The navy of France, unable to cope with ours in open sea, was gallantly attacked by Lord Cochrane in its own harbours. A French fleet of eight sail of the line had been blocked up in Brest harbour by Admiral Lord Gambier ; but in the beginning of February, had made their escape to Basque Roads, where they were joined by four sail of the line. Here the task of attempting to destroy them, was committed to Lord Cochrane. lie sailed from England in the Imperieuse, and Lord Gam bier received orders to employ him in attacking the ene my's fleet with fireships. On the lOth of April, a num ber of fire vessels, and of transports, filled with Con greve's rockets, joined Lord Gambier's fleet. The filling of the chief explosion ship was committed to lord Cochrane. He caused puncheons, placed with the ends upwards, to be filled with fifteen hundred barrels of gun.
powder. On the tops of the puncheons nearly 400 shells, with fusees, were placed, and, in the interme diate spaces, about 3000 hand grenades. The pun cheons were fastened together by cables, and kept steady and immoveable, by wedges and sand rammed between them. In this dreadful ship, Lord Cochrane, with one Lieutenant and four seamen, committed him self. On the evening of the eleventh of April, the fire ships and the explosion ship proceeded with a strong northerly wind and a flood tide. When they approached the enemy, a boom was perceived, stretched across in front of the French, in order to protect their line. This was quickly broken, and the English advanced under a heavy fire from the forts in the island of Aix.
The French fleet, dismayed and thrown into confu sion, attempted to avoid destruction by cutting their cables and running on shore. Lord Cochrane approach ed with his explosion ships as near the enemy as possi ble, and perceiving that they had taken the alarm, set fire to the fusee, and betook himself with his companions to the boat. They were not able, however, to get out of the reach of danger, before the fusee exploded. In stead of having fifteen minutes, the time on which they had calculated to escape front the exploding ship, they had not left the vessel more than nine minutes before she blew up. The lieutenant, who accompanied Lord Cochrane, expired through fatigue, and two of the sai lors were so nearly exhausted, that their lives were tor some time despaired of. Immediately on joining his ship, Lord Cochrane proceeded to attack the French vessels that were thrown on shore, and for some time sustained their fire alone, before any other man of war entered the harbour. He made a signal to Lord Gam bier that seven of the enemy's ships were on shore, and might be destroyed ; but the admiral, after giving orders to moor and weigh, was obliged to anchor again, before he reached the Aix Roads, on account of the wind and tide being against him. Six of the enemy's ships, in the mean time, escaped up the river Charente ; four of the remaining ships were attacked by Lord Cochrane, in the Imperieuse, followed by three other 74's. The result of a brilliant action, which he supported against the united ships and batteries of the enemy, was, that one of their ships of 120 guns, live of 74, and two frigates, were driven on shore, and either destroyed or rendered useless. One of SO, two of 74, and one of 50 guns, and three frigates, were burnt by our own or by the enemy's crews.
Since the peace of Tilsit, Austria had been loaded with new injuries from France, the detail of which is foreign to our history. But still, amidst threats and injuries, her government had not been idle clueing the favourable moment when the presence of Napoleon was requ ;led in Spain. In the spring of 1809, the Archduke Charles put himself at the head of the whole imperial army, with more extensive power than had been enjoyed by airy commander since the clays of Tilly and Wallen stein. On the 10th of April, the van of the Austrians crossed the Inn, and advanced into Bavaria. When in formation of this had reached Paris by telegraph. Bona parte left his capital, and repaired to his head quarters at In..olstadt. After sonic partial actions, which proved (Hs: to the Austrians, the French emperor, dis cer ling that the division of the Archduke Louis had imprudently separated from the main army, made a furious attack upon the Austrians at Ebensberg, and put them to the route, with the loss of 18,000 prisoners.
From thence he pushed on to Landshut, and putting the fugitives to a second route, took 9000 more prisoners. The Archduke Charles having, in the mean time, in conjunction with the Bohemian army, entered Ratisbon, and crossed to the right of the Danube, occupied the same position in which the Archduke Louis had been beaten. This movement compelled Bonaparte to leave the Ise') and return to the Danube. On the 22d of April, the French emperor arrived opposite Eckmuhl, where the four corps of the Austrian army, amounting .; to 110,000 men, were posted. Here a dreadful engage ment took place, in which the left of the Austrians was turned ; and, alter their first discomfiture, they were driven, in a second attack, from Ratisbon and its neigh bourhood. In the battles of Eckmuhl and Ratisbon, the
French took upwards of 20,000 prisoners, and the great er part of the Austrian artillery. Bonaparte advanced upon Vienna, which surrendered after a short resistance. The Archduke Charles, after his first defeat retreated in the direction of Bohemia ; but, returning towards the Danube, in the vain expectation of saving the Austrian capital, he learned, when he reached Meissau, that it had surrendered. He then moved down the northern side of the river, till on the 16th of May he fixed his head, quarters at Ebersdorf. Bonaparte resolved to cross the Danube, and attack the Archduke in this position. At the distance of six miles from Vienna, he threw bridges from the southern bank to two islands in the Danube, and from thence to the northern bank ; the Austrian general not disputing the passage, but allow ing the French to post their right wing on the village of Essling, and their left on the village of Aspern. The Austrian commander here gave battle to the French ; and by the judicious disposition of his columns, and a most extraordinary exertion of valour, the French were driven from their position on Aspern, and though the Austrians did not succeed in gaining the position of the other wing of the enemy at Essling, they completely repulsed the troops of Napoleon in the charges which they made from that quarter. The battle of Aspern began on the 21st of May, and continued, with short intermissions, for two days. During the first day's combat,the Archduke had ordered five ships to be sent down the river, and succeeded in burning two bridges, which connected the sides of the Danube across the island of Lobau, and another island of smaller size. At the close of the second day's combat, the French had been driven from Aspern, and could with difficulty main tain themselves in the village of Essling. By keeping that village, however, they covered their retreat into the island of Lobau, where they took up their position in the night between the 22d and 23d. Their loss could not be less than 30,000 men. That of the Austrians was ac knowledged to be 20,000. Yet, though the victory on the side of the Archduke is indisputable, and though he took ten times more prisoners than he lost, it marks no unskilful retreat in the only pitched battle in which Bonaparte ever was beat. that he lost only 3 pieces of cannon. From the day of the battle of Aspern, to the sixth of July, the grand armies continued in sight, and even within a few hundred yards of each other ; the French still possessing the island of Inderlobau, and the left shore of the strengthening their position and their bridges, and waiting for fresh reinforcements. The Austrians also received immense reinforcements, al though their whole force could not be concentrated. The emperor Alexander,who had made common cause with his his ally Napoleon, had dispatched an army into Poland ; and to meet the Russians, a considerable corps of the Archduke's army had been necessarily detached. The Archduke John had been also recalled from Italy ; but he was too distant to reach his brother, before the fatal clay of Wagram. The Austrians entrenched themselves in the front of Essfing, but unhappily neglected the same precaution of entrenching their left flank. It was to that point accordingly that Bonaparte directed his efforts. To oppose his movements, the Archduke extended his flanks, and weakened his centre. His opponent imme diately marked his fault, penetrated through that part of his army, and drove it from the village of \Vagrant. The Austrian wings were thus thrown into confusion, and the whole army retreated, after an immense loss, towards Moravia. They were closely pursued by the French, and overtaken at Znaim, where another battle took place ; but it was shortly terminated, by the con clusion of an armistice proposed by Francis, and dictated by his conqueror. Trieste, with its territory Fiume, and the Croatian Littorale, part of Carinthia, almost all Carniola, a small part of upper Austria, with Salzburgh and Berchtolsgaden, and a wide territory in Gallicia, were ceded by Austria to France, or to its allies, the Rhenish League and Russia. But the most humiliating article was that which obliged Francis to abandon the brave and loyal inhabitants of the Tyrol and Voralberg, who, in former wars, had never suffered French armies to obtain a footing in their territory, and, in this war, had driven them from their mountains, and pursued them as far as Ulm in Bavaria. Even when abandoned by Aus tria, these brave people fought with occasional success against General Le Febvre and a powerful French force, till the capture and death of their leader Hoffer, a man of obscure birth, and of no experience in war, but who displayed a genius and energy worthy of the greatest cause,—a man, whose memory is not tarnished but en deared by an execution infamous only to his murderers.