Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 27.djvu/273

 he was returned to parliament at the head of the poll for Westminster after a contest of unparalleled length and severity [see ]; in 1787–8 he was commander-in-chief at Portsmouth, his flag again in the Barfleur. On 24 Sept. 1787 he became vice-admiral of the blue, and in July 1788 was nominated to a seat on the board of admiralty under the Earl of Chatham. Here he remained till the outbreak of the war of the French revolution (February 1793), when he was appointed commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean. He sailed on 22 May with his flag in the Victory, and, touching at Gibraltar, came off Toulon on 16 July. The south of France was already in arms against the Convention; the entry of the national forces into Marseilles was followed by the usual massacres; the people of Toulon, conscious of their inability to defend themselves, were mad with terror, and the close blockade of the coast instituted by Hood added famine to the other evils which oppressed them. On 23 Aug. commissioners from Marseilles came on board the Victory to treat for peace on the basis of declaring for a monarchy and the constitution of 1789; they expected to have been joined by commissioners from Toulon, but internal strife had prevented these leaving the town. Negotiations were, however, opened, and it was agreed that the forts and ships of war should be placed provisionally at Hood's disposal, to be held by him for the king, and returned when peace should be declared. Rear-admiral Trogoff, commanding the French fleet of twenty-two sail of the line, had a convenient attack of gout, real or pretended, and retired to the shore. St. Julien, the second in command, a man of feeble capacity and intemperate habits, declared that he would dispute the entrance of the English fleet, and moored some of his ships in a position to rake the passage. But his men were insubordinate and undisciplined, and when on 27 Aug. Hood landed fifteen hundred men and took possession of the forts commanding the roadstead, St. Julien with five thousand of the seamen went ashore, and the ships quietly retired into the inner harbour. The English fleet then entered, joined at the very moment by the Spanish fleet under Don Juan de Langara, which raised the force to imposing numbers, but weakened it by introducing conflicting interests and a divided command. The inherent difficulties of the situation were sufficiently great. St. Julien, unable or unwilling to escape to the national army, surrendered himself to the Spaniards; but it was impossible to keep the five thousand seamen as prisoners, and free in the town they were a very evident danger. They belonged for the most part to Brest or other ocean ports, and clamoured to be sent to their homes. Accordingly, after some delay, they were put on board four of the most crazy ships, without guns or arms, and sent on their way, only to find on their arrival at Rochefort or Brest that they were held amenable to the law as cowards and traitors, apparently for not bringing the English ships along with them (, ii. 228). More serious, however, than the disposal of the prisoners was the question of the land defences, for the means at Hood's disposal were scanty. He had on board the fleet two regiments of foot, borne in lieu of marines; these and such seamen as could be spared gave him about two thousand men. The rest of his force, which seems never to have exceeded about twelve thousand effective men, was made up of loyal Frenchmen, Spaniards, Sardinians, and Neapolitans, soldiers in little more than the name, without discipline or training, and liable to panic on any emergency.

From the first, Toulon was surrounded by the national troops; by the end of September it was closely invested; and when, on 17 Dec., they obtained possession of Éguillette and the adjacent forts, which commanded the roadstead, it was at once necessary for the fleets to withdraw. A council of war was held, and it was agreed to embark the troops without delay and to put to sea, taking with them such of the French ships as were ready and setting fire to the rest. The confusion was extreme; the Neapolitan soldiers were seized with panic; terror reigned through the town; and men, women, and children thronged the quays, weeping, wailing, and imploring to be taken on board. Some fifteen thousand inhabitants were embarked, at the cost of all their property; no one whose rank or social standing seemed to expose him or her to the severity of the law was left behind (, ii. 87). But of those who remained a number—differently estimated at from one thousand to six thousand (, ii. 246;, ii. 89; , i. 89)—were guillotined or shot by the officers of the Convention. The destruction of the ships was entrusted partly to Langara, and partly to Sir W. Sidney Smith [q. v.], who had joined the fleet as a volunteer. Neither of them executed their task efficiently. Two floating powder-magazines which were ordered to be sunk were set on fire, and their explosion added greatly to the confusion. Of the line-of-battle ships few were actually destroyed; four were taken away by Hood; but of those that were set on fire the greater