the city of Venice, which the troops of France had entered and seized on the 16th of May, with a large portion of the dominion of that celebrated republic, whose existence thus terminated after a lapse of 14 centuries. On the 6th of June the republic of Genoa also ceased to exist, and, under the name of Liguria, became a sovereignity of France.

Early in the month of June, which was some weeks before the order to disarm the French ships issued from the then dominant faction at Paris, Rear-admiral Brueys, by the orders of General Bonaparte, sailed from Toulon, with a squadron of six sail of the line and several frigates, bound to Corfu. Here the admiral found and took possession of six Venetian 64-gun ships, and six frigates. These were exclusive of three 64s and three frigates building at Venice, and exclusive also of 10 or 12 corvettes and eighteen galleys lying in that harbour. * On the 13th of June, which was a few days after the departure of Admiral Brueys, several transports laden with troops and provisions, and escorted by some frigates under the command of Captain Guillaume-François-Joseph Bourdé, also quitted Toulon, and on the 28th arrived at Corfu ; where, soon afterwards, with the assistance of General Gentili and his army, the whole of the Seven Islands (subsequently known by the name of the Ionian Islands) were taken possession of and garrisoned. The names of the islands were retained ; but the names of the ships General Buonaparte, by an assumption of power to which the directory subsequently gave their sanction, changed to those of the principal generals killed, and battles fought, in his campaign against Italy.

On the 16th of November, which was about the time that Rear-admiral Brueys returned to Toulon from his Mediterranean cruise, Earl St.-Vincent detached from the British fleet, then lying in the Tagus, the 50-gun ship Leander, Captain Thomas Boulden Thompson, the Harmadryad (sic) frigate [should probably read Hamadryad �, and a sloop of war, to Algiers, to settle some dispute with the dey ; a service which Captain Thompson executed to the approbation of the admiral. About this time a small British squadron, associated with five Portuguese sail of the line, cruised off Cadiz and in the neighbourhood of the Straits, to prevent the French ships at Toulon, or the few Spanish ones at Carthagena, from effecting a junction, if such was their object, with the fleet of Admiral Massaredo at Cadiz.

The concessions made by government to the seamen of the Channel fleet necessarily comprehending the whole British navy. it was justly considered, that any lurking disaffection, that might exist in detached quarters of it, would disappear, the instant the benefits, of which all were to partake, became generally known. Hence a mutiny that had broken out at

* Victoires et Conquêtes tome viii., pp. 185, 274.
[� See P. 83 for details of capture.]

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