A Foreign Office despatch, dated Downing Street, February 8th, 1800, to Vienna, promised a loan and that 15,000 or 20,000 British troops should be employed in the Mediterranean to act in concert with the Austrians there, and to give "support to the royalist insurrections in the southern provinces of France." No differences of opinion respecting Piedmont can be held a sufficient excuse for the failure of the British Government to fulfil this promise—a failure which contributed to the disaster at Marengo.
Thiers attributes this device to Bonaparte; but the First Consul's bulletin of May 24th ascribes it to Marmont and Gassendi.
Marbot, "Mems.," ch. ix.; Allardyce, "Memoir of Lord Keith," ch. xiii.; Thiébault's "Journal of the Blockade of Genoa."