day and night in harbor and dockyard with the equipments of the fleet. Hoche, to Tone's disgust, amused himself in the interval with a pretty Breton aristocrat, risking a bullet which might ruin all. Tone himself plunged daily up and down on the ramparts, watching the sea and ships, and cursing the lagging hours.

On the first of December Joyeuse announced that he was ready, and orders were issued to embark. The expedition was on a scale which, if it reached Ireland, could not fail to effect something considerable. The fleet consisted of seventeen ships of the line and eleven frigates and corvettes. In addition there were fifteen transports, large and small. The army was composed of fifteen thousand of the very best troops which France possessed, with heavy trains of field artillery, and sufficient spare muskets and powder to arm half the peasants in Ireland. The reputation of General Hoche was second only to that of Napoleon. The officer next in command was Grouchy. The point of attack was to be either Cork, Waterford, or Limerick, as circumstances might determine. The weather was unusually fine. The wind had hung in the east throughout November, and remained in the same quarter, blowing straight for the Irish coast, with the water as smooth as at midsummer.

The inveterate negligence which characterized English policy whenever the interests of Ireland were at stake had left Brest for a moment unwatched. The blockading squadron, so inattentive while at its post that a French Admiral had passed in without a shot being fired, bringing five large ships to Joyeuse, had drawn off afterwards, leaving the sea entirely open. Independent of the Yeomanry, Lord Camden had not

ten thousand men on whom he could rely, and to

must strip of its garrison Could Joyeuse carry his

bring them into the field he every town in the country. fleet into some safe Irish harbor, and could Hoche throw his army on the shore, nothing short of a miracle could save the English power in Ireland from temporary destruction or the unhappy country from an insurrection which would reproduce on a yet more extended scale the crimes and miseries of 1641.

The troops embarked as they were ordered. Day passed after day and the east wind blew fair; yet still one obstruction after another delayed their departure for a fortnight. On the evening of the 15th of December the signal was made at last to prepare to weigh. The morning following, the entire fleet, fortythree sail in all, cleared out of the harbor and were on the way to the Irish coast. The weather was still so fine that they ventured the passage of the Raz, a narrow sound, peculiarly dangerous from the violence of the tide which sweeps through it. Night came on them before they had reached the open water. The "Séduisant," with five hundred men on board, struck on a rock and was lost with all hands. Her misfortune was unknown to her consorts. From bad seamanship, or some other cause, the ships were scattered. When day broke eighteen sail only were visible from the deck of the " Indomptable," an 84gun line-of-battle ship, on board which were Tone and the regiment to which he was attached. The "Fraternité," a frigate, which carried Hoche and his staff, was nowhere to be seen. The rendezvous, in the event of separation, was Mizen Head. The orders to each vessel which might have strayed was to cruise off Mizen Head for five days, then to proceed

to the mouth of the Shannon and wait there for three days; if by that time the rest of the fleet had not appeared, she was to return to Brest. On the 18th there was a dense fog, which partially lifted towards evening. The same eighteen ships were in sight. The "Immortalité," with Grouchy, was made out to be one of them. At dawn on the 19th, twelve other vessels were showing, but there were still no signs of the Fraternité." The fog was followed by a dead calm, which continued all day, a sure precursor in those seas at that time of year of a shift of wind or change of weather. Three more stragglers drifted up in the afternoon. Thirty-three out of the fortythree were now collected. The wind on the 20th chopped round to the westward, bringing mist and haze, but it remained light, and at night there was again a calm. On the 21st Cape Clear was in sight, twelve miles distant. Thirty-five sail were then counted, and only two frigates missing; of the two, however, one was still the " Fraternité," with her precious freight. As the wind stood they could then with ease have either made Kinsale, where there were but two English men-of-war to oppose them, or they could have forced their way through the weak defences of Cork Harbor, or have run up to Waterford. Bantry Bay was open before evening. At any time during that day or the next, had Grouchy ventured to act on his own responsibility, he might have chosen his own point of landing, and Cork must inevitably have fallen. It had no land defences, and on the side of the sea no batteries which a couple of line-of-battle ships could not have silenced. General Dalrymple, who was in command there, had four thousand men only. Had Grouchy known Dalrymple's weakness,

and had he known also that at that moment there were in Cork two years' provision stores for the British navy, valued at nearly two millions, he would probably have risked the displeasure, or rather have earned the gratitude, of his senior officer by stooping at once on so splendid a prize.

Then, as twenty years later, on another occasion no less critical, Grouchy was the good genius of the British Empire. He continued to cruise as he was directed, standing off and on upon that uncertain coast. On the evening of the 22d the wind whirled back into the east, and surged down the rifts between the hills with fitful menacing gusts that foretold a storm. Beating in the face of it with extreme difficulty, sixteen of the best sailors, the "Immortalité " among them, recovered Bantry Bay and beat their way into it to Bere Island, where they anchored. The rest were blown to sea, to stay there till the wind should abate.

On the morning of the 23d it was blowing a gale, and blowing with the peculiar fury to be met with only in the long narrow bays. inclosed within mountain ranges. Snow was falling fast, hiding the land and hiding the ships from one another. During that day they were unable to communicate. On the 24th there was a lull. A council of war was held in the cabin of the "Immortalité." The division in the bay was found to contain between six and seven thousand soldiers, with the largest proportion of the small arms and cannon. Tone advised that they should proceed immediately as they were, and work the ships to the head of the estuary, to the sheltered roadstead behind Whiddy Island. There a landing would be easy, and they could push their way instantly to Cork.

The officers were eager and in high spirits. Grouchy agreed, the anchors were lifted, and the fleet began to struggle towards Bantry. Unhappily for them, the wind rose again and blew dead in their teeth. After eight hours of desperate effort they had not gained a yard. At dark they anchored again at their old places.

Wilder yet broke Christmas Day, the bay brown with dirty foam, the hills deep in snow, the tempest shrieking over the water. What was to be done? Every moment was precious. Their arrival had been a surprise, but their presence on the coast must have been by this time signalled over the island, and whatever troops the English had must be on the march to the threatened point. Tone had calculated, and perhaps rightly, that could they have landed on the 24th they would have taken Cork without firing a shot. Now, at least, they would have to fight a battle, and visions began to float before him of capture and a possible gallows. He was fertile in expedients. The troops in Limerick would be on the way to Cork. As the wind stood it would be easier to reach the mouth of the Shannon than Bantry. To take Limerick might be even better than to take Cork. But Tone could give no commands, and the “Immortalité" was anchored on the other side of the bay, and the sea was too wild to allow a boat to live. Another day went by, spent in curses upon weather which refused to mend. At night a frigate swept by the "Indomptable." Some one on her deck shouted through the screaming of the storm to cut cable and make for sea. The officers of the "Indomptable" knew not what the frigate was or who had hailed them. They waited for day, and day