1794] GENERAL DUNDAS ON TOULON 41

able but had no power to stop. Those delays had prevented him from reaching the Victory earlier. Hood at once reproaches him of all men for the delay, and does not even ask at what date he left Gibraltar. Nor apparently does Hood take any steps to ascertain why his own officers did not report to him earlier. He behaved like the railway passenger who abuses a porter for the faults of a railway company.

Every part of the ship, I observed, was crowded with French people, men and women; they are the principal families of Toulon, who made their escape on board the night of the evacuation. I heard a fiddle and dancing in the ward-room, and was not a little surprised when I was told it was the French dancing out the old year; few of them have anything but the clothes on their backs, and the prospect before them is but gloomy, yet they contrive to make themselves happy. I returned this morning to the Victory. Her quarter-deck forms a curious medley. There were French ladies and gentlemen, officers of the navy and army, commissioners, commissaries, &c. I had a very long conversation with General Dundas; he pointed out upon a very large plan of the environs of Toulon the different attacks which had been made, &c. The defence of the harbour and town comprehends a space of fifteen miles, in which, besides the smaller, there are five or six principal posts. The loss of any one of these rendered the place untenable. The only possibility of securing it was therefore to have marched an army into the country and to have acted offensively. It was his opinion, and that of General O'Hara, that they ought to have abandoned it long before; as it was evident to them that they should be forced to do it soon, perhaps with the loss of the greatest part of the troops, and possibly even part of the fleet. This was represented in the strongest manner to Lord Hood, who chose to follow his own opinion. The consequence has been that the destruction of the fleet and arsenal, which might have been complete, has