Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/325

 and St. Vincent's ill-health had enormously increased the inherent difficulties of the problem.

From Brest Keith wont with the fleet to Torbay, and in November was ordered to return to the Mediterranean, where the command had been temporarily held hy Nelson. He reached Gibraltar on 6 Dec., and was proceeding off Genoa to co-operate with the Austrians when, at Port Mahon, he received inteligence of the pending attempt of a French squadron to relieve their army in Egypt. At Leghorn he was met by Nelson, with the further news that the Russians had withdrawn from the blockade of Malta and gone to Corfu. He resolved, therefore, to occupy the station which these had vacated, in which he would also be well placed to intercept the rumoured French squadron. The speedy capture of the greater part of this set him at liberty to follow out his original design of going to Genoa. In the flagship alone, he went to Leghorn in order to concert measures with the Austrians, and while on shore sent the ship, the Queen Charlotte, to reconnoitre Capraja, which afforded shelter to a swarm of French privateers. The Queen Charlotte sailed from Leghorn at nightfall on 16 March 1800, but remained hove to, some three or four leagues off, waiting to be joined by some officers of the Austrian staff who were to take part in the reconnaissance. These were on their way off the next morning when the ship was seen in the distance enveloped in flames. It was known afterwards that the fire spread from some hay which had been carelessly stacked under the half-deck in the immediate neighbourhood of the match tub (Minutes of the Court-martial). The fire spread rapidly, and the ship, one of the largest in the English navy, was utterly destroyed; with her nearly seven hundred of her crew perished. No such terrible accident had occurred since the burning of the Prince George, in which Keith's elder brother had lost his life. Keith now hoisted his flag in the Audacious, and afterwards in the Minotaur. By the beginning of April the Austrians had closed round the French positions near Genoa,and by the 13th had completely hemmed them in. By sea, too, the strictest blockade was established, and after an unsurpassed defence the French capitulated on 4 June. On the 5th, what was left of the garrison marched out with the honours of war, the Austrians took possession of the town, and Keith entered the harbour in the Minotaur. On the 14th Bonaparte's victory at Marengo reversed the position. By the terms of the armistice which immediately followed, Genoa waa restored to the French, and they took possession of it with such celerity that Keith had barely time to get his ship outside the Mole before the French had manned the batteries [see ]. His mortification was excessive, and the more so as he felt that, with the command of the sea, Genoa might have been held, for which purpose he had been urging General Fox at Minorca to send an English garrison. He was now obliged to withdraw, and, going to Leghorn, bade adieu to Nelson, who was going home overland, Keith having been obliged by the exigencies of the station to refuse him permission to go in the Foudroyant,or indeed in any line-of-battle ship.

It had been already determined to push the campaign in Egypt to a conclusion. Affairs there had been strangely complicated by the unwarranted action of Sir William Sidney Smith [q.v.], who had taken on himself to conclude a convention with the French, by the terms of which they were to have a free passage to France. The news of this convention, signed at El Arish on 24Jan., had reached Keith on his way from Malta to Leghorn, and, as it was contrary to positive orders which had been sent to Smith from Port Mahon on 8 Jan., Keith now referred the matter to the home government, suggesting that the circumstances might change their determination, but announcing his intention of following out his instructions till they were cancelled. Smith wrote to Kleber on 21 Feb. that the convention of El Arish was disallowed by the commander-in-chief, and that the French would not be permitted to quit Egypt except as prisoners, of war; expressing, however, his conviction that when the circumatances of the convention were known the difficulty would be done away with. This was, in fact, the case so far as the English government was concerned; and Keith, on 'receiving instructions to allow a passage to the French troops,' had immediately sent orders to Egypt 'to permit them to return to France without molestation.' But before his letter arrived hostilities had recommenced; fresh negotiations were neceesary,and were still pending when Kleber was assassinated on 14 June. Keith has been accused of having, in this business, violated the good faith of England (, ii. 448). In point of fact, and according to the general agreement of jurists (see, Nelson Dispatches, iii. 498 n.), the validily of the convention depended on the discretion of the commander-in-chief, and Keith was strictly within his right in declining to sanction it, as directly contrary to the orders he had received from home. He did, however, submit to the government the propriety of accepting