On the 27th the weather continued stormy. Several ships were obliged to cut and run, the fleet was reduced to 7 sail of the line and a frigate, the troops to 4200 men, and the artillery to two four-pounders. As a last effort this miserable remnant of the expedition determined to seek the Shannon, which had been named as the place of rendezvous. During the whole gale, which blew on the night of the 28th, a sixth separation occurred, and three seventy-fours and a frigate parted company. On the 29th the commodore signalised the other captains to steer for France, and the last ship of an expedition intended to overthrow the British monarchy quitted the shores of Ireland without having landed a single soldier, communicated with the disaffected, or thrown a musket on the shore.
The failure of the first attempt at an invasion was a fatal disappointment to the Irish Unionists; and although hopes were held out that a second armament would be fitted out by the French Directory without delay, the financial and political embarrassments of the Republic gave little promise that it would or could be effected. Hoche, who did not reach France for fifteen days after Grouchy, was nominated soon after to the command of the army of the Sambre and the Meuse. This appointment was heavily regretted by the agents of the United Irishmen, for there is no doubt that Ireland was to Hoche the favourite field of ambition that Egypt was afterwards to Bonaparte; and undoubtedly he was sincere in his expressed intention of making the second effort at invasion, had not his sudden dissolution intervened.
‘The affair,’ replied he, ‘is but suspended. You know our difficulties for money; the repair of our fleet and the necessary preparations require some considerable time, and, in the meantime, there are 15,000 men lying idle below, and, in fact, we cannot even feed them there. The Directory has resolved, in the meantime, to employ them usefully elsewhere, and has accepted my services; but be assured, the moment the enterprise is resumed, that I will return with the first patrouille which embarks.’—General Hoche to Tone. Hoche sank from rapid consumption, it is said, 19th of September 1797, in command of the united armies of the Rhine and Sambre and Meuse. Adverse fate seemed determined to overwhelm unhappy Ireland, but fortune again miraculously warded off the desperately threatening conjunction of affairs.
THE DUTCH INVASION AVERTED
From another quarter, however, the Irish revolutionists obtained both sympathy and support. Lewines, the chief agent of the United Irishmen, had been accredited to Spain and Holland, with both powers England being at war, to request assistance. From the Spanish Government he received, generally, an encouraging answer to his memorial; and from the Batavian Executive a positive assurance of prompt and powerful co-operation on the part of the Dutch republicans—a promise they endeavoured to faithfully perform.
It was an awful epoch in British history; and it would have been difficult to say whether at home or abroad the political position of England was more embarrassed and portentous. Conquest had attended the onward march of the Republicans, and victory had succeeded victory; and while Ireland was ready to explode, public confidence was shaken to its centre, for that stay of Britain—her fleet—had failed her in her trying hour, and broken into open mutiny. Such was the ominous aspect, foreign and domestic, when the Batavian Government determined to strike a blow, that, if fortunately delivered, might have gone far to dismember that island empire which had wrung from the Dutch the dominion of the seas.
Holland was a power to be dreaded. France threatened and intended a descent, but she possessed the wish, rather than the power to effect it. Her naval executive was wretchedly defective, her marine and monetary resources limited and precarious; and while the dockyard authorities declared that eight weeks would be sufficient to fit out a second expedition, it was probable—and so it proved—that as many months must elapse before a fleet could be sent afloat. With the Dutch Republic matters were in a different state. In the Texel five-and-twenty line-of-battle ships and frigates were lying manned, equipped, and ready for sea; 15,000 troops were ordered for instant embarkation; and with a quantity of spare arms, a large artillery force, and plenty of money to subsist the troops when landed, the Batavian armament undauntedly determined to push out of harbour with the first fair wind, elude Admiral Warren and his blockading squadron—if they could—or, if intercepted, stand an action with the British admiral’s forces, and thus endeavour to redeem the honour of a flag that once had been feared and respected.
The Dutch Government proved their sincerity of intention by the selection they made for the command of the expedition. The naval department was entrusted to De Winter, an officer of distinguished reputation, while the troops were placed under the direction of Daendels, a man justly considered to be the best general in the service of the Republic. The feelings of the Batavian Executive towards the Irish revolutionists were ardent and disinterested, and nothing could surpass the enthusiastic spirit which pervaded both the military and marine.
Tone relates in his Memoirs:—‘General Daendels showed me to-day his instructions from the Dutch Government. They are fair and honest, and I have no doubt he will act up to them. The spirit of them is, always to maintain the character of a faithful ally, and not to interfere in the domestic concerns of the people; to aid them, by every means in his power, to establish their liberty and independence, and to expect no condition in return, but that we should throw off the English yoke, and that, when all was settled on that score, we should arrange our future commerce with the Dutch Republic on the basis of reciprocal advantage and accommodation.’
But it would appear that against invasive efforts fortune had declared herself an enemy, and the same wind that prevented the landing of a French armament as obstinately resisted the sailing of the Dutch one. Day after day fifteen sail-of-the-line, eight frigates, and thirty transports lay at single anchor, locked up in the Texel, while a breeze, any point to northward, would have carried them to sea with eighteen battalions of infantry, four of chasseurs, eight squadrons of cavalry, and eleven companies of artillery—the whole forming an efficient and well-appointed army of 14,000 men, a force more than sufficient, under happy auspices, to have changed an empire’s fate.