at the change of the wind, cruised for them in vain, and they got
safe back to Brest, without having seen a single one of those
floating bulwarks, the possession of which we believe will enable us
with impunity to set justice and common sense at defiance.

Such is the miserable and precarious state of an anemocracy, of a
people who put their trust in hurricanes, and are governed by wind.
In August, 1798, three forty-gun frigates landed 1,100 men under
Humbert, making the passage from Rochelle to Killala without seeing
any English ship. In October of the same year, four French frigates
anchored in Killala Bay with 2,000 troops; and though they did not
land their troops, they returned to France in safety. In the same
month, a line-of-battle ship, eight stout frigates, and a brig, all
full of troops and stores, reached the coast of Ireland, and were
fortunately, in sight of land, destroyed, after an obstinate
engagement, by Sir John Warren.

If you despise the little troop which, in these numerous
experiments, did make good its landing, take with you, if you
please, this precis of its exploits: eleven hundred men, commanded
by a soldier raised from the ranks, put to rout a select army of
6,000 men, commanded by General Lake, seized their ordnance,
ammunition, and stores, advanced 150 miles into a country containing
an armed force of 150,000 men, and at last surrendered to the
Viceroy, an experienced general, gravely and cautiously advancing at
the head of all his chivalry and of an immense army to oppose him.
You must excuse these details about Ireland, but it appears to me to
be of all other subjects the most important. If we conciliate
Ireland, we can do nothing amiss; if we do not, we can do nothing
well. If Ireland was friendly, we might equally set at defiance the