f the West
Indies--sailing in December, encountered such a succession of gales in
the chops of the Channel that a great part of this noble armament was
lost, and the admiral reached the West Indies with the survivors, only
to see them perish by the dreadful maladies of the climate.

But, to complete the general disastrous aspect of affairs, a new
phenomenon suddenly blazed over Europe. The year 1796 first saw Napoleon
Buonaparte at the head of an army. Passing the Alps on the 9th of April,
he fell with such skill and vigour on the Austrian and Italian troops,
that in his first campaign he destroyed five successive Austrian armies;
broke up the alliances of that cluster of feeble and contemptible
sovereignties which had so long disgraced Italy in the eyes of Europe;
trampled on their effeminate and debauched population, with the
sternness of an executioner rather than the force of a conqueror; and
after sending the plunder of their palaces to Paris, in the spirit and
with the pomp of the old Roman triumphs, dragged their princes after him
to swell his own triumphal progress through Italy.

The war now engrossed every feeling of the nation; and England showed
her national spirit in her gallant defiance of the threat of invasion.
The whole kingdom was ready to rise in arms on the firing of the first
beacon;--men of the highest rank headed their tenantry; men even of
those grave and important avocations and offices, which might seem to
imply a complete exemption from arms, put themselves at the head of
corps in every part of the empire; and England showed her prime minister
as Colonel Pitt of the Walmer volunteers, and the speaker of her House
of Commons, as Captain Addington of the Woodley cavalry.

But a brilliant change was at hand. In September, Addington received the
following note from Pitt, enclosing the bulletin of the battle of the
Nile:--

"I have just time to send you the enclosed Bulletin (_vive la
Marine Anglaise_,) and to tell you, that we mean, (out of
precaution) the meeting of Parliament for the 6th of November.

"Sir, ever yours, W. P."

The bulletin which gave value to this note, belongs to history, and
gives to history one of the noblest events of our naval annals. It
exhibits a singular contrast to the present rapidity of communication,
that even the "rumour" of Nelson's immortal victory did not reach until
fifty-seven days after the event. The Gazette could not be published
u