CHARACTERS. 



355 



Montsen-at, and was made lieu- 

 tenant-general of the armies of the 

 king as a reward for these impor- 

 tant achievements. In the same 

 year he joined the Spanish general 

 Don G'dlvez, for the purpose of 

 making an attack on Jamaica, with 

 twenty-five thousand men, but 

 this project was completely dis- 

 concerted by the defeat of the count 

 de Grasse, on the 1 2 th of April, 1 782, 

 and the tide of success, which had 

 hitherto been in favour of France, 

 had now entirely left her. The 

 high reputation M. de Bouille en- 

 joyed during this war was as much 

 occasioned by the generosity and 

 magnanimity of his conduct towards 

 the enemy * as by his military ex- 

 ploits, and he was not less useful to 

 the colonies he governed, by the 

 tranquillity and security which his 

 name and vigilance afforded them 

 than by the incessant labours of his 

 administration. 



Peace being concluded, in 1783, 

 he returned to France, and was by 

 the king created a chevalier of the 

 several orders of knighthood in that 

 kingdom; and his sovereign wishing 

 to add to these honours a more solid 

 gratification, desired him, through 



the minister of marine, to give in a 

 statement of the debts which he had 

 contracted during the war (instead 

 of enriching himself, ashe had many 

 opportunities of doing in the course 

 of it ) and which debts were found 

 to amount to upwards of 500,000 

 livres. M. de Bouille, however, 

 with hischaracteristic disinterested- 

 ness, declined the offered discharge 

 of these demands, esteeming it a 

 disgrace to become a burden to that 

 state which he had so ably served 

 and contributed to support. 



In 1784, he paid a visit to Eng- 

 land, to see a nation he loved and 

 honoured, his reception v/as such 

 as that nation knows so well how 

 to give to persons of superior merit, 

 and he carried away with him the 

 most honourable and permanent 

 testimonies of the esteem and gra- 

 titude with which his conduct, 

 during the war, had inspired a brave 

 aild generous people.+ 



He was a member of both the 

 assemblies of the Notables, convoked 

 by Louis XVI. in 1786 and 1788, 

 and he strongly expressed in the last 

 his strenuous attachment to the an- 

 cient monarchy which appeared to 

 him to be attacked in it. 



• VVe with pfeasuie make tlie following extract from our Annuai Re<iister, for 

 J781, p. 35 : " The humanity of the marquis de Bouille affords some relief to these 

 scenes of horror and devastation. That governor sent 31 British sailors (being the 

 poor remains that were saved of the crews of the Laurel and Andromeda) under a 

 flag of truce to commodore Hotham,at St. Lucia, accompanied with aletterormes. 

 sage, in v/liich he declared that he could not consider, in the light of enemies, 

 men who had so hardlj' escaped in a contention with the force of the elements ; but 

 that they having in common with his own people been partakers of the same danger, 

 were in like manner entitled to every comfort and relief which could be given in a 

 season of such universal calamity and distress. He only lamented, he said, that 

 their number was so small, and particularly that none of the officers were saved. 

 Thus did that eminent commander and magnanimous enemy sustain the high cha- 

 racter which he has so justly attained as well with the English as his own nation 

 in the course of the present war ; and to which or more properly, to those great 

 qualities from which it is derived, he is perhaps no less beholden for some of hia 

 acquisitions, than by the superiority of his arms.'' 



■j- See the Annual Register for 1784-5, for the thanks and present of plate voted 

 to the marquis de Houllie by the West-India merchants, for his humanity in hia 

 several conquests, and his answer to them. 



Aa2 



