. It was determined to
keep up a powerful British fleet to oppose this project, and Sir John
Jervis was appointed to the command. Nothing could be a higher
testimony to the opinion entertained of his talents, as his connexion
with the Whigs was undisguised. But Pitt's feeling for the public