Final French Struggles in India and on the Indian Seas; Including an Account of the Capture of the Isles of France and with an Appendix Containing an Account of the Expedition from India to Egypt in 1801 (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: BOOK II. THE ISLE OF FRANCE AND HER PRIVATEERS. Between the peace of Versailles and the outbreak of the Revolutionary war, the French Marine was but thinly represented on the Indian seas. But when in 1793, war was declared between the two nations, the flag of the French Kepublic, that flag which so soon was ' to make the tour of Europe,' appeared again to animate those whom it represented to fight, not on this occasion for victory, but for existence. For, indeed, at the outset of the struggle the navy of France was far from being in a condition to combat the ships of her ancient rival with any prospect of success. The nobility, from which its officers had been drawn,had emigrated in large numbers, and the democratic principle, which had been introduced upon the ruins of that which had crumbled away because its foundations had rotted, had been denied the opportunity granted to the land forces of developing, on the spur of the moment, a perfect system of promotion and command. Nevertheless, even under these trying circumstances, the navy of France proved not unworthy of the renown it had inherited from Tourville, from Duguay-Trouin, from Jean Bart, from de Forbin, and from Suffren. The battle of the 1st June, fought by an untried admiral, with a fleet in no way superior to its enemy in numbers and weight of metal, and newly officered from the lowest to the highest grade,t was indeed a defeat, though not a very decisive defeat; yet who will say that under all the circumstances of the case, that defeat even was not glorious to the French arms ? Another cause which tended at this period to thedemoralisation and injury of the French fleet was the intense party-feeling which prevailed throughout the country. It was this party-feeling that induced Toulon, one of the great harb...