THE

HISTORY OF ENGLAND,

FROM THE

EARLIEST TIMES

TO THE

DEATH OF GEORGE THE SECOND,

BY OLIVER GOLDSMITH, M. B.

THE TWELFTH EDITION, CORRECTED;

WITH

A CONTINUATION

TO THE

DEATH OF GEORGE THE THIRD,

BY CHARLES COOTE, LL. D.

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

VOL. IV.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR F. C. AND J. RIVINGTON; J. CUTHELL; J. NUNN; J. SCAT-
CHERD; J. AND A. ARCH; LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN;
T. CADELL; J. BOOKER; J. RICHARDSON; J. M. RICHARDSON; BALDWIN,
CRADOCK, AND JOY; G. AND W. B. WHITTAKER; HARVEY AND DARTON;
OGLE, DUNCAN, AND CO; T. HAMILTON; BAYNES AND SON; R. SAUN-
DERS; J. BOOTH; E. EDWARDS; AND SIMPKIN AND MARSHALL.

HISTORY

OF

ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XX.

Of Dr. Coote's Continuation.

GEORGE III. (Continued.)

A. D. 1798-1799.

THE invasion of Egypt was not a new project. It had been recommended to the French government before the fall of the monarchy; but a sense of equity, a want of inclination, or a desire of reserving money and troops for other purposes, had opposed its adoption. The revival of the scheme arose from a thirst of colonial aggrandisement; from views of commercial interest, combined with a prospect of gradual encroachment on the British empire in Hindostan; from a wish to remove a general of whom the directory had conceived a jealousy, and an army clamorous for the great pecuniary recompence promised by the rulers of the republic.

The project was palpably unjust and iniquitous. The grand signor, the nominal sovereign of Egypt, had not provoked the enmity of the French; nor had the beys, its real masters, interfered in the politics of Europe. To the belligerent powers the inhabitants were an unoffending race. An invasion of their country, therefore, was