squallacci melody, natural to the place, could be allowed to proceed again. This was the first intimation men had of Howe's victory of the 1st of June; on the following evening London was illuminated: the Gazette had been published,some six ships taken, and a seventh, named Vengeur, which had been sunk a very glorious victory and the joy of people's minds was considerable.

For the remainder of that month of June 1794, and over into July, the Newspapers enliven themselves with the usual succession of despatches, private narratives, anecdotes, commentaries and rectifications; unfolding gradually, as their way is, how the matter has actually passed; till each reader may form some tolerably complete image of it, till each at least has had enough of it; and the glorious victory submerges in the general flood, giving place to other glories. Of the Vengeur that sank, there want not anecdotes, though they are not of a very prominent kind. The Vengeur, it seems, was engaged with the Brunswick; the Brunswick had stuck close to her, and the fight was very hot; indeed, the two ships were hooked together by the Brunswick's anchors, and stuck so till the Vengeur had got enough; but the anchors at last gave way, and the Brunswick, herself much disabled, drifted to leeward of the enemy's flying ships, and had to run before the wind, and so escape them. The Vengeur, entirely powerless, was taken possession of by the Alfred, by the Culloden, or by both of them together; and sank after not many minutes. All this is in the English Newspapers; this, so far as we are concerned, is the English version of Howe's victory, in which the sinking Vengeur is noticeable, but plays no preeminently distinguished part.

The same English Newspapers publish, as they receive them, generally without any commentary whatever, the successive French versions of the matter; the same that can now be read more conveniently, in their original language, in the Choix des Rapports, vol. xiv., and elsewhere. The French Convention was now sitting, in its Reign of Terror, fighting for

VOL. IV.

life and death, with all weapons, against all men. The French Convention had of course to give its own version of this matter, the best it could. Barrère was the man to do that. On the 15th of June, accordingly, Barrère reports that it is a glorious victory for France; that the fight, indeed, was sharp, and not unattended with loss, the ennemis du genre humain being acharnés against us; but that, nevertheless, these gallant French war-ships did so shatter and astonish the enemy on this 1st of June and the preceding days, that the enemy shore-off; and, on the morrow, our invaluable American cargo of naval stores, safely stowed in the fleet of transport-ships, got safe through; which latter statement is a fact, the transport-ships having actually escaped unmolested; they sailed over the very place of battle, saw the wreck of burnt and shattered things, still tumbling on the waters, and knew that a battle had been.

By degrees, however, it becomes impossible to conceal that the glorious victory for France has yielded six captured ships of war to the English, and one to the briny maw of Ocean; that, in short, the glorious victory has been what in unofficial language is called a sheer defeat. Whereupon, after some recriminating and flourishing from Jean-Bon Saint-André and others, how the captain of the Jacobin behaved ill, and various men and things behaved ill, conspiring to tarnish the laurels of the Republic,-Barrère adroitly takes a new tack; will show that if we French did not beat, we did better, and are a spectacle for the very gods. Fixing on the sunk Vengeur, Barrère publishes his famed Rapport du 21 Messidor (9th July 1794), setting forth how Republican valour, conquered by unjust fortune, did nevertheless in dying earn a glory that will never die, but flame there forever, as a symbol and prophecy of victories without end: how the Vengeur, in short, being entirely disabled, and incapable of commonplace flight, flew desperate, and refused to strike, though sinking; how the enemies fired on her, but she returned their fire, shot aloft all her tricolor streamers, shouted Vive la République; nay, fired

the guns of her upper deck, when the lower decks were already sunk; and so, in this mad whirlwind of fire and shouting, and invincible despair, went down into the ocean-depths; Vive la République and a universal volley from the upper deck being the last sounds she made.

This Report too is translated accurately, in the Morning Chronicle for July 26, 1794; and published without the smallest commentary there. The Vengeur with all her crew being down in the depths of ocean, it is not of course they that can vouch for this heroic feat; neither is it the other French, who had all fled by that time: no, the testimony is still more indubitable, that of our enemies themselves; it is 'from the English Newspapers' that Barrère professes to have gathered these heart-inspiring details, the candour even of these ennemis acharnés could not conceal them,—which, therefore, let all Frenchmen believe as a degree truer than truth itself, and rejoice in accordingly. To all this, as was said, the English Newspapers seem to have made no reply whatever.

The French, justly proud of so heroic a feat, a degree truer than truth itself, did make, and have ever since continued to make, what demonstration was fit. Convention decree, Convention decrees were solemnly passed about this suicidal Vengeur; the deathless suicidal Vengeur is written deep in innumerable French songs and psalmodyings; a wooden Model of the Vengeur, solemnly consecrated in the Pantheon of Great Men, beckoned figuratively from its peg, Aux grands hommes la patrie reconnaissante!'-and hangs there, or in the Musée Naval, beckoning, I believe, at this hour. In an age of miracles, such as the Reign of Terror, one knows not at first view what is incredible: such loud universal proclamation, and the silence of the English (little interested, indeed, to deny), seem to have produced an almost universal belief both in France and here. Doubts, I now find, were more than once started by sceptics even among the French,-in a suitable low tone; but the solemn Convention decrees,' the wooden 'Modèle du Vengeur' hanging visible there, the 'glory of

in his History of the French Revolution, vol. iii. p. 241, gives, in his own peculiar style, the same account of it that was published to the world under the influence of the French Government, for political and exciting purposes; and which has recently been reiterated by a French author. Mr. Carlyle, in adopting these authorities, has given English testimony to the farce; farce I call it,—for, with the exception of the Vengeur "sinking," there is not one word of fact in the narration. I will first review it in detail:

""The Vengeur neither strikes nor makes-off." She did both. She made-off as well as her disabled state admitted, and was actually taken in tow by a French eighteen-gun brig; which cast her off, on the Culloden, Alfred and two or three others, approaching to take possession of her. "Fire rakes her fore and aft from victorious enemies." Wicked indeed would it have been to have fired into her, a sinking ship with colours down; and I can positively assert not a gun was fired at her for an hour before she was taken possession of. "The Vengeur is sinking." True. "Lo! all flags, streamers, jacks, every rag of tricolor that will yet run on rope, fly rustling aloft." Not one mast standing, not ONE rope on which to hoist or display a bit of tricolor, not one flag, or streamer, or ensign displayed; her colours down; and, for more than half an hour before she sunk, Captain Renaudin, and his son, etc. prisoners on board the Culloden,—on which I will by and by more especially particularise. "The whole crew crowds to the upper deck; and with universal soul-maddening yell shouts Vive la République!" Beyond the fact of the crew (except the wounded) being on the upper deck, not even the slightest, the most trivial semblance of truth. Not one shout beyond that of horror and despair. At the moment of her sinking, we had on board the Culloden, and in our boats then at the wreck, 127 of her crew, including the captain. The Alfred had many; I believe about 100: Lieutenant Winne, in command of a hired cutter, a number; I think, 49. "Down rushes the Vengeur, carrying Vive la République along with her, unconquerable, into Eternity." Bah! answered above.

'I have thus reviewed Mr. Carlyle's statement; I now add the particulars of the fact. The Vengeur totally dismasted, going off before the wind, under her sprit-sail, etc.; five sail of the line come up with her, the Culloden and Alfred two of these. Her colours down, Lieutenant Richard Deschamps, first of the Alfred, I believe, took possession of her. The next boat on board was the Culloden's, Lieut. Rotheram, who died one of the Captains of Greenwich Hospital. Deschamps went up the side. Rotheram got-in at the lower-deck port, saw that the ship was sinking, and went thence to the quarter-deck. I am not positive which boat got first on board. Rotheram returned with Captain Renaudin, his son, and one man; and reported her state, whereupon other boats were