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Finding the crews of his ship much weakened by the heavy draughts that had been made to assist in manning the various posts on shore, Lord Hood obtained from the grand master of Malta 1500 Maltese seamen, who stipulated, on being paid the usual wages of British seamen, to serve in the fleet during its continuance in the Mediterranean. On the 22d Major-generals O'Hara and Dundas, the former with a commission to be governor of Toulon and its dependencies, arrived from Gibraltar; the governor of which had unfortunately sent but 750, instead of 1500 men, the number required of him. Towards the end of October, or beginning of November, the third and last division of Neapolitan troops arrived at Toulon; and the combined forces amounted to 16,912 men, as the following details will show:
Of this number, not more than about 12,000 were fit for duty.; the remainder were sick in the hospitals ; and of those fit for duty, 9000, or three-fourths, were necessarily distributed among the different posts on the extensive line of defence requisite to be maintained. With respect to the republican, troops that were menacing Toulon, although it is not easy to get at their exact amount, a little industry will enable us to show that they more than doubled the number of the combined troops by which it had hitherto been defended. The unfortunate Lyonaise had, since the 9th of October, surrendered to the republican General Kellerman, at the head of 60,000 troops ; and the latter then marched away to co-operate with a part of the army of Italy in reducing Toulon. Thus: "Une armée de soixante mille hommes, composée des troupes que Kellerman a amenées des Alpes, des gardes rationales des villes et des campagnes voisines de Lyon, et de cinq cents canoniers destinés au service de cent pièces d'artillerie, est sous les murs, et n'attend que le signal pour foudroyer cette malheureuse ville." * "Le gouvernement envoya vers Toulon, pour le réduire, la même armee qui avait servi à soumettre Lyon: on y joignit plusieurs divisions de l'armée d'Italie." † Supposing that, between the 9th of October and the beginning of November, half only of Kellerman's army had arrived, and estimating the divisions of the army of Italy at no * Dictionnaire historique, tome ii., p. 563. † Ibid., tome iv., p. 130., ^ back to top ^ |