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that we looked further ;-that we have discriminated those parts of the old institutions which were good and useful, from such as were evil and pernicious. Had we done so, we might certainly, even without interfering improperly, have meliorated the condition of the Sicilians. We contend that we are defending them against the conquest and the tyranny of the French. So far we are doing well, though it may be suspected that self-interest has no inconsiderable share in dictating this conduct. But are not the Sicilians suffering under a tyranny which, though not so bad as that of the French, yet, if we detest that of the French from principle, must also be the object of our detestation? We have given it as our opinion, that our conduct, was neither so disinterested nor so politic as might be supposed and held forth; for certainly, if our object was the most effectual and least expensive defence of Sicily, that object would best have been secured by inducing the inhabitants to defend their own territory; and this could have been effected only by making them regard the dominion of the French as a curse compared with the dominion under which they lived. That an interference on the part of the British government with the government of Sicily ought long ago to have taken place; that this interference was loudly called for, both by the attachment of the Sicilian court to the views and interests of Bonaparte, and by its hostility to the liberty and well-being of its own subjects, had been announced in plain and forcible language by almost all who had visited Sicily since the monarch fled there from the continent of Italy. That their

advice was sound and good, the events of the year 1811 most amply testified.

That the disposition of the Si cilian court towards an alliance

with Bonaparte should have been so long unknown to our government is indeed surprising. Nor is it less so that our ministers at the court of Palermo should have overlooked, or passed over in silence, such a disposition. One circumstance, indeed, is very generally stated and credited, which accounts for this neglect and inattention on the part of our ministers in Sicily. The Queen is said to have employed the same means to keep them in her interest, or at least to blind them to her views and her schemes, that Calypso used to detain Telemachus. As her character, amidst all her profligacy and dissipation, possesses more energy and vigour than is generally found in the present race of the sovereigns of Eu rope; and as, besides, she is the principal personage in those transactions which we shall soon have to record, and which most probably will fill some of the pages of our future volumes, we shall quote what is said respecting her by the intelligent traveller we have already cited.

"The queen must undoubtedly be considered as the first person in Sicily, as the king leaves all the af fairs of state to her management; and certainly she conducts them with much address and spirit. The wisdom of her measures as to the effect intended is another question. In her attention to business she is quite indefatigable; and the number of letters and papers which ap pear in her own hand-writing is so extraordinary, that I have heard her application described as a pas

sion

sion for doing every thing herself. Notwithstanding the moral defects generally laid to her charge, she is said to be much esteemed by her immediate attendants, and to possess many amiable qualities. In her affections, as a mother, she is entitled to the greatest respect. The great infirmity of queen Caroline's mind arises from the vehemence of her feelings. She considers her undertakings with too much earnestness, and looks upon every measure that she plans as her last stake. When one reflects on her misfortunes, it is not surprising that she should have lost that regal equanimity which is expected on the throne. Born to the highest earthly dignity, and fostered unconsciously by the circumstances attending the early part of her life into a belief that she was almost of a species superior to the ordinary human race, she could not be otherwise than proud. All the predilections of her disposition were settled into habits before any event occurred to inform her that the daughter of so many emperors was within the reach of adversity. But few women have ever endured greater afllictions. Her sister has fallen on the scaffold. The family of that sister has been compelled to implore alms and shelter from its ancient enemies. She cannot name one relation or friend that has not suffered degradation. She has herself been compelled to become a fugitive; and knows, which to a mind like hers is one of the greatest miseries, that many of her former flatterers are now repeating their sycophancy to the robbers that have taken possession of her home. Nor is this all: she knows that her favourite daughter has been poisoned. The house that she inhabits is but a precarious lodging, in which she never lays her

head upon her pillow without the dread of being roused with a warning to quit, or by a fiat that may make her a beggar or a prisoner. Did her situation afford any prospect of improvement, it would lessen the sentiments which her great misfortunes inspire; but wherever she turns her eyes she can witness only affliction and dismay. Even as a mother she is cut off from the pleasure of that redeeming hope which softer the present distress of a parent; for she sees none of her descendants capable of contending with the staunch destruction that has been let loose on the race of Austria and the Bourbons. Her second son, prince Leopold, was sent in a late expedition to the coast of Naples, with some expectation that he would distinguish himself. The expedition failed; and the prince in many respects disappointed the hopes of his mother. Before he had time to land from the frigate that brought him back to Palermo, she went, it is reported, in a private boat alongside. The prince, recognising her, hastened to present himself; but she spuined him away in a passion of grief and vexation, bitterly upbraiding him with the mortification which he had added to the misfortuocs of the family."

Certainly from this character of the queen, and we have no doubt it is a just one, we should not have anticipated the conduct she has pursued. It might have been expected that she would feel her dignity hurt by the conviction that a British army alone protected her, and that her island was in their occupancy; but this feeling, it might have been imagined, would have been completely swallowed up in her detestation and fear of him who had shorn her of her dignity,

and rendered it necessary that she should be defended by foreign troops. But what is the fact: much of what she did, and of what she intended, is not publicly known. But this is known, that the greater part of the subsidy which she received from us, was either not employed in the defence of the island, or was employed in organizing and supporting men strongly believed to be in the pay of Bonaparte; that she forgot in him the enemy of her family, the despoiler of her throne; and viewed him only as related to her by his marriage with a princess of the house of Austria; that she overlooked in us, all we had done for her, and regarded us only as standing in the way of her design to throw herself and the island into the hands of the French;

that lord William Bentinck, our new ambassador there, had scarcely landed before he found the politics and the plans of the queen so decidedly hostile to England, and fa vourable to France, that he judged it necessary to return home for fresh instructions; and finally, that our government actually meditated the scheme of occupying the island as our own, as the only means of defeating the purpose of the queen. If this intention should be carried into execution, a regard to our own interests will produce that benefit to the Sicilians, which we hesitate to confer from the very delicate scruple of not interfering with a government not more hostile to us than it is prejudicial to its own subjects.

CHAPTER XIV.

History of the Military and Naval Operations of Great Britain during the Year 1811-Plan and Arrangement proposed in detailing them—Land of Anholt-Importance of this Island to Britain-Reasons why the Danes were anxious to recapture it-Preparations made by them for that PurposeParticulars of the Attack-Great Inferiority of the British Garrison-The Danes completely repulsed-Circumstances which render this Repulse most honourable to the Garrison-Naval Action in the Mediterranean off the Island of Lissa-The French attempt to break the British Line, but are defeated-Remarks-Gallant Naval Exploit in Corsica—completely successful-Naval Adroitness in the Mouth of the Garonne-Obstinate Engagement off the Island of Madagascar between three French and three British Frigates-The Enemy beaten-Remarks.

WE

TE shall pursue our accustomed plan in giving the detail of the naval and military operations of Great Britain during the year 1811: that is, leaving out for the present all notice of the splendid and glorious exploits which distinguished our military operations in Spain and Portúgal, we

shall confine our narrative to those insulated events in different parts of the world, which, from not being carried on upon so large a scale, are alone not to be compared with the events of the campaign in the peninsula. Of these events, the most important and interesting, either on account of the real and substantial

substantial benefit which they produced to the political strength or the commercial relations of this country, or from the glory which they shed on the British character for skill and valour, are, the defence of the island of Anholt, in the Baltic sea; the naval exploit in the mouth of the river Garonne; the naval action off the coast of the island Madagascar; and the capture of the islands of Bourbon, Banda, and Batavia.

In detailing the particulars of some of these transactions, the rea. der will notice with satisfaction and pleasure a more close, constant, and successful union of sentiment and co-operation of conduct between our military and naval commanders than has generally happened. In others are conspicuous. that cool and collected intrepidity and skill which so eminently distinguish British seamen, and which, joined to their habitual conviction that they are unconquerable, gives them such manifest advantage over the enemy; so much so, indeed, that now the basilisk eye of a British seaman is amply sufficient to daunt and paralyse a very superior foe.

The island of Anholt, situated in the Baltic sea, had been taken possession of by our troops, nearly on the same account, and to promote the object, as had induced our government to occupy Heligoland; namely, for the purpose of being made a depôt for our colonial produce and our manufactures. Besides this, the possession of it was of great importance, in order to secure a place of refuge (not very safe, indeed, either from the attacks of the enemy's ships, or, in all winds, from the violence of a Baltic storm,) for the numerous convoys of merchantmen, which

we even yet send into that sea. Our occupation of it was of course an eye-sore to the Danes, to whom it had formerly and for a great length of time belonged. Very early in the spring of 1811, the Danish government resolved, if possible, to regain possession of this island; they had been prevented from car. rying this design into execution during the fall of the year 1810, because the British ships of war kept on their station in the Baltic till the frost and ice set in, so that after they left this sea the winter was too far alvanced. It would have been attacked very early in the spring of 1811; but on account of the extreme backwardness of the season, the gun-boats destined for this service could not be got out of their winter quarters in the lakes, where they were frozen up.

On the 23d of March, however, every thing having been prepared, the flotilla and the transports assembled in Gierrillo bay: the former consisted of twelve gunboats, and the latter of the same number, having on board nearly 3000 men. The garrison of Anholt was very small in comparison, consisting of only 350 marines, and 31 marine artillery, with four howitzers; the whole were under the command of captain Maurice, Besides these troops, the Danes looked for no resistance from any other quarter; having reconnoitred the island, and found only one schooner lying near it. The only part of Anholt that was fortified and capable of making resistance, provided the Danes effected their landing, was the light-house.

On the morning of the 26th of March, before the day began to dawn, the signal that the enemy were in sight was given by the outpiquets on the south side of the T4

island,

island. As captain Maurice had received intimation some time before that the Danes were preparing to invade and attack the island, he had put every thing into such a state, as to give them a most determined resistance and opposition, Accordingly, when the signal that the enemy were in sight was given, the garrison were immediately put under arms; and captain Maurice himself, at the bead of two hundred infantry and the brigade of howitzers, proceeded to oppose the landing of the Danes. When, lowever, he was enabled from an eminence to command a view of the point of attack, he perceived that the enemy, having been favoured by a thick fog, (common at this time of the year in the Baltic, carly in the morning,) had already of fected their hiding. They were now advancing with considerable rapidity and in great numbers, and apparently under a Crm prsuasion that, having accomplished the invasion, the conquest of the island would speedily and easily be achieved. It was, therefore, abso. Jutely necessary for captain Mau. rice to take the most prudent and skilful measures without the smallest loss of time, and to carry them into execution the moment he had determined upon them; for the enemy not only greatly out-numbered him, but, enabled by this circumstance, they greatly out flanked both his wings. Their object, as appears by the Danish account of this transaction, (an account, it may be remarked, much more candid and consistent with truth than a yanquished enemy generally gives,) was to force the British commander, by the danger of being outflanked and surrounded, to retreat into the fort. As they had gained a footing on the island, they pushed forward

to the fort; captain Maurice, with his small but intrepid band, slowly reueating before them in the best possible order. In this retreat the British sustained no loss, notwith. standing the enemy were within pistol shot of the rear, and pushed on apparently with an intention to take the fort by sterni. Such, indeed, from the Danish representa tion, was their object. Twice they attempted it; at first under the command of a naval lieu, tenant, and afterwards with 650 men under major Melstud, aided by 150 more, besides the seamen from the gun-boats. While they were making this attempt to take the fort by storm, the flotilla lay round it and commenced a heavy firing against it: but though the Danish troops displayed the greatest bravery, and were so very superior in point of numbers, yet the troops opposed to them were British, and headed by an officer on whose skill and bravery they had the utmost reliance and confidence,

The Danes were received with such a heavy and well-directed fire from Fort York and Massarene batteries, that they were compelled to fall back and shelter themselves under the sand-hills. As, however, the garrison and fort were a good deal incommoded by the fire of the gun-boats, captain Maurice made a signal for the Tartar and Sheldrake cutters to attack them: this they were prevented from perform. ing for some time, on account of their progress being impeded by an adverse wind, In the mean time a very heavy fire was kept up by the Danish gun-boats, in order to assist and conceal another attack by the troops. These troops, hav ing marched to the west part of the island, took up a strong position on the northern shore, covered with

sand

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