and diffatisfaction, was probably the precife object that the directory had in view when they penned the piece juft quoted. Whether any thing very profperous or adverfe happened to the nation, it was fure, for a fhort time, to afford fome relief to the directory, by turning the keen edge of the French genius to fomething else than the former conduct of adminiftration. But, it would appear that, hafty and precipitate as the French are in giving way to their imaginations and paffions, the fentiment of horror and refentment, infpired by the accounts they received, with many comments and conjectures from their own countrymen, who had come from Raftadt, were not of long duration. Their paffion cooled, they began first to doubt; and then, very probably, to difbelieve what had been to peremptorily charged against the imperial cabinet. Certain it is, that it did not render the decrees, which had paf fed eleven days before, for making the military confcription general, more popular or effective. It was, on the eighteenth of April, a few days before the final rupture of the negociation at Raftadt, that the French government, from a defire of exciting odium against the emperor, for his felfth ambition and inattention to the interefts of the Germanic body, and alfo of augmenting the jealoufy entertained of the views of that prince, by the court of Berlin, publifhed a ftate paper, which they ftyled, "The Secret Articles and additional Convention of the Treaty of Campo Formio." By this agreement, his imperial majefty was to be aflifted by the influence of France, in the acquifition of the archbishopric of

Saltzburgh and other, territories. In return, the emperor confented to the ceflion of the left bank of the Rhine, and promifed the evacuation of Mentz, Manheim, and other confiderable towns and fortrelles. From this political digref fion we return to military operations.

The French, in the outfet of the prefent campaign, had not content. ed themfelves with tracing out a particular plan of each of their three armies; but combined every partial operation, fo as to direct the whole to the attainment of one common object. The cafe was now the fame with the Auftrians, who, after victory had fuddenly enabled them to act on the offen five in Germany and Italy, found themfelves obliged to regulate each operation, giving the idea of a military manoeuvre, in which the different corps, advancing dependently on each other, would regu late, by their left, their march, and direction. A plan was combined between general Hotze and Bellegarde, for a general attack on the country of the Grifons. General Bellegarde, after feveral engage ments, gained poffeffion of the upper and lower Engadine. On the firft of May, general Hotze, whofe army, reinforced by the archduke, confifted of more that 20,000 men, advanced through the valley of the Grifons against the fort of Lucienfteig, whilt another column marched towards the fame point by the defiles of Langwart; and other detachments, in order to keep the French in check upon all points, penetrated by correfponding vallics. General Hotze's plan was to attack Fort Lucienfleig, on two fides at once, and thereby prevent

it from being relieved. But the column, coming by the way of Langwart, did not come out of the defiles at Flaifeh and Mayenfield, till feveral hours after general Hotze had appeared before the Lucienfteig, which, for want of the co-operation, on which he had relied, he could not carry. The French general, Menard, who commanded in those parts, had already refifted general Hotze, with fucceís, when he faw the second column coming upon him. At first he retired, but, being fpeedily reinforced by fome troops, which had fet out from Chur on hearing the fire, he found himfelf ftronger than the Austrians, attacked them at the moment when they were illuing out of the defile, beat them, and killed, or took, the greatest part of the corps.

The failure of this attack was the more to be regretted by the Auftrians, that, if it had fucceeded, they might at once have gained poffeffion of the whole of the Grifon league, and even of part of the leffer cantons. General Hotze, a native of Switzerland, had collected the emigrants from that country, and had formed them into a corps of Infantry, about 1000 ftrong. The confidence which his country men repofed in his talents, enabled him to promote the difpofition to infurrection, manifefted by the inhabitants of the leffer cantons of the Grifon country, and of the Valais, who, being informed of the general attack projected by the Auftrians, took up arms, and occupied at once the vallies of the higher Rhine, of the Ticino, of the Reufs, the Mutten, and the Rhone; forming a chain of infurrection upon the line of the great

Alps, in the rear of the two French corps, pofted in the valley of Chur, and at the head of that of the Inn. The failure of general Hotze's expedition enabled the French to unite their whole force against the infurgents. A part, in the canton of Schwitz, laid down their arms the reft, to the number of several thousands, were cut to pieces in two battles which they fought in the valley of the Rhine, and near Altdorf. These cruel disasters stifled in its birth the general infurrection, by which the Auftrians had hoped to be fupported.

The pofition that had been taken by general Bellegarde, upon the chain of the Alps, which covers the principal valley of the Grifons, greatly favoured an attack on that territory. General Hotze, there fore, prepared to make a fecond effort, and arranged his measures with general Bellegarde in fuch a manner, and with fuch a force, as to render fuccefs almost infallible: and, the better to fecure, and af terwards improve it, the archduke had fent to general Hotze fresh reinforcements, including the fine regiment of light-horie, of Kinfky. The fort of Steig, aflailed on both fides by Auftrian columns, the one under the command of general Hotze, in perfon, the other under that of general Jellacheik, on the fourteenth of May. The reduction of this place was quickly followed by the total expulfion of the French from the country of the Grifons, and the Auftrians, under the command of Hotze, took poft on the left bank of the Rhine. In the mean time, feveral detachments of French, which had retired out of the Valtelline into the Rhetion Alps, afraid of being thut in by the [S2]

different

different Auftrian corps, that already occupied the palles of Splugen and Gunkels, endeavoured to traverse the mountains and reach St. Gothard. They were purfued by the corps of general Bellegarde, who went himself to Chiavenna, his co-operation being no longer of ufe to general Hotze; with whom, however, he left fome troops, and his prefence becoming more and more neceflary every day to the army of the allies in Italy.

In confequence of the furprize, defeat, and loffes, which the divifion of general Menard had fuffered, in the country of the Grifons, on the fourteenth of May, the French in the Foggenburg, in the canton of Appenzel, and fome other places, could not maintain themfelves in, thofe territories, or even beyond the Thur, without recovering the poft at Wallenftadt. This they attempted to do on the nineteenth, a few hours after the advanced guard of the Auftrians had taken poffeffion of it; but were repulfed, towards the clofe of the day, as far as Murg, on the fonth bank of the lake of Wallenftadt. It was no longer in Maffena's power to keep poffeffion of the eastern part of Switzerland. The generals Hotze and Bellegarde had gained his right flank, and even his rear, and, therefore, he could not, without much danger, longer delay to ftrengthen his centre, and thorten his line. He ordered the Foggemberg, the canton of Appenzel, the country of St. Gall, and the Tongaw, to be evacuated on the twentieth, and withdrew all his forces behind the Thur.

But the fuccefs obtained by general Hotze would not have been fufficient to induce Malena to evaeunte fo great an extent of country,

had he not been certain that the archduke Charles would also very foon pafs the Rhine. The hoftile appearances in Suabia had not induced the archduke to change the concentrated pofition which he had taken between Stock-ach and Schaffhaufen, and as little did the entrenchments, made along the river, hinder him from pafling it. That prince had relolved not to enter Switzerland till its fouth and east quarters fhould have been previoufy invaded: which being done, he left not a moment in executing an enterprize, too long delayed, and anxiously waited for by all Europe. As foon as the retreat of the French was known, the advanced poûts of the Auftrians, which guarded the Rhine from Field-kirk to Rheineck, paled that river, and the flotilla of colonel Williams had landed fome troops on the weft fide of the lake of Confiance. On the twenty-first, the main body of the archduke's army marched from Stock-ach to Singen, and on the twenty-third, from that place to Schaffhaufen: where it began, the fame day, t pafs the Rhine on bridges of boats, and to occupy a camp marked out near Paradife. A junction was formed on the twenty-fixth: and, on the fame evening, it was determined to take advantage of this for attacking the pofition of the enemy at Winterthur. The French, on the twenty-feventh, were forced to abandon their fituation, retired in good order, and with little lofs, be yond the river Tofs, their retreat being greatly favoured by the woody and mountainous nature of the country. The Auftrians had now the advantage of refuming of fenfive operations, and of being firmly established in Switzerland

with about fifty-five thousand men, while Maflena, on account of the length of his line, and the neceffity of lending ten thousand men into the Valais, could not oppose to them quite that number. Though the country, bordering on the Tofs, prefents many advantageous politions, for oppofing the paffage of that river, yet Maffena, fearing to be out-flanked, refolved to draw nearer to the central pofition of Zurich, where alone he could ftop the progrefs of the Auftrians. He decamped, therefore, in the night, between the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth, and retired to the Glatt. The archduke, in confequence, pushed on his advanced guard, on the right to Balach, and on the left to Bassendorf; on which account, the French, on the following day, falling back still farther, put the Glatt between them and the enemy, and occupied the position before Zurich, which, for two months, they had been carefully entrenching. Their right, at the fame time, evacuated Rapperfchwill, lefs, from any apprehenfions of danger in their front, than by the progrefs already made on their rear, by the left wing of general Hotze's army. General Bellegarde, who had cealed to co-operate with general Hotze, and, on the eighteenth of May, gone in pursuit of the different corps of the enemy which had defended the fources of the Rhine, having on the fixteenth pushed on 2 column to Chiavenna, advanced, on the eighteenth, with the reft of his army, in three columns, towards the valley of the Adda. Two of thefe did not direct their march gainst the enemy, but towards the lake Como, on which they em

barked on the town of that name, whence they were conducted by general Bellegarde, across the Milanefe to the Gege of Tortona. The reft of that army, under the command of general Haddick, drove the French from St. Gothard, and forced them to retire behind the Reufs. The lofs of St. Gothard, and the progrefs made by the inperialifts, in the cantons of Glarus, Schwitz, and Uri, threatened the whole pofition of the French in Switzerland. Repeated attempts were made to regain a part of the territory they had loft. General Lecourbe, on the thirtieth, forced the Auftrians to yield a little ground in the vallies of Reufs and Schagen: and, on the fecond of June, in a very obftinate battle, which ended in his favour, he killed, wounded, or took one thousand men. This affair obliged the Auftrians to fall back to Urferen.

The poffeffion of St. Gothard was fo important to the allied armies, that they neglected nothing that could contribute to its defence. And general Lecourbe, through movements by the Auftrians, fatigue, loffes, and the difficulty of procuring fubfiftence in a ravage country, was obliged to give up every hope of recovering the St. Gothard. He embarked his troops, part on the lake of the Four Cantons, and part on that of Zug, and took a pofition behind thefe, to cover the town and lake of Lucerne. The Auftrians occupied the valley of the Reufs to the lake of the Four Cantons, and Allorf, Fluelen, Brunnen, and Schwiltz; from which they communicated with the rest of the army, acrofs the Sihl and the lake of Zurich.

[S3]

Thus