Undismayed by the failure of their attempt on Ireland, the enemy were now preparing for a more formidable descent.  They equipped a larger fleet than before, with a far more numerous army, over which they appointed the same able commander:  and by an agreement with Holland, the Dutch fleet in the Texel, under Admiral de Winter, was to carry over a second army.  This was to be commanded by General Daendels, an officer of great ability and decision.  Napoleon thought very highly of him, and it was a material part of his own plan of invasion to send him with thirty thousand chosen troops to Ireland.  He afterwards became Governor of Java, where he acted with an independence which awakened the jealousy of his master.  Discovering this, he wrote to declare that he could hold the island against any force which France, or even England, could bring against him; but that to mark his devotedness to his emperor, he was ready to resign his command, and serve in the French army as a corporal.  He was Governor of Mons during the invasion of France by the Allied armies; and he boasted to Mr. Pellew, who spent a few days with him after the peace, that an advancing army made a considerable circuit to avoid him, and that he held the fortress unmolested until Napoleon had abdicated; when he wrote to the Allied Sovereigns, asking to whom he should resign it.  An invasion of Ireland, directed by generals such as Hoche and Daendels, and at a time when the British navy was in a state of mutiny, was an event justly to be dreaded; but all these mighty preparations were overturned more easily and quietly than the former.  Everything was ready; and General Hoche had gone to Holland to make the final arrangements with his brother commanders, when the Legislative Assembly of France quarrelled with the Directory, and gained a temporary ascendancy.  On the 16th of July, the new government displaced Vice-Admiral Truguet, the able Minister of Marine, and appointed M. Pleville le Peley his successor.  With the usual madness of party, the new minister and his employer hastened to overturn all that had been done by their predecessors.  They discharged the sailors, dismantled the fleet, and even sold some of the frigates and corvettes by public auction.  When the Directory regained their power, September 4th, after an interval of only six weeks, they found that the preparations which had cost them so much time and treasure to complete, were utterly destroyed.  In the following month, Admiral Duncan annihilated the Dutch fleet, and thus the proposed expedition was baffled at every point.  Were a history of England written, with due regard to the operations of Divine Providence, in deliverances and successes effected not by human wisdom, or human strength, what cause would it afford for unbounded gratitude, and for unbounded confidence!