Note Back to Main Text — Chapter XX

On March eleventh the new fleet set sail. In its very first encounter with the English on March thirteenth the fleet successfully manœuvered and just saved a fine eighty-gun ship, the Ça Ira, from capture by Nelson. Next day there was a partial fleet action which ended in a disaster, and two fine ships were captured, the Ça Ira and the Censeur; the others fled to Hyères, where the troops were disembarked from their transports, and sent back to their posts.[45] Naval operations were not resumed for three months. Once more Buonaparte was the victim of uncontrollable circumstance. Destitute of employment, stripped even of the little credit gained in the last half-year,[46] he stood for the seventh time on the threshold of the world, a suppliant at the door. In some respects he was worse equipped for success than at the beginning, for he now had a record to expunge. To an outsider the spring of 1795 must have appeared the most critical period of his life.[47] He himself knew better; in fact, this ill-fated expedition was probably soon forgotten altogether. In his St. Helena reminiscences, at least, he never recalled it: at that time he was not fond of mentioning his failures, little or great, being chiefly concerned to hand himself down to history as a man of lofty purposes and unsullied motives. Besides, he was never in the slightest degree responsible for the terrible waste of millions in this ill-starred maritime enterprise; all his own plans had been for the conduct of the war by land.