ships were seen under sail standing towards them; but Captain Martin, in the Implacable, anchored his ship so as to heave the Centaur off, and they then retreated. The prize was fast on shore, and Sir Samuel, finding it impossible to bring her off, burnt her. Hopes were entertained

in England, when this intelligence arrived, that the Russian fleet might be destroyed; but the harbour was strongly fortified. They landed their men and erected more batteries, and it was found impossible to make any attempt upon them.

THE Castle of Scylla, in Calabria, which was held by an English garrison, under Lieutenant-Colonel Robertson, was taken by the French General Regnier, early in the year. The arrival of troops and ordinance stores at Seminara, towards the end of December, manifested an intention of besieging this place. Parties of peasantry were, therefore, sent out to render the passes of Solano impracticable, and break up the various paths which lead from the heights of Milia down to Scylla; but, on the 31st, the advanced workmen, ⚫ and the out-posts of the armed peasantry, were driven in by a detachment of cavalry and three battalions, and the enemy took post upon the heights above the town. On the first day of the new year, Regnier brought up two more battalions, extended his out-posts, and completed the investment of the place.

The town of Scylla lies partly upon the shore, but the greater part is on the rocks above, where nine rows of houses are seen, one immediately a bove the other; and above the highest of these, in an oblique direction,

there are still six or seven other rows. The castle is upon a cliff over the sea; but, notwithstanding the advantages of its situation, it is not strong.

There were between four and five hundred armed Calabrians in the town, and about two hundred British soldiers in the castle. The besieging force consisted of about six thousand men, who were now incessantly employed in forming roads, to bring his heavy ordinance from Seminara; the besieged labouring, on their part, to render the approach difficult, and to harass the French outposts. The month of January was past in these preparations, when four Sicilian gun-boats, each carrying a fourand-twenty pounder, were taken by the enemy; and thus all the endeavours which had been used to prevent him from bringing battering cannon into that part of Calabria were frustrated. The Delight sloop of war, in endeavouring to recover them, got on shore;-several of her crew were killed, and the remainder made prisoners. In this unfortunate affair, Captain Hanfield, her commander, fell, a man of such professional and

individual worth, that his death was a greater misfortune than the loss of Scylla and its castle. The sloop was burnt the next day by our boats, it being impossible to get her off. The French were now enabled to bring five 24-pounders, five 18-pounders, and four mortars, besides field-pieces, against the works. They came down from the heights on the sixth of February, and made their approaches in form. The armed peasantry opposed them with great spirit for three days; they were then obliged to yield to superior numbers, but the castle guns covered their retreat, and they were sent to Messina, 'not a man falling into the enemy's hands. On the 14th the batteries opened ;-in three days the guns of the castle were buried under the ruins of the parapet, and the garrison could only defend themselves with musketry. Two breaching batteries had now been erected, at three and four hundred yards distance; and, by the evening of the 16th, they had battered the left bastion with such success, that, in the course of the following day, the breach would have been practicable. From the time the batteries opened, the weather had been so stormy, that the gun-boats, from which much assistance had been expected, could not possibly be employed.

The situation of the castle being made known, by telegraph, to General Sherbrooke, who commanded in Sicily, boats were sent over from the Faros, during a temporary abatement of the gale, to bring off the garrison. Aware of this means of retreat, the enemy, on the 15th, had pushed round the front of the rock, and

wounded.

ex

A few weeks after this event, a Treaty of Alliance with Sicily was signed by our Envoy at Palermo. It stipulated, that the King of the two Sicilies should grant an emption from all the duties belonging to him, upon every thing which the British troops in Sicily, and the British squadrons in the Mediterranean, might stand in need of, and which the country could supply, in provisions, and military and naval stores,-on condition, however, that the ships at Malta should be furnished with a requisition from the Governor of that island, specifying the articles and the quantity required. His Britannic Majesty, in return, engaged to defend the fortresses of Messina and Augusta, during the war; and to maintain there, at his charge and expence, ten thousand troops, who were to be augmented, if necessary. He engaged, also, to pay his Sicilian Majesty an annual subsidy of 300,0001. in monthly payments, commencing from the 10th September, 1805, when the Russian and British troops landed in the Neapolitan territory, payment being always made one month in advance; the money to be employed

by his Sicilian Majesty for the use of his marines and land forces, and a quarterly account thereof given to the British Government. A Treaty of Commerce was to be concluded as soon as possible. His Sicilian Majesty engaged not to make peace with France separate from England; and his Britannic Majesty, on his part, also engaged not to make peace, without comprehending and saving in it the interests of his Sicilian Majesty.

A short conversation took June 13. place in the House of Commons, when a grant of 300,0001. was moved for to enable the King to fulfill the engagements of this treaty. It was asked why this subsidy had been paid so long before it was communicated to Parliament, and why the fort of Molazzo was not to be put into our hands, as well as the two others, that being more directly in the line of the place, which an enemy from the opposite coast could soonest reach. Mr Canning replied, we were to have the controul over this likewise, but that the provision respecting the two was adopted with a view to the troops we could furnish. The delay in executing the treaty was explained, as having been occasioned by changes of administration, and by the necessity of sending and of altering one of the articles to which Mr Drummond had agreed, and which would have bound us to restore Naples to the King of Sicily at a peace. Mr Bankes thought the Treaty of Commerce ought to have accompanied this convention, and censured the practice of thus granting money, without having the matter laid regularly before parliament. It was admitted by the Treasury Bench, that the thing had not been done in

the most regular way, and the resolution was then agreed to without opposition.

Respectable as our force was in Sicily, the French obtained a signal advantage over us, by conquering the isle of Capri, a place strong in itself, and of great importance to the coasting trade of Naples. A fleet of 60 transports, convoyed by a frigate, a corvette, and 26 gun-boats, sailed from that city at three o'clock, on the morning of the 4th of October. General Lamarque had the command, and Prince Pignatelli under him. The preparations had been carried on with such secrecy, that the attack was altogether unexpected; after a rapid passage they effected their landing, and proceeded to storm the heights of Anacapri, which command the island and all its forts. This fort had been left to a Maltese regiment. These men, of whom four-fifths were married, would have been excellent soldiers on their own island, where they had originally been raised as two militia regiments, and officered by their own nobility. It was, however, thought proper to unite them into one large regiment, under English officers, contrary to their own entreaties, and to the judgment of Sir Alexander Ball; they were sent to serve where they had no interest at heart, and the consequence was, that, in the hour of trial, they laid down their arms almost without resistance. The French thus possessed themselves of the heights, and shortly afterwards compelled the English garrison to surrender as prisoners of war, who were to be transported to England, and not serve until exchanged.

Buonaparte, mean time, was steadily pursuing the plans of his restless

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and insatiable ambition. His Jan. 23. first act was, by the Conservatory Senate, to call out 80,000 conscripts, born within the year 1789, and who, according to his own laws, always nugatory when they relate to the protection of the people, should have belonged to the conscription of the ensuing year. By a decree of the same date, the towns of Kehl, Wesel, Cassel, and Flushing, were united to the French empire. The kingdom of Etruria, which he himself had created for one of his puppet kings, was no longer May 21. to exist,-it was now incorporated as an inseparable indivisible portion of the French empire, and one usurpation was made a precedent for another. The same first principles, it was said, in consequence of which Genoa was incorporated with France, rather than with the kingdom of Italy, required this measure; and from Leghorn to Toulon, to Genoa, to Corsica, was not farther than to Milan. It is in vain that objections are made to the great extension of the empire; the communication by land, now that neither the Alps nor Appennines oppose us, is as easy from Leghorn to Paris, as from Paris to Nice. The port of Leghorn had given constant reasons of complaint to France. Appertaining to a territory governed by a weak prince, it had fallen under the influence of England, and become one of the principal inlets of her commerce. It became necessary for French troops occasionally to enter that city, and confiscate the English merchandize there. These violations of territory, said the official declaration, however necessary, are always disagreeable, and, since Leghorn cannot be under the influence of France and England

at the same time, it must become a part of France. Another reason assigned was, that Tuscany produced ships and sailors. The commerce of the Mediterranean, whatever might be the opposition of the tyrants of the sea, was necessarily to be subject to France, and, therefore, the whole coast of that sea must form a part of the French territority. "The sons of the Arno," said M. Semonville, speaking in the name of the commission of the senate," are invited to glory, the Emperor having decreed that Spezzia shall become a second Toulon. The arsenal, the docks, and forts, both on the sea and land side, are already marked out; and, before the end of the year, six ships of the line shall be put upon

the stocks."

The principle, that power constitutes right, upon which France has always acted, had never before been so openly proclaimed as in this declaration." It has been the policy," it said, "of European states to subdue the most distant countries, in order to obtain new commercial and maritime resources; why then were resources and acquisitions to be neglected which lay at hand? Tuscany, under the sway of its little princes, was governed without system and without vigour, and was perpetually infested by the Barbary pirates. But men were no longer to be governed in a capricious and fantastic manner; the time had passed away in which it was believed that people were made for kings, and not kings for people. Lands, pastures, and forests might become property, but no person could possess a kingdom as if it were a farm." The name of Etruria was dropt in this declaration, but it would not be the less remembered