The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 1793-1812, Vol II

October, 1801.-May, 1803

THE preliminaries of peace between Great Britain and France, signed on the first of October, 1801, were regarded by both parties, at least ostensibly, as settling their relative status and acquisitions. In their broad outlines no change would be worked by the definitive treaty, destined merely to regulate details whose adjustment would demand time and so prolong the distress of war. This expectation, that the basis of a durable peace had been reached, proved delusive. A series of unpleasant surprises awaited first one party and then the other, producing in Great Britain a feeling of insecurity, which gave point and added vigor to the declamations of those who from the first had scoffed at the idea of any peace proving permanent, if it rested upon the good faith of the French government and surrendered those material guarantees which alone, they asserted, could curb the ambition and enforce the respect of a man like Bonaparte. Bitter indeed must have been the unspoken thoughts of the ministry, as the revolving months brought with them an unceasing succession of events which justified their opponents' prophecies while proving themselves to be outwitted; and which, by the increase given to French influence and power in Europe, necessitated the maintenance of large military establishments, and converted the peace from first to last into a condition of armed truce.

The day after the signature of the preliminaries news reached London [61 - Annual Register 1801, p. 280.] of the surrender of Alexandria, which completed the loss of Egypt by the French. It was believed that Bonaparte had, at the time of signing, possessed this information, which would have materially affected the footing upon which he was treating. However that was, he was undoubtedly assured of the issue, [62 - See ante, p. 70 (#x12_x_12_i41).] and therefore precipitated a conclusion by which to France, and not to Great Britain, was attributed the gracious act of restoring its dominion to the Porte. Concealing the fact from the Turkish plenipotentiary in Paris, the French government on the 9th of October signed with him a treaty, by which it undertook to evacuate the province it no longer held. In return, Turkey conceded to France, her recent enemy, commercial privileges equal to those allowed Great Britain, to whose sea power alone she owed the recovery of Syria and Egypt. This bargain, concluded without the knowledge of the British ministry, was not made public until after the ratification of the preliminaries. At the same time became known a treaty with Portugal, signed at Madrid on the 29th of September. By the preliminaries with Great Britain, Portuguese territory was to remain intact; but by the treaty of Madrid so much of Brazil was added to French Guiana as to give the latter control of the northern outlet of the Amazon.

These events were surprises, and disagreeable surprises, to the British ministers. On the other hand, the existence of the secret treaty of March 21, 1801, by which Spain ceded to France the colony of Louisiana, was known to them, [63 - Am. State Papers, vol. ii. pp. 509, 511.] though unavowed at the time of signing. While impressed with the importance of this transaction, following as it did the cession of the Spanish half of San Domingo, the ministry allowed the veil of mystery, with which Bonaparte had been pleased to shroud it, to remain unlifted. The United States minister to London had procured and forwarded to his government on the 20th of November a copy of this treaty, [64 - Am. State Papers, vol. ii. p. 511.] which so closely affected his fellow countrymen; but it was not until January, 1802, that the fact became generally known in England. Gloomy prophecies of French colonial aggrandizement were uttered by the partisans of the Opposition, who pictured the hereditary enemy of Great Britain planted by the Spanish treaty at the mouth of the great river of North America, and by the Portuguese at that of the artery of the southern continent; while the vast and rich colonies of Spain, lying between these two extremes, would be controlled by the supremacy of France in the councils of the Peninsular courts. In a generation which still retained the convictions of the eighteenth century on the subject of colonial expansion, these predictions of evil struck heavily home,—enforced as they were by the knowledge that full one fourth of the trade which made the strength of Great Britain rested then upon that Caribbean America, into which France was now making a colossal intrusion. Faithful to the sagacious principle by which he ever proportioned the extent of his military preparation to the vastness of the end in view, the expedition sent by Bonaparte to reassert in Haïti the long dormant authority of the mother-country was calculated on a scale which aroused intense alarm in London. On the 4th of December, 1801, only ten weeks after the preliminaries were signed, and long before the conclusion of the definitive treaty, fifteen ships-of-the-line and six frigates sailed from Brest for Haïti; and these were rapidly followed by other divisions, so that the whole force dispatched much exceeded twenty ships-of-the-line, and carried over twenty thousand troops. The number was none too great for the arduous task,—indeed experience proved it to be far from adequate to meet the waste due to climatic causes; but to Great Britain it was portentous. Distrusting Bonaparte's purposes, a large division of British ships was ordered to re-enforce the squadron at Jamaica. Weary of a nine-years war and expecting their discharge, the crews of some of the vessels mutinied; and the execution of several of these poor seamen was one of the first results of Bonaparte's ill-fated attempt to restore the colonial system of France.

The apprehensions shown concerning these distant undertakings partook more of panic than of reasonable fear. They overlooked the long period that must pass between possession and development, as well as the hopeless inferiority of France in that sea power upon which the tenure of colonies must depend. They ignored the evident enormous difficulties to be overcome, and were blind to the tottering condition of the Spanish colonial system, then rapidly approaching its fall. But if there was exaggeration in an anticipation of danger, which the whole history of her maritime past entitled Great Britain to reject with scorn, there was no question that each month was revealing unexpected and serious changes in the relative positions of the two powers, which, if not wilfully concealed by France, had certainly not been realized by the British ministers when the preliminaries were signed. Whether they had been cheated or merely out-manœuvred, it became daily more plain that the balance of power in Europe, of which Great Britain was so important a factor, was no longer what it had been when she made such heavy sacrifices of her maritime conquests to secure the status of the Continent.

At the same time was unaccountably delayed the work of the plenipotentiaries, who were to settle at Amiens the terms of the definitive treaty. The British ambassador left London on the first of November, and after some stop in Paris reached Amiens on the first of December. The French and Dutch envoys arrived shortly after; but the Spanish failed to appear, and on different pretexts negotiations were spun out. That this was contrary to the wishes of the British ministers scarcely admits of doubt. They had already made every sacrifice they could afford; and the position of a popular government, under the free criticism of a people impatient for a settled condition of affairs, and forced to temporizing expedients for carrying on the state business during a period of uncertainty, was too unpleasant to suggest bad faith on their part. While this suspense still lasted, a startling event occurred, greatly affecting the balance of power. The Cisalpine Republic, whose independence was guaranteed by the treaty of Lunéville, adopted toward the end of 1801 a new constitution, drawn up under the inspection of Bonaparte himself. Delegates of the republic, to the number of several hundred, were summoned to Lyon to confer with the first consul on the permanent organization of their state; and there, under his influence, as was alleged, offered to him the presidency, with functions even more extensive than those he enjoyed as ruler of France. The offer was accepted by him on the 26th of January, 1802; and thus the power of the Cisalpine, with its four million inhabitants, was wielded by the same man who already held that of the French republic. A few days later for the name Cisalpine was substituted Italian,—a change thought to indicate an aggressive attitude towards the remaining states of Italy.

These proceedings at Lyon caused great alarm in England, and many persons before pacifically disposed now wished to renew the war. The ministers nevertheless ignored what had passed so publicly, and continued the effort for peace, despite the delays and tergiversations of which their envoy, Lord Cornwallis, bitterly complained; but by the beginning of March, when negotiations had lasted three months, their patience began to give way. A number of ships were ordered into commission, and extensive naval preparations begun. At the same time an ultimatum was sent forward, and Cornwallis instructed to leave Amiens in eight days if it were not accepted. The first consul had too much at stake on the seas to risk a rupture, [65 - The slightest delay under these circumstances is very prejudicial, and may be of great consequence to our squadrons and naval expeditions.—Corr. de Nap., March 11, 1802.] when he had already gained so much by the protraction of negotiations and by his astute diplomacy. The definitive treaty was signed on the 25th of March, 1802. The terms did not materially differ from those of the preliminaries, except in the article of Malta. The boundary of French Guiana obtained from Portugal was indeed pushed back off the Amazon, but no mention was made of the now notorious cession of Louisiana.

The provisions touching the little island of Malta and its dependencies, Gozo and Comino, were long and elaborate. The object of each country was to secure the exclusion of the other from a position so important for controlling the Mediterranean and the approaches thereby to Egypt and India. The Order of Knights was to be restored, with the provision that no citizen either of Great Britain or France was thereafter to be a member. The independence and neutrality of the Order and of the island were proclaimed. The British forces were to evacuate within three months after the exchange of ratifications; but this stipulation was qualified by the proviso that there should then be on the spot a Grand Master to receive possession, and also two thousand Neapolitan troops which the king of Naples was to be invited to send as a garrison. These were to remain for one year after its restitution to the Grand Master; or longer, if the Order had not then provided the necessary force. Naples was thus selected as guardian of the coveted position, because its weakness could arouse no jealousy. The independence of the islands was placed under the guarantee of Great Britain, France, Austria, Spain, Russia, and Prussia; the last four being also invited to accede to the long list of stipulations. The presence of a grand master and the guarantee of the four powers—whose acquiescence was not first obtained—were thus integral parts of the agreement; and upon their failure Great Britain afterwards justified the delays which left Malta still a pledge in her hands, when she demanded from France explanations and indemnities for subsequent actions, injurious, as she claimed, to her security and to her dignity.

By another clause of the treaty Great Britain consented to evacuate Porto Ferrajo, the principal port in Elba, which she had up to that time held by force of arms. It was then known that this was in effect to abandon the island to France, who had obtained its cession from Naples and Tuscany, formerly joint owners, by conventions first made known some time after the signature of the preliminaries. Elba was by its position fitted seriously to embarrass the trade of Great Britain with Northern Italy, under the restrictions laid wherever Bonaparte's power extended; but the most important feature of the transaction was the impression produced by the long concealment of treaties thus unexpectedly divulged. These sudden, unforeseen changes imparted an air of illusion to all existing conditions, and undermined the feeling of security essential to the permanent relations of states.

Despite the shocks caused by these various revelations, the treaty of Amiens was received in Great Britain with satisfaction, though not with the unmeasured demonstrations that followed the announcement of the preliminaries. In France the general joy was no less profound. "It was believed," writes M. Thiers, "that the true peace, the peace of the seas, was secured,—that peace which was the certain and necessary condition of peace on the Continent." The enthusiasm of the nation was poured out at the feet of the first consul, to whose genius for war and for diplomacy were not unjustly attributed the brilliant, as well as apparently solid, results. Statesmen might murmur that France had lost her colonial empire and failed to hold Egypt and Malta, while Great Britain had extended and consolidated her Indian empire by overthrowing the Sultan of Mysore, the ancient ally of France and her own most formidable foe in the peninsula; but the mass even of intelligent Frenchmen stopped not to regard the wreck of their sea power, of which those disastrous events were but the sign. Facts so remote, and whose significance was not immediately apparent, were lost to sight in the glare of dazzling deeds wrought close at hand. All eyes were held by the splendid succession of victories in Italy and Germany, by the extension of the republic to her natural limits at the Rhine and the Alps, by the restoration of internal order, and by the proudly dominant position accorded their ruler in the councils of the Continent. To these was now added free access to the sea, wrung by the same mighty hand—as was fondly believed—from the weakening of the great Sea Power. At an extraordinary session of the Legislature, convoked to give legal sanction to the treaties and measures of the government, the Treaty of Amiens was presented last, as the crowning work of the first consul; and it was used as the occasion for conferring upon him a striking mark of public acknowledgment. After some hesitations, the question was submitted to the nation whether his tenure of office should be for life. The majority of votes cast were affirmative; and on the 3d of August, 1802, the senate formally presented to him a senatus-consultum, setting forth that "the French people names, and the senate proclaims. Napoleon Bonaparte consul for life."

Bonaparte had not waited for this exaltation to continue his restless political activity, destined soon to make waste paper of the Treaty of Amiens. Great Britain having steadfastly refused to recognize the new states set up by him in Italy, he argued she had forfeited all right to interfere thenceforth in their concerns. From this he seems to have advanced to the position that she had no further claim to mingle in the affairs of the Continent at large. The consequent indifference shown by him to British sentiment and interests, in continental matters, was increased by his conviction that "in the existing state of Europe England cannot reasonably make war, alone, against us;" [66 - Corr. de Nap., March 12, 1802, vol. vii. p. 522.] an opinion whose open avowal in more offensive terms afterwards became the spark to kindle the final great conflagration.

The treaty of Lunéville had provided that the German princes, who by it lost territory on the west bank of the Rhine and in Italy, should receive compensation elsewhere in the German empire; and it was agreed that these indemnities should be made mainly at the expense of the ecclesiastical principalities, where, the tenure being for life only, least hardship would be involved. The difficulties attending these distributions, and the fixed animosity between Prussia and Austria, gave Bonaparte a fair pretext to intervene as mediator, and to guide the final settlement upon lines which should diminish the relative power and prestige of France's traditional enemy, Austria, and exalt her rivals. In doing this he adroitly obtained the imposing support of Russia, whose young sovereign readily accepted the nattering offer of joint intervention; the more so that the princes allied to his family might thus receive a disproportionate share of the spoils. Under Bonaparte's skilful handling, the acquisitions of Prussia were so far greater than those of Austria as to fulfil his prediction, that "the empire of Germany should be really divided into two empires, since its affairs will be arranged at two different centres." [67 - Ibid., April 3, 1802, vol. vii. p. 543.] After the settlement he boasted that "the affairs of Germany had been arranged entirely to the advantage of France and of her allies." [68 - Corr. de Nap., July 1, 1802, vol. vii. p. 641.] Great Britain was not consulted; and her people, though silent, saw with displeasure the weakening of their ally and the aggrandizement of a state they held to be faithless as well as hostile. At the same time bad feeling was further excited by the peremptory demands of Bonaparte for the expulsion from England of certain French royalists, and for the repression of the freedom of the British press in its attacks upon himself. To these demands the British government declined to yield.

The reclamations of Bonaparte against the press, and his intervention in German affairs, preceded the proclamation of the consulate for life. It was followed at a short interval by the formal incorporation with France of Piedmont and Elba, by decree dated September 11, 1802. Piedmont had been organized as a French military department in April, 1801; [69 - Ibid., April 13, 1801, vol. vii. p. 153.] and Bonaparte had then secretly avowed the measure to be a first step to annexation. The significance of the present action was that it changed a condition which was de facto only, and presumably temporary, to one that was claimed to be de jure and permanent. As such, it was a distinct encroachment by France, much affecting the states of the Continent, and especially Austria, against whose Italian possessions Piedmont was meant to serve as a base of operations. The adjacent Republic of Liguria, as the Genoese territory was then styled, was also organized as a French military division, [70 - Ibid., April 18, 1801, vol. vii. p. 162.] and no security existed against similar action there,—most injurious to British commerce, and adding another to the transformation scenes passing before the eyes of Europe. Nor was the material gain to France alone considered; for, no compensation being given to the King of Sardinia for the loss of his most important state, this consummated injury was felt as a slight by both Great Britain and Russia, which had earnestly sought some reparation for him. For the time, however, no remonstrance was made by the ministry.

New offence was soon given, which, if not greater in degree, produced all the effect of cumulative grievance. The little canton of Valais, in south-western Switzerland, had in the spring of 1802 been forcibly detached from the confederation and proclaimed independent, in order to secure to the French the Simplon route passing through it to Italy; a measure which, wrote Bonaparte, "joined to the exclusive right of France to send her armies by that road, has changed the system of war to be adopted in Italy." [71 - Corr. de Nap., August 2, 1802, vol. vii. p. 696.] No further open step was then taken to control the affairs of Switzerland; but the French minister was instructed to support secretly the party in sympathy with the Revolution, [72 - Ibid., vol. vii. pp. 528, 544.] and an ominous sentence appeared in the message of the first consul to the Legislature, May 6, 1802, that "the counsels of the French government to the factions in Switzerland had so far been ineffective. It is still hoped that the voice of wisdom and moderation will command attention, and that the powers adjoining Helvetia will not be forced to intervene to stifle troubles whose continuance would threaten their own tranquillity." [73 - Ibid., vol. vii. p. 578.]

In Switzerland, perhaps more than in any other part of Europe, had been realized the purpose, announced by the National Convention in the celebrated decrees of November 19 and December 15, 1792, to propagate by force changes in the government of countries where the French armies could penetrate. Vast changes had indeed been made in Belgium, Holland, and Italy; but these when first invaded were in open war with France. The interference in Switzerland in 1798 had no characteristic of serious war, for no means of opposition existed in the invaded cantons. It was an armed intervention, undertaken by the Directory under the impulsion of Bonaparte, avowedly to support citizens of a foreign state "wishing to recover their liberty." [74 - Decree of Nov. 19, 1792.] As soon as the signal was given by the entrance of the French armies in 1798 the rising was prompt and general;" [75 - Thiers, Cons. et Emp., livre xv. p. 38.] and was followed by the adoption of a highly centralized constitution, for which the country was unprepared. From that time forward agitation was incessant. Two parties strove for the mastery; the one favoring the new order, known as the Unitarians, whose sympathies were with the French Revolution, the other the Aristocratic, which sought to return towards the former Constitution, and looked for countenance and support to the older governments of Europe. Between the two there was a central party of more moderate opinions.

Having secured the Valais for France, Bonaparte in August, 1802, withdrew the French troops till then maintained in Switzerland; a politic measure tending to show Europe that he respected the independence of the country guaranteed at Lunéville. The opposing parties soon came to blows; and the nominal government of moderates, which had obtained its authority by extra-constitutional action, [76 - Ibid., livre xv. pp. 50, 51.] found that it had on its side "neither the ardent patriots, who wished absolute unity, nor the peaceable masses sufficiently well disposed to the revolution, but who knew it only by the horrors of war and the presence of foreign troops." [77 - Ibid., xvi. p. 234.] The aristocratic party got the upper hand and established itself in the capital, whence the government was driven. The latter appealed to Bonaparte to intervene; and after a moment's refusal he decided to do so. "I will not," he said, "deliver the formidable bastions of the Alps to fifteen hundred mercenaries paid by England." A French colonel was sent as special envoy bearing a proclamation, dated September 30, 1802, to command the oligarchic government to dissolve and all armed assemblies to disperse. To support this order, thirty thousand French soldiers, under General Ney, were massed on the frontiers and soon entered the country. Before this show of force all opposition in Switzerland at once ceased.

The emotion of Europe was profound; but of the great powers none save Great Britain spoke. What to Bonaparte was a step necessary to the supremacy of France, even though a violation of the treaty of Lunéville, was, in the eyes of Englishmen, not only among the ministry but among the most strenuous of the opposition, an oppressive interference with "the lawful efforts of a brave and generous people to recover their ancient laws and government, and to procure the re-establishment of a system which experience has demonstrated not only to be favorable to the maintenance of their domestic happiness, but to be perfectly consistent with the tranquillity and security of other powers." The British cabinet expressed an unwillingness to believe that there "would be any further attempt to control that independent nation in the exercise of its undoubted rights." [78 - Note Verbale. Remonstrance addressed to the French government. (Ann. Reg. 1802; State Papers, p. 675.)]

Despite this avowed confidence, the ministry on the same day, October 10, that this vigorous remonstrance was penned, dispatched a special envoy with orders to station himself on the frontiers of Switzerland, ascertain the disposition of the people, and assure them that, if they were disposed to resist the French advance, Great Britain would furnish them pecuniary succors. The envoy was carefully to refrain from promoting resistance, if the Swiss did not spontaneously offer it; but if they did, he was to give them every facility to obtain arms and supplies. Being thus committed to a course which could scarcely fail to lead to hostilities, the British ministry next bethought itself to secure some conquests of the late war, for whose restitution, in compliance with the treaty, orders had already gone forward. On the 17th of October dispatches were sent to the West Indies, to Dutch Guiana, and to the Cape of Good Hope, directing that the French and Dutch colonies ordered to be restored should be retained until further instructions.

Upon receiving the British remonstrance, Bonaparte broke into furious words mingled with threats. On the 23d of October he dictated instructions to M. Otto, the French minister in London, which are characterized even by M. Thiers as truly extraordinary. "He would not deliver the Alps to fifteen hundred mercenaries paid by England. If the British ministry, to support its parliamentary influence, should intimate that there was anything the first consul had not done, because he was prevented from doing it, that instant he would do it." He scouted the danger to France from maritime war, and said plainly that, if it arose, the coasts of Europe from Hanover to Taranto would be occupied by French troops and closed to British commerce. "Liguria, Lombardy, Switzerland and Holland would be converted into French provinces, realizing the Empire of the Gauls." Great Britain herself was threatened with invasion by a hundred thousand soldiers; and if, to avert the danger, she succeeded in arousing another continental war, "it would be England that forced us to conquer Europe. The first consul was but thirty-three. He had as yet destroyed only states of the second order. Who knows how long it would take him, if forced thereto, to change again the face of Europe and revive the Empire of the West?" The minister was directed to state to the British government that the policy of France towards England was "the whole treaty of Amiens; nothing but the treaty of Amiens." A week later the same phrase was repeated in the Moniteur, the official journal, in an article which expressly denied Great Britain's right to appeal to the treaty of Lunéville, because she had refused to recognize the new states constituted by it. M. Otto wisely withheld the provoking language of the dispatch, but necessarily communicated the demand for the whole treaty of Amiens and the refusal of aught not therein found. To this the British minister of foreign affairs replied with the pregnant words, "The state of the Continent when the treaty of Amiens was signed, and nothing but that state." The two declarations created a dead-lock, unless one party would recede.

Despite these explicit formulas both governments were somewhat in the dark as to the extent of the dangers. The British ministry had not heard all that Bonaparte said, and he was ignorant of the orders sent to retain the captured colonies. Meanwhile, Swiss opposition having failed, the British envoy to them was recalled; and on the 15th of November new instructions were sent to the Cape of Good Hope and the West Indies, revoking those of the previous month to stop the restitutions. It remained, however, a question whether the second vessel would overtake the first. If she did not, the action of the British ministry would transpire in an offensive way. Accordingly, when Parliament met on the 23d of November, the king's speech took the color of this perplexity, alluding somewhat enigmatically to the necessity of watching the European situation and providing for security as well as for peace. The debates which followed were tinged with the same hue of uncertainty. The ministry could only say that its policy was to preserve peace, if possible; but that, in view of recent events, it must call upon the House and the country to entertain a spirit of watchfulness. [79 - Lord Hawkesbury's speech; Parl. Hist., vol. xxxvi. p. 971.]

The Swiss affair was the turning-point in the relations of the two countries. The first consul's vigilance had been lulled by the seeming easy acquiescence of the British ministry in previous encroachments, and the readiness with which, notwithstanding these, they had surrendered their conquests and continued to fulfil the terms of the treaty. Their present action not only exasperated, but aroused him. The remonstrance ended in words; but, like the little trickle which betrays the fissure in a dam, it betokened danger and gave warning that the waters of strife were ready to burst through the untempered barrier put together to restrain them, and again pour their desolating flood over Europe. Bonaparte began to look carefully at the existing situation, and found that the British troops had not yet quitted Egypt nor surrendered Malta to the Order of St. John. Representations were made on both these subjects, and the British government was pressed to evacuate Malta. [80 - Parl. Hist., vol. xxxvi. p. 1380.]

The ministry, however, were also alive to the gravity of the situation, increased as it was by the orders, not yet known, to stop the restitutions. To abandon Egypt to Turkey they had no objection; and to the French ambassador's demand replied, on November 30, that the failure to do so had resulted from a misunderstanding on the part of the British commander-in-chief, to whom explicit instructions were now sent. Regarding Malta, their feeling was very different. Honestly intending to carry out the treaty, they had admitted the Neapolitan garrison to the island, though not yet to the fortifications; and their ambassadors to the Great Powers had been early directed to ask their guarantee for the independence of the Order. The French government did not instruct its representatives to do the same. Whether this was due, as Thiers says, to the negligence of Talleyrand, or whether the first consul preferred not to be troubled by the resistance of other powers in case he again seized the island, the failure of France to join in the application caused Russia and Prussia to defer their answer to the British ambassadors. The joint request was not made to Prussia until September, nor to the czar until November 3. By this time the Swiss incident had come and gone, leaving behind it the state of tension already described. Not till the 25th of the month did the czar reply; and then, before giving his acquiescence, he required in the organization of the island changes seriously affecting the object of the treaty, which aimed to base its independence upon its own people as well as upon guarantees. At Amiens it had been agreed that the Order should be open to native Maltese, by whom also at least half the government offices should be filled. Half the garrison likewise was to be composed of natives. To these provisions the czar excepted. All such points of interior organization were to be left to the decision of the legal government of the Order; [81 - Annual Register, 1803, p. 681.] i. e., of the Order as before constituted.

The record of the ministry in the matter of Malta was so clear that it could well afford to protract discussion on the points raised by Russia. No cession made by the treaty had been more generally lamented by Englishmen, keenly sensitive to all that affected their position in the Mediterranean or threatened the approaches to India. In case the peace which was its sole achievement failed, the ministry could save from the wreck of its hopes no more welcome prize with which to meet a disappointed people. Other valid objections to restoration were not wanting. No Grand Master had yet accepted. Spain, notoriously under Bonaparte's influence, had suppressed the revenues of the Order within her limits. Similar action had followed elsewhere, and it was argued that the income of the Order would not suffice to maintain the defence of the island, nor consequently its independence. But, while thus keeping its hold on Malta by diplomatic pleas, the ministry took broader ground in its discussions with France. Its envoy there was replaced by an ambassador of the highest rank, Lord Whitworth; who was instructed to affirm explicitly Great Britain's right to interfere in continental affairs, whenever in her judgment required by her own interests, or those of Europe in general. He was also to point out the various encroachments which had added to the influence and power of France, and to intimate that these changes in the conditions since the treaty had been concluded entitled Great Britain to compensations. The annexation of Piedmont, the renunciation of the Grand Duke of Parma in favor of France, the invasion of Switzerland, were specifically named as making a most material alteration in the state of engagements since the conclusion of the definitive treaty. Attention was also called to the fact that although, by a convention signed in August, 1801, French troops were to remain in Holland only until the conclusion of peace between Great Britain and France, they had not yet been withdrawn, thus violating the independence of the Batavian republic guaranteed at Lunéville. The ambassador was warned, however, not to commit the government to any specific determinations, and especially on the subject of Malta. [82 - Secret Instructions to Lord Whitworth; Yonge's Life of Lord Liverpool, vol. i. p. 93.]

The ministers, therefore, were still undecided. They had climbed upon the fence, but were prepared to get down again on the side whence they had started, if a fair opportunity were given. Unfortunately for the interests of peace, Bonaparte, in the madness of his strength, either exaggerating the weakness of the ministry or underestimating the impulsion it could receive from popular feeling, proceeded deliberately to arouse the spirit which he was never again able to lay. On the 30th of January, 1803, was published in the "Moniteur" Colonel Sébastiani's famous report of his mission to the Levant. Sébastiani had been dispatched in a frigate the previous September, to visit Tripoli, Egypt, Syria, and the Ionian islands, and ascertain the political and military conditions. His report was in the main a fulsome narrative of the reverence in which the first consul was said to be held by the Eastern peoples; but, upon the very detailed account of the indifference to military preparations, followed the startling statement that "six thousand French troops would now suffice to conquer Egypt." The Ionian islands were also pronounced ready to declare themselves French at the first opportunity. Finally, General Stuart, commanding the British troops in Alexandria, was accused of seeking to compass Sébastiani's murder by sending to the Pasha a copy of a general order issued by Bonaparte when in Egypt.

The exasperation such a paper would excite in Great Britain was so obvious, that its publication has been attributed to the deliberate design to provoke a maritime war; under cover of which the first consul could, without open humiliation, abandon the enterprise against Haïti. [83 - Adams, Hist. of the United States, 1801-1817, vol. ii. pp. 13-21.] The first and general success of the French troops in that colony had been followed by a frightful pestilence of yellow fever; after which the negroes in every quarter again rose and defied the weakened bands of their enemies. On the 8th of January the "Moniteur" published the death of Leclerc, the commander-in-chief, with an account of the ravages of the disease. It was indeed painfully apparent that the colony could not be regained, and utilized, without an expenditure of life impossible to afford; [84 - The San Domingo expedition cost the lives of over twenty-five thousand French soldiers.] but the fever itself was an excuse even more potent than the British navy for abandoning the attempt without military dishonor. To penetrate the real motives of a spirit so subtle and unscrupulous as Bonaparte's is hopeless; nor can dependence be placed upon the statements of his brothers Lucien and Joseph, who are the sole authorities for the purpose thus alleged for the publication. There seems little cause to seek another reason than the same truculent arrogance manifested in his instructions to Otto of October 23, and the success which his past experience had taught him to expect from bluster. The secret mission to Prussia of his confidential aid, Duroc, six weeks later, clearly indicates that the result had disappointed him and that he did not want war,—at least as yet. [85 - The British ambassador in Paris reached the same conclusion from the instructions sent by Talleyrand to the French envoy in London. "It appears from this note that this government is not desirous to proceed to extremities; that is to say, it is not prepared to do so." (March 18; Parl. Hist., vol. xxxvi. p. 1315.) The United States minister in Paris also wrote, March 24, "Here there is an earnest and sincere desire to avoid war, as well in the government as the people." (Am. State Papers, ii. 549.)] Duroc was instructed to see the king personally and say that, if war broke out, French troops would occupy Hanover, a step known to be particularly obnoxious to Prussia, who wished herself to absorb it. Her repugnance was to be used as a lever, to induce intervention with Great Britain to evacuate Malta. [86 - Instructions to Duroc, March 12, 1803, Corr. de Nap., vol. viii. pp. 307-311. It is noteworthy that these instructions were issued the same day that was received in Paris information of the king's message to Parliament of March 8, that "in consequence of military preparations in the ports of France and Holland he had adopted additional measures of precaution." Two days later the militia was called out.]

Bonaparte in truth was less interested in the West than in the East, whose vast populations, vivid history, and fabled riches struck his imagination far more forcibly than the unpeopled wildernesses of America. Access to the East, as to the West, was perforce by water, and so controlled by the power that ruled the sea; but the way by the Levant was shorter, evasion therefore easier. Malta, Taranto, the Ionian islands, the Morea were gateways to the East. The last three, as practically continental, [87 - Corr. de Nap., vol. viii. p. 308.] he considered to be within his own grasp; the first alone could be readily and securely held by the Power of the Seas. From it therefore he sought to hasten her. On the 27th of January Talleyrand, "with great solemnity and by express order of the first consul," required of Lord Whitworth to inform him what were his Majesty's intentions regarding the evacuation of Malta. No reply was given, except a promise to report the conversation. [88 - Parl. Hist., vol. xxxvi. p. 1293.] On the 30th was issued Sébastiani's report, whose scarcely veiled threats against British interests in the East might perhaps induce a weak government to propitiate the first consul by compliance.

If so meant, the attempt was miscalculated. The British ministry replied that, despite his just claim for compensation, the king would have withdrawn his force from Malta, when the clauses of the treaty affecting it were fulfilled; but that, in view of Sébastiani's report, he would not do so until substantial security was provided against the purposes therein revealed. From that time forward letters and interviews followed in rapid succession, the British ministry gradually stiffening in its attitude concerning the island. On the 20th of February Bonaparte gave a fresh provocation which deeply stirred the British people, although no notice was taken of it by the ministry. In a message sent that day to the legislature, he declared the certainty of continental peace; but concerning Great Britain he continued: "Two parties there strive for power. One has made peace and wishes to keep it; the other has sworn implacable hatred to France.... Whatever the success of intrigue in London, it will not drag other nations into new leagues, and this government says with just pride: 'England, alone, cannot to-day contend against France.'"

On March 8 the British government sent a message to Parliament, that, in consequence of military preparations going on in the ports of France and Holland, the king judged expedient to adopt additional measures of precaution for the security of his dominions. It is fair to say that these preparations were not on a scale by themselves to warrant the proposed action; which was asserted by critics of the ministry to be due to information of transactions at the Cape of Good Hope. This had already been delivered to the Dutch authorities when the orders countermanding the restitution arrived; but the British commander had adroitly repossessed himself of the works. This news reached London early in March; and the proposed armaments were thought to be precautions rather against Bonaparte's action, when he too heard it, than against the existing movements in French or Dutch ports.

From this time forward Great Britain rather than France was aggressive. Receiving no explanation upon the grievances advanced, Lord Whitworth was on the 4th of April instructed to say that, if the French government continued to evade discussion about compensations due for its aggressions on the Continent and satisfaction for Sébastiani's report, and yet demanded the evacuation of Malta, he should declare that relations of amity could not continue to exist, and that he must leave Paris within a certain time. If they were willing to discuss, he was instructed to propose the cession of Malta in perpetuity to Great Britain and the evacuation of Holland and Switzerland by French troops; in return for which Great Britain would confirm Elba to France and acknowledge the kingdom of Etruria. If a satisfactory arrangement were made in Italy for the king of Sardinia, she would further acknowledge the Italian and Ligurian republics. The first consul replied that he would sooner see the British on the heights of Montmartre than in the possession of Malta. Some futile efforts were made to find a middle term; but the ministry having insisted, as its ultimatum, upon occupying the island for at least ten years, the ambassador demanded his passports and left Paris on the 12th of May. On the 16th Great Britain declared war against France. The following day Admiral Cornwallis sailed from Plymouth with ten ships-of-the-line, and two days later appeared off Brest, resuming the watch of that port. On the afternoon of the 18th Nelson hoisted his flag on board the "Victory" at Portsmouth, and on the 20th sailed for the Mediterranean, there to take the chief command.

Thus again, after a brief intermission, began the strife between Great Britain and France, destined during its twelve years' course to involve successively all the powers of Europe, from Portugal to Russia, from Turkey to Sweden. On the land, state after state went down before the great soldier who wielded the armies of France and the auxiliary legions of subject countries, added to her standards by his policy. Victory after victory graced his eagles, city after city and province after province were embodied in his empire, peace after peace was wrested from the conquered; but one enemy remained ever erect, unsubdued, defiant; and on the ocean there was neither peace nor truce, until the day when he himself fell under the hosts of foes, aroused by his vain attempt to overthrow, through their sufferings, the power that rested upon the seas.

The debates in the House of Commons revealed an agreement of sentiment unparalleled in the former war. Differences of opinion there were. A very few thought that hostilities might even yet be averted, while others argued bitterly that, had Bonaparte's first encroachments been resisted, the nation might have been spared, if not war, at least humiliation. But, while both groups condemned the administration, the one for precipitation, the other for pusillanimous and protracted submission, both agreed that just occasion for war had been given. As usual, opposition took the form of an amendment to the address, which, while carefully excluding any approval of the ministry, still "assured his Majesty of our firm determination to co-operate with his Majesty in calling forth the resources of the United Kingdom for the vigorous prosecution of the war in which we are involved." The proposer, Mr. Grey—one of the most strenuous opponents of the former war—was careful to say that, though he objected to some points of the late negotiation, he acknowledged the necessity of resisting the spirit of encroachment shown by France. Even for this very qualified disapproval of a ministry in whose capacity none had confidence, there could in this grave crisis be found only 67 votes, against 398 who preferred not to weaken, by an apparent discord, the unanimous voice. Having regard to the reasons for their dissent urged by the various speakers, the result disposes forever of the vain assertion that Great Britain feared to meet France alone. The solemn decision was not taken blindfold nor in haste. The exorbitant power of Bonaparte, the impossibility of allies, the burden that must be borne, were all quoted and faced; and Mr. Pitt, who then spoke for the first time in many months, while fully supporting the war, warned the members in his stately periods of the arduous struggle before them. "In giving their assurances he trusted that other gentlemen felt impressed with the same sense which he did of the awful importance of the engagement into which they were preparing to enter; and that they considered those assurances, not as formal words of ceremony or custom, but as a solemn and deliberate pledge, on behalf of themselves and of the nation whom they represented,—knowing and feeling to their full extent the real difficulties and dangers of their situation, and being prepared to meet those difficulties and dangers with every exertion and every sacrifice which the unexampled circumstances of the times rendered indispensable for the public safety.... The scale of our exertions could not be measured by those of former times, or confined within the limits even of the great, and till then unexampled, efforts of the last war." [89 - Speech of May 23, 1803.]

In the same speech Pitt correctly and explicitly indicated the two methods by which France might seek to subdue Great Britain. "If they indulge themselves in any expectation of success in the present contest, it is built chiefly on the supposition (1) that they can either break the spirit and shake the determination of the country by harassing us with perpetual apprehension of descent upon our coasts, or (2) that they can impair our resources and undermine our credit, by the effects of an expensive and protracted contest." Not to one only, but to both of these means did Bonaparte resort, on a scale proportioned to his comprehensive genius and his mighty resources. For the invasion of England preparations were at once begun, so extensive and so thorough as to indicate not a mere threat, but a fixed purpose; and at the same time measures were taken to close to Great Britain the markets of the Continent, as well as to harass her commerce by the ordinary operations of maritime war. Trafalgar marked the term when all thought of invasion disappeared, and was succeeded by the vast combinations of the Continental System, itself but an expansion of the former measures of exclusion. Framed to impair the resources and sap the credit of Great Britain, this stupendous fabric, upheld, not by the cohesion of its parts, but by the dextrous balancing of an ever watchful policy, overtaxed the skill and strength of its designer, and crushed him in its fall.

CHAPTER XV

The Trafalgar Campaign to the Spanish Declaration of War. May, 1803—December, 1804

Preparations for the Invasion of England.—The Great Flotilla.—Napoleon's Military and Naval Combinations and British Naval Strategy.—Essential Unity of Napoleon's Purpose.—Causes of Spanish War.

ALTHOUGH Great Britain and France had each, up to the last moment, hoped to retain peace upon its own terms, preparations for war had gone on rapidly ever since the king's message of March 8. Immediately upon issuing this, couriers were dispatched to the various sea-ports, with orders to impress seamen for the numerous ships hastily ordered into commission. Some details have come down giving a vivid presentment of that lawless proceeding known as a "hot press," at this period when it was on the point of disappearing. "About 7 P. M. yesterday," says the Plymouth report of March 10, "the town was alarmed with the marching of several bodies of Royal Marines in parties of twelve or fourteen each, with their officers and a naval officer, armed. So secret were the orders kept that they did not know the nature of the service on which they were going, until they boarded the tier of colliers at the new quay, and other gangs the ships at Catwater, the Pool and the gin-shops. A great number of prime seamen were taken out and sent on board the admiral's ship. In other parts of the town, and in all the receiving and gin-shops at Dock, several hundreds of seamen and landsmen were picked up. By returns this morning it appears that upwards of four hundred useful hands were pressed last night. One gang entered the Dock theatre and cleared the whole gallery except the women." Parties of seamen and marines were placed across all roads leading out of the towns, to intercept fugitives. In Portsmouth the colliers were stripped so clean of men that they could not put to sea; while frigates and smaller vessels swept the Channel and other sea-approaches to the kingdom, stopping all merchant ships, and taking from them a part of their crews. The whole flotilla of trawl-boats fishing off the Eddystone, forty in number, were searched, and two hands taken from each. Six East India ships, wind-bound off Plymouth on their outward voyage, were boarded by armed boats and robbed of three hundred seamen, till then unaware that a rupture with France was near. [90 - Naval Chronicle, vol. ix. pp. 243, 247, 329, 330, 332, 491.]

Bonaparte on his side had been no less active, although he sought by the secrecy of his movements to avert alarm and postpone, if possible, the war which for his aims was premature. Orders were given that re-enforcements for the colonies should go forward rapidly, ere peace was broken. No ships-of-the-line or frigates should henceforth go with them; and those already abroad were for the most part at once recalled. Troops were concentrated on the coasts of Holland and Flanders; and the flat-boats built in the last war with a view to invading England were assembled quietly in the Scheldt and the Channel ports. Plans were studied for the harassment of British commerce. On the 9th of April was commanded the armament of the shores, from the Scheldt westward to the Somme, a distance of one hundred and twenty miles, which afterwards became, to use Marmont's vivid expression, "a coast of iron and bronze." A few days later Elba and all the coasts and islands of France were ordered fortified; and the first consul's aides-de-camp sped north and east and west, to see and report the state of preparation in all quarters.

One affair of great importance still remained to arrange. The smaller French islands in the East and West Indies could be held in subjection by a moderate number of troops, who could also resist for a considerable time any attempt of the British, unless on a very large scale. This was not the case with Haïti or Louisiana. In the former the French, reduced by the fever, were now shut up in a few sea-ports; communication between which, being only by water, must cease when the maritime war broke out. Between the blacks within and the British without, the loss of the island was therefore certain. Louisiana had not yet been occupied. Whatever its unknown possibilities, the immediate value to France of this possession, so lately regained, was as a source of supplies to Haïti, dependent for many essentials upon the American continent. With the fall of the island the colony on the mainland became useless. Its cession by Spain to France had at once aroused the jealousy, with which, from colonial days, the people of the United States have viewed any political interference by European nations on the American continent, even when involving only a transfer from one power to another. In the dire straits of the Revolution, when the need of help from abroad was so great, they had been careful to insert in the Treaty of Alliance with France an express stipulation, that she would not acquire for herself any of the possessions of Great Britain on the mainland; having then in view Canada and the Floridas. This feeling was intensified when, as now, the change of ownership was from a weak and inert state like Spain to one so powerful as France, with the reputation for aggressiveness that was fast gathering around the name of Bonaparte.

The fear and anger of the American people increased with the reserve shown by the French government, in replying to the questions of their minister in Paris, who asked repeatedly, but in vain, for assurances as to the navigation of the Mississippi; and the excitement reached a climax when in November, 1802, news was received that the Spanish authorities in New Orleans had refused to American citizens the right of deposit, conceded by the treaty of 1795 with Spain. This was naturally attributed to Bonaparte's influence, and the inhabitants of the upper Mississippi valley were ready to resort to arms to enforce their rights.

Such was the threatening state of affairs in America, while war with Great Britain was fast drawing on. Bonaparte was not the man to recede before a mere menace of hostilities in the distant wilderness of Louisiana; but it was plain that, in case of rupture with Great Britain, any possessions of France on the Gulf of Mexico were sure to fall either to her or to the Americans, if he incurred the enmity of the latter. It was then believed in Washington that France had also acquired from Spain the Floridas, which contained naval ports essential to the defence of Louisiana. On the 12th of April, 1803, arrived in Paris Mr. Monroe, sent by Jefferson as envoy extraordinary, to treat, in conjunction with the regular minister to France, for the cession of the Floridas and of the island of New Orleans to the United States; the object of the latter being to secure the Mississippi down to its mouth as their western boundary. Monroe's arrival was most opportune. Lord Whitworth had five days before communicated the message of the British cabinet that, unless the French government was prepared to enter into the required explanations, relations of amity could not exist, and at the same time the London papers were discussing a proposition to raise fifty thousand men to take New Orleans. [91 - Am. State Papers, vol. ii. p. 553.] Three days later, April 10, the first consul decided to sell Louisiana; [92 - Ibid.] and Monroe upon his arrival had only to settle the terms of the bargain, which did not indeed realize the precise object of his mission, but which gave to his country control of the west bank of the Mississippi throughout its course, and of both banks from its mouth nearly to Baton Rouge, a distance of over two hundred miles. The treaty, signed April 30, 1803, gave to the United States "the whole of Louisiana as Spain had possessed it," for the sum of eighty million francs. Thus the fear of Great Britain's sea power was the determining factor [93 - In case of war, it was the purpose of the British government to send an expedition to occupy New Orleans, as it did afterwards in 1814. (Am. State papers, vol. ii. pp. 551, 557.)] to sweep the vast region known as Louisiana, stretching from the Gulf toward Canada, and from the Mississippi toward Mexico, with ill-defined boundaries in either direction, into the hands of the United States, and started the latter on that course of expansion to the westward which has brought her to the shores of the Pacific.

Having thus relinquished a position he could not defend, and, as far as in him lay, secured the French possessions beyond the sea, Bonaparte could now give his whole attention to the plans for subjugating the British Islands which had long been ripening in his fertile brain.

It was from the first evident that Great Britain, having in the three kingdoms but fifteen million inhabitants, could not invade the territory of France with its population of over twenty-five millions. This was the more true because the demands of her navy, of her great mercantile shipping, and of a manufacturing and industrial system not only vast but complex, so that interference with parts would seriously derange the whole, left for recruiting the British armies a fraction, insignificant when compared with the resources in men of France; where capital and manufactures, commerce and shipping, had disappeared, leaving only an agricultural peasantry, upon which the conscription could freely draw without materially increasing the poverty of the country, or deranging a social system essentially simple.

This seeming inability to injure France gave rise to the sarcastic remark, that it was hardly worth while for a country to go to war in order to show that it could put itself in a good posture for defence. This, however, was a very superficial view of the matter. Great Britain's avowed reason for war was the necessity—forced upon a reluctant ministry and conceded by a bitter opposition—of resisting encroachments by a neighboring state. Of these, on the Continent, part had already occurred and were, for the time at least, irremediable; but there had also been clearly revealed the purpose of continuing similar encroachments, in regions whose tenure by an enemy would seriously compromise her colonial empire. To prevent this, Great Britain, by declaring war, regained her belligerent rights, and so resumed at once that control of the sea which needed only them to complete. She pushed her sway up to every point of her enemy's long coast-line; and following the strategy of the previous war, under the administration of the veteran seaman who had imparted to it such vigor, she prevented her enemy from combining any great operation, by which her world-wide dominion could be shaken or vital injury be inflicted at any point. The British squadrons, hugging the French coasts and blocking the French arsenals, were the first line of the defence, covering British interests from the Baltic to Egypt, the British colonies in the four quarters of the globe, and the British merchantmen which whitened every sea.

This was the defensive gain in a war whose motive was essentially defensive. Offensively Great Britain, by the suddenness with which she forced the issue, dealt a blow whose weight none understood better than Bonaparte. That he meant war eventually is most probable. His instructions to Decaen, Captain-General of the French East Indies, dated January 15, 1803, speak of the possibility of war by September, 1804; but how little the bravado of Sébastiani's report indicated a wish for an immediate rupture, is shown by the secret message sent to Andréossy in London, on the very day Whitworth left Paris. Despite the bluster about his willingness to see Great Britain on Montmartre rather than in Malta, he then wrote: "Direct General Andréossy that when he is assured the accompanying note has been communicated to the English government, he cause it to be understood through Citizen Schimmelpenninck or by any other indirect means, that if England absolutely rejects the proposition of giving Malta to one of the guaranteeing powers, we would not here be averse from accepting that England should retain Malta for ten years, and France should occupy the peninsula of Otranto. It is important, if this proposition has no chance of success, that no communication be made leaving any trace; and that we here may always be able to deny that this government could have adhered to this proposition." [94 - Napoleon to Talleyrand; Corr. de Nap., May 13, 1803.] Bonaparte understood perfectly that Great Britain, by forcing his hand, had struck down the French navy before it had begun to rise. "Peace," he said, "is necessary to restore a navy,—peace to fill our arsenals empty of material, and peace because then only the one drill-ground for fleets, the sea, is open." "Ships, colonies, commerce," the wants he avowed later at Ulm, were swept away by the same blow. How distressed the finances of France, how devoid of credit, none knew better than he, who then, as throughout his rule, was engaged in keeping up the quotations by government manipulation; and the chief of all sources of wealth, maritime commerce, was crushed by the sea power of Great Britain, which thenceforth coiled closely and with ever tightening compression round the coasts of France.

Bonaparte could not indeed realize the full extent of the injury that would be done. Impatient of obstacles, he refused to see that the construction of the flotilla to invade England would devour the scanty material for ship-building, occupy all the workmen, and so stop the growth of the real navy. Even when built, the ever-recurring demand for repairs drained the dockyards of mechanics. [95 - Thiers, Consulat et Empire, livre xx. p. 182.] Nor could he foresee how completely Great Britain, by reviving the Rule of 1756 in all its rigor, and by replying to each blow from the land by one yet heavier from the sea, would cut off the resources of France and destroy her as a fortress falls by blockade. Unsparing ridicule has been heaped upon Pitt for predicting the break-down of the French Revolution, in its aggressive military character, by financial distress; but in fact Pitt, though he underestimated the time necessary and did not look for the vast system of spoliation which supplied the lack of regular income, was a true prophet. The republic had already devoured an immense capital; [96 - The French republic had devoured under the form of assignats an immense amount of national property.—Thiers: Cons. et Emp., livre xvii. p. 377.] and when the conquering spirit it ever displayed reached its natural culmination in Bonaparte, the constantly recurring need of money drove him on from violence to violence till it ended in his ruin. This penury was caused directly by the maritime war, which shut France off from commerce beyond the seas; and indirectly by the general prostration of business in Europe and consequent poverty of consumers, due to their isolation from the sea, enforced by Bonaparte as the only means of wearing out Great Britain.

In 1798, when the Peace of Campo Formio had left France face to face with Great Britain alone, the question of invading the latter had naturally arisen; but Bonaparte easily convinced himself and the Directory that the attempt was impossible with any naval force that could at that time be raised. He then pointed out that there were two other principal ways of injuring the enemy: one by occupying Hanover and Hamburg, through which British trade entered the Continent; the other by seizing Egypt as a base of operations against India. These two were somewhat of the nature of a flank attack; and the former being in the then state of the Continent inexpedient,—for both Hamburg and Hanover were included in the North German neutrality under the guarantee of Prussia, while Austria was by no means so reduced as in 1803,—the expedition against Egypt was determined. Whatever personal motives may then have influenced Bonaparte, that undertaking, from the military point of view and in the then condition of the Mediterranean, was well conceived; and, while allowing for a large amount of good luck, the measure of success achieved must be ascribed to the completeness and secrecy of his preparations, as the final failure must to the sea power of Great Britain.

In 1803 Bonaparte found himself no longer a simple general, under a weak and jealous government upon whose co-operation he could not certainly depend, but an absolute ruler wielding all the resources of France. He resolved therefore to strike straight at the vital centre of the British power, by a direct invasion of the British Islands. The very greatness of the peril in crossing the Channel, and in leaving it between him and his base, was not without a certain charm for his adventurous temper; but, while willing to take many a risk for so great an end, he left to chance nothing for which he himself could provide. The plan for the invasion was marked by the comprehensiveness of view and the minute attention to detail which distinguished his campaigns; and the preparations were on a scale of entire adequacy, which he never failed to observe when the power to do so was in his hands.

For these in their grandeur, however, time was needed; but the first consul was ready to move at once, as far as was possible to land forces, upon the two flanks of the British position. On the 26th of May a corps under General Mortier entered Hanover; while a few days later another corps, under General St. Cyr, passed through the Papal States into the kingdom of Naples, and resumed possession of the peninsula of Otranto with the ports of Brindisi and Taranto. From the latter the Ionian islands, the Morea, and Egypt, were all threatened; and the position kept alive, as in the deep strategy of Napoleon it was meant to do, the anxiety of Nelson concerning those points and the Levant generally. Upon this distraction of the greatest British admiral, justified as it was by the enemy's undoubted purposes in the eastern Mediterranean, depended a decisive part of Bonaparte's combination against Great Britain.

In Hanover British trade was struck. This German electorate of George III. bordered on both the Elbe and the Weser, in the lower part of their course; by occupying it France controlled the two great rivers and excluded from them all British goods. The act was censured as infringing the neutrality of Germany. Bonaparte justified it by the hostile character of the elector as king of Great Britain; but no such plea could be advanced for the occupation of Cuxhaven, the port of Hamburg, which lay on the Elbe outside Hanover. Triple offence was given to Prussia. Her ambition to figure as the guardian of North German neutrality was affronted, her particular wish to control Hanover slighted, and her trade most injuriously affected. To the exclusion of British goods Great Britain replied by blockading the mouths of the rivers, suffering no ships to pass where her own were not allowed, and holding Germany responsible for permitting a breach of its neutrality injurious to herself. The commerce of Hamburg and Bremen was thus stopped; and as they were the brokers who received and distributed the manufactures of Prussia, the blow was felt throughout the kingdom. The distress among the workmen was so wide-spread that the king had to come to their relief, and many wealthy men lost half their incomes. In addition to the advantages of position obtained in Hanover and Naples, Napoleon threw on these two neutral states the charge of supporting the corps quartered on them, amounting to some thirty thousand men in Hanover and half that number in Naples. Holland, against which as the ally of France [97 - "Holland," says Thiers, "would have wished to remain neutral; but the first consul had taken a resolution, whose justice cannot be denied, to make every maritime nation aid in our strife against Great Britain." (Cons. et Emp., livre xvii. p. 383.)] Great Britain also declared war, had to maintain a somewhat larger force. By such expedients Bonaparte eased his own finances at the expense of neutral or dependent countries; but he was not therefore more beloved.

To invade Great Britain there had first to be concentrated round a chosen point the great armies required to insure success, and the very large number of vessels needed to transport them. Other corps, more or less numerous, destined to further the principal movement by diversions in different directions, distracting the enemy's attention, might embark at distant ports and sail independently of the main body; but for the latter it was necessary to start together and land simultaneously, in mass, at a given point of the English coast. To this principal effort Bonaparte destined one hundred and thirty thousand men; of whom one hundred thousand should form the first line and embark at the same hour from four different ports, which lay within a length of twenty miles on the Channel coast. The other thirty thousand constituted the reserve, and were to sail shortly after the first.