UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY, 1793-1815
 
 THE 
 
 WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 1793-1815 
 
 J. A. FARRER 
 
 THE SWARTHMORE PRESS LTD. 
 72, OXFORD STREET, LONDON, W.i
 
 
 Preface. 
 
 ^ The ten or twelve volumes of Alison's History of Europe 
 ^ about the war that raged with France, with but little 
 intermission, from 1793 to 1815, occupy a well-deserved 
 place of honour on most of our library shelves, or perhaps 
 rather a place of repose. Alison spent fifteen years in 
 preparing materials for his work, and fifteen more in 
 composing it. His exhaustive narrative of the military 
 details of the war enables a later writer, in covering the 
 same ground, to deal with them only allusively, and to 
 concentrate attention more on the political and diplomatic 
 phases of the struggle than on the actual campaigns. 
 „ The military interest of every war wanes with the 
 generation that wages it, whilst its political aspects 
 become of increasing interest to posterity. It was 
 from knowledge of this fact that Napoleon once rightly 
 predicted to his secretary Bourrienne that within two 
 centuries of his time a mere half page of history would 
 suffice for the narrative of all his campaigns. 
 
 Posterity, content with a general knowledge of the 
 $5 military results of the wars of its ancestors, turns to other 
 * questions about them. It desires to know more fully 
 than contemporaries were able to know how such wars 
 came to begin ; which country was responsible for them, 
 or whether the blame for them was divisible among all 
 the belligerents ; what statesmen or parties were to blame 
 for their not having been sooner ended ; whether the 
 pretexts for them are justified by the light of later and 
 fuller knowledge ; and how far such wars, or their 
 protraction, were necessary or expedient, or their professed 
 aims their real ones. To satisfy curiosity on such points 
 is here the main endeavour.
 
 4 PREFACE 
 
 There are other reasons for dealing afresh with this 
 particular war. Since Alison's days researches in the 
 archives of different countries have thrown quite a new 
 light on the actions of many of those who figured most 
 prominently on the stage of their time. The real truth 
 about any war can hardly be told till such researches 
 have been made, and something like a century must 
 elapse before that stage is reached. Alison lived too near 
 to the smouldering passions of the events he described, 
 before the lava had cooled down from the volcano of 
 international hate. He could hardly think of France 
 but as England's " natural " or prospective enemy. 
 
 Happily that time has passed. Two wars, one against 
 Russia in 1854, an d the late one against Germany, have 
 so turned the once " natural " enemies into " natural " 
 friends, that it is possible to deal more impartially than 
 before with the past misunderstandings and differences 
 of the two countries ; it is no longer necessary to see 
 nothing but black on the one side and nothing but white 
 on the other ; even Napoleon may now be regarded as 
 an ordinary and often erring fellow-mortal instead of as 
 Anti-Christ or the Devil Incarnate, as our ancestors 
 pictured him. 
 
 Alison moreover saw the war too exclusively through 
 Tory spectacles. As a Tory he naturally glorified the 
 statesmanship of Pitt and his Tory successors as some- 
 thing of almost super-human wisdom. So he came to 
 do less than justice to Fox and to the party that followed 
 the lead of that great Pacifist. The time has come, 
 with all due respect to Pitt's memory as that of a great 
 statesman in a difficult time, to enter more into the point 
 of view of his famous rival, and to re- value the policy he 
 stood for, which might have averted the war altogether, 
 or led to its earlier termination. But hypothetical 
 speculations are of little value. 
 
 The title " The War for Monarchy " simply indicates 
 that, as the fall of the French Monarchy was the proximate
 
 PREFACE 5 
 
 cause of the war in 1793, so its restoration was its ultimate 
 result, and clung to as a hope and motive throughout. 
 But this is not to say that other motives were not mixed 
 up with the war, often almost to the effacement of the 
 primary one. Possibly Socrates was right in attributing 
 all wars in their last analysis to the desire of gain for the 
 easier satisfaction of our bodily desires : "all wars arise 
 for the gain of money, and we are compelled to gain money 
 for the body's sake, being slaves to its service."* If this 
 be true, the time-honoured pretexts for all wars, such as 
 " liberty," " religion," " self-defence," and " civilisation," 
 are merely the verbal bait by which the profiteers from 
 all wars, the men behind all Governments, cajole the 
 peoples of the earth into mutual slaughterings for 
 their own private, pecuniary gain. If Socrates believed 
 in the commercial origin of war, we moderns have only 
 too little reason to differ from him. 
 
 * Plato's " Phae.lo." 60.
 
 Contents. 
 
 THE FIRST ACT 
 
 1793-1802 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. 1792 The Brewing Storm - 9 
 
 II. 1793 The Conquering Coalition - - - 21 
 
 III. 1794 The Dissolving Coalition - - - 29 
 
 IV. 1795 The Quiberon Year - - - - 41 
 V. 1796 The First Peace Failure - - - 51 
 
 VI. 1797 Second Peace Failure - - - 61 
 
 VII. 1798 France in Egypt 74 
 
 VIII. 1799L-RUSSIA to the Rescue - - - - 81 
 
 IX. 1880 The Crushing of Austria 93 
 
 X. 1801 The Belated Peace of Amiens - - 108 
 
 THE SECOND ACT 
 
 1802-1815 
 
 I. 1802 Fresh War Rumblings - 127 
 
 II. 1803 The Threatened Invasion - 146 
 
 III. l804v^PlTT TO THE HELM AGAIN - - - 15° 
 
 IV. 1805 Pitt's Last Coalition against France - 160 
 
 V. 1806 The Peace that Failed - - - 170 
 
 VI. 1807 Friedland, Tilsit, Copenhagen - - 187 
 
 VII. 1808 War in the Peninsula - 212 
 
 VIII. 1809 Austria's Fourth Defeat - 230 
 
 IX. 1810 A Lost Peace Chance - 253 
 
 X. 1811 Continental Unrest - 265 
 
 XI. 1812 Russia Invaded ----- 277 
 
 XII. 1813 The Falling Empire - 3°3 
 
 XIII. 1814 Diplomacy and the War - - - 334 
 
 XIV. Pacification ------- 366
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 1792. The Brewing Storm. 
 
 " We have kept our resources entire, our honour unimpaired, our 
 integrity inviolate. . . . We have not lost ... a single foot of 
 territory ; and we have given to the rest of the world many chances of 
 salvation." — Pitt, " Parliamentary History," XXXV., 1125. 
 
 " You began in foolishness, and you end in mischief. Tell me one 
 single object of the war that you have obtained. Tell me one evil that 
 you have not brought upon your country." — Fox, ib., XXXV. 1149. 
 
 The Declaration of Pilnitz by the Courts of Vienna and 
 Berlin, on August 27th, 1791, without (according to Lord 
 Grenville) the participation or knowledge of Great 
 Britain, was the first move in that long struggle between 
 Monarchy and Republicanism which was the sequel of 
 the Revolution in France, begun in 1789. On April 20th, 
 1792, France declared war on Austria, and on July 25th, 
 1792, the Duke of Brunswick issued that famous manifesto 
 which threatened France with " a signal, rare, and 
 memorable vengeance " from Prussia and Austria, unless 
 the safety and liberty of the French Royal Family was 
 assured. This manifesto was not of the Duke's com- 
 position, its more minatory passages being due to the 
 direct authority of the Emperor of Germany, and 
 of the King of Prussia. It was soon followed by the 
 terrible massacres of September, 1792, and it is admitted 
 by Alison that the interference of the two Allies and 
 their attempted invasion of France contributed greatly 
 to the subsequent horrors that followed in that country. 1 
 But neither the dethronement of the King on August 
 10th, 1792, nor the September massacres stirred this 
 country from its neutrality. Lord Grenville, our Foreign 
 1 11. 1037.
 
 io THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Secretary, wrote on September 20th, 1792 : " I bless God 
 we had the wit to keep ourselves out of the glorious 
 enterprise of the combined armies, and that we were not 
 tempted by the hope of sharing the spoils in the division 
 of France, nor in the prospect of crushing all democratical 
 principles all over the world at one blow." Again in 
 November: "All my ambition is that I may at some 
 time hereafter . . . have the inexpressible satisfaction 
 of being able to look back upon it, and to tell myself that 
 I have contributed to keep my own country at least a 
 little longer from sharing in all the evils of every sort 
 that surround us. I am more and more convinced that 
 this can only be done by keeping wholly and entirely 
 aloof." 1 
 
 Nevertheless Grenville's sympathies, like the nation's, 
 were strongly on the side of the German Allies. Thus 
 he wrote on September 20th, 1792 : " The Duke of 
 Brunswick's progress does not keep pace with the 
 impatience of our wishes " ; and on October nth : " We 
 are all much disappointed with the result of the great 
 expectations that had been formed from the Duke of 
 Brunswick's campaign." 3 
 
 There seems to be abundant evidence that Pitt equally 
 with Grenville desired to keep neutral. 3 At a dinner 
 he gave on September 27th, 1792, Pitt in answer to 
 Burke's alarms about French principles said, " Never 
 fear, Mr. Burke, depend on it we shall go on as we are until 
 the day of judgment " : to which Burke replied, " Very 
 likely, Sir, it is the day of no judgment I am afraid of."4 
 But this story clearly referred rather to Constitutional 
 changes than to the war. 
 
 The strange thing is that William Augustus Miles, 
 who for many years corresponded with Pitt, and who 
 was sent by Pitt to Paris in March, 1790, to try to break 
 up the Family Compact between France and Spain, 
 
 1 Buckingham's " Court, &c, of George III.," II., 222-4. 
 
 * ib. II., 216. 3 Lecky, VI., 522. 4 Pellew's " Sidmouth," I., 72.
 
 THE BREWING STORM n 
 
 asserts, not once, but many times, that early in 1791, or 
 at the close of the summer of 1790, " when the English 
 press was employed at the public expense to decry 
 the French Revolution," 1 Pitt was given his choice 
 by the King between war with France or resignation. 
 Why should Miles have written as follows to Lord 
 Lansdowne on January 3rd, 1806 : " Pitt, on being 
 required to war with France or resign, preferred to 
 retain his place, and thereby sacrificed his own 
 opinion ; " and why should he have repeated this story 
 in his remarkable letter to the Prince of Wales of April 12th 
 1808 : " It is no secret to Your Royal Highness that Mr. 
 Pitt, more attached to his place than to the interests of 
 his country, accepted in 179 1 the disgraceful alternative 
 on which alone he would be allowed to direct your father's 
 councils ! "2 Again : "On its being intimated . . . 
 that he must war with France or resign, he preferred the 
 sacrifice of character, of public duty, and of principle, 
 and blindly rushed into a contest, which has brought 
 the fortunes of your house, Sir, and the independence of 
 the nation into hazard. "3 Miles challenged contradiction 
 of what he calls " this extraordinary occurrence " in 
 1791,4 and always maintained that Pitt was pressed into 
 war by the King. 5 
 
 It is difficult to reconcile this story with other facts. 
 George III., on February 2nd, 1793, that is, shortly after 
 the French King's execution, wrote : " My natural 
 sentiments are so strong for peace that no event of less 
 moment than the present could have made me decidedly 
 of opinion that duty as well as interest calls on us to join 
 against that most savage as well as unprincipled nation. "6 
 
 And as for Pitt, Miles himself wrote on December 12th, 
 1792, to Le Brun, the French Foreign Minister, aged 
 thirty, assuring him that since the beginning of the 
 
 1 Miles' " Letter to the Prince of Wales," 123. 2 ib. 83. 
 
 3 ib. 27 and 57. 4 ib. 132. 5 " Correspondence," II., 249, 262. 
 6 Jesse's *' George III.," III., 201.
 
 12 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Revolution Pitt had made non-intervention in France 
 his duty, and had firmly resisted all proposals for an 
 attack on France. 
 
 Yet a story from which Miles had nothing to gain 
 and which admitted so easily of contradiction can hardly 
 be dismissed as a pure invention. Possibly at the time 
 in question the King was leaning towards war counsels 
 but was won over by Pitt to the safer course of neutrality. 
 Otherwise, if the King really pressed for war, how account 
 for its postponement for a couple of years ? 
 
 Miles' great idea had been to break up the alliance 
 then subsisting between France and Spain by making 
 one between France and England. He wrote to Pitt on 
 November 30th, 1790, that the Family Compact would 
 be easily dissolved if the French could reckon on the 
 friendship of England ; that Mirabeau, Lafayette, and 
 others were of this mind, and that Pitt might count on 
 French concurrence " with this his favourite idea." But 
 Miles admitted later that he had mistaken Pitt's views 
 about an Anglo-French alliance ; Pitt having at most 
 known it as Miles' policy when he sent him to Paris in 
 March, 1790. * Between that date and 1791 " the project 
 of effecting a counter-revolution had become a favourite 
 measure with the British Court," and everyone who 
 declared such a project impracticable became suspected 
 of Jacobinism.^ 
 
 But in France the hope of an alliance was not extinct. 
 The Due de Biron, as envoy, with Talleyrand as his 
 adviser, came to London in January, 1792, ostensibly to 
 maintain good relations between the two countries, but 
 really to promote a friendship or alliance with England 
 in case of a Franco-Austrian war. The Marquis de 
 Chauvelin, aged twenty-five, accredited by Louis XVI. as 
 ambassador to England in September, 1791, did not reach 
 London till May, 1792, but it was still with the hope of 
 establishing such an alliance. And at least he tried to 
 
 1 Letter, 180-2. 2 ib. 182.
 
 THE BREWING STORM 13 
 
 keep the peace between the two countries. Thus it was 
 in answer to his letter of April 28th, 1792, with its 
 assurances of England's neutrality in the war, that 
 Louis XVI. wrote on May 1st thanking George III. for 
 not joining in the war. When the King's Proclamation 
 of May 2ist, against sedition, conveyed a covert attack 
 on France, Chauvelin wrote to Grenville on May 24th, 
 disclaiming all wish on the part of the French nation, 
 Legislature, or King to spread sedition in England, and 
 begging for such disclaimer to be laid before Parliament. 
 When such alarm was caused in France by an English 
 naval review of a few ships on July nth, that it was 
 proposed in the National Assembly to add thirty ships 
 of the line to the French Navy, a letter from Chauvelin 
 caused the proposal to be dropped. On June 18th 
 he made his memorable request to Grenville for 
 English mediation to end the war between France and 
 the two German Powers ; a request which Grenville' s 
 answer of July 8th stiffly and unhappily refused. 1 
 
 To this indication of a hostile neutrality was soon 
 afterwards added a more serious one in the recall of our 
 ambassador, Lord Gower, on August 17th, 1792, after 
 the deposition of Louis XVI. on August 10th. This 
 recall could not indeed be taken as a declaration of war, 
 for the second article of the Treaty of Commerce of 
 September 26th, 1786, between England and France only 
 stipulated that, in the event of a rupture, hostilities 
 should not be taken as begun till the recall or the dismissal 
 of the ambassadors of the two countries, so that Lord 
 Gower's recall was not a case in point ; nor did Le Brun, 
 the French Foreign Minister, in his Letter to Lord Gower, 
 do more than express regret at his recall. 2 But that the 
 French took it as tending to war is shown by a letter from 
 General Dampierre to Miles of December 17th, 1792, 
 wherein he said that the French Government sent the 
 Abbe" Noel to Chauvelin with a letter for his recall, but 
 
 1 Marsh, I. 118. 2 Marsh, I., 161.
 
 14 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 that Chauvelin begged him not to present it, in order to 
 avoid a rupture there and then. 1 
 
 In the interests of peace Miles continued to labour for 
 an alliance with France. As late as January 2nd, 1793, 
 a letter from Paris assured him that the Executive Council 
 approved " very fully and very warmly " of his idea. 2 
 Yet on December 24th, 1792, General Dampierre had 
 written to him : " they breathe nothing here but war;" 
 and on December 9th, 1792, a member of the Convention 
 had expressed himself thus : "War to a certain extent 
 is inevitable, not so much for opening the Scheldt, for that 
 is rather a pretext in order to animate the people and 
 preserve their enthusiasm, but to get rid of 300,000 armed 
 vagabonds, who can never be allowed to return without 
 evident risk to the Convention and Executive Council " ; 
 adding that, even if the French had no complaint against 
 the English, motives of policy and their internal security 
 constrained them rather to come to a rupture than to 
 consent to a general peace. 3 
 
 In each country the Ministry was divided between a 
 war party and a peace party. On January 6th, 1793, 
 Miles thought that the Executive Council meant war ; 
 Condorcet and Abbe Sieyes were " decidedly for war," 
 (the latter " a priest who had never taken the Gospel for 
 his guide) ; " on the other hand, the Abbe Noel, Maret (in 
 later life the Due de Bassano), Reinhard, of the London 
 French Embassy, and the two Mourges strove hard for 
 peace. Le Brun, to whom on December 6th Miles sent 
 " a thousand kind wishes," a month later was for war ; 
 actuated, Miles thought, by the refusal of the British 
 Treasury to grant him a yearly pension of £50 solicited 
 for him by Miles in 1788, for some journalistic service to 
 the British Government. 4 On our side Le Brun was not 
 alone in the belief that Dundas and Lord Hawkesbury 
 (then Jenkinson) were desirous of war. 
 
 But a wish for war with England was not confined to 
 
 1 Miles, I., 412. 2 ib. I., 436. 3 ib. I., 385, 6. 4 ib. II., 3.
 
 THE BREWING STORM 15 
 
 the French Republicans. Miles speaks of the " atrocious 
 efforts of the emigres, both clergy and noblesse, to make 
 the French believe that England only waited a favourable 
 opportunity to attack France. 1 He told Le Brun on 
 December 18th, 1792, that the French aristocrats hoped 
 that a war with England would help to re-establish the 
 monarchy, and represented our naval armaments against 
 the Spanish menace as intended for the conquest of the 
 French Windward Islands ! 2 These people, he told Pitt, 
 had been impatient for war with England, avowing that 
 only war would restore themselves to their privileges 
 and the monarch to his power.3 In the responsibility for 
 the war the French royalist faction must therefore bear 
 its share. 
 
 Both sides had just grievances against the other. The 
 British case was best put in Herbert Marsh's " History of 
 the Politics of Great Britain and France " (1799) ; for 
 which Marsh was later rewarded by Pitt, first with a 
 pension, and then with a bishopric. The cordial reception 
 given on November 8th and again on November 28th by 
 the National Convention to addresses from British Societies, 
 with sympathetic allusions to the idea of a National 
 Convention in England, was an added offence to the 
 decree of November 19th, 1792, promising French help 
 to all people desirous of recovering their liberty. And 
 this was followed by the decree on December 15th, of 
 which the eleventh article threatened hostilities against 
 all who, in conquered lands, sought to keep or recall their 
 prince or the privileged castes. The opening of the 
 Scheldt on December 1st, by the sending of some armed 
 vessels against Antwerp, despite existing treaties and 
 regardless of Dutch protests, justified the Dutch Govern- 
 ment in asking England for the help to which the Anglo- 
 Dutch treaty of 1788 entitled them. French warships 
 at the mouth of the Scheldt would have been a fresh 
 menace to English commerce and the east coast of 
 
 1 ib. I., 380. * ib., I., 394. 3 ib. II., 279.
 
 16 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 England. The annexation of conquered Savoy justified 
 fears of the annexation of Belgium, then part of the 
 Austrian Netherlands. 
 
 The French on their side had also just causes of 
 mistrust. The recall of Lord Gower ; the refusal of our 
 Government to have any dealings with Chauvelin ; the 
 " millions of slights and affronts " received by him at 
 our Court, 1 created a hostile atmosphere, which the cold 
 manner of Grenville and Pitt did nothing to diminish. 
 The embargo of November 15th on the exportation of 
 British wheat abroad, and the Act prohibiting the export 
 of foreign wheat to France, were attributed by the French 
 to a deliberate wish to starve them. 3 The Alien Act of 
 December, though it followed the lines of a similar French 
 decree of May 18th, 1792,3 put such restrictions on the 
 movements of all foreigners in England that the best 
 defence Pitt could put on such a disregard of clauses 
 4 and 5 of the Treaty of Commerce of September 26th, 
 1786, was that no treaty " could supersede the propriety 
 of adopting new measures in a new situation ; "4 a defence 
 fatal to the sanctity of any treaty. 
 
 But the main cause of war, and one to which free 
 governments are more exposed than autocracies, was the 
 licentiousness of language indulged in on both sides. 
 Condorcet's pamphlet on " Advice to the Dutch," with 
 its contemptuous allusions to monarchy and to George Ill's 
 tottering throne, did more to irritate English opinion 
 than even the opening of the Scheldt. And speeches 
 united with pens in this evil work. Barrere's speeches in 
 the Convention were wildly intemperate ; but in offensive- 
 ness they met their match in our own Parliament in that 
 December. Special offence was given by Windham's 
 observation that " Before a Frenchman keeps his word 
 his nature must be changed." 5 When peace was hanging 
 
 1 Miles, I., 441. * ib., I., 384. 3 Marsh, I., 279. 
 
 4 Pari. Hist., XXX., 356. 
 
 5 Miles, I., 444 ; Pari. Hist., XXX., 40.
 
 THE BREWING STORM 17 
 
 by a thread, what help was given to it by Lord Sheffield's 
 denouncing the French on December 15th, 1792, as " the 
 vilest of all nations/' and their rulers as " a gang of 
 robbers and cut-throats " ; by Jenkinson's calling the 
 French nation " a band of sanguinary ruffians," " a set 
 of monsters " ; or by Burke's reviling them as " a gang 
 of homicides and regicides," " a nation of murderers " ? 
 This was before the execution of the King, and contributed 
 as little to his acquittal as it did to the continuance of 
 peace. 
 
 None of these mutual grievances should have lain 
 beyond the power of diplomacy to settle. The opening 
 of the Scheldt, though fraught with possible menace to 
 British interests, was in itself a good thing for the world's 
 commerce, and especially for that of Belgium, released 
 by the French conquest from Austrian rule ; the French 
 occupation of Belgium was only to last during the war 
 with Austria, after which the Belgians could settle about 
 the Scheldt as they pleased. 1 And as the Dutch raised 
 no objections, 2 all that was needed was the legalisation of 
 the fait accompli. Miles, who, in common with Dumouriez, 
 the Abbe Noel, and Maret, on December 13th, 1792, urged 
 the Executive Council of France to countermand the 
 vessels sent to force the Scheldt psasage to Antwerp, 
 thought that the French would have yielded about the 
 Scheldt in return for the recognition of the Republic (by 
 the official recognition of Chauvelin) and for the declara- 
 tion of the principality of Liege and the Austrian Nether- 
 lands as an independent Republic. 3 
 
 Le Brun also was ready to put an interpretation on 
 the decree of November 19th, 1792, which would have 
 removed it from all applicability to this country. 4 and 
 both this decree and that of December 15th, might have 
 been taken as the mere exuberance of a nation elated by 
 
 * Le Brun, January 8th, 1793; Pari. Hist., XXX., 265-6. 
 
 * ib. XXX., 149. 3 Miles I. 417. 
 4 Pari. Hist., XXX., 263. 4.
 
 18 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Dumouriez's victories in November, 1792. Miles tried 
 in vain to get Le Brim to retract the decrees altogether, 
 and to convince him that he attached too much importance 
 to the speeches of men like Burke and Windham. 1 
 
 It is impossible to read Le Brun's answer of January 8th, 
 1793, delivered on January 13th, to Grenville's despatch 
 of December 31st, 1792, without feeling that at that 
 date the Convention had no insuperable wish for war. And 
 a striking proof of this was shown by the fact that, when 
 Dumouriez in the winter of 1792 asked the Executive 
 Council to allow him to seize the Dutch town of Maas- 
 tricht, to be re-delivered after the war, the Council refused 
 its consent " because an attack upon the ally of England 
 would give offence to England, and become a certain 
 ground for war." 2 But Dumouriez's letter of January 10th, 
 I 793» to Gen. Miranda, commanding in the Netherlands, 
 with instructions to invade Dutch Flanders within twelve 
 days, proves a change of mind since December. 3 The 
 projected invasion of Holland, involving war with 
 England, was based, says Miles, on a rooted belief, which 
 Miles failed to eradicate, that England was on the edge of 
 revolt against its Government. 
 
 But there were the usual opposing currents of policy 
 in both countries. On January 7th, 1793, Maret assured 
 Miles that the Executive Council still desired peace ; 
 " it was ready in order to obtain it to make every sacrifice 
 compatible with French interests and honour. 4 And in 
 England so great was the aversion from war that as late 
 as January 28th, 1793, a week after the King's execution, 
 Miles could still write : " I find a general aversion, border- 
 ing on horror, to war with France." 5 
 
 Peace in fact seemed within an ace of prevailing, 
 despite the mutual mistrust which was driving both nations 
 to war against the wish of each of them. Chauvelin, in 
 his anxiety for peace, agreed not to stand on his diplomatic 
 
 1 Miles, II., 27. * Hobhouse, in Pari. Hist., XXXIII., 607. 
 
 J Marsh, I., 355-61. 4 Miles, II., 27. 5 ib. II., 52.
 
 THE BREWING STORM 19 
 
 dignity, but to treat privately with Pitt on the causes 
 of offence between the two countries (January 4th, 1793), 
 but Long refused Miles' request to convey this message 
 to the Ministers Then instructions came from Paris 
 to Chauvelin to require of Lord Grenville to fix a day for 
 his reception at St. James' as Minister of the Republic ; 
 and it is possible that so simple a ceremony might have 
 saved Europe from years of bloodshed. Chauvelin was 
 also authorised to offer considerable concessions regarding 
 the Scheldt ; the obnoxious decree ; and the Belgian 
 provinces. Miles at once sought an interview with Pitt, 
 who during the Cabinet meeting on Sunday, January 13th, 
 at first received his papers with great cordiality and 
 civility, but who after about an hour returned in a very 
 different spirit and ordered him to cease from all further 
 correspondence with Chauvelin. 2 
 
 On the receipt in London of the news of the King's 
 execution on January 21st, 1793, Chauvelin was given 
 eight days within which to leave the country, but he had 
 already, on January 19th, exasperated by Grenville's 
 treatment of him, asked to be recalled to France, in order 
 to avoid actual expulsion. 3 He left with needless pre- 
 cipitation on January 25th, the day after his notice to 
 quit coincided with orders from France to return. Had 
 he waited a few hours, he would have received a despatch 
 ordering his withdrawal, but instructing him to deliver 
 a last proposition of peace and to inform Lord Grenville 
 of Maret's coming to England as Charge d' Affaires. 
 Chauvelin, meeting the bearer of this despatch between 
 London and Dover, disregarded it, from the idea that its 
 object had been virtually annulled by the death of the 
 King.4 Maret reached London on January 30th, and 
 immediately consulted with Miles. France would consent 
 to a general peace provided the two Confederate Powers 
 would pay part of the expenses of the war.5 Maret assured 
 
 1 ib., I., 445, 447. * ib. II., 44. 3 Ernouf's Maret, 118, 9. 
 
 < ib. 119. 5 Miles, II., 55, January 31st.
 
 20 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Miles that " France would give up Nice, Mayence, Worms, 
 and all its conquests on the Rhine ; also the Scheldt ; 
 she would renounce Liege and the Low Countries, on 
 condition that their independence should be guaranteed, 
 and she would contrive the means for detaching Savoy 
 from her jurisdiction." 1 These were terms that Miles 
 had suggested on December 12th, 1792, but even he had 
 doubts of their sincerity. " All is trick, I am afraid," 
 he wrote, " on both sides, and war is no less the wish of 
 party in England than of party in France." 3 Pitt may 
 have thought the same. In any case he would not see 
 Maret, who received an Order in Council on February 4th, 
 to depart in three days, and who actually left on 
 February 5th. Thus the last chance of peace vanished. 
 Both the Convention and the Executive Council, despite 
 Miles' frequent warnings to the contrary, firmly believed 
 that the war they declared on February 3rd would be 
 the signal of a general insurrection in England that would 
 have been decisive in their favour. So much had they 
 been deceived by misinformation and false appearances. 
 But when all is said that can be said about the ostensible 
 causes of this war, perhaps Alison's conclusion is right, 
 that " the arguments used by Government were not the 
 only motives for commencing the war ; the danger they 
 apprehended lay nearer home than the conquests of the 
 republicans ; it was not foreign subjugation so much as 
 domestic revolution which was dreaded, if a pacific 
 intercourse were any longer maintained with France. '3 
 That there was great alarm of an attempt at insurrection 
 in England is proved by the credence given by Marsh 
 to the alleged plot fixed for December 1st or 3rd to seize 
 the Tower, plunder the Arsenal, and overturn the Constitu- 
 tion. The King was supposed to be aware of this ; to have 
 seen a model of the revolutionary daggers, and to know 
 where 20,000 pounds of iron lay ready to be forged into 
 pikes.4 
 
 1 ib., II., 62, Miles to Pitt, February 6th, 1793. 
 » ib II., 56. 3 II., 415. 4 Marsh II., 224.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 1793. The Conquering Coalition. 
 
 To the just causes for anger against France artificial 
 ones were added. The most wicked arts, said Lord 
 Lauderdale, were practised " to irritate and mislead the 
 multitude " ; " handbills, wretched songs, infamous 
 pamphlets, false and declamatory paragraphs in news- 
 papers," were circulated broadcast to inflame men's 
 minds against the French. * And doubtless the French 
 on their side resorted to similar artifices. War propa- 
 ganda were not the invention of the twentieth century. 
 
 The actual execution of Louis XVI. on January 21st, 
 1793, greatly intensified the bias to war, and the streets 
 were black with the universal mourning. Placards 
 inscribed with " Hurrah ! War, glorious war," were 
 conspicuous over London, and the King was received 
 everywhere with cries of " War with the French. "2 
 
 Pitt fell in with the popular feeling, but, though only 
 a minority kept their heads, that minority included such 
 men of eminence as Fox, Sheridan, Lord Lansdowne 
 (formerly Lord Shelburne) and the Duke of Grafton. 
 
 Fox pleaded in vain for negotiation, taking the ground 
 that detestation of guilt did not impose on us the duty 
 of avenging it ; and that, if the war must last till the 
 Jacobin Government were destroyed, it might last for 
 ever. 3 In that dilemma which a war always presents 
 to its opponents between their duty to their country and 
 their duty to themselves, Fox took the line that his 
 
 * February 12th, 1793. Pari. Hist., XXX. 418. 
 
 ■ Ernouf., 119. 3 Pari. Hist., XXX. 125S, 127G. 
 
 21
 
 22 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 support of a vigorous prosecution of the war could not 
 preclude him from condemning the measures which had 
 unnecessarily led to it. 1 
 
 . Panic also helped to popularise the war. Rumour 
 
 had it that the French intended to take the Tower before 
 proceeding to overturn the Constitution and murder the 
 Royal family. The proprietors of the New River Water 
 Company were obliged to advertise in all the papers the 
 falsity of the story that persons in French pay had tried 
 to poison the New River water with arsenic. 3 
 
 People quaked at rumours of large numbers of men 
 drilled in a dark room by a serjeant in a brown coat, and 
 ready to issue at a given signal and destroy the Con- 
 stitution. Publicans were threatened with the loss of 
 their licences if they permitted political conversations, 
 or took in certain papers, and were subjected to an oath 
 to report the words or conduct of any republicans they 
 knew. Meetings for reform at Derby, Cromer, and 
 Norwich were magnified into dangerous assemblies of 
 republicans and levellers. Ten thousand daggers ordered 
 and four thousand supplied by a Birmingham maker for 
 military use, as in the American war, were taken by 
 Burke as daggers for revolutionary purposes. 3 Another 
 sign of the panic was that " a spirit of intolerance had re- 
 newed its fierceness from the pulpit. "4 Above all the daily 
 newspaper campaign of merciless abuse of everything 
 French formed a part of the " system of delusion which 
 had been practised in order to bring about a rupture 
 between the two countries." And Sheridan ascribed 
 this to the deliberate action of the Government. 5 Since 
 newspapers came into use peace has found in them a 
 worse enemy to face than it has ever found in kings. 
 
 The stock delusions of every war prevailed over 
 probability. The people were promised a short war. We 
 might expect its speedy and happy termination, said Lord 
 
 i ib. XXX., 424. » ib. XXX. 581, 2. 3 ib., XXX., 552, 556. 
 
 4 ib. XXX., 537. 5 ib. XXX., 528.
 
 THE CONQUERING COALITION 23 
 
 Beauchamp,on February 1st, 1793, owing to the co-opera- 
 tion of nearly all Europe against France. 1 False hopes of 
 its conclusion in a single campaign were " artfully instilled 
 into the minds of the public," said Fox, " by every 
 Ministerial scribbler in every Ministerial newspaper."' 
 Pitt himself counted on its proving short, whilst Burke with 
 sounder judgment foresaw that it would be very long. 3 
 
 The war spirit was fanned by the customary platitudes. 
 At a time when the French had 700,000 muskets, it was 
 said that when no longer supplied by us with weapons 
 they could not fight for long ; at a time when they had a 
 seven years' supply of gunpowder, it was predicted that 
 they would shortly fail of ammunition. Want of clothing, 
 it was hoped, would soon thin their ranks in the winter ; 
 want of money would force them to peace, and above 
 all, want of corn would quickly starve them to submission. 4 
 
 Identically the same fallacies that had prolonged the 
 American war were used successfully for the prolongation 
 of the new war. The fact was overlooked, as regards 
 the sinews of war, that the confiscations of the property 
 of 29,000 persons had enriched France to the amount of 
 192 million pounds. 
 
 To Holland, our ally from the start, other allies were soon 
 added by defensive treaties: Russia (March 29th, 1793), 
 Hesse.Cassel (April 10th), Sardinia (April 25th), Spain (May 
 25th), the Two Sicilies or Naples (June 12th), Prussia (July 
 19th), Germany (August 30th), Portugal (September 
 26th). Such a League of Nations against one seemed to 
 promise certain success. 
 
 Most of these treaties followed the usual lines, binding 
 the parties against separate peaces, save by mutual 
 consent, and after the recovery of conquests from the 
 enemy. Thus we bound ourselves to Sardinia, promising 
 her an annual subsidy of £200,000 for the supply of 
 
 " Pari. Hist., XXX., 293. 2 ib., XXX., 1264. 
 
 3 " Life of Wilber force," II., 11. 
 
 4 ib. XXX., 1287-90. Lord Stanhope, January 23rd, 1794.
 
 24 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 50,000 mercenaries to defend her still remaining terri- 
 tories, and to make no peace till her territory lost or to 
 be lost was restored to her. 
 
 And in all these treaties a special point was made of 
 doing all possible damage to French commerce. The 
 Convention on May 9th decreed that neutral vessels with 
 provisions for an enemy's port should be brought in for 
 pre-emption of the cargo, though the French Prize Courts 
 do not seem to have acted on this principle. 1 On our 
 side undertakings were made with Russia, Spain, Naples, 
 Prussia, and Germany, to prevent neutral States from 
 importing to France, not merely military stores, 
 admittedly contraband, but any sort of provisions; on 
 the ground that with a country of rebels the ordinary law 
 of nations regarding neutrals could not apply. 
 
 Neutrals received very rough treatment. Thus 
 Russia, when Turkey proclaimed her intention of 
 neutrality, informed the Porte, on the ground that she 
 could not allow a Power so dangerous to Russian 
 frontiers to remain neutral, that her refusal to lay an 
 embargo on all French vessels and to declare war upon 
 France would be taken as a declaration of war upon 
 Russia herself. 3 
 
 We did much the same. Denmark was obliged to 
 resist memorial after memorial exhorting her to depart 
 from her neutrality. 3 Genoa was threatened with war 
 as the price of her neutrality.4 The Grand Duke of 
 Tuscany, brother of our ally the Emperor, was ordered 
 on October 8th, 1793, to dismiss the French ambassador 
 within twelve hours, or suffer Leghorn to be bombarded 
 by Lord Hood ; 5 and the Swiss Cantons were informed, 
 that, though they might keep their neutrality, they must 
 hold no intercourse with France. 6 Lord Lansdowne, 
 
 1 Hall, " International Law," 674. 
 
 * Ann. Reg., 1794, II., 241, January, 1794. 
 
 3 Pari. Hist., XXXI., 1369. 4 ib. XXXI., 1371- 
 
 5 ib. XXX., 1400. 6 ib., XXX., 1292, XXXI., 1370.
 
 THE CONQUERING COALITION 25 
 
 on February 17th, 1794, prophesied that the latest 
 posterity would pass an adverse judgment on his con- 
 temporaries for these outrages on the neutral Powers. 1 
 But what matters posterity ? 
 
 America, too, as a neutral, had the next year com- 
 plained so loudly of our stopping her vessels bound to 
 France with foodstuffs, and of our ships of war impressing 
 American seamen for the British Navy, that the House 
 of Representatives threatened to break off all commerce 
 with us after November 1st, and the Senate only rejected 
 the proposal by the casting vote of the President. The 
 possibility of an American war was alluded to in our own 
 Parliament in May, 1794. President Washington, 
 resisting the popular clamour, sent John Jay to England 
 as envoy, and happily his memorial on the subject to 
 Lord Grenville of July 30th, 1794, meeting with a 
 conciliatory reply from him, averted a dangerous issue. * 
 
 So successfully for the Allies did the campaign of 1793 
 begin that it was soon a question of the very existence 
 of France. Her bad defeat at Neerwinden on March 18th, 
 1793, followed by the defection of Dumouriez and the 
 wholesale desertion of the French troops, led to the loss 
 of her Belgian conquests of the previous year, and after 
 the strong border towns of Conde and Valenciennes had 
 capitulated to the Allies in July, and Mainz to Prussia 
 on July 27th, it seemed as if 130,000 Allied troops might 
 easily advance to Paris itself. What stopped them ? 
 "Nothing," says Prof. Sybel, but " such a mass of political 
 and military blunders as has seldom been heaped up " in 
 the history of the world. 3 
 
 For between Austria and Prussia raged inextinguish- 
 able fires of jealousy. Want of money was their main 
 point in common, with a strong lust for an English supply 
 of it. The Allied Conference at Antwerp in April revealed 
 to Prussia that Austria aimed only at conquest ; and 
 
 ■ ib., XXX., 1399. 
 
 3 Ann. Reg., 1794, II., 244-30. 3 III., 141.
 
 26 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 hardly had the Prince of Coburg proclaimed on his honour 
 that the Imperial forces entered France disinterestedly 
 than he had the Austrian standard, not that of Louis 
 XVII., hoisted on the captured towns of Conde* and 
 Valenciennes. In building his hopes of success on a 
 Coalition Pitt had been building on shifting sands. 
 Different war plans, and great duplicity between Russia, 
 Austria and Prussia over their shares in the spoliation 
 of Poland was soon to drive Prussia out of the Alliance. 
 
 But the worst mistake was the dispersion of the Allied 
 forces after the surrender of the fortress towns had laid 
 France open to an invasion. Whilst the English Cabinet, 
 " in opposition to the declared and earnest wish of Coburg 
 and all the Allied generals," 1 insisted on the removal of 
 35,000 men for an attempt to recover Dunkirk, 48,000 
 Imperialists turned their energies to the siege of Quesnoi. 
 Though Fox attributed this Dunkirk diversion to Lord 
 Auckland, the real responsibility rested with the King, 
 whose idea was to end the war by helping Austria to reduce 
 the fortresses of French Flanders. 3 In any case it was 
 greatly mismanaged, and when the Duke of York sum- 
 moned Dunkirk to surrender, " he had not a single gun 
 to employ, nor a single gun-boat to assist him. "3 After 
 this misadventure Fox said on January 21st, 1794, that 
 Pitt would have to " pick from the very lowest class of 
 his flatterers before he could select thirty men who would 
 tell him that he was a great War Minister."4 
 
 This raising of the siege of Dunkirk, with the loss of 
 our heavy artillery, was the chief misfortune of the 
 campaign ; but balanced to some extent by the recapture 
 in April of the island of Tobago, by the taking of the small 
 islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, and by the conquest 
 of all France's East Indian settlements. 
 
 In December, 1793, superior French forces compelled 
 us to evacuate Toulon, memorable for the first British 
 
 » Alison, II., 480. » Rose's Pitt, 127, 130. 
 
 3 Fox, in Pari. Hist., XXXI., 240. 4 ib., XXX., 1271.
 
 THE CONQUERING COALITION 27 
 
 encounter with Napoleon Bonaparte. On August 23rd, 
 1793, Lord Hood had promised the protection of the 
 British fleet in return for an explicit declaration by Toulon 
 and Marseilles in favour of Monarchy in France, and a 
 similar proclamation to the towns and provinces of the 
 south of France also declared the re-establishment of 
 monarchy as the object of the Allies. 1 On the strength 
 of the support thus given to the counter-revolution Lord 
 Hood had taken possession of Toulon in trust for Louis 
 XVII. On the restoration of the Monarchy, the town, 
 harbour, forts and ships were to be restored ; and though 
 George III. disclaimed all wish to prescribe to France her 
 form of government, he intimated that the so-called 
 restoration of Louis XVII. and his heirs would be the 
 easiest way to terminate the war. 2 This was in keeping 
 with the remarkable address of the King, dated 
 October 29th, 1793, to the " well-disposed part of the 
 people of France," which demanded the formation of a 
 legitimate and stable government, and promised friend- 
 ship and protection to all who would shake off the yoke 
 of a " sanguinary anarchy," and would join the standard 
 of " hereditary monarchy. "3 And, though often dis- 
 avowed, this remained our real object through a war of 
 two decades. Our evacuation of Toulon, attended by 
 the capture of three French warships and three frigates, 
 and by the destruction of eighteen ships of the line and 
 nine frigates — a disaster described by Pitt as one from 
 which it would take the French many years to recover — 
 was also attended by so fearful a revenge on the part 
 of the republican forces that the evacuation was 
 described by Fox as having been " as disgraceful to the 
 British army as afflicting to humanity. "4 
 
 With Toulon thus lost, with the Prussian and Austrian 
 forces driven back across the Rhine, with Holland and 
 Sardinia showing disgust with a war on which they had 
 
 » Ann. Reg., 1793, II., 171. l Pari. Hist., XXX. 1061. 
 
 3 ib , XXX., 1057-60. 4 ib. XXX., 1269.
 
 28 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 never wished to embark, the year that had begun with so 
 fair an opening for the Allies ended with much dis- 
 couragement. Had the overtures for peace made by 
 Le Brun on April 2nd, 1793, to Lord Grenville through 
 John Salter, a public notary, not been spurned for not 
 conforming to diplomatic etiquette, 1 at a time when things 
 looked black for France, the war might have ended soon 
 after it had begun. But the usual militarist vapouring 
 began ; without reparation or indemnity for the past 
 and security for the future Pitt would hear nothing of the 
 sheathing of the sword. " Is there anything in this 
 situation to induce us to abandon our views of reparation 
 and security ? Are we to give up our claims of satisfaction 
 merely because we have been beyond example successful in 
 repelling an unjust attack ? To urge this point would indeed 
 be wasting the time of the House." 3 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1793, 131, 2. 
 
 2 Pari. Hist., XXX., 1016. June 17th, 1793.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 1794. The Dissolving Coalition 
 
 The British peace party thought the beginning of the 
 new year suitable for opening peace negotiations, and 
 Lord Guildford proposed an amendment to this effect to 
 the King's Speech on January 21st, 1794. He complained 
 that the war, begun for the protection of our allies and for 
 self-defence, was being continued for the restoration of 
 the old French Monarchy ; and argued that though the 
 French had declared war, they had never really wished for 
 it, otherwise the charge of making war with England 
 would not have been bandied about between Brissot and 
 Robespierre ; the English war in fact being among the 
 charges which had brought both Brissot and Le Brun to 
 the guillotine. As to a treaty of peace being insecure, 
 the same interest which would lead the French to conclude 
 a treaty would bind them to keep it. Lord Lansdowne 
 denounced the war as " unnecessary in its commencement 
 and highly impolitic in its continuance." 1 But these 
 voices of reason in the Lords were silenced by a majority 
 of 97 to 12. 
 
 Peace was so little desired that, when Lord Stanhope 
 introduced a motion against any further interference 
 with the domestic affairs of France, Lord Mansfield 
 refused to read the preamble, and Grenville's motion was 
 carried for expunging so wicked a proposal from the 
 journals of the Lords.* 
 
 But the successes of the war were a temptation to 
 prolong it. After such promising beginnings, said 
 Lord Stair, " we could surely not hesitate to prosecute 
 
 • Pari. Hist., XXX., 1082. » March 25th, 1794. 
 
 29
 
 3 o THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 the war with vigour," for " Great Britain had now the 
 power of crushing France and preventing her for years 
 from troubling Europe." 1 How, asked Lord Auckland, 
 could His Majesty be asked to open negotiations for 
 peace ; " such a proposition was big with absurdity, folly 
 and dishonour." Not only could no faith attach to a 
 treaty with France, but we should thereby renounce the 
 prospects we had of taking their foreign possessions. * 
 The argument, so popular in the American war, that the 
 war must continue because the enemy could not be trusted 
 to keep a treaty, came to the front again, and just as it 
 had been asked how England could deign to treat with a 
 Hancock, so now it was asked about a treaty with 
 Robespierre. Lord Lansdowne regretted that the same 
 abusive language that had been in vogue against the 
 American Congress was now used against the Convention. 3 
 Burke was foremost in venting his feelings in wild words 
 designed to embitter hostility. He would not hear of 
 treating with the enemy, because Condorcet was " the 
 most humane of all murderers," Brissot " the most 
 virtuous of all pickpockets," and " the only man of any 
 degree of honour among them was the hangman" who had 
 refused to execute the King. 4 Some, like the Duke of 
 Portland, regarding the war as one for religion, reprobated 
 any peace with a nation that denied the existence of a 
 God. 5 Yet nine years more of war was a high price to 
 pay for spleen of this sort. 
 
 It is curious to note that our ancestors looked on the 
 French resort to universal service very much as our 
 generation looked on the German resort to submarines ; 
 as if, given force as the ultimate appeal, there could be 
 any limitation to its logical application. Thus the 
 King's Speech of January 21st, 1794, protested : " Our 
 enemies have obtained the means of temporary exertion 
 from a system which has enabled them to dispose 
 
 « ib., XXX. 1062-3. ■ ib. XXX., 1066. 3 ib., XXX., 1083. 
 
 4 ib., XXX., 438, 9. 5 ib., XXX., 1074.
 
 THE DISSOLVING COALITION 31 
 
 arbitrarily of the lives and property of a numerous people, 
 and which openly violates every restraint of justice, 
 humanity and religion." Lord Auckland protested 
 against " the new invention of raising an armed force by 
 the operation of popular tyranny. The rising in a mass 
 was certainly a terrible expedient, and the more so as it 
 could not be imitated by other nations who retained a 
 respect for law, justice and humanity." 1 And thus 
 a system of war, once condemned in the name of justice, 
 humanity and religion has now come to be as universally 
 defended in the name of the very same abstractions 
 that were formerly pleaded against them. In little more 
 than a century war has made " the operation of popular 
 tyranny " the supreme master of the human race. 
 
 One evil result of the alarm caused by the war and the 
 atrocities of the French Revolution showed itself in the 
 spirit of persecution which came over our law courts. 
 " What had been the conduct of the courts of justice ? " 
 said Lord Lauderdale. " . . . Had we not heard of 
 the most extraordinary sentences ? Were such cruelties 
 ever remembered in the history of our country ? . . ." 
 In Scotland " the courts of justice had exceeded every- 
 thing that imagination could picture."' 
 
 On May 30th, 1794, both Fox in the Commons and the 
 Duke of Bedford in the Lords, proposed the same fourteen 
 resolutions for stopping the war, "a desperate crusade," 
 as Fox rightly called it. But the " premature " argument 
 against peace as usual prevailed ; as it also did a few weeks 
 later, when Fox and Lord Lauderdale advocated Lord 
 Howe's signal victory on June 1st, off Ushant, as affording 
 a suitable vantage-ground from which to negotiate. 
 
 This was our first great naval success in the war. 
 The twenty-six French ships that had sailed from Brest 
 were engaged by twenty-five of our own, at the cost to 
 the French of seven ships and of some 8,000 casualties. 
 The habitual humanity as well as the courage of the British 
 
 1 ib„ XXX., 1065. 2 ib., XXX., 1085.
 
 32 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 seamen was shown in the number of French sailors they 
 saved from drowning. Fox, who had always scouted the 
 idea of invasion, so long as we had the command of the 
 sea, thought that the victory made an invasion absolutely 
 impossible. 1 And indeed it checkmated Carnot's plan 
 of campaign, who had hoped after the conquest of Belgium 
 to have the army of the West by the beginning of summer 
 before the gates of London. 3 But Carnot by no means 
 gave up the idea. Instructing Gen. Pichegru to occupy 
 Ostend to facilitate this purpose, he told him that the 
 Government had not given up the plan of a landing in 
 England. 3 
 
 London showed a reasonable joy in this victory over 
 the Committee of Public Safety by illuminating itself for 
 three nights in succession. But those who did not 
 illuminate had their windows broken, and several attempts 
 to set fire to Lord Stanhope's house in Mansfield Street 
 gave eloquent expression to the animosity of the populace 
 against that courageous opponent of the war. 4 Another 
 cause for rejoicing was the surrender on May 21st of 
 Bastia, the capital of Corsica, to Lord Hood, leading in 
 July to the annexation of the whole island to the British 
 Crown, an annexation which the island had to endure till 
 after two years it shook off the yoke. 
 
 Whilst Pitt and Grenville held lofty language about 
 the impossibility of treating with a body like the Con- 
 vention, the American House of Representatives on 
 April 24th, 1794, was thanking the Committee of Public 
 Safety " for the 'friendly and affectionate manner" of a 
 recent communication to Congress. 5 Robespierre him- 
 self moderated many of Carnot's plans of invasion, 6 and 
 through Jaques Roques, alias the Count de Montgaillard, 
 threw out a feeler of peace on the basis of France's giving 
 up Savoy, Nice and Belgium in return for Corsica and the 
 
 ' Pari. Hist., XXXI., 1563, 908 » Sybel, III., 334. 
 
 3 ib., III., 471. 4 Ann. Reg., 1794, 282. 
 
 5 ib. 1794, II., 246. 6 Alison, II., 807.
 
 THE DISSOLVING COALITION 33 
 
 captured West Indian Islands. 1 Nor were our Austrian 
 and Prussian allies too proud to treat with Robespierre. 
 Austria, or rather Count Thugut, her Minister, hating 
 and fearing Prussia more than the French, was not 
 indisposed to give up Belgium for Bavaria, or for com- 
 pensations in Italy ; and her policy, like Prussia's, 
 indicated a speedy collapse of the anti-French Confederacy. 
 For both these Powers, as well as Russia, were more 
 interested in the partition of Poland than in fighting 
 France, and were disposed to leave " the cause of Europe " 
 to England alone. 
 
 The defection of Prussia was a bad example of a 
 breach of faith. By our treaty with her of August 13th, 
 1788, each country was bound to give mutual aid to the 
 other, and pledged against making a separate peace in 
 the event of war ; but in December, 1793, Lord Malmes- 
 bury, sent to Berlin to gauge the intentions of Frederick 
 William II., soon found that only a very high bribe 
 would prevail on that King to continue in a war which he 
 declared himself financially unable to continue. It was 
 at last settled by two treaties signed on April 19th, 1794, 
 that, in return for placing 62,400 men in the field by 
 May 24th, the Prussian King should receive £300,000 ; 
 £100,000 on the return of his army, and £50,000 a month, 
 plus bread and forage. Towards this sum our ally 
 Holland was to contribute £400,000, and all possible 
 conquests were to be at the disposal of the two 
 subsidising Powers. 2 In vain Lord Lansdowne pleaded 
 for a pause before we agreed to pay a subsidy " unpre- 
 cedented in all the mad wars in which we were ever 
 engaged." 3 
 
 But this huge bribe to Prussia proved very dis- 
 appointing. Lord Malmesbury, recalled on May 6th, 
 could not get the subsidy from the British Government 
 till May 23rd, the day before the Prussian mercenaries 
 
 • Sybel, III., 422. * Pari. Hist., XXXI., 433. 
 
 3 ib., XXXI., 456.
 
 34 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 should have taken the field ; Pitt and Grenville he found 
 too much occupied with repressing sedition to attend to 
 him. When he returned to Berlin, the King and his 
 ministers, after nearly half the subsidy had been paid, 
 refused to be bound in June by a treaty which had been 
 ratified with their full consent in May ! x And on October 
 25th, 1794, came Count Hardenberg's note, to the effect 
 that our suspension of the stipulated subsidies annulled the 
 treaty of April. In January, 1795, the signing of prelim- 
 inaries of peace at Basle was the first of many triumphs 
 of French diplomacy. Prussia thereby ceded to France all 
 her conquests on the left bank of the Rhine ; agreed to live 
 amicably with the Republic, and to furnish no succour to 
 its enemies. As Lord Grenville wrote to Lord Malmesbury 
 on August 10th, 1794, we had been " fairly duped " by 
 the Prussians. 2 Having done so much to seduce us into 
 the war, Prussia left us in the lurch, and very judiciously 
 retired from a war that looked interminable. 
 
 Nor was our Austrian ally much better. " Our 
 allies," said Lord Lansdowne, " appeared to be only our 
 allies for the purpose of taking our money,"3 and Fox 
 could say at the end of the year that the English and 
 Austrian armies hated one another more than either hated 
 the French. 4 
 
 It was this state of things which had made the 
 campaign of 1794 one of almost unchequered victory to 
 the French armies, not only in the Netherlands, but on 
 the Rhine and the Moselle, in Spain as well as in Italy. 
 The defeat of the Austrians at the battle of Fleurus on 
 June 26th settled the fate of the Netherlands. In quick 
 succession all the Belgian towns fell to the French, whilst 
 French towns, previously taken by the Allies, were 
 retaken in August ; Landrecy, Quesnoi, Valenciennes, 
 and Conde. The telegraph, as then recently invented by 
 the Frenchman, Chappe, carried the news of the recapture 
 
 1 Diaries, III., 113. * Malmesbury's Letters, I., 509. 
 
 3 Pari. Hist., XXXI., 1445. « ib., XXXI. , 1056.
 
 THE DISSOLVING COALITION 35 
 
 of Concte on August 30th to Paris in about an hour.* And 
 that same year saw another new invention harnessed to 
 the service of war. Not longer ago than September 19th, 
 1783, three unhappy creatures, a sheep, a cock, and a duck 
 had made the first ascent from the earth in a Montgolfier 
 balloon ; and already military reconnoitring by balloons was 
 in frequent use. It contributed not a little to the great 
 defeat of the Allies at Liege on September 18th. It 
 played its part also at the battle of Fleurus, at the siege 
 of Mainz, and at the siege of Coblenz, which, despite the 
 vast sums spent on its fortifications, fell on October 23rd, 
 after a mere show of defence by the Austrians. The five 
 days' battle from September 29th to October 3rd was even 
 more decisive than that of Fleurus in totally ruining the 
 Austrian cause in the Netherlands. And France also 
 counted to her gains this autumn Treves, Aix-la-Chapelle, 
 Cologne, Juliers, Venloo, Bonn and Worms. It was by 
 reason of such losses that the Prussian King and the 
 Emperor Francis II., against their own wish to continue 
 their crusade against France, were induced by their respec- 
 tive ministers, Gen. Manstein and Count Thugut, to turn 
 their energies from Western Europe to Poland. 2 
 
 These great French successes occurred whilst 
 Robespierre, till his death on July 28th, was at the 
 height of his power, and the Convention was guilty of some 
 of its worst excesses. And it must be taken as the 
 measure of the detestation of Austrian rule in the 
 Netherlands that the French were received with the same 
 acclamations as they had been in 1792, after Dumouriez's 
 victory at Jemappes on November 5th, 1792, despite 
 the extortions of the French on that campaign. At a 
 time when in Parliament the war was often defended as 
 a duty to religion, a contemporary English chronicler 
 declares that the French conquests were much facilitated by 
 the respect the visitors everywhere showed to the religion 
 and property of the inhabitants.3 The charge of irreligion 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1794, 5 o. * Sybel, III., 445 . 3 Ann. Reg., 1794, 54 .
 
 36 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 against the French, which had done so much to bring 
 Spain into the anti-French alliance in 1793, lost its influence 
 after experience of the respect which the French showed 
 in 1794 for the freedom of religion in the places they 
 captured. And as the same sympathy with the French 
 also arose in Holland and Germany, the war seemed not 
 unlikely to come to an end for lack of sufficient hatred 
 to feed it. But British money kept it alive. Such grew 
 to be the longing for peace in Austria and in Germany 
 that in August, 1794, the British Government found it 
 necessary to send Thomas Grenville and Lord Spencer 
 to Vienna to try to bribe the Austrian Court to make a 
 last effort for the recovery of Belgium and for aid for 
 Holland. At their request Prince Coburg was recalled, 
 and Clerfait sent in his place, but Thugut would do nothing 
 for Belgium, and wanted a loan of three millions and 
 more subsidies for the next campaign. When the three 
 millions loan was agreed to, Thugut's request for an 
 additional three million subsidy wrecked the negotiation. 1 
 There were limits to British prodigality, if there were 
 none to Austrian rapacity. At the same time we were 
 paying an annual subsidy to Sardinia of £200,000, nor is 
 there reason to doubt that the vast sums which the 
 poorer nations of the Continent thus filched out of the 
 pockets of the plundered British tax-payer had much to 
 do with the long duration of this war. In subsidies and 
 loans only this war cost the country £12,599,288 2s. 2d. 3 
 
 The ever-recurring problem of the limits of reprisals 
 came conspicuously to the front this summer. On May 
 26th a rumour of a plot instigated by England for the 
 assassination of Robespierre so incensed the Convention 
 that four days later Barrere proposed the famous decree 
 that no quarter should be allowed to English or Hanoverian 
 prisoner. The French generals never carried out this 
 decree, which was repealed in December of the same year, 
 when the humaner reaction became dominant, but the 
 
 1 Sybel, IV., 115, 125. * Ann. Reg., 1801, II., 146.
 
 THE DISSOLVING COALITION 37 
 
 Duke of York's proclamation of June 7th, 1794, in reply 
 to the decree showed the better side of the military 
 tradition. He reminded his troops that " mercy to the 
 vanquished was the brightest gem in a soldier's character," 
 and exhorted them not to suffer their resentment to lead 
 them to any precipitate acts of cruelty on their part which 
 might sully the reputation they had acquired in the world. 1 
 
 A less pleasant incident showed a different spirit in 
 Parliament. An April nth, 1794, in the debate on the 
 enlistment of Frenchmen for service on the Continent 
 against their own country, Sheridan asked, in reference 
 to their liability to be shot as rebels if taken prisoners, 
 whether we in revenge were to retaliate in the same way 
 on our French prisoners. " Yes," shouted Burke. 
 "Good heavens!" retorted Sheridan, "consider that the 
 lives of millions may depend upon that single word — that 
 you will introduce a system of human sacrifice all over 
 Europe by such a measure." 2 Lord Mulgrave on April 14th 
 strongly defended retaliations ; Montagu thought it would 
 lead to an immediate peace ; and Burke, in defence of his 
 Yes, and in reference to the fear of inflaming the Jacobins 
 by equal severity on our part, exclaimed : " Inflame a 
 Jacobin ! You may as well talk of setting fire to hell. 
 Impossible ! "4 But this passed for patriotism and wisdom. 
 
 The Seven United Provinces were detached from the 
 Alliance almost simultaneously with Prussia. Holland 
 had been, as Lord Lansdowne said on February 17th, 
 1794, "dragged into the Confederacy against her own 
 better judgment, "5 and had become strongly pro-French 
 in her sympathies. This feeling was greatly increased 
 by the indiscipline in the British army under the Duke 
 of York. " Wherever his men came," says Sybel, " they 
 plundered the villages, ground the population to the 
 dust, and spent the plundered property in riot and 
 debauchery." 6 In vain the Duke, on September 23rd, 
 
 « Ann. Reg., 1794, II., 168. » Pari. Hist., XXXI., 377. 3 ib., XXXI., 391. 
 4 ib., XXXI., 423. 5 Pari. Hist., XXX., 1398. « 3 IV., 121. 

 
 38 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 1794, threatened by proclamation severe punishments 
 against " the most shameful acts of violence and plunder 
 which dishonoured the army under his command." 1 
 The inhabitants " in despair at the excesses of the English, 
 bitterly cursed the whole war ; they even longed for the 
 arrival of the French as liberators, who would avenge 
 them on their hateful allies." 3 And the Duke himself 
 failed to show that military capacity which in those 
 strange times was expected of a King's son. On September 
 16th, 1794, Windham, Secretary at War, told Pitt that, 
 though he got to love the Duke more and more, the army 
 would be undone if he remained at its head, and that, 
 though his unpopularity had abated, he had lost the 
 confidence of the army. Pitt, though anxious to spare 
 the King's feelings, agreed that a change was necessary, 
 provided it were made " with every possible attention to 
 the Duke of York, and to avoid any imputation on his re- 
 treat. "3 So the Duke was back at home early in December. 
 In October, 1794, so great had become the desire of 
 our Dutch ally for peace that some of the United 
 Provinces separated from the Coalition, and recognised 
 the French Republic. The French intimated through 
 Lacombe her readiness for a peace with Holland, as also 
 for a general pacification, but the British Government 
 would not hear of it ; " the idea of peace was reprobated 
 in the strongest terms " ; the Dutch were told that 
 "peace was absolutely impossible," and urged to a vigorous 
 continuance of the war.4 A letter from The Hague, dated 
 October 15th, to Miles, describes our Minister at The 
 Hague, Lord St Helens, as labouring night and day to 
 prevent Holland from making her peace with France. 5 
 A Dutch writer on November 18th, said : " From the 
 worse than indiscreet conduct of your troops, and from 
 the rapid advances of the French, do not be surprised if 
 
 » Ann. Reg., 1795, H-i tfl. 2 Sybel, IV., 122. 
 
 3 Windham Papers, I., 239-42, 253. 
 
 4 Count de to Miles, II., 217. 5 Miles to Prince of Wales, 193.
 
 THE DISSOLVING COALITION 39 
 
 we should unite with France, and take a part against you ; 
 we never cordially loved you, but your Cabinet has 
 contrived to make us most cordially hate you."* 
 
 A frost that turned all the rivers and canals into 
 bridges much facilitated Pichegru's advance against 
 Holland. Grave, the only town that held out for so long 
 as a month, capitulated on December 30th, 1794 ; the 
 patriotic proclamations of the Stadtholder, whose 
 attachment to the Allies had become hateful to his 
 people, fell on deaf ears ; and on January 19th, 1795, he 
 barely escaped with his life across the sea to Harwich. 
 The next day Pichegru's army entered Amsterdam with 
 every manifestation of delight from the inhabitants, and 
 a victory, signalised by the good discipline of the troops, 
 heralded the proclamation of the Freedom of the Provinces. 
 All the other towns as gladly welcomed the French as their 
 deliverers ; liberty of conscience and of religious worship 
 were everywhere introduced, 3 and France added to her 
 resources the gain of Dutch wealth and of the Dutch fleet. 
 
 The retreat of the British troops, which had so 
 gallantly striven to avert the invasion, was among the 
 most miserable recorded in history. It lasted for two 
 months through that bitter winter, with such neglect on the 
 part of the military authorities at home that many of the 
 wounded were frozen to death in open waggons. But 
 more unkind than the winter's winds was man's ingrati- 
 tude. Concealed foes met the troops in every town and 
 village, nor could food be bought for money. " The 
 hatred of the natives to the English was never concealed, 
 whenever they dared to manifest it " ; " the country was 
 hostile to them all the way " to Bremen, where the 
 welcome shown to the survivors made some atonement 
 for their past miseries. For the generality of the Dutch, 
 regarding the English as the cause of the war, " held them 
 in abhorrence, and sought every occasion to add to their 
 present distresses."3 It was a happy day for the 
 
 1 ib -» *95- * Ann. Reg., 1795, 52. 3 ib., 1795, 49.
 
 40 rHE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 survivors, when 0:1 April nth, 1795. they embarked from 
 Bremen, and a still happier one when they reached their 
 different destinations in the home land. And from that 
 time till 1799, when an attempt to invade Holland en 
 disastrously, England took no part in the war or. 
 Continent, whilst an armv of 200.000 men waited at home 
 fat the call that might come to resist at. invasion. 
 
 On December 30th, 1794, Lord Lansdowne as 
 what had become of our armies, the finest ever raised : 
 " thev were to be found nowhere ; they were gone to God, 
 and no longer to be found among men. . . . And 
 ;;:•■■■" were : ar armies rezraited : By da :v. a a - .: 
 We had no other recruits ; our officers were children, our 
 grenadiers invalids." 1 And for such recruits a bounty 
 of twenty-five guineas was necessary. 
 
 ? 1 v wh : re : : i red never : : fa a \ > : given an opinion which 
 had cost his country a drop of British blood, said on March 
 24th : - ". 5 that Pitt had brought the country " to the verge 
 of ruin bv the obstinacy and madr.e — :: his conduct." 3 
 
 A campaign which had begun with Ministerial talk 
 of a march to Paris3 had thus ended with the honours of 
 war and of diplomacy in favour :: Fiance. In the hall 
 3J :he Convention a list of the French conquests during 
 the year was hung up, and copies of it distributed to the 
 armies. It included the Ten Provinces of the Austrian 
 Netherlands and the Sever. United Provinces :: Holland : 
 the bishoprics of Liege, Worms and Spires ; the Elec- 
 tarates :: Treves. Mainz and Cologne; the Palatinate 
 and the Duzhies :■: Deux Pants. Juliers and Cleves. In 
 the South there were the arincipalities of Nice, Monaco 
 and Savoy ; in Spain, the provinces of Biscay and Cata- 
 tonia : an increase of thirteen millions of population. 
 Twentv-seven battles :: importance had been won and 
 :::' strong zities taken. And Prussia, and Holland, and 
 
 a Austria, had been virtually detached from the 
 enemies of France. 
 
 :? = :'. H:;:, XXXI. , 1-4. : :: ,XXXI„ un. i :;., XXXI., -:, i:.;
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 1795. The Quiberon Year. 
 
 Ox December 17th, 1794, Barthelemy, the French Minister 
 at Basle, wrote a letter to Miles, by express order of the 
 Convention, to the effect that on December 6th the 
 Convention had passed a resolution to welcome any 
 proposals for peace that were consistent with the intere-:s 
 the safety and the dignity of France. 1 On January 2nd, 
 1795, Miles informed Pitt of this fact, and regretted 
 always that Pitt paid no attention to this invitation to 
 treat. 2 " I am certain." he wrote to Pitt two years later 
 (May iSth, 1797), " from the disastrous issue of the contest 
 you must feel regret at having declined the overture of 
 peace which Barthelemy transmitted to me by the direction 
 of the Convention, for the purpose of being recommended 
 to you. "3 
 
 And indeed there was less reason in 1795 than in 1794 
 for the failure to end the war. For after the fall I 
 Robespierre on July 28th, 1794, a reaction towards 
 moderation and humanity had followed the reign I 
 terror ; as was most conspicuouslv shown in the treaties 
 of amnesty concluded between the Convention and the 
 Vendean and Chouan insurrectionists in March and April, 
 1795. The suppression of the insurrection had been 
 marked by atrocities inconceivably shameful, but such 
 reconciliation as was possible was effected by the bringing 
 to the guillotine of Carrier and two others for the unspeak- 
 able cruelties of the Tribunal of Xantes ; by the liberal 
 compensation given for the restoration of the burnt a::d 
 devastated districts ; and by the permission for the 
 
 1 Miles, II., 215. » ib., II., 225, 343. . I.. 96.
 
 42 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 return of the priests and for the resumption of the Catholic 
 rites of religion. 1 
 
 This spirit of greater moderation was reflected also in 
 French diplomacy, and met its natural response in a 
 general disposition to peace. The Diet of Ratisbon on 
 December 22nd, 1794, had expressed a decided wish for 
 that lost blessing, with which the Emperor at least affected 
 to sympathise ; on February 5th, 1795, Fox spoke of the 
 Empire's wish for peace as unanimous. 3 Prussia having 
 broken away from the Coalition had, much to the imperial 
 annoyance, as expressed in a proclamation of May 6th, 
 1795, concluded her long negotiations with France by 
 her treaty of peace and alliance on April 5th, 1795, at 
 Basle. Tuscany also retired from the alliance in 
 February, and re-confirmed her policy of neutrality on 
 March 1st, 1795. Sweden in April recognised the French 
 Republic, as did also the Canton of Basle and the Swiss 
 Protestant Cantons. Spain, utterly defeated, made her 
 peace with France on July 22nd, 1795. She had to her 
 honour contended for the release of the royal children in 
 the Temple as one of the conditions of peace ; but the 
 death of the long-tormented child, Louis XVII., on 
 June 8th, 1795, had removed this difficulty to an agree- 
 ment. She received back from France all her conquered 
 territories, in return for the recognition of the French 
 and Batavian Republics, the cession to France of the 
 Spanish portion of St. Domingo, and her good offices for 
 a peace between France and the Courts of Naples, Sardinia, 
 Parma and Portugal. Even the Landgrave of Hesse 
 deserted the Coalition on August 29th, 1795, promising to 
 supply no more military aid to the enemies of France. 
 The Austrian Netherlands (Belgium) were formally 
 annexed to the French Republic on October 1st, 1795, 
 after a long discussion, and against the warnings of the 
 Moderate party in the Convention. 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1795, II., 177. Sybel, IV., 303. 
 » Pari. Hist., XXXI., 1305.
 
 THE QUIBERON YEAR 43 
 
 Clauses in treaties against separate peace were as 
 vain as usual in keeping the allies together. But the 
 loss of our Dutch ally was a grievous blow. The French 
 conquest of the Provinces ended on May 15th, 1795, for 
 the price of four million pounds paid to France for the 
 expenses of the war, in an offensive and defensive alliance 
 between the Batavian and French Republics, to last for 
 the period only of the war against other enemies, but 
 against Great Britain " for ever." 1 Twelve Dutch ships 
 of the line and eighteen frigates became a fresh asset to 
 the French navy. 
 
 But it had been generally hoped in France that the 
 Peace with Prussia would lead to a general pacification, 2 
 and such a hope was expressed by speeches in the Con- 
 vention on February 13th, 1795.3 Nor were the British 
 people behind the rest of Europe in the same desire. 
 The city of London voted a petition to Parliament to stop 
 the war, by 4,000 to 100 ; Southwark and several large 
 cities passed similar resolutions. 4 Fox and the Peace 
 party were indefatigable in the same cause ; and many 
 of the original believers in the war, like Wilberforce and 
 Sir Richard Hill, had come to repent of their share in 
 the war-delirium of 1793. The anti-war minority in 
 Parliament was visibly increasing ; and Bishop Watson 
 of Llandaff, breaking away from his cloth, distinguished 
 himself by advocating peace in the neglected interests of 
 Christian humanity. 5 
 
 But Pitt would not hear of negotiation. The usual 
 scorn was thrown on the idea. Lord Mansfield, whom his 
 contemporaries spoke of as wisdom personified, would 
 not hear of " crouching at the feet of France " ; Lord 
 Camden ranted against " bending the knee to the French 
 Republic " ; William Windham, Secretary at War, 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1795, II., 182, Articles 3 and 4. 
 
 z Ann. Reg., 1795, 61. 3 Miles, II., 239. 
 
 4 Ann. Reg., 1795, II., 105, 6. 
 
 5 Pari. Hist., XXXI., 1264, January 27th, 1795.
 
 44 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 spoke with contempt of " stealing out of the war." It 
 was in vain that Fox fought against this favourite argu- 
 ment of the war party : " To propose negotiations is not 
 to sue for peace. It is at every moment dignified and 
 proper to restore the blessing of peace, and it is 
 certainly one thing to propose a negotiation in which 
 terms are to be fairly and manfully discussed, and another 
 to sue to your enemy for peace" (October 6th, 1796). 
 
 Against another favourite argument for war, that no 
 treaty with the enemy could be trusted, Fox pronounced a 
 principle which is true for all time : " If a rational treaty 
 is made, and it is the interest of the parties to keep 
 it, that is the only true and wise dependence which you 
 can have for the continuance of peace " (October 29th, 
 
 1795). 
 
 But at that time Pitt's great argument was the 
 familiar one, that negotiation would be " premature," 1 
 it being the common assumption in the gamble of every 
 war that a later peace is demonstrably better than any 
 peace made at the moment. So he continued to make 
 monotonous speeches on the evils of an insecure peace, 
 on the fall of the French assignats, and on the imminent 
 and inevitable ruin of France. To cover the wastage of 
 the alliance he made fresh treaties with Russia and the 
 Empire : Russia to supply 10,000 infantry and 2,000 
 horse in return for a large British squadron (February 18th, 
 1795), and the Empire and Great Britain to guarantee 
 their respective possessions undiminished at the conclusion 
 of peace. (May 20th, 1795). 
 
 So the war continued its needless course. On 
 June 7th, 1795, the French added the taking of Luxem- 
 burg to their victories. But the chief event of this 
 summer was their defeat of the plot for the restoration 
 of the Bourbons, which ended so disastrously in the Bay 
 of Quiberon. Considering the terrible sufferings of the 
 Chouans and the Vendeans in the suppression of their 
 
 1 Pari. Hist., XXXII. 28, 38.
 
 THE QUIBERON YEAR 45 
 
 first rising in 1793, and the pacification of the country 
 by the Convention in March, 1795, nothing but a 
 certainty of success could have justified our Government 
 in encouraging these courageous royalists to a fresh 
 trial of arms with the Republic. 
 
 Yet Lord Grenville had always relied on a royalist 
 counter-revolution for ending the war. Without the 
 knowledge of most of his colleagues he had sent William 
 Wickham to Switzerland on a secret mission, and since 
 June, 1795, Wickham acted at Berne, ostensibly as our 
 Minister, but really as Spy-in-Chief for Grenville. The 
 scheme was to bring back Louis XVIII. to France, partly 
 by insurrections in Lyons, Provence and La Vendee, 
 and partly by an invasion of France under the Prinze 
 de Conde. The scheme might have succeeded, for 
 there was a strong tendency in France at the time 
 towards a limited monarchy. But neither money nor 
 persuasion could prevail on the emigres to think of any- 
 thing but an unlimited monarchy ; the full ancien regime, 
 with all its old tyrannies and abuses. It was to be 
 Royalty on " the old principles," and the Prince de Conde 
 insisted on the support of the Royal cause " in its ancient 
 purity." 1 Wickham complained that many Frenchmen 
 dreaded the return of the emigrants more even than the 
 revival of the Jacobins, and feared their insolence more 
 than their vengeance. Their imprudent language and 
 conduct put the severest strain on Wickham's patience. 3 
 Neither he nor General Pichegru could induce Louis XVIII. 
 to abate one jot of the full rigour of his claims. It was 
 always the same. On July 18th, 1796, Wickham told 
 Grenville that Louis declared that " he would rather 
 relinquish his crown than accept of any conditions that were 
 not grafted on the laws of the ancient Government. "3 
 Louis would offer no sacrifices through his agents, nor ever 
 ceased to talk of " the ancient regime in all its purity. "4 
 
 1 Wickham's Corresp., I., 106. 3 ib., I., 424. 
 
 2 ib., I., 204. 4 ib., I., 434.
 
 46 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 It was to this impracticable King and party that 
 the country became committed. Pitt had disclaimed 
 as a madness the idea of making the restoration a 
 condition of peace. 1 and denied that such restoration 
 of monarchy " on the old principles " had ever been 
 stated by His Majesty, by Government, or by Par- 
 liament as a sine qua non of peace, 2 but both he and 
 Grenville and the King must have known through 
 Wickham that this was the only aim which interested the 
 emigres, whose cause they so disastrously espoused ; 
 though George III. himself did not share in the infatua- 
 tion of his Ministers for the emigres, against whom, thinking 
 they would prove false, he steadily directed his influence. "3 
 Wickham's letters show how numerous were the threads, 
 how lavish the expenditure, by which, with an ability 
 only equalled by its futility, our ministers furthered 
 the interests of the Bourbons. 
 
 But for eight months Count Puisaye tried in vain to 
 obtain active assistance for the Royalists and emigres from 
 the British Government, before he succeeded ; and the 
 result was what Erskine well called " the merciless and 
 impolitic expedition to Quiberon," on the coast of 
 Brittany. Miles says that it was Windham who planned 
 the expedition, and that Pitt yielded to him against his 
 better judgment. 4 Windham was the evil genius of this 
 war ; " uncommonly and classically clever," said Lord 
 Malmesbury, but with so little knowledge of mankind 
 that " he was the dupe of every emigrant who called on 
 him " ; persistent in his idea of a Bellum internecinum 
 (war to the knife) and spoilt by the influence of Burke. 5 
 The result was the revival of the recently quenched civil 
 war in Western France and untold misery to the luckless 
 emigres, who were collected from all quarters for the 
 intended and accomplished landing. They were not 
 
 i Pari. Hist., XXXI., 1397, March 24th, 1795. 
 
 2 ib., XXXI., 1212. 3 Rose's Pitt, 261. 4 I., 90. 
 
 5 Diaries, III., 590.
 
 THE QUIBERON YEAR 47 
 
 stinted in war equipment, being supplied by Pitt with 
 30,000 muskets and 22,000 uniforms, and 19 cannons. 
 But they fell victims by the thousand to the soldiers of 
 Gen. Hoche, or to the executioners of Tallien. 1 Well 
 might Fox say of this dreadful fiasco that it would stain 
 the British character in the estimation of posterity more 
 than all the other operations of the war.* Yet it did not 
 deter the Government from a second expedition the same 
 year; which only its utter failure saved from being attended 
 by the same useless loss of life. Windham never ceased 
 to delude himself and to delude others with his idle hopes 
 of conquering France by means of the Royalists and 
 emigrants. Not without justice did Miles write to the 
 Duke of Leeds on December 30th, 1795, that the blunders 
 of the Government could not have been exceeded " by 
 any twelve hackney coachmen taken from the first 
 stand. "3 
 
 Riots in many English towns showed how hateful the 
 war was becoming to the virtually unrepresented people, 
 who were taxed mercilessly for Pitt's war policy. Crimping 
 houses, which decoyed men, often when drunk, to enlist 
 in the army and navy, were the objects of fierce attacks. 
 And when Parliament met earlier than usual on October 
 29th, 1795, the King's coach was mobbed both in going 
 to and in returning from Westminster ; there were 
 ominous cries of " No King," and shoutings for peace 
 and for Pitt's dismissal. But this only led to the Pitt 
 and Grenville Acts (33 Geo. III. 7 and 8, December 18th, 
 1795), which put still greater restrictions than before on 
 the rights of meeting, speaking and writing, and brought 
 sentences of transportation or of death unpleasantly near 
 to all opponents of the Government and the war. The 
 war made the Government a military despotism, as war 
 invariably does. Fox declared that the powers over 
 meetings conferred by these Acts " repealed the Bill of 
 
 » Alison, II., 946-957. Sybel, IV., 387. 
 
 2 Pari. Hist., XXXII., 170. 3 II., 274.
 
 48 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Rights, and cut up the whole of the Constitution by the 
 roots, by changing our limited monarchy into an absolute 
 despotism." 1 Even Grenville admitted that the new 
 law intrenched " in some degree " on the Bill of Rights.* 
 But some departure from the paths of freedom by those 
 responsible for the safety of the country doubtless derived 
 some justification from the terrible experiences of France. 
 
 The lesson of the Royal coach was not lost upon Pitt. 
 It was evident that the popularity of the war was fast 
 ebbing. The war had been marked, as Grey said (later 
 the Lord Grey of the Reform Bill of 1832), " by one 
 continued series of misery and misfortune," and except 
 at sea, had been nothing " but an unremitting series of 
 defeat and disgrace. "3 
 
 The majority which Pitt commanded in Parliament 
 really proved nothing of the feeling of the country, for 
 as Sturt wrote to Miles on November 29th, 1801, " to 
 talk of the independence of Parliament is too absurd, 
 when we recollect how we are elected. We purchase our 
 seats as you do your beef and mutton. "4 
 
 The customary tests of prosperity attested the 
 customary growth of wealth, but in the poorer classes 
 not one labourer in ten could support his family by his 
 labour. 5 No rise of wages had kept pace with the rise 
 of prices. A bushel of wheat per week was accepted as 
 the lowest price that could support a labourer's family, 
 but in Wiltshire, with wheat at fourteen shillings a bushel, 
 the price of labour was only seven shillings a week. 6 A 
 barley loaf cost I2^d., and a shilling was a labourer's 
 daily wage. 7 And whilst Parliament stuck to a maximum 
 figure beyond which wages could not rise, Pitt would on no 
 account suffer Parliament to fix a minimum beyond which 
 they could not fall. 8 Pitt's everlasting harping on the 
 
 « Pari. Hist., XXXII., 383. * ib., XXXII. 529. 
 
 3 Pari. Hist., XXXII., 716. 4 Corresp., L, 101. 
 
 S Pari. Hist., XXXII., 165. 6 ib., XXXII., 198. 
 
 7 ib. XXXII., 712. 8 ib., XXXII., 703-15.
 
 THE QUIBERON YEAR 49 
 
 distresses of France did nothing to alleviate the distresses 
 of England ; and increasing misery gave point to the 
 Peace party's argument that it was as possible for us as 
 for other countries to treat with a Republic. 
 
 Moreover, the policy of our Austrian ally was a very 
 uncertain quantity. During the greater part of 1795 
 Count Thugut had been too much afraid of developments 
 in Germany, of Prussia perhaps attacking Bohemia, to 
 contribute much to the " common cause." It almost 
 came to a bargain with France, by which France would 
 have kept Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine, and 
 Austria would have acquired Bavaria and the Milanese. 
 Not till the autumn were Austrian military operations of 
 any importance, when Generals Clerfait and Wurmser 
 drove the French back from German territory across the 
 Rhine, and threatened France with an invasion in the 
 campaign of 1796. This prospect was calculated to dispose 
 the French to peace. Moreover, after great political 
 convulsions, the Directory had come into being that 
 autumn, with its two chambers, a Council of Five Hundred, 
 and a Council of Ancients (over forty), and, though all 
 the five Directors had voted for the death of Louis XVI., 
 Pitt seized the opportunity of announcing in the King's 
 speech of December 8th, 1795, that the new government 
 was sufficiently regular to treat with and to permit an 
 expression of readiness to negotiate for a general peace. 1 
 
 But, though peace was in the King's speech, it was not 
 in his heart. From the time the war began its great 
 support was the King. It gave the King " infinite 
 pleasure " when in February, 1793, Fox's five resolutions 
 against the Government's war policy were defeated by 
 270 to 44. On May 6th, 1794, his opinion was that a 
 premature peace ought not to stop the war. On May 28th, 
 1795, the defeat of Wilberforce's motion for a general 
 pacification by 201 to 86 was " highly agreeable " to him, 
 particularly as " the temper of the majority appeared to 
 
 1 Pari. Hist., XXXII. , 570.
 
 50 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 be strongly in favour of perseverance in the war." On 
 November 18th, 1795, he wrote to Pitt of the impossibility 
 " for any country to treat with that unprincipled nation," 
 the French. On January 27th, 1796, he sent Pitt his 
 objections to any peace negotiations. So, as Stanhope 
 justly says, the King's strong feelings for war were 
 " among the principal difficulties with which his Ministers 
 had to contend."* 
 
 » Life of Pitt, II., 366.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 1796. The First Peace Failure 
 
 Lord Malmesbury said that even when Pitt " declaimed 
 the loudest, and with the greatest emphasis, for a continu- 
 ance of war, his real and genuine opinion went for peace." 
 And perhaps the highest proof of the quality of his 
 statesmanship is that, in spite of the King, and of Lord 
 Grenville, his Foreign Secretary, and of public opinion, 
 he made three attempts in 1796 to stop the war. 
 
 The first was early in the new year, when Grenville 
 instructed Wickham at Berne to sound the Directory 
 through Barthelemy as to its disposition towards a general 
 peace and a Peace Congress. Barthelemy, on March 
 26th, affirmed the existence of such a disposition, subject 
 only to the condition that the latest French Constitution 
 made all territory of the Republic inalienable. 1 This 
 seemed to exclude the possibility of mutual restitutions, 
 and Pitt not unnaturally dismissed the reply as meaning 
 that France was to have every loss restored to her and to 
 give nothing back in return. 2 Lord Auckland thought 
 Barthelemy' s answer " stupid, ill-conceived and in- 
 solent," 3 though Wickham himself did not consider it as 
 indicating an insuperable aversion to peace, 4 nor should 
 it have been treated as final. 
 
 Grenville expressed himself as greatly surprised at an 
 answer so little in harmony with the distressful state of 
 France, but added significantly that it " played our game 
 for us better than we could have hoped," as tending to 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1796, II., 125, 6. 
 
 2 Pari. Hist., XXXII., 1137. 3 Wickham, I., 340. 
 4 ib., I., 336-9, 352.
 
 52 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 raise discontent in France with the Directory. * Wickham 
 had the whole correspondence circulated in Paris and the 
 provinces as proof of the sincerity of England's wish for 
 peace, telling Grenville that this would prove a most 
 powerful engine for all who wished to attack or embarrass 
 the French Government. 2 But it had no effect whatever. 
 
 As the game that Wickham was playing must have 
 been well understood in France, he was the worst possible 
 negotiator to have chosen. The transport of arms, 
 powder, and money, into France through the Canton of 
 Berne had long made Wickham an object of suspicion^ 
 and in November, 1795, the Royalist papers, seized on 
 the frontier on one of his agents, must have contained 
 damaging allusions to his name. 4 It also made Wickham 
 an unlucky harbinger of peace that Count Thugut would 
 not allow the Austrian Minister in Switzerland to sign 
 the peace overture, so that its signature by Wickham 
 alone seemed to indicate that it came only from England, 
 not from the whole Coalition. 5 
 
 Sir George (later Lord) Macartney had been sent by 
 Grenville in August, 1795, to Verona, then the brief 
 residence of the exiled French King, to whom Grenville 
 sent dispatches, in the interests of a restored monarchy ; 
 and, though in the debate of May 10th, 1796, Pitt 
 effectively answered Fox's criticism that the whole 
 negotiation had been insincere, he left unanswered Fox's 
 contention, that the recall of Lord Macartney would 
 have done something to convince the Directory of the 
 sincerity of the overture. 6 
 
 Pitt renewed peace overtures in May, but they too 
 failed. In his pacific course he " had great difficulties 
 to contend with. The King was greatly adverse." 7 
 
 But in October he resolved to try again. For, as the 
 year wore on, military events occurred between May and 
 
 » ib. I., 343. April 15th. 2 ib., I., 354, 5. 3 ib., I., 254. 
 
 4 ib., I., 218. 5 ib., I., 293, 4. 
 
 6 Pari. Hist, XXXII., 1093-1137, 11 16. 7 Stanhope, II., 371.
 
 THE FIRST PEACE FAILURE 53 
 
 October, which much changed the situation. For it was 
 the year of Bonaparte's famous Italian campaign. With 
 the aid of the troops which the peace with Spain enabled 
 him to withdraw from the Pyrenees he rapidly became 
 master of Italy. The conquest of Piedmont forced our 
 Sardinian ally out of the Confederacy on May 15th, 1796. 
 He was compelled to cede Nice and Savoy and all of 
 Piedmont west of the highest Alps, and to allow a free 
 passage to the French troops. This made easy the 
 conquest of Austrian Lombardy, completed, on June 30th, 
 by the fall of the garrison of Milan. The withdrawal of 
 Gen. Wurmser's forces from the Rhine had removed all 
 danger of an invasion of France, and after the five 
 days' battles of Lonato and Castiglione, so fatal to the 
 flower of the Austrian Army, no Austrian forces remained 
 north of the Adige. These and other victories led up 
 to the great French victory at Areola on November 18th, 
 1796. 
 
 Nor till the month of August were French successes 
 in Germany less decisive than those in Italy. Generals 
 Moreau and Jourdan had carried their invasion into the 
 heart of Germany. The Duke of Wurtemburg and the 
 Margrave of Baden had been glad to make their peace 
 with France on the moderate terms of withdrawal from 
 the Confederacy and the cession of their territories west 
 of the Rhine. 1 Immense plunder marked the German as 
 it did the Italian campaign, war being thus made to pay 
 its own way ; and it looked at one time as if Bonaparte's 
 scheme for an attack on Vienna by his own force operating 
 from the south through the Tyrol in conjunction with the 
 double invasion through Germany might be crowned 
 with success. Prussia, with an eye to the share in the 
 spoils of Austria, looked on with complacency. 2 Saxony 
 and Bohemia were menaced, and so serious grew the alarm 
 at Vienna that the Emperor contemplated its abandon- 
 ment. The Diet at Ratisbon on July 30th (except Austria 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1796, II., 221-6. 2 ib., 1796, 131.
 
 54 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 and Bohemia) resolved to negotiate a peace with France, 
 and remonstrated with Francis II. for his opposition to 
 stopping the war. But then the tide had turned, and 
 from August 24th the French had been in constant retreat 
 before the victorious Archduke Charles, and been thankful 
 when in the last week of October they had effected a 
 safe re-crossing of the Rhine. 
 
 But our maritime gains were a set-off to those of France 
 on the Continent. The West Indian Islands of St. Lucia, 
 St. Vincent and Grenada had surrendered to us in May 
 and June ; French commerce was commonly spoken of as 
 destroyed. And the alliance of Holland with France had 
 thrown all the foreign possessions of our ally, the Stadt- 
 holder, into our hands : the Cape of Good Hope on 
 September 17th, 1795 ; the settlements of Essiquibo 
 and Demarara ; Ceylon, Cochin and Malacca ; the 
 islands of Amboyna and Banda, and their dependencies, 
 with vast treasures of cloves, nutmeg and mace. And 
 these great losses had been aggravated byElphinstone's 
 capture of the Dutch squadron in its vain expedition to 
 recover the Cape in August, 1796. Spain, in September, 
 1796, changed her treaty with France of the previous 
 year into an offensive and defensive alliance. Yet French 
 soldiers in France had not been paid for months ; even 
 contractors had to forgo their profits ; the hospitals were 
 terribly neglected ; nor could the police cope with the 
 internal disorders of the country. 
 
 Circumstances therefore seeming to favour a peace 
 on the basis of mutual restitutions, Pitt came round to Fox's 
 view that there was nothing degrading in making the 
 first overtures of peace, and the newly elected Parliament 
 was informed on October 6th, 1796, of the King's intention 
 to send an envoy to Paris to negotiate with the enemy. 
 So to Paris went Lord Malmesbury, nicknamed " the 
 Lion," by reason of his fine eyes and leonine white locks, 
 to try to succeed in a field where Wickham had failed. 
 His credentials, dated October 13th, 1796, gave him the
 
 THE FIRST PEACE FAILURE 55 
 
 fullest possible powers to treat, 1 but Lord Grenville, as 
 if frightened at the liberty thus given, reminded him that, 
 except with Austria's consent, no peace could be made 
 which did not restore to her all that she had lost, that is, 
 the Netherlands and her Italian possessions. 2 This 
 condition condemned the negotiation to almost certain 
 failure from the start. 
 
 Lord Malmesbury's embassy, thus predestined to 
 fail, turned chiefly on this crucial question of Belgium. 
 Yet the French wanted peace. On October 17th Lord 
 Malmesbury told Lord Grenville that he found " the cry 
 for peace universal," and on November nth he wrote to 
 Pitt of " the country at large " as " much inclined to 
 peace." The French Foreign Minister, Delacroix, was 
 anxious to convince Malmesbury of the sincerity of the 
 French desire for peace, 3 but he also said that all the 
 Courts of Europe thought England insincere in the 
 matter. And Malmesbury felt the same distrust of the 
 French, thinking that Delacroix was playing for retarding 
 and defeating the negotiation. 
 
 So both diplomats beat the air, evading the real point 
 at issue. We had begun by suggesting a peace based 
 on mutual restitution of conquests, but it was not till 
 November 17th that Delacroix definitely accepted this 
 principle, and fairly pressed Malmesbury to make specific 
 proposals. Malmesbury, lacking the courage to act on 
 his own permitted initiative, referred the question back 
 to Lord Grenville, who on December 10th wrote strongly 
 against listening to any idea of leaving the Austrian 
 Netherlands to France. On December nth he insisted 
 on the full restoration to the Emperor of all his dominions 
 (according to the treaties of August 30th, 1793, and 
 May 20th, 1794). But he added that proposals for 
 compensations elsewhere should be considered. On 
 December 15th Grenville's specific proposals reached 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1796, II., 172, 3. 2 Diaries, III., 266. 
 
 3 ib. t III., 333.
 
 56 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Lord Malmesbury. They came in the form of demands, 
 of which the chief were : (i) the restoration of all the 
 Emperor's dominions as before the war ; (2) a negotiated 
 peace between France and the Empire ; (3) the evacua- 
 tion of Italy, and a return, as far as possible, to pre-war 
 conditions. In return the liberal offer was made of the 
 restoration by Great Britain of all the conquered French 
 territories in the East and West Indies ; of St. Pierre 
 and Miquelon ; and of French fishing rights off New- 
 foundland. 1 
 
 The proposal about Holland was that there could be 
 no question of restoring her captured colonies, unless she 
 reverted to her old Constitution and recognised the rights 
 of the House of Orange. 
 
 The proposed restitution of the captured French colonies 
 was a considerable concession ; but at that time Dela- 
 croix was among the many French disciples of Turgot 
 who held that the internal development of France was a 
 surer source of wealth than foreign possessions. 2 More- 
 over, it was part of Pitt's peace bargain that we should 
 retain the many conquests we had made from Holland ; 
 otherwise their restitution to Holland would only be an 
 addition to the power of France.3 
 
 As Fox said, we meant to keep The Cape of Good 
 Hope and Ceylon " for ever. "4 
 
 With correct foresight Delacroix argued that ultimately 
 the Cape would be of far greater importance to 
 England than Belgium would be to France, and that 
 with Ceylon and the Cape in our hands all French Eastern 
 possessions would be held at our mercy. 5 Fox argued 
 that we should have offered the Cape in return for 
 Belgium, 6 which would have better equalised our offers 
 with our demands. 
 
 On this rock the peace was wrecked. On December 
 
 1 ib. III., 342. 3 Malmesbury's Diaries, III., 334, 5. 
 
 3 Pari. Hist., XXXII., 1455. 4 ib., XXXII., 1479. 
 
 5 Malmesbury, III., 359. 6 Pari. Hist., XXXII., 1481.
 
 THE FIRST PEACE FAILURE 57 
 
 17th Delacroix declared it constitutionally impossible 
 for the Directory to give back the Austrian Netherlands, 
 but he suggested as an equivalent the secularisation of 
 bishoprics in Germany and Italy, and of those of Cologne, 
 Mainz and Treves. Malmesbury hinted at compensations 
 on the German side of the French frontier ; but insisted 
 that the King would never relax nor consent to see the 
 Austrian Netherlands part of France. 1 On Delacroix's 
 asking whether this was a sine qua non of peace, Malmes- 
 bury replied that it certainly was a condition from which 
 His Majesty would not depart ; 2 yet not without intimating 
 that any counter-proposals would be considered, provided 
 the Netherlands were not French, nor likely to fall into 
 French hands. 
 
 Thus after two months of diplomacy a deadlock was 
 reached. On December 20th, 1796, Malmesbury received 
 notice to leave France within forty-eight hours. He 
 left next day, reached London on December 29th, and 
 dined happily with Pitt the same evening. Burke's 
 comment in a letter to Windham of December 25th was : 
 " This mongrel (Malmesbury) has been whipped back to 
 the kennel yelping, and with his tail between his legs. "3 
 On someone's remarking on the length of time it had taken 
 " the Lion " to reach Paris, Burke replied that it was 
 not to be wondered at, seeing that he had to go there on 
 his knees. 
 
 Windham had been almost alone in the Cabinet in 
 opposing negotiations, and early in 1797 the King 
 complimented} him on his firmness. 4 Windham had 
 written on September 30th, 1796, to Mrs. Crewe : 
 " Peace made and the Republic established ; there is 
 an end of the power, independence, government, morals 
 of this country, as well as of every other throughout 
 Europe ; " those who wanted peace were mere " booby 
 politicians ; " he would have left the Cabinet long ago 
 
 1 Diaries, III., 355. 2 ib., III., 360. 
 
 3 Windham Papers, II., 35. 4 ib., II., 19.
 
 58 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 had he felt sure that Malmesbury's " despicable embassy " 
 would succeed. 1 Nevertheless, he preferred to stick to 
 office in a Cabinet of these " booby politicians : " a man 
 chiefly memorable for his failure as a war administrator, 
 and for the success of his speech on May 24th, 1802, in 
 causing the House of Commons to reject a Bill for making 
 illegal the barbarous custom of bull-baiting. 2 
 
 Windham thought his friend Burke deserving of a 
 golden statue from the country. 3 But Sheridan, in 
 criticising Burke's pension, held that he had contributed 
 " very considerably " to involving us in the war, 4 and 
 Fox was of opinion that his " masterly performance," 
 the " Thoughts on the French Revolution," by which 
 he had charmed the world with the brilliancy of his 
 genius, had done much to plunge us into the calamities 
 of war. 5 
 
 Fox's complaint that the Government had not sincerely 
 desired peace, but only hoped to get credit for pacific 
 intentions is not borne out by Lord Malmesbury's account 
 of the negotiations. 6 At the same time, it is remarkable 
 that on March 4th, 1797, the King wrote a letter to Pitt, 
 presuming that his Minister would rejoice with him over 
 Lord Malmesbury's failure. 7 How could the King have 
 so written, had he thought that Pitt would be dis- 
 appointed ? Grenville would naturally have rejoiced, 
 but why Pitt ? Can it be that the terms had been 
 purposely pitched so high as to ensure rejection ? Or 
 had the French been insincere ? Alison thought so, 
 because of their preparations for the invasion of Ireland, 
 and the great hopes they derived from it. Gen. Hoche's 
 large armament, of which Wickham had warned 
 Grenville from July 3rd onwards, set sail two days after 
 the rupture of the negotiations, only to meet with that 
 
 1 ib., II., 24, October 31st, 1796. 2 ib., II., 189. 
 
 3 Pari. Hist., XXXII., 380. 4 ib., XXXII., 263. 
 
 5 ib., XXXII., 1 1 04, May 10th, 1796. 
 
 6 Diaries, III., 258-368. 7 Stanhope, III., app. 2.
 
 THE FIRST PEACE FAILURE 59 
 
 frustration by the friendly elements which has so often 
 contributed to our safety. Not a French soldier, Wickham 
 said, but had looked forward before the winter to his 
 share in the plunder of London. 1 But it is incredible that 
 hopes of such success were " the principal motives for 
 breaking off the negotiation," as Alison says. For Alison 
 forgot that a few pages earlier he had quoted the Direc- 
 tory's secret report to Bonaparte of December 20th, 1796, 
 which ran : " The people ardently desire peace ; their 
 murmurs are loud that it is not already concluded. The 
 Legislature desires it, commands it, no matter at what 
 price, and its continued refusal to furnish to the Directory 
 the necessary funds to carry on the contest is the best 
 proof of that fact. The finances are ruined ; agriculture 
 in vain demands the arms which are required for cultiva- 
 tion. The war is becoming so universal as to threaten 
 to overthrow the Republic." 2 Yet we are asked to 
 believe that they wished to continue the war for the 
 chance of a successful invasion in Ireland ; as if they 
 could have wished both to continue the war and to stop 
 it at identically the same date. 
 
 As the peace had suffered shipwreck on the question 
 of Belgium, it might have been expected that the Peace 
 Party would have desisted from their demand for further 
 negotiation. But that it did not do so is shown by Fox's 
 reference to Belgium at the close of the year : " However 
 great the value of Belgium may be, is it an object of such 
 immense consequence as to justify the continuance of a 
 long, a hazardous and destructive war ? Is it worth being 
 contended for at the expense of such blood and treasure ? 
 And even if the objects be deemed so valuable as to justify 
 all these sacrifices, there is another question to be con- 
 sidered. If in addition to that expense and carnage with 
 which the war has already been attended it be proper to 
 sacrifice a hundred millions more, and a hundred thousand 
 
 1 Corresp., I., 379. 2 II., 148.
 
 60 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 men for its attainment, it ought also to be shown that it 
 is attainable by those means. From the experience of 
 the past, who will pretend to say that a continuance of 
 war . . . will tend ultimately to bring you nearer 
 to your object ? " (December 30th, 1796) 
 
 Fox was right; for, could it have been foreseen that 
 within a few months Belgium was destined to be ceded by 
 Austria to France, probably not even George III. would have 
 made its restoration to Austria an essential condition of a 
 peace that might otherwise have been effected.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 1 797- Second Peace Failure 
 
 After the overwhelming French victory l: ?.:•.:'.:. on 
 January 14th, 1797, had placed practically the whole 
 
 of Italy at the mercy of France, the desire of the Directory 
 for peace was shown by their authorising Gen. Claret 
 to sign a peace with Austria, on the basis of :he restoration 
 of all French conquests in Germany and Italy in return 
 for Belgium and the Rhine frontier. But Bonaparte 
 would not hear of negotiations till Mantua had fallen. 
 
 At last after a seven months sirre Mantua did fall, 
 the brave Austrian General Wnrmser capitulating on 
 February 2nd. The fall of this great bulwark of Italy 
 ended for two years the power of Austria in the Peninsula. 
 Bonaparte's great Italian victories of the previous Year, 
 by diverting Germany's armies from the Rhine, had saved 
 France from that intended invasion which it had been hoped 
 would have ended in the fall of Paris. No wonder that 
 on February 17th, 1797, Wickham could write to Grenville 
 of " a general desire for peace at almost any price as the 
 prevalent feeling in France." 1 Nevertheless, the war 
 went on, heedless, as always, of "the general desire," 
 
 The French campaign against the Papal States resulted, 
 on February 19th. in the withdrawal of the Pope from the 
 Coalition. His cession to France of Avignon and other 
 territories in France ; of Bologna. Ferrara and Roma: 
 to say nothing of money, pictures and statoes was marked 
 by a rapacity on the part of the spoilers which hardlv 
 accords with the testimony of an English contemporary 
 writer that Bonaparte "sought upon all occasions tc 
 adopt measures of lenity. " : 
 
 1 II., 10 3 Ann. B _ . 17 -, 19. Alison, III., [4 
 
 61
 
 62 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 In France there was some talk of giving Bonaparte the 
 title of Italicus. In vain the Emperor's brother, the Arch- 
 duke Charles, strove to resist the French advance, which, 
 pursuing the Austrians into the heart of the Tyrol, soon 
 threatened Vienna itself with a siege. In vain did 
 Bonaparte make direct overtures of peace to the Archduke 
 in a letter which dwelt on the futility of further slaughter 
 (March 31st, 1797) ; the Archduke only replied with the 
 pedantic plea of lacking authority to negotiate. Yet five 
 Austrian armies had been driven from Italy with immense 
 loss ; the Bank of Vienna had stopped payment ; and 
 the French, again across the Rhine, had come within easy 
 distance of Frankfurt. An armistice became a necessity, 
 followed by peace preliminaries between France and 
 Austria, signed at Leoben on April 18th, 1797, and based 
 on the surrender of the Austrian Netherlands to France. 
 
 The Venetian episode followed, and the entry of 
 the French into Venice in May brought to an end the old 
 Republic of Venice after a life of many centuries. The 
 treaty of Campo Formio on October 17th, completed the 
 separate peace between France and Austria. The Austrian 
 Netherlands were transferred to France, and several of 
 the Ionian islands ; whilst Venice herself and much of her 
 dominions, despite express orders to the contrary from 
 the Directory, which protested strongly against both the 
 perfidy and impolicy of the act, were signed away by 
 Bonaparte to Austria, and the Emperor recognised in 
 the Cisalpine Republic his former possessions in Lombardy. 
 It was arranged that a Congress at Rastadt within a month 
 should settle a peace between France and the German 
 Empire. 1 
 
 Thus our last ally, save Portugal, had been detached 
 from us ; nor were other reasons wanting to induce Pitt 
 again to attempt a negotiation. We had ceased to fight 
 on the Continent, where, bereft of our mercenary allies, 
 we could do nothing ; and on the sea our supremacy 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1797, II., 34 2 "5-
 
 THE SECOND PEACE FAILURE 63 
 
 began to be threatened. Not indeed by any single Power ; 
 for, as Grenville said on May 2nd, 1796, not a frigate 
 could leave a French port but would be brought in 
 triumph to our ports 1 ; and, as Pitt declared on October 
 18th, 1796, our fleet was more formidable than at any 
 other period in our history,* but by the combined force 
 of more than seventy French, Spanish and Dutch ships, 
 designed after joining forces at Brest to invade our coasts. 
 This scheme, though frustrated by the decisive victory 
 on February 14th, off Cape St. Vincent, by Admiral Jervis 
 (Lord St. Vincent) over the large Spanish contingent of 
 twenty-seven ships, had revealed a danger which the 
 French naval failure at Bantry Bay in December, 1796, 
 had tended to conceal. And thus, though the French 
 landing at Fishguard on February 23rd, 1797, failed 
 miserably, invasion had become clothed with more real 
 terrors than before. 
 
 It was one of the causes that led to that run on the 
 Bank of England which compelled it to stop payment in 
 specie cm February 27th, 1797. Other causes were our 
 enormous remittances to the Emperor, and the arrears of 
 pay to the services. The Bank of Vienna also stopped 
 payment, whilst in September, 1797, the two French 
 Councils struck off two-thirds of the national debt, thereby 
 reducing the annual charge from ten million pounds to less 
 than four. 3 Thus in one year three of the chief belligerents 
 became bankrupt, and the same financial embarrassment 
 on which Pitt had relied for victory over the French 
 fell upon ourselves. Within a year stocks had fallen twenty- 
 seven per cent. ; the five per cents, had dropped from 101 
 to 72^, and the three per cents, from 69! to 49! . But finan- 
 cial difficulties never stop a war ; within a short time the 
 Directory set its finances on a firmer basis, whilst Pitt 
 proposed and carried a further loan of £1,800,000 to our 
 
 * Pari. Hist., XXXII., 1051. * ib., XXXII., 1209. 
 
 3 Alison, III., 446, 586.
 
 64 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 defaulting Austrian ally, or three and a half millions 
 in all. 
 
 The country had naturally become restive, and 
 petitions from the chief cities and counties poured upon 
 the King to change his Ministers. The view of all these 
 petitions was that by their fault we had been " plunged 
 into a war, unparalleled in misery and destruction, which 
 had nearly ruined our commerce, impoverished our 
 manufacturers, depopulated our country, sapped the 
 public credit and widely extended the most flagitious 
 corruption." 1 Ministers, said Grey, on May 26th, 1796, 
 had been suffered " to go on from failure to failure, adding 
 misconduct to misfortune and madness to folly." Four 
 years of war had cost £200,000,000 and 200,000 lives. 
 The Ministerial platitudes, by which Pitt had so long 
 sustained the war, had lost their charm, and the delusion 
 of the people was turning to anger. Pitt saw that it was 
 time, if possible, to stop. 
 
 So he again turned his thoughts to peace, in spite of 
 Lord Grenville, who was, Lord Malmesbury says, 
 " invariably against peace from the beginning,"* and in 
 spite above all of the King, whose opinion, as expressed 
 in a letter of February 28th, 1797, was that " any 
 negotiation at this period would be destruction, for it 
 would be entailing every evil we have been avoiding for 
 a momentary ease." Burke's " Regicide Peace " had 
 found a responsive echo in the highest quarter. When 
 on April 9th Pitt gave it as his opinion and that of the 
 Cabinet that peace negotiations should be opened at the 
 earliest opportunity on the basis of leaving France in 
 possession of Belgium and with Holland as a dependency, 
 the King replied that his personal opinion in favour of 
 war had not changed, and that whilst he must acquiesce 
 in such a step, he would nevertheless deplore it from the 
 bottom of his heart. 3 The Royal opinion was that " this 
 
 * Ann. Reg., 1797, II., 84-90. a III., 595. 
 
 3 Stanhope, III., 52.
 
 THE SECOND PEACE FAILURE 65 
 
 country had taken every humiliating step for seeking 
 peace which the warmest advocates for that object could 
 suggest," which was as good as telling Pitt that in his 
 Master's opinion he was no better than Fox. And when 
 Grenville wished to break off negotiations on an informality 
 in the reply of Delacroix, the French Foreign Minister, which 
 readily accepted the renewal of overtures, Pitt insisted 
 on proceeding, on the ground that he regarded it as his 
 duty " as an English Minister and a Christian to use every 
 effort to stop so bloody and wasting a war," and this he 
 said repeatedly — a rare instance of a War Minister avowing 
 the influence of Christian motives. Grenville reluctantly 
 assented, but insisted on the King's being informed of his 
 dissent. 
 
 It was probably a mistake to send "the Lion" a 
 second time, and Delacroix agreed grudgingly to his 
 appointment ; " another choice would have seemed of 
 happier augury for the speedy conclusion of peace," he 
 said. Pitt told Malmesbury, starting on June 30th, that 
 he wished to stifle all feeling of pride that might impede 
 a peace, but though Malmesbury was now as sincere 
 as Pitt in desiring peace, he was not of a disposition to 
 oil the wheels of negotiation by a conciliatory bearing. 
 " I pledge myself," he wrote to Canning on August 14th, 
 1797, " to fight desperately every inch in the East and 
 West ; to cavil at the ninth part of a hair ; to wrangle till 
 I am hoarse for titles, dignity, treaties, ships and what 
 not."* 
 
 Unpromising for peace as was this attitude, the 
 Conference at Lille, begun on July 6th, between Malmes- 
 bury and the French plenipotentiaries, started with more 
 promise of success than the negotiations at Paris in the 
 preceding year. For as Belgium or the Austrian Nether- 
 lands, together with Lombardy, had been surrendered 
 by Austria at Leoben on April 18th, 1797, we could no 
 longer insist on Belgium's restoration to Austria as an 
 
 1 Diaries, III., 464.
 
 66 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 essential peace condition. But mutual concessions in 
 other directions were difficult : the French still insisted on 
 the inalienability of their conquests, whilst Holland and 
 Spain were indisposed to suffer exchanges for our con- 
 cessions to France to be made at their expense, by giving 
 up their claims to Ce3don, the Cape, Trinidad and other 
 settlements. But a time came when the Directory informed 
 France's Dutch and Spanish allies that they must either 
 meet the English demands by releasing France from her 
 engagements or continue the war alone. 
 
 There were other minor difficulties. The French 
 wished that George III.'s title of the King of France 
 should be expunged from the preamble of the treaty ; 
 they asked for the restitution of their ships taken by 
 Lord Hood at Toulon in trust for Louis XVII. as taken 
 in trust for the nation, or for compensation for the same ; 
 and they desired Belgium to be released from the mort- 
 gage due from the Emperor as security for our loan to 
 him. Even Grenville did not regard these points as in- 
 superable, but to Malmesbury they seemed " extravagant 
 pretensions," " wild proposals."* 
 
 In the Directory both President Carnot and Barthelemy 
 were for accepting the English conditions of restitution, 
 and it was through Barthelemy that Maret, always for 
 peace, had been one of the three sent to Lille ; but the 
 three other members of the Directory were less pacific, 
 though the substitution of Talleyrand for Delacroix as 
 Foreign Minister in mid- July promoted considerably the 
 chances of peace. 
 
 Meantime the " eager disposition for peace", which 
 Malmesbury found in France, was reflected in England. 
 Canning, Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, wrote of 
 his inability to think, speak or write about anything but 
 the expected peace ; he could not go to bed, eat, drink, 
 sleep, walk or ride for his impatience for the return of a 
 
 1 August 14^,1797. ib., III., 459. 
 
 2 ib., III., 390, 413.
 
 THE SECOND PEACE FAILURE 67 
 
 messenger from Lille announcing the making of peace. 1 
 He recognised the need for peace at almost any price. 
 When Windham said that we must not have it, Canning 
 asked him, " Can we have war ? " ; it was out of the 
 question ; we had not the means. 3 
 
 But the longing of both countries for peace was 
 defeated by events. And on August nth an incident 
 occurred which increased the growing mistrust ; the 
 Minister of our Portuguese ally, against the orders of his 
 Court, signed a separate peace with France, of which one 
 condition was to exclude more than a limited number of 
 our ships during the war from the use of Portuguese ports. 
 This would have made it difficult for us so to blockade 
 or watch Cadiz as to obstruct such a junction of the 
 Spanish and French fleets as might expose our coasts and 
 our West Indian colonies to invasion and attack. Gren- 
 ville took a much more serious view of this affair than 
 either Pitt or Malmesbury. The latter thought it better 
 policy to let it pass than endanger the peace by 
 insisting on the Queen of Portugal's not ratifying the 
 treaty. He thought peace would debilitate France and 
 check her influence ; whereas another year of war might 
 enable her to fight on to a point that might be fatal to us. 
 " I am the more anxious for peace because, in addition to 
 the commonplace reasons, I am convinced that peace will 
 palsy this country (France) most completely ; that all the 
 violent means they have employed for war will return 
 upon them like a humour driven in, and overset entirely 
 their weak and baseless constitution. This consequence 
 of peace is so much more to be prized than the very best 
 condition we could insert in the treaty that I would 
 rather incur the disgrace of signing one in conformity to 
 the strict status ante helium than let France take the 
 favourable chances and England run the risks of another 
 campaign. "3 
 
 1 ib., III., 393, July 12th, 2 ib., III., 397. 
 
 3 ib., III., 519, August, 29th.
 
 68 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 It would have been possible to suffer the treaty to 
 pass with the erasure of the articles affecting our use of 
 the ports, but the Government preferred to refuse to permit 
 its ratification altogether, much to Malmesbury's disgust. 
 On August 29th he complained bitterly to Canning of 
 his difficulty in following the instructions of the Minister 
 (Pitt) with whom he wished to act, and those of the 
 Minister (Grenville), under whose orders he was bound 
 to act. He contemplated resignation. He professed 
 himself ready to face any difficulties so long as peace was 
 really the end aimed at ; " but if another opinion has been 
 allowed to prevail — if the real end is to differ from the 
 ostensible one — and if I am only to remain here, in order 
 to break off the negotiation creditably, and not to terminate 
 it successfully, I then, instead of resigning my opinion, 
 must resign my office." He hoped the war party in the 
 Cabinet had not gained the upper hand ; and he deprecated 
 the raising of our terms of peace : " if the demands are 
 raised (and I fear I must in justice to truth add) if they 
 are not a little abated in the ultimatum, a relapse will 
 take place, and this country return to the same unpacific 
 disposition it was in when we arrived ; " the more pacific 
 disposition of France " by no means whatever justified 
 our rising in price." 1 
 
 It is thus clear that in working for Grenville Lord 
 Malmesbury was working for a Minister in whose sincerity 
 he had ceased to believe, and that Minister was the head 
 of the British war party. Malmesbury lamented Pitt's 
 weakness in relation to Grenville. 2 Pitt had meant to 
 yield either the Cape or Ceylon rather than break off the 
 treaty ; but Grenville would yield neither. Yet, had the 
 treaty not been broken off, Pitt would have carried his 
 points at the cost of parting with Grenville. 3 The 
 misfortune was that he did not make the concession in 
 time. 
 
 1 ib., III., 517-9. * Diane;, III., 521. 
 
 3 ib., IV., 128.
 
 THE SECOND PEACE FAILURE 69 
 
 For in the midst of this struggle in the British Cabinet 
 occurred, on September 4th, what Lord Malmesbury aptly 
 called a political earthquake, the Revolution of the 
 18th of Fructidor. The triumph of the Directory over 
 the Legislative Councils put an end to that plot for the 
 revival of monarchy in France for which Grenville, 
 Windham, Wickham and Gen. Pichegru had conspired 
 so long and so recklessly. D'Entraigne's papers, seized 
 at Venice and sent by Bonaparte to the Directory, showed 
 that for his share in the plot Pichegru was to receive 
 £40,000, plus £8,000 a year, as part of his reward. But 
 the Directory's triumph also closed the door on peace. 
 The two pacifist Directors, Carnot and Barthelemy, were 
 among the sixty-two banished legislators. " The most 
 unlucky event that could have happened," wrote Malmesbury 
 to Pitt on September 9th ; "we were certainly very 
 near attaining the great object of our wishes, and I fear 
 we are now more driven out to sea than ever."* 
 
 This proved only too true. Two days later the 
 Legation of Letourneur and Maret, whose whole conduct 
 Malmesbury described as having been " as straightforward 
 and amiable as possible," was recalled, and other Ministers 
 sent in their place. These began by reassertion of the 
 principle, from which the first Legation had slightly 
 receded, that all British conquests must be restored both 
 to France and her allies as the price or basis of peace ; 
 if Lord Malmesbury's powers did not empower him to 
 make this the starting-point, he must return to England 
 for fresh powers within twenty-four hours. Malmesbury 
 accordingly left Lille on September 18th, though not 
 without some compunction for not waiting there for an 
 answer from home to the French proposal.* And to Pitt 
 next day he half apologised for so hurried a departure ; 
 for Pitt so lately as September nth had told him that 
 the recent Revolution had not affected his unalterable 
 determination for peace, and on September 14th had said 
 
 1 ib., III., 541. « ib., III., 569 : September 17th, to Grenville.
 
 70 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 that he thought the Portuguese affair would prove no 
 insurmountable obstacle to that end. 1 
 
 Thus the alleged insult to our ambassador closed the 
 door on peace, but not at first decisively. The two French 
 plenipotentiaries remained at Lille, as if expectant of 
 Malmesbury's return ; and Malmesbury himself spoke 
 of his business as " unfinished," pending a reply to the 
 French note of September 16th. Feelers were put out 
 from the French side for a pecuniary settlement ; it 
 seemed that the Dutch might give up Ceylon for £500,000 ;* 
 on September 22nd Pitt agreed with Malmesbury in 
 thinking it right to continue the negotiation ; and he 
 must have acceded to the pecuniary suggestion, for 
 Malmesbury hoped that Pitt had been very explicit 
 " both as to the terms and the price," and that not a 
 penny should be given till after ratification. Barras 
 was the only French Director in the secret, but he hoped 
 to get his co-Director Rewbell to take a share of the 
 bribe. Pitt was more sanguine of success than Malmes- 
 bury, who, admitting Barras' wish for the money, 
 doubted his power to deliver the thing purchased. 3 And, 
 considering that the war was to end after four more 
 years with the restoration of all our conquests but Ceylon 
 in the East and Trinidad in the West, great must be the 
 historical regret at Pitt's failure to effect a settlement 
 on these pecuniary lines. 
 
 But the diplomatic notes that concluded the negotia- 
 tion only stiffened each side against the other. The 
 French, persisting in an avowed wish for peace, declined 
 to withdraw from their demand for a total restitution of 
 our conquests, and gave till October 16th as the term to 
 which they would treat the negotiation as still open. 
 But on October 5th the reply of Lord Malmesbury 
 amounted to a refusal of further parley.4 and therewith 
 the war was renewed. 
 
 * ib., III., 554, 577. 2 ib., III., 580. 3 ib., III., 583. 
 
 4 ib. III., 589.
 
 THE SECOND PEACE FAILURE yt 
 
 Although the diplomatic correspondence, laid before 
 Parliament/ formed a text on which Pitt and Grenville 
 found it easy to convince Parliament of the insincerity 
 of the Directory throughout the negotiations, and so to 
 obtain a virtually unanimous vote for the continuance 
 of the war, only mere glimpses of the negotiations were 
 vouchsafed to the cognisance of Parliament ; not a word 
 of the rift in the Cabinet about Portugal, of the opposition 
 between Pitt and Grenville, nor of Pitt's readiness to 
 effect a pecuniary bargain with Barras. Not till Lord 
 Malmesbury's grandson published his Diaries and 
 Correspondence in 1844 were these things generally known. 
 Of the blame for the failure to make peace at that date 
 the shares must be divided between Grenville and the 
 Directory. Pitt could audaciously say in Parliament 
 that he for one had never been so duped as to believe in 
 the sincerity of the Directory,* though his letters show 
 that to the very end he had struggled and hoped for a 
 successful issue of Lord Malmesbury's embassy. Why 
 have treated at all, if he had thought the Directory 
 insincere from the beginning ? And Malmesbury wrote 
 of the Directory a few years later as consisting during the 
 Lille negotiations of men " all thinking sincerely and in 
 earnest that the wisest of all measures for France was by 
 peace to consolidate the power she had attained than by 
 attempting to gain more. "3 It is hardly possible that 
 he failed at the time to impress Pitt with the same 
 opinion. 
 
 Each country of course blamed the other for the 
 rupture at Lille. In France a forged letter, ascribed to 
 Lord Malmesbury, was used to prove his insincerity,4 
 and the Minister of the Interior had a musical piece, called 
 ' The Vengeance of France upon England," performed 
 every evening at the theatres. 5 Other consequences 
 
 1 Pari. Hist., XXXIII., 903-962. 
 
 2 Pari. Hist., XXXIII., iooi. 3 Diaries, IV., 61. 
 4 Ann. Reg., 1798, 40. 5 ib., 1798, 42.
 
 72 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 were violent declarations by the Directory and the Council 
 of Five Hundred against England, " the most 
 corrupting and corrupted of the Governments of 
 Europe," threatening a descent on our coasts and 
 the dictation of peace in London. 
 
 As contributory to this purpose the Dutch fleet set 
 sail for Brest, fifteen ships of the line, and eleven frigates, 
 to join in the projected invasion of Ireland ; but only to 
 meet with that defeat at Camperdown, after a fierce 
 struggle, at the hands of Admiral Duncan (Lord Camper- 
 down), which has made the October of 1797 one of the 
 most memorable dates in the history of the British navy. 
 The wholesale roasting of sheep attested the universal joy 
 occasioned by this victory. 
 
 The misfortune was that each side disbelieved in the 
 sincerity of the other. Whilst we mistrusted the French 
 on account of their Irish invasion plan, the Directory 
 laid stress, in the Redacteur of December 24th, 1797, 
 on the Royalist agitation we kept up in La Vendue and 
 elsewhere as evidence of our insincerity. Wickham never 
 for a moment ceased from his plottings at Berne. On 
 March 8th, 1797, he wrote to Grenville of " the persuasion 
 firmly rooted in the mind of every Frenchman that the 
 Powers now at war with France had no other object in 
 view but the destruction and dismemberment of their 
 country," such dismemberment to result from " exciting 
 troubles in the interior of the country." 1 And as this 
 was Grenville's hope and aim all the time, it is not 
 surprising that the negotiation failed. 
 
 Notwithstanding the diplomatic failure, for which 
 some of the responsibility rested with our Government, 
 there was the usual cry for support of the Government on 
 the plea of patriotic unanimity. To this appeal on 
 behalf of a Government that had led the country to so 
 disastrous a position Fox made a vigorous reply : " Is 
 it not too much to call for unanimity in the further 
 1 11., 14, 16.
 
 THE SECOND PEACE FAILURE 73 
 
 prosecution of this war ? They whose incapacity has 
 been proved by a series of the most unvaried disasters 
 call for unanimity ? Can they expect 
 
 this unanimity? ... He (Pitt) has uniformly 
 each December stated the expense of the year millions 
 under what it has turned out to be ; and yet he calls 
 for unanimity. He can expect no unanimity, and in 
 truth there is no remedy for our evils but peace. And 
 this is not all ; we must have peace and repose, not 
 merely by the change of ministers and their condign 
 punishment, but by a thorough change and reform in the 
 system which has brought us to this ruin, by a return 
 to the principles of liberty, not of power" (December 
 14th, 1797). * 
 
 And how often has not the same prayer been uttered 
 since, with equal earnestness and equal futility, for a 
 change of Ministers and their condign punishment ! 
 Nemesis too often turns a blind eye on the greater crimes 
 of statesmanship. To the lesser sins of maladministration 
 some penalty may attach, but the greatest of all crimes, 
 a war that might be avoided or stopped, sets a Govern- 
 ment on a pedestal of impregnable impunity from which 
 nothing can shake it. No one ever learnt the truth of this 
 political law more thoroughly than Fox. 
 
 « Pari. Hist., XXXIII., 112-3-4.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 1798. France in Egypt 
 
 It admits of no wonder that in July, 1797, France had 
 insisted on the removal of Wickham from Switzerland. 
 A correspondence had long been carried on by him with 
 the royalists in Switzerland and France under false 
 names : Louis XVIII. being " La Marquise," Moreau 
 " La Mariee," Pichegru " Baptiste," and so forth. On 
 March 22nd, 1797, Wickham was convinced that money 
 alone would do nothing with " La Mariee," 1 and a direct 
 offer of money from George III., though not in his name, 
 to Tallien was " peremptorily refused." 3 But money 
 and arms had long found their way by Wickham's agency 
 through Switzerland into France, and in July the 
 Directory demanded his recall on the ground that his 
 mission had no reference whatever to the respective 
 interests of England and Switzerland, but solely to 
 exciting plots against the internal and external security 
 of the French Republic. 
 
 The early months of 1798 saw the invasion and 
 overthrow and revolutionising of Switzerland by the 
 French, who, mistrustful of their peace with Austria, and 
 desiring a barrier against her, made this a political excuse 
 for a conquest as cruelly effected as it was bravely but 
 vainly resisted. Atrocities belong to every war, but few 
 things excited a more just indignation in England than 
 those recited by Canning on December nth, 1798 : the 
 murder of the chief magistrate of Soleure, after being 
 paraded in barbarous triumph through the town ; the 
 
 1 II. 28. 3 ib., I., 396. 
 
 74
 
 FRANCE IN EGYPT 75 
 
 burning of Stans and other villages ; the throwing of 
 women still alive into the flames at Sion. 1 The plunder 
 of the Swiss Treasury was venial in comparison with these 
 things. And it all ended on August 4th, 1798, in an 
 offensive and defensive alliance between the French and 
 Helvetic Republics which answered all the purposes of 
 an annexation. The French thus obtained a free passage 
 through Switzerland to Germany and Italy both in peace 
 and war ; and French emigrants were cut off from any 
 further enjoyment of an asylum in Switzerland. 2 The 
 use by the Directory this year in their official documents 
 and diplomatic transactions of the title of " the Great 
 Nation " added almost more than France's military 
 conduct to the resentment of her enemies. 
 
 Simultaneously with Switzerland the Papal States 
 suffered very similar treatment ; also under the counsel 
 and direction of Bonaparte. The conquest of Rome ; 
 the expulsion of Pope Pius VI., and the indignities heaped 
 upon him ; the wholesale plunder of churches and palaces 
 under the reluctant Berthier, and despite strong protests 
 against it by the French inferior officers and men; the 
 consequent insurrection suppressed with great slaughter, 
 stand out as the chief incidents that attended the trans- 
 formation of the Papal Government into the Roman 
 Republic, after the French model, on February 16th, 
 1798. But great as were the iniquities of the conquerors, 
 the evidence of the contemporary English chronicler is 
 striking, that " in this great alteration of the principles 
 and form of government the French adhered with 
 remarkable fidelity to the solemn promise they had made 
 to all the people of Italy to commit no innovation 
 in religious matters any further than to introduce liberty 
 of conscience and the universal toleration of opinions on 
 spiritual subjects. "3 Five consuls and two Chambers 
 took the place of the former government, and with the 
 
 * Pari. Hist., XXXIV., 53. 
 
 a Ann. Reg., 1798, II., 251-4. 3 Ann. Reg., 1798, 54.
 
 76 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 new Republic, thus formed on the French model, an 
 offensive and defensive alliance was the tie that bound 
 the weaker Power to the will of the stronger. 
 
 Meantime the threat of invasion hung heavily over 
 England ; great preparations being made in both France 
 and England either for its success or its defeat. But, 
 in addition to a military force at home of over 200,000 
 men, our naval superiority alone made an invasion 
 impossible. From the beginning of the War to its close, 
 whilst the British navy had risen from 153 sail of the line 
 and 133 frigates, to 202 sail of the line and 277 frigates, 
 that of France had fallen in the same time from 83 sail 
 of the line and 77 frigates to 30 sail of the line and 35 
 frigates. 1 There is no known instance in modern naval 
 warfare of a successful invasion of a country by a naval 
 power nearly six times its inferior in strength. Such 
 invasion can only hope for success from a rising to support 
 it in the country invaded ; a condition, however, which 
 was then supplied by Ireland, where the long intrigues 
 between Irish conspirators and the French Directory 
 aimed at such a result. But the Camperdown battle 
 in 1797 had dispelled all present chances of success, and 
 the Irish Rebellion, which began in May, 1798, could look 
 for no serious aid from France. Such aid as came failed 
 ludicrously ; as in the raid of three frigates on August 
 22nd, 1798, at Killala, which ended on September 8th, 
 1798, at the battle of Ballinamuck, or in the action on 
 October nth, 1798, when a French squadron of one ship 
 of the line and eight frigates was taken or dispersed, 
 Wolfe Tone being among the prisoners. The Irish 
 rebellion collapsed miserably, leaving little record in 
 history but the atrocities committed on both sides. Our 
 sea power was supreme in every direction. It enabled 
 us to take Trinidad from the Spaniards in February, 
 1797 ; to take Gozo, the dependency of Malta, and 
 deliver the sovereignty of it to Naples in October, 1798 ; 
 
 * Alison, IV., 648.
 
 FRANCE IN EGYPT 77 
 
 and to recover Minorca, which had been lost in the 
 preceding war, in November of the same year. 
 
 But we were compelled to evacuate St. Domingo 
 (Hispaniola) ; that island of the West Indies, whose 
 history since the Spaniards first gained it for civilisation 
 in the sevententh century has been probably the most 
 miserable of any country on earth. The speaker who 
 in 1797 had said that our attempt to conquer the island 
 was as impossible as to scale the moon 1 had proved right ; 
 and the many millions we had so spent had been spent 
 in pure waste. 
 
 It is doubtful whether Bonaparte ever at this time 
 intended to lead " the Army of England " against our 
 shores ; after visiting in ten days of February, 1798, the 
 chief northern harbours of France he decided against 
 an impossible undertaking. To Cobenzl, the Austrian 
 ambassador at Rastadt, he had said : " An army is 
 assembled on the coasts of the Channel ostensibly for the 
 invasion of England ; but my real object is to march at 
 its head to Paris, and overturn that ridiculous government 
 of lawyers which cannot much longer oppress France." 
 And, to judge from later events, this was probably the 
 truth of the matter. 
 
 He turned his thoughts to Egypt. The seizure and 
 colonisation of Egypt, first suggested by Vergennes, had 
 been seriously contemplated by the Bourbon Court ; 
 but Bonaparte thought to strike at England through 
 India, by intercepting the trade that was the main source 
 of her wealth, possibly even by an Indian invasion, in 
 conjunction with the scheme between France and Tippoo, 
 Sultan of Mysore, to drive the English out of India 
 altogether, as settled by the treaty of January 29th, 
 1798.2 The failure of both these schemes, as also of the 
 rebellion in Ireland, by which with French aid Ireland 
 might have become a vassal republic, like those established 
 
 1 Pari. Hist., XXXIII., 897. 
 * Ann. Reg., 1798, II., 223.
 
 78 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 on the continent, saved England from the evil chances 
 which cast gloom on the first half of 1798. But that gloom 
 was turned into gladness when news came of Nelson's great 
 victory on August 1st, 1798, at the battle of the Nile. 
 Gaily had the French fleet of thirteen ships of the line, 
 86 other vessels, and 400 transports left Toulon on 
 May 19th, with 36,000 soldiers and 10,000 seamen ; by 
 terms arranged before leaving France the Grand Master 
 of the Knights of St. John had surrendered Malta on 
 June nth, and with it the command of the Mediterranean. 
 The battle of the Pyramids in July had dispersed the 
 Mameluks under Mourad Bey, and given Cairo and Egypt 
 into Bonaparte's hands ; but Nelson's victory so totally 
 wrecked the French armada, only two of the thirteen 
 ships of the line escaping either burning or capture, as 
 to change the whole aspect of the war. It shut up 
 Bonaparte and his army in Egypt, cutting them off 
 from their communications with France. It gave us the 
 undisputed command of the Mediterranean, the trade 
 of Turkey and the Levant. It was described in Parlia- 
 ment as " unparalleled in the history of any age or 
 country," and the only criticism of Ministers was that 
 by their misconduct the French army had not been 
 captured as well as the fleet, nor Bonaparte been 
 brought in chains to London. 1 
 
 But this great victory only served to give fresh life 
 to the expiring war, and led to its great prolongation. 
 Lord Lansdowne urged in vain that the victory should be 
 seized as an opportunity for concluding a safe and 
 honourable peace ; a new Coalition and a new war was 
 the only thought of Ministers. 
 
 On all sides were fresh stirrings of strife. At the close 
 of October large parts of Belgium rose against the French, 
 nor was the insurrection put down, with the usual horrors, 
 till January, 1799. Malta rose against the French 
 garrison and put herself under the protection of Paul I. 
 
 1 Pari. Hist., XXXIII., 1554.
 
 FRANCE IN EGYPT 79 
 
 of Russia. Naples entered into a defensive naval alliance 
 with Great Britain on December 1st, 1798 ; but the result 
 of her invasion of the Roman Republic was the compulsory 
 flight of her king and royal family to Sicily, and the 
 transformation of the Neapolitan monarchy into the 
 Parthenopeian Republic. Turkey was emboldened to 
 make an unnatural alliance for eight years with Russia 
 against the common foe ; whilst England in the same 
 month of December made a provisional treaty with Russia, 
 by which Russia was to help the King of Prussia, if he 
 would but join the war, with 45,000 men, and England 
 was to pay Russia £225,000 plus £75,000 every month for 
 her mercenary armies. 1 
 
 In vain Tierney raised a warning voice in his motion 
 for peace on December nth, 1798, against a new Coalition. 
 The war, he said, was costing thirty millions a year ; 
 it was dangerously increasing the power of the Crown ; 
 Habeas Corpus was suspended, and freedom extinguished ; 
 and, save in the House, the law had put every man to 
 silence. 2 To his question whether we could put more 
 trust than before in Powers that had proved so faithless 
 to us as Austria and Prussia, Canning replied that their 
 faithlessness proved nothing against a possibly greater 
 faithfulness in Russia and Turkey. Confidence in Russia 
 reached sublime heights. No one, said Pitt, with any 
 appreciation of worth could doubt the sincerity of the 
 sovereign of Russia, or fear lest that magnanimous prince 
 would act with infidelity.3 Yet his Magnanimity very 
 soon did so. 
 
 This Anglo- Russian alliance was a terrible misfortune ; 
 for it was the bringing of Russia into the lists against 
 France that closed all chances of peace, and gave fresh 
 life to the war. The negotiations at Rastadt, begun in 
 October, 1797, between France and the German Empire, 
 had after infinite delays brought the disputant Powers 
 
 * Pari. Hist., XXXIV., 1168-72. 
 
 • ib., XXXIV., 32. 3 ib., XXXIV., 1046.
 
 80 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 within an ace of an agreement, which could hardly have 
 failed to end in a general peace ; though the negotiations 
 throughout had been much frustrated by the military 
 preparations which had continued on both sides. The 
 entry of Suwarow's Russians into Austria and their 
 entertainment at Vienna by a great review on December 
 27th, 1798, had naturally alarmed the French ; nor 
 was their declaration of January 2nd, 1799, surprising, 
 that the permission by the Diet at Ratisbon to Russian 
 troops to march through Germany would be treated as 
 a violation of neutrality. This virtually put an end to 
 further negotiations at Rastadt. 1 
 
 Negotiations did not immediately cease ; but the 
 re-commencement of hostile operations between France 
 and Austria led inevitably to fresh war with the Empire. 
 The successes of the Archduke Charles, who by April, 
 1799, had driven Jourdan's army of the Danube out of 
 Swabia, stiffened the Imperial deputies against any con- 
 cession about the Russians ; and on April 7th the 
 Imperial Commissioner announced his orders to quit the 
 Congress and to revoke all previous concessions. This 
 proved the end of the Congress, but it received its real 
 death-blow from the atrocious murder on April 29th, of 
 two of the three French plenipotentiaries on their departure 
 from Rastadt on the evening of April 29th. 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1799, II., 262.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 J 799 Russia to the Rescue 
 
 Thus Europe, after being at peace for nearly two years, 
 renewed its war. England had increased her army and 
 navy, and resolved again to try conclusions with France 
 on the Continent, from which she had been absent so long. 
 Austria aspired to the recovery of her lost dominions in 
 Italy ; whilst Paul I. of Russia was all for the restitution 
 of things as they were before the war ; for the restitution 
 of absolute monarchy in France, and incidentally for 
 Austria's restoration of Venice. 
 
 With Bonaparte and his army of 35,000 shut up in 
 Egypt, and the forces of France dispersed to a degree of 
 dangerous tenuity over the widely extended frontiers 
 she had to defend, all things seemed possible to the new 
 Coalition ; and for some months probable. The new 
 campaign, begun in March, promised well for the Allies. 
 The tide turned against France with the battle of Stockach 
 (March 26th), which rendered necessary a retreat to 
 and across the Rhine ; whilst the great victory won by 
 the Austrians at Magnano was the first of many French 
 disasters which were not to cease till they were driven 
 from all of Italy save Genoa. 
 
 A few days after Magnano Suwarow, with 20,000 
 Russians, joined the Imperialists. He was the hero of 
 the suppression of the Polish rising in 1794. Fox thus 
 recited his title to fame on that occasion : " He entered 
 the suburb of Praga, the most populous suburb of 
 Warsaw (November 4th, 1794) ; and there he let his 
 soldiers loose on the miserable, unarmed and unresisting 
 people. Men, women and children ; nay, infants at the 
 
 81
 
 82 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 breast were doomed to one indiscriminate massacre. 
 Thousands of them were inhumanly, wantonly butchered." 1 
 
 The combined Austro-Russian forces carried every- 
 thing before them. In their retreat under Gen. Moreau 
 the French lost 11,000 men before Suwarow entered Milan 
 on April 29th, and Turin on May 27th. The Russian 
 forces soon overspread Lombardy and Piedmont, and 
 drove the French back to the tops of the Alps. In vain 
 Gen. Macdonald was summoned to join Moreau in 
 Lombardy with his army of 20,000, which could ill be 
 spared from the Neapolitan territories. The three days' 
 battle on the Trebbia in mid-June was the bloodiest of 
 the war, costing the French some 12,000 casualties, and 
 the Allies about the same, whilst the French lost as many 
 prisoners in the battle and the subsequent retreat. It was 
 with a very shattered force that Macdonald succeeded in 
 reaching Genoa. 
 
 Italy and Switzerland must have been hells on earth 
 in that summer of 1799. Passions on both sides became 
 intensified, " the carnage became daily greater ; the 
 officers were more prodigal of their own blood and that 
 of their soldiers." 3 Four months of warfare cost the 
 French and the Allied armies nearly half of their effective 
 forces ; 116,000 killed or mutilated men were the com- 
 mentary on Pitt's favourite dictum that certain war was 
 better than uncertain peace. And in this accumulation 
 of human misery the Russian system of plunder shocked 
 even the moral sense of a world which had learnt from 
 the French the value of the supposed inviolability of 
 private property from capture in land warfare. With 
 the Russians, robbery was the predominant thought. 
 The Archduke Charles complained that he had no idea 
 of the plundering spirit of the Russians till he read the 
 official reports from the army in Italy. 3 They made 
 themselves the dread of every country where they came. 4 
 
 1 Pari. Hist., XXXIV., 1538 ; Sybel, IV., 146. 
 
 a Alison, IV., 124. 3 Wickham, II., 152. 4 ib., II., 337.
 
 RUSSIA TO THE RESCUE 83 
 
 The natives came to think of the French system of con- 
 tributions, which fell equally on all according to their 
 capacity, as " mercy when compared with the conduct of 
 the Russians."^ But, as the Russian soldier's pay was 
 only three-farthings a day, he had to live off the country 
 he invaded or not live at all. The Austrians thought 
 that this conduct of their allies reflected on their own 
 military honour ; as in the case of Gen. Derfelden, who 
 retired from the Austrian service " after writing to the 
 Marshal (Suwarow) a letter full of the most cruel reproaches, 
 which he concluded by saying that the honour of a soldier 
 was contaminated by living with such a band of robbers 
 as the troops whom the Marshal commanded.'^ Hence 
 arose that coldness between the Austrians and Russians 
 which resulted ultimately in their separation. 
 
 In this manner Italy was " liberated " from one 
 foreign yoke only to fall under another. On July 21st 
 Alexandria fell to the Allies, after being bombarded 
 with 42,000 shells for seven days ; Mantua was recovered 
 from the French on July 30th ; the great defeat of the 
 French by Suwarow at Novi on August 18th, prevented 
 the raising of the siege of Tortona, which surrendered on 
 August 25th. 
 
 The same summer saw also the French and the 
 republican Government driven from Naples. The re- 
 treat of General Macdonald from Naples to join Moreau 
 in North Italy was the signal for a combined force of 
 English, Russians and Neapolitans to enter the port. 
 The dates are important for the sequence of events. On 
 June 20th, 1799, Naples surrendered to Cardinal Ruffo, 
 commanding the land forces of the Allies. On June 22nd, 
 the castles of Uovo and Nuovo capitulated to him on 
 terms which secured the rebels in their lives and properties, 
 and which vice-Admiral Foote, of the Seahorse, signed on 
 behalf of Great Britain. Subsequently the Cardinal 
 
 * ib. 11., 158, 9. 
 
 * ib., II., 362, Wickham to Lord Grenville, December 13th, 1799.
 
 84 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 proclaimed an amnesty, on behalf of the King of Naples. 
 On the evening of June 26th, Nelson took possession of 
 the two castles, and on June 27th announced his possession 
 of the city of Naples, the Castle of St. Elmo alone remain- 
 ing to the enemy. The same day Admiral Trowbridge 
 landed his English and Portuguese marines, and put 
 garrisons of his own in place of the French and rebel 
 garrisons. On the 29th he began the difficult siege of 
 St. Elmo, which after severe bombardment capitulated 
 on July 12th. 1 The fall of Capua and Gaeta at the 
 end of July completed the liberation of the Neapolitan 
 dominions, and put an end to the Parthenopeian 
 Republic. 
 
 It has been contended that, as the Cardinal had 
 orders to make no terms with the rebel garrisons, Nelson 
 was justified in treating his capitulation as null and void 
 because it had not been authorised by the King. But, if 
 from the military standpoint the executions which 
 followed were technically just, from the moral stand- 
 point they were nothing short of iniquitous. Alison 
 justly says that no apologies can or should be offered for 
 them. The only conceivable apology, though it is none 
 at all, is that even these Neapolitan atrocities paled 
 before the shooting on March 10th, 1799, of the 4,000 
 Turks who had surrendered to Bonaparte four days before, 
 at the storming of Jaffa, as narrated by Bourrienne, an 
 eye-witness, and attested by Sir Sidney Smith's letter to 
 Nelson of May 30th, 1799 — one of the most horrible deeds 
 in the black history of war. 
 
 The King returned to Sicily to avoid the sight of the 
 coming vengeance. The victims on board, chained and 
 bound two and two, quickly suffered the court-martial 
 sentences ; whilst on land the populace anticipated the 
 sentences of the tribunals ; " neither age, nor sex, nor 
 rank were spared ; women as well as men, youths of 
 sixteen and grey-headed men of seventy, were alike led 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1799, II., 75-7.
 
 RUSSIA TO THE RESCUE 85 
 
 out to the scaffold." 1 " Almost the whole of the late 
 Legislative and Executive commissioners perished by 
 the hands of the executioners, . . . some noble 
 ladies were sacrificed to a spirit of vengeance." 2 The 
 old Neapolitan Admiral Carraccioli was strangled and 
 thrown into the sea. On August 1st, Nelson was able 
 to congratulate Lord Kieth, Commander-in-Chief, " on 
 the entire liberation of the Kingdom of Naples from the 
 French robbers. "3 
 
 The Roman Republic soon went the way of the 
 Parthenopeian. On September 29th and 30th Admiral 
 Trowbridge took possession of Civita Vecchia, Corneto 
 and Tolsa ; and at the same time by the same treaty 
 General Bouchard took possession of Rome, and thus 
 cleared the Roman State of the French invasion. 4 
 
 Tuscany also freed herself from the yoke. Trees of 
 liberty were cut down, and before the successful insur- 
 rection Macdonald had perforce to retreat, till on July 17th 
 he gave orders for Leghorn and the whole of Tuscany to 
 be evacuated by his troops. After the surrender of 
 Coni, one of the strongest fortified places in Europe, on 
 December 3rd, all that remained to France of her victories 
 in Italy was Genoa and its district, and Genoa itself fell 
 early in 1800. The Republican reverse was complete. 
 
 And whilst fortune thus beamed her brightest on the 
 Allies in Italy, she was at first no less lavish of her smiles 
 in Switzerland. An Austro-Russian army was to drive 
 the French from Switzerland and invade France itself. 
 When Wickham arrived in Switzerland on June 27th, 
 1799, to promote these aims, the rosiest hopes were 
 legitimate. The King's Speech of July 12th, 1799, laid 
 joyful stress, not only on Suwarow's brilliant victories 
 in Italy, but on the recovery by a large part of Switzerland, 
 under the Archduke Charles, of her ancient religion and 
 liberties. About half of Switzerland had been recovered. 
 
 1 Alison, IV., 95. 2 Ann. Reg., 1799, 292. 
 
 3 ib., 1799, II., 82. * ib., 1799, II., 128.
 
 86 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 But the best military plans are apt to go awry ; as 
 they most fatally did in this instance. The plan of 
 campaign was of English origin, and was based on that 
 implicit reliance on Russian numbers which has so often 
 caused repentance to trustful allies. " The plan of 
 confiding Switzerland and the operations beyond Switzer- 
 land," wrote Lord Minto to Wickham on August, 24th, 
 1799, " to the Russian army was undoubtedly conceived 
 in London and pressed on this Court" (Austria). 1 But 
 Austria showed no heart for the plan. 
 
 Count Thugut, with his eye ever on Prussia, whose 
 army was gaining strength from neutrality, thought 
 mainly of sparing the Austrian army, and he had shown 
 more apparent terror of Suwarow's progress in Italy than 
 he ever had of the enemy's. 2 He had no real wish for the 
 proposed attack on France, and did all he could to retard 
 it. 3 He cared little or nothing for Louis XVIII. From 
 the beginning of the campaign he left the Archduke 
 Charles without instructions, and in August sent him 
 positive orders to withdraw from Switzerland. 4 When, on 
 the arrival of the Russians under General Korsakoff, the 
 Archduke did withdraw, Thugut spread it abroad that it 
 was in consequence of the positive orders of the British 
 Court ; a calumny so generally believed that " the very 
 name of an Englishman is become a word of reproach 
 among them" (the Austrians), and confidence in the 
 British Government entirely lost. 5 By the end of August 
 Wickham rightly feared a " most fatal termination of the 
 campaign." 
 
 The Archduke's retirement in early September placed 
 the whole of Italy and Switzerland in fresh danger. 
 General Korsakoff was considered at St. Petersburg as 
 " absolutely mad," 6 and on September 24th, in spite of 
 
 1 Wickham, II., 170. 
 
 a Wickham, II., 215, Lord Minto to Wickham, September 14th. 
 
 3 ib. II., 217. 4 ib., II., 125, 165. 
 
 5 ib., II., 191, Wickham to GrenvilJe. August. 31st. 
 
 6 ib., II., 33-S-
 
 RUSSIA TO THE RESCUE 87 
 
 him the French took Zurich. Suwarow arrived from Italy 
 too late to save Zurich, nor did his arrival, after an Alpine 
 march of indescribable difficulty, mend matters. For 
 if Korsakoff was mad, Suwarow was worse. When Colonel 
 Clinton once used the word " defensive," " Suwarow began 
 to spit and show symptoms of anger very little short of 
 madness." 1 When Wickham dined with him on October 
 17th, from 8 a.m.. to n a.m., his behaviour was such 
 that Wickham, but for knowledge of his sanity, would 
 " certainly have taken him for a madman whose under- 
 standing was gone. . . he walked about the room with 
 his hands and his head hanging like those of an idiot, 
 talking nonsense to everyone " ; after which he went to 
 bed till 4 p.m., according to his constant custom.* When 
 Wickham told Lord Minto that he had "softened down " 
 this description as much as possible, Lord Minto concluded 
 that instead of a great general and a great man, Suwarow 
 was nothing but " an ignorant designing mountebank, 
 besides being very mad and very mischievous as madmen 
 generally are. "3 But Suwarow had at least sense enough 
 to love English ale, which he said was the only thing that 
 kept him alive. 4 
 
 The discord that prevailed between the Russians and 
 Austrians reached such a height that in November, 1799, 
 Paul I. wrote to George III. of his fixed resolve to recall 
 his forces from Switzerland ; and Suwarow was ordered 
 back to the Russian frontier. 5 Wickham wrote of his 
 conviction that the Russian army was quite incapable of 
 meeting the French on anything like equal terms. But 
 the strange thing is that, despite this knowledge both 
 about Suwarow and the Russian army, Wickham wrote 
 to Suwarow on November 21st to say that George III. 
 had so fallen in with Suwarow's plan for the next campaign 
 as to have insisted on his being reinstated at the head of a 
 combined Austro-Russian army ! The king was ready to 
 
 1 ib., II., 301 a ib., II., 272. 3 ib., II., 340. 
 
 « ib., II., 223. 5 ib., II., 329.
 
 88 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 pay for reinforcements of 80,000 men, Russians, Swiss or 
 Germans to serve under Suwarow. 1 And this in spite of 
 Wickham's conviction that the Russian army was past 
 reforming and that the retirement of Suwarow was the 
 main thing desirable. 2 
 
 The joint British and Russian expedition to Holland 
 was one of the chief disasters of the whole war. It so far 
 sncceeded indeed that on August 30th, the whole Dutch 
 fleet in the Texel surrendered to Sir Andrew Mitchell 
 without the firing of a shot, much to the rage of the 
 Batavian commander Storey, who declared that the 
 traitors in his service refused to fight. The colours of the 
 Prince of Orange were hoisted on the masts, and the British 
 Government found some consolation for an expedition 
 that cost £1,142,000 and 846 killed alone by the transfer 
 to our naval service of 8,000 Dutch seamen. 3 The Duke 
 of York again identified the blood royal with military 
 failure. For though he claimed the battle of Bergen on 
 October 2nd as a signal victory, he admitted that it had 
 been dearly bought. On October 9th the state of the 
 weather, the ruin of the roads, the enemy's reinforcements 
 led him to refer home for instructions to withdraw his 
 troops from their advanced position. On October 20th 
 he " felt that the most advisable measure to pursue was to 
 remove with the army to England ; " and in accordance 
 with this feeling he concluded a Convention with General 
 Brune on October 18th, 1799, which compelled him and the 
 Russian forces to evacuate before the end of November 
 every inch they had won in Holland. Brune at first 
 stipulated for the restoration of the Dutch fleet and of 
 15,000 French and Batavian prisoners of war in England. 
 But he yielded on the point of the fleet, and contented 
 himself with 8,000 prisoners, who were thus recovered 
 without ransom or condition of any sort. The expedition, 
 as Sheridan said, had thrown discredit on the councils of 
 
 1 ib., II., 334. 2 ib., II., 408-10. 
 
 3 Pari. Hist., XXXIV., 1415.
 
 RUSSIA TO THE RESCUE 89 
 
 the Government and dishonour on its operations. The 
 capitulation, said Tierney, fixed " an indelible stain on 
 the national character " ; 45,000 men in six weeks had 
 only advanced twenty-five miles ; a King's son, com- 
 manding 40,000 men, had capitulated to a French general 
 who had only 31, 000. « That was all there was to show for 
 the treaty of June, 1799, with Russia, for the driving of 
 the French out of Holland, at the cost of an immense 
 subsidy to Russia. Nor did Russia forgive us for luring 
 her into such a disaster. 
 
 Although the year 1799 was thus dying with the usual 
 disappointment, there was the usual confidence about 
 the next campaign. On November, 1799, Wickham 
 wrote to Lord Minto that " in the opinion of all well- 
 judging and well-informed people," another campaign, 
 even without Russia, would place Austria in a situation 
 to dictate the terms of peace to France.* How little 
 these " well-judging people " foresaw the future, Marengo 
 and Hohenlinden, and the Treaty of Luneville, were soon 
 to show. The Allies still relied mainly on a Royalist 
 insurrection in France. Wickham drew encouragement 
 from the fact that Generals Pichegru, Willot and De 
 Precy were " as steady friends of the House of Bourbon 
 and of the ancient monarchy as any of the first emigrants 
 in France."3 Since his return to Switzerland in June, 
 1799, Wickham had renewed his old plots for reviving 
 the Royalist party in France, by resuming his former 
 correspondence with agents in Lyons, Marseilles, Besancon 
 and Paris. The plan was, that General Willot should 
 leave Augsburg for Turin on February 20th, 1800, as head 
 of the insurrection, and, after reaching Marseilles about 
 mid-March, declare for the Royalist flag ; arms and 
 ammunition were to be landed for him by the British 
 ships at different points of the coast. De Precy was to be 
 at the head of a similar movement at Lyons. The Swiss 
 
 1 Pari. Hist., XXXIV., 1418. 2 Wickham, II., 338. 
 
 3 ib., II., 357, December 9th, 1799.
 
 go THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 were to penetrate into France to help the Royalists ; and 
 both Pichegru and Willot wished a Royalist Prince to 
 command them. A discreet proclamation, disclaiming 
 conquest and promising pardon, was to be the preliminary 
 step to the Royalist revolution. And Wickham assured 
 Grenville that at the opening of the campaign his Majesty 
 for less than £30,000 a month would have 5,400 infantry 
 as fine as any in Europe. 1 
 
 Yet the French Royalists had so little love for their 
 British allies that the most Royalist of their papers, the 
 Quotidienne, actually accused Pitt of having been an 
 accomplice in the murder of Louis XVI. Wickham felt 
 keenly the bitter reproaches of this sort which the 
 Royalists of France, both civilian and military, hurled 
 loudly against the British Government. Nor was there 
 any receding on their part from their determination to 
 restore the ancient monarchy in all its vigour and to exact 
 a vengeance from the republican party that would in no 
 way have fallen short of the atrocities under Robespierre 
 in the early years of the Revolution. It was " too evident," 
 Wickham had told Grenville on September 7th, 1796, 
 " that all views of humanity, of policy, of justice, even of 
 interest are but light in the scale when opposed to the 
 desire of humbling and punishing the first authors of the 
 Revolution." 2 They would have nothing to do with Wick- 
 ham's idea of the revived monarchy passing through a Con- 
 stitutional stage in the first instance. Ready as they 
 professed themselves to make many sacrifices, they " must 
 all be grafted on the basis of the ancient Government. "3 
 Nor did English statesmen, like Windham and Lord 
 Fitzwilliam, scruple to say in Parliament, that it was to 
 the restoration of the ancient monarchy in France that 
 their hopes and desires tended. 4 
 
 It was the knowledge of this fact that kept the war 
 
 1 ib., II., 400-8, December 25th, 1799. 
 
 8 ib., I., 451. 3 ib., I., 432, July 21st, 1796- 
 
 4 Pari. Hist., XXXIV., 1054, 1062.
 
 RUSSIA TO THE RESCUE 
 
 9i 
 
 alive. The choice in France was between civil war and 
 foreign war. Fox had always argued for our recognition 
 of the Republic, which would have been but the recognition 
 of facts. But George III. would recognise only the mon- 
 archy, though this country owed nothing to the Bourbon 
 monarchy to make its restoration worth a single day's 
 more bloodshed. And the war party, infatuated on the 
 subject, was deaf to all counsels of peace and reason. 
 
 Meantime the unexpected had happened. Bonaparte, 
 after his return to Egypt from his disastrous Syrian 
 adventure, and after a battle at Aboukir on July 25th, 
 1799, in which many thousand defeated Turks are said 
 to have flung themselves into the sea, sailed away from 
 Egypt on August 23rd, and after a romantic voyage, 
 landed at Frejus on October 5th. On November 4th, 
 the 18th of Brumaire, he effected the new revolutions 
 which transferred the supreme power from the Directory 
 to a consular triumvirate, of which he was the First 
 Consul. A new Constitution was promulgated on 
 December 13th, 1799. l 
 
 The Consulate stood for the close of the Revolution ; 
 for a new era of moderation and conciliation. At the 
 feast held in the Temple of Victory on November 7th, 
 1799, in honour of Bonaparte and Moreau, the first toast 
 given by the President of the Directory was " Peace " ; 
 the second, proposed by Bonaparte, was " The Union of 
 all Frenchmen ; " and it was this idea of pacification at 
 home and abroad which rendered the latest revolution 
 popular. Even the English contemporary annalist 
 attributed to Bonaparte at this time the character of 
 " moderation, prudence and a regard, not only for civil 
 rights, but also for religion." 3 
 
 At home this spirit was chiefly shown towards the 
 emigrants and the insurrectionists in the West. To 
 pacify the Vendeans and Chouans was no easy task. In 
 November, 1799, Brittany and Normandy could still 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1799, II., 142-50. a ib., 1800, 10.
 
 92 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 show some 60,000 men in arms against the Republic, 
 and proclamations were issued in the interests of Louis 
 XVIII. The commissaries sent by the two Chambers 
 to effect a peace repealed the law of hostages, by which 
 the relatives of emigrants were made personally responsible 
 for the disorders in their communes ; and this greatly 
 contributed to the armistice which followed. Bonaparte's 
 pacificatory proclamation of December 25th, 1799, had 
 also a calming effect. 1 And although hopes of British 
 and Russian aid helped to keep the rebellion alive, peace 
 was finally effected on February 15th, 1800, and was 
 followed by a general disarmament of the Royalists in all 
 the departments. The moment was equally favourable 
 for making peace abroad. 
 
 France had every motive for desiring peace. She had 
 a large force imprisoned in Egypt ; Malta was closely 
 besieged by the English and Portuguese ; the death of 
 Tippoo Sultan at the capture of his capital at Seringa- 
 patam on May 4th, 1799, had destroyed all hope of any 
 success in India ; all of Italy, save Genoa, was lost to 
 France, and Genoa was in a frightful state of famine ; 
 and, though France held all the left bank of the Rhine 
 from Basle northwards, peace had become a matter of 
 primary necessity, if she was to recover from the exhaustion 
 of the war. 
 
 1 *6., 71, 2.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 1800. The Crushing of Austria 
 
 It was impossible for Bonaparte, who with all his faults 
 was the most intelligent politician of his time, not to 
 recognise the necessity of peace ; and accordingly on 
 December 25th, 1799, the very day on which he was 
 constituted First Consul, he sent through Talleyrand, 
 the Minister of Foreign Affairs, a letter direct to George III. 
 announcing his elevation to the position of first magistrate 
 of France and suggesting in sensible terms a termination 
 of the war in the interests of the civilised world. The 
 letter by its address to the king deliberately departed 
 from diplomatic etiquette with a view to the speedier 
 attainment of its object. 
 
 Unfortunately, Lord Grenville was before all things 
 pedantic. He replied stiffly that His Majesty saw no 
 reason for departing from forms long established in 
 Europe for the transaction of Foreign Affairs ; His 
 Majesty was only fighting against an unprovoked aggres- 
 sion, nor could he hope for a successful negotiation whilst 
 in France the same causes and system prevailed which 
 had produced and protracted the war. From the French 
 " indiscriminate spirit of destruction " all Europe and the 
 world had suffered, and only by continued resistance to 
 the French system could His Majesty hope for the security 
 of property, liberty and religion. Greatly as His Majesty 
 would rejoice in the prevalence of " better principles " 
 in France, only the experience of facts could convince 
 him of such a change ; and the best evidence would be 
 " the restoration of that line of princes who for so many 
 centuries maintained the French nation in prosperity at 
 
 93
 
 94 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 home and in consideration and respect abroad." Not 
 that His Majesty wished to prescribe to France her form 
 of Government ; whenever circumstances pointed to a 
 possible security for himself and his allies, he would eagerly 
 labour for peace ; but whilst he could rely so little on the 
 stability or principles of the new government, he could 
 but continue that " just and defensive war " in which he 
 was engaged. 1 
 
 It would have been difficult to conceive a worse 
 answer ; justly stigmatised by Erskine as " without 
 necessity rash, insolent and provoking ... as an 
 answer to a pacific proposition dangerous to the universal 
 interests of mankind ; it rejected the very idea of peace, 
 as if peace were a curse, and the demand of negotiation 
 an insult ; and held fast to war, as if war were an in- 
 separable adjunct to the prosperity of nations." 2 Lord 
 Suffolk said that it " would have disgraced a schoolboy."3 
 The wonder was that it did not close the correspondence. 
 The French rejoinder of January 14th, 1800, denied that 
 France had been the aggressor, and asserted that she had 
 only been defending herself against a league for her 
 destruction and dismemberment ; fairly asked why 
 George III., who had himself invited negotiations for 
 peace in 1796 and 1797, should not be equally eager for 
 them now ; but concluded with an offer from the First 
 Consul, in obedience to the voice of humanity, to make 
 an immediate end of hostilities by an armistice, and 
 a Peace Conference at Dunkirk or elsewhere for the 
 restoration of friendly relations. 4 
 
 But the British Government, " of convicted inca- 
 pacity," as Sheridan styled it, was set on war at any price. 
 Grenville's reply of January 20th, 1800, simply threw 
 back on France the sole responsibility for the war, and 
 repeated what amounted to a demand for the restoration 
 of the Bourbons. Sheridan rightly said on February 10th, 
 
 1 Pari. Hist., XXXIV., 1 197-1200. 3 ib. XXXV., 875. 
 3 ib., XXXIV., 1287. 4 ib. XXXV., 1202.
 
 THE CRUSHING OF AUSTRIA 95 
 
 1800, that we were at war for the restoration of the 
 Bourbons and nothing else ; and that all the qualifications 
 which limited that proposition were mere quibbles. 1 
 Large majorities in both Houses supported the rejection 
 of Bonaparte's overtures ; all the old sins or crimes of 
 France were raked up as motives for continuing a 
 punitive war ; and the stock platitude that no peace could 
 be stable with France's new rulers served as an excuse 
 for making war perpetual. The King above all was 
 obstinate for indefinite war : " No disaster," he wrote 
 to Pitt on January 28th, 1800, " could make me think 
 the treating for peace wise or safe, whilst the French 
 principles subsist ; " no confidence could be placed in the 
 present French Government ; and his opinion, formed on 
 principle, not on events, was " not open to change." 
 So it was again full sail for war, with fresh subsidies of 
 millions to the Emperor of Germany, the Elector of 
 Bavaria, and other German mercenary States. 
 
 At the same time that he made his offer of peace to 
 England Bonaparte sent pacificatory addresses to all the 
 European Powers. 2 But his proposals to Austria were as 
 unsuccessful as those to England, the Austrian Govern- 
 being seized with the same " sort of delirium " for war 
 that he ascribed to her English ally. Bonaparte proposed 
 peace on the basis of the treaty of Campo Formio, but the 
 advice of the Archduke Charles that peace should be 
 made was scorned by the Austrian Government, and 
 General Kray substituted for himself in the command of 
 the German army. 
 
 In Egypt also a great opportunity for making peace 
 was lost. General Kleber, left in command by Bonaparte 
 on his departure, and taking a gloomy view of his 
 situation, had resolved to continue the negotiations with 
 the Porte that Bonaparte had begun. So negotiations 
 were opened on December 21, 1799, on board Sir Sidney 
 Smith's ship, the Tiger, Sir Sidney acting for the Grand 
 
 1 Pari. Hist., XXXIV., 1407. 2 Ann. Reg., 1800, 71.
 
 96 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Vizier. 1 Owing to a tempestuous sea, which made a 
 landing impossible, the conference lasted eighteen days, with 
 the result that, after the taking of the fort of El-Arish 
 by the Grand Vizier on December 30th, 1799, Kleber, 
 disappointed by the non-arrival of a French and Spanish 
 fleet with reinforcements and provisions, and despairful 
 of resisting the superior Turkish forces, signed with 
 Turkey the treaty of El-Arish on January 24th, 1800, 
 which was to be ratified within eight days. As the French 
 evacuation of Egypt was the great desire of both England 
 and Turkey, he thought that his agreement to leave 
 Egypt would be virtually the first clause in a treaty for 
 the general pacification of all Europe. So he wrote on 
 February 6th, 1800. 3 The French army was to be em- 
 barked in French or Turkish vessels for France, and the 
 towns and fortresses in Egypt evacuated at different dates, 
 during an armistice of three months. Sir Sidney Smith 
 did not sign this treaty, but both he and Kleber regarded 
 his assistance as committing the British Government to 
 the acceptance of its terms. And it was unfortunate that 
 they were not so accepted, as such acceptance might have 
 finished the war. 
 
 But the British Government was unfairly charged with 
 breach of faith. Anxious as they were for the French to 
 evacuate Egypt, they had no wish for the French Egyptian 
 army to be added to the French army in France. On their 
 instructions therefore Lord Keith informed Kleber that no 
 capitulation could be accepted that did not involve the 
 surrender of the French army as prisoners of war. Kleber 
 instantly on March 8th ordered his soldiers to renew the 
 war, and his great victory over the Turks at Heliopolis on 
 March 23rd preceded a series of operations which com- 
 pletely restored French power in Egypt. On the same date 
 (March 8th) Sir Sidney Smith, receiving the instructions 
 which nullified the convention of January 24th, expressed 
 the great vexation he felt at having to warn the French 
 
 1 ib. II. 222. 2 Ann. Reg., 1800, II. 224.
 
 THE CRUSHING OF AUSTRIA 97 
 
 against their intended embarkation. The British Govern- 
 ment, though they disclaimed Smith's powers to treat 
 with the French, when they learnt that he had done so, 
 instructed Keith to stand by it, as is shown in Lord 
 Keith's letter of April 23rd to Citizen Poussielgue : " I 
 have given no orders or authority against the observance 
 of the convention between the Grand Vizier and General 
 Kleber, having received no orders on this head from the 
 King's Ministers. Accordingly I was of opinion that His 
 Majesty should take no part in it ; but since the treaty 
 has been concluded, His Majesty, being desirous of 
 showing his respect for his allies, I have received instruc- 
 tions to allow a passage to the French troops, and I lost 
 not a moment in sending to Egypt orders to permit them 
 to return to France without molestation ;" he only required 
 that they should not return in a mass nor in ships of war, 
 nor did he doubt that Kleber would allow no hostilities 
 against the coalesced Powers. 1 
 
 The mistake being discovered, both sides endeavoured 
 to renew the convention that had failed. But Kleber's 
 assassination early on June 24th proved disastrous. The 
 assassin was tried by a military tribunal under General 
 Regnier, and the sentence was no less atrocious than the 
 crime. The assassin, a youth of twenty-four, after having 
 his right hand consumed by live coals, suffered impalement 
 for four hours before he died, proclaiming with his last 
 breath that Mahomet was the prophet of God. 2 General 
 Menou succeeded to Kleber's place, but his refusal to 
 agree to the evacuation of Egypt brought all negotiations 
 to a close. 
 
 Thus both England and Europe paid dearly for the 
 Grenville letter. On March 7th, 1800, the French Consuls 
 issued a proclamation to the Republic, declaring that 
 England's war aims were " to ravage France, to destroy 
 her marine and her ports, to efface her from the map of 
 Europe, or to degrade her to the rank of a secondary 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1800, II., 226. 2 Thibeaudeau's Consulat, I., 377, 8.
 
 98 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Power, to keep all the nations of the Continent divided 
 in order to get possession of the commerce of all, and 
 enrich herself by their spoils." 1 France responded to 
 Bonaparte's call to resent the insulting replies to his 
 overtures as readily as she responded to the same call by 
 Louis XIV. under a similar rebuff in 1709 ; and the campaign 
 that followed in Germany and Italy undid with amazing 
 celerity the Allied victories of 1799. To the world's 
 surprise Bonaparte crossed the St. Bernard into Italy in 
 the middle of May ; the French again occupied Milan, 
 evacuated by the Austrians, on June 2nd, and Pavia on 
 June 5th ; the very day on which Massena, after a siege, 
 in which it is said that 15,000 Genoese died of hunger, 
 had surrendered Genoa to the Austrians. Bonaparte 
 had failed to arrive in time to raise the siege ; but Genoa 
 remained not long under her new masters. For the great 
 battle of Marengo changed the face of things. As Bour- 
 rienne describes it : Bonaparte left Milan on June 13th, 
 fought at Marengo on June 14th, and on June 15th Italy 
 " was ours." It had looked at one time like a victory for 
 the Austrians, but Kellerman's charge decided the day 
 for the French, though with the loss of General Desaix, 
 a host in himself, and better remembered than the name- 
 less Austrian and French multitudes, whose courageous 
 deaths gave Bonaparte his victory over the Austrian 
 commander Melas. Melas had two horses killed under 
 him, and a few days later Bonaparte sent him a Turkish 
 sabre as a present, which was gracefully acknowledged 
 with an expression of the Austrian's admiration for his 
 great rival. 
 
 But the armistice for which Melas was obliged to ask 
 the day after the battle, the armistice of Alexandria, 
 meant for France the complete reconquest of Piedmont and 
 Lombardy and of twelve strong fortresses, including Genoa, 
 Coni, and Savona. Tuscany for the present remained to 
 the Imperialists ; nor did the armistice apply to Germany. 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1800, II., 268.
 
 THE CRUSHING OF AUSTRIA 
 
 99 
 
 Marengo was fatal to any effective British co-operation 
 with Austria. The severe winter had stopped all corres- 
 pondence between London and Vienna from the end of 
 December till the middle of March, but on February 22nd 
 the Government resolved to send 20,000 men to the 
 Mediterranean to the aid of our ally. Unfortunately the 
 force under Sir Ralph Abercromby was so delayed in 
 starting that it only arrived in time to hear of Melas' 
 defeat, and to sail away from the roads of Genoa back 
 into the Mediterranean. There was an end of all those 
 dreams of the Austrians invading Provence, and, after 
 taking Marseilles and burning Toulon, marching with the 
 British forces from Minorca upon Paris. The Cisalpine 
 Republic was declared again free and independent ; 
 North Italy rejoiced in its liberation from Austrian 
 oppression ; Bonaparte issued orders for religion and 
 property to be respected ; and in an address to the clergy 
 at Milan proclaimed his intention to protect the Catholic 
 religion. 1 
 
 In the meantime Moreau had been equally successful 
 in Germany; the Rhine having been crossed on April 25th. 
 Swabia and Franconia were overrun, and the Austrian 
 General, Kray, was " amused," as the phrase then went, 
 with feint attacks and marches. But after Marengo had 
 made it no longer necessary to send French reinforcements 
 into Italy, the invasion was pushed further. Moreau crossed 
 the Danube on June 18th ; drove the Austrians from their 
 entrenched camp near Ulm, and occupied Munich. The 
 Elector of Bavaria was obliged to pay as contributions a 
 large sum out of the £500,000 which England had paid as 
 a subsidy, and the same thing happened in the case of the 
 Duke of Wurtemburg. 
 
 Thus Austria was forced to beg for another armistice, 
 which was granted on July 16th. Driven by her calamities 
 to desire peace, she sent the Count St. Julien to Paris, 
 where peace preliminaries were signed on July28th between 
 
 1 Thibeaudeau's Consulat, I., 439-442.
 
 ioo THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 him and Talleyrand. But two days before the news of 
 Marengo reached England a fresh treaty had been made 
 between England and Austria which debarred either ally 
 from a separate peace, and in which a loan of two millions 
 was promised to Austria as a sort of military refresher. 
 (June 20th, 1800). Her efforts, real or simulated, to get 
 England included in a general peace having failed, she 
 refused to ratify the treaty with France, on the ground 
 that St. Julien had exceeded his powers ; much to the 
 indignation of Bonaparte, who, with all his later love for 
 war, was sincere in his wish for a pacification. In the 
 attempt made that August and September to include 
 England in the armistice with Austria, both he and Lord 
 Grenville honestly tried to overcome by mutual concessions 
 the difficulties involved in so unprecedented an arrange- 
 ment as a naval armistice ; for, failing a peace, Austria 
 had lost. Hardly had the war recommenced at the 
 beginning of September, than the Austrian Emperor, who 
 had joined his army in person, asked for a prolongation 
 of the armistice ; a truce for forty-five days from Sep- 
 tember 28th was agreed to at Hohenlinden, and another 
 at Castiglione for Italy a few days later. Bonaparte 
 had wished for a general peace, which would have included 
 England ; but a fresh offer from him on October 9th, 
 1800, to negotiate met again with refusal. 1 The verdict 
 of the contemporary English annalist seems a fair one : 
 " It would be unpardonable in an annalist to pass over 
 without due notice and applause the wise and magnanim- 
 ous conduct of the Chief Consul in being ever ready in 
 the hour of the greatest victory to suspend the career of 
 war, and come to terms of peace." 3 
 
 After the failure to relieve Genoa an expedition was 
 sent from England in September to Ferrol in Spain, to 
 capture, if possible, the ships in that harbour, and to 
 take the town and fortresses. A force of 11,000 men 
 did effect a landing, and without resistance occupied the 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1801, 18. 2 ib., 1800, 210.
 
 THE CRUSHING OF AUSTRIA 101 
 
 heights above the town ; but Sir James Pulteney, finding 
 the place too well defended to justify a surprise attack, re- 
 embarked his troops without effecting anything, much to the 
 wrath of the naval forces, which, disappointed of their prey 
 of thirty-four sail of the line, several frigates, and many 
 merchantmen in the harbour, nearly broke into mutiny. 1 
 
 These troops, being joined by those from Genoa, then 
 made a similar fruitless expedition against Cadiz, where 
 yellow fever was raging. Lord Keith, in command of a 
 large fleet, and Sir Ralph Abercromby, in command of 
 20,000 land forces, declined to be deterred by this con- 
 sideration from their intended attack, but finally surren- 
 dered the enterprise as too hazardous : a failure which, 
 added to the previous failures against Quiberon, Belleisle, 
 and Ferrol in that same year, made wider breaches in the 
 Government's popularity than the captures of the little 
 island of Goree off Senegal on April 5th, 1800, or of Curacoa 
 from the Dutch on September 5th, 1800, and even of Malta 
 from the French after a two years' siege, on the same 
 day, were able to repair. 
 
 But the tide was flowing strongly against the 
 Coalition. Apprehension of a British force landing on 
 the Tuscan coast, if the war were renewed after the 
 armistice, made the French desirous of a pretext for 
 occupying Tuscany, and this was provided by a rising in 
 the district of Ferrara, still held by the Austrians in spite 
 of the treaty of Alexandria. The French occupied 
 Florence on October 15th, and seizing Leghorn con- 
 fiscated all the English property they could find there, 
 and the English vessels and cargoes in the harbour. The 
 English fleet that appeared before the fort a few days later, 
 with 12,000 troops on board, justified to the French their 
 precautionary policy. 2 Switzerland also was finally 
 subjugated. 
 
 Hostilities, resumed between the French and Austrians 
 after the armistice, quickly resulted in Moreau's great 
 
 1 Pari. Hist., XXXV., 980. 2 Ann. Reg., 1801, 63, 4.
 
 102 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 victory at Hohenlinden on December 3rd, 1800. Bona- 
 parte, says Bourrienne, his secretary, danced for joy on 
 hearing the news. Moreau continued his victorious 
 career ; Salzburg was taken, and such again became the 
 danger to Vienna that the Imperial family prepared for 
 flight. The pictures from the gallery were packed 
 ready for removal, when on December 27th, 1800, arrived 
 the Archduke Charles, with the welcome news that the 
 armistice he had found himself obliged to solicit at Steyer 
 had been concluded for thirty days from December 25th. 
 The French were able to claim that within twenty days 
 they had taken 25,000 prisoners ; killed or wounded 
 between 12,000 and 15,000 ; and come within striking 
 distance of Vienna itself. Moreau's fame began to rival 
 Bonaparte's, but French generals had always the fear of 
 the Bourbons before their eyes, and Moreau (La Mariee), 
 seduced in later years by Royalist allurements and 
 involved in the great Royalist plot of 1804, ended his 
 career at Leipzig in 1813, fighting in the Russian service 
 against his country. Whilst Moreau thus drove the 
 Austrians before him in Germany, General Brune did the 
 same in Italy, till within twenty miles of Venice on 
 January 16th, 1801, the armistice at Treviso marked still 
 further the utter collapse of Austria, to whose destruction 
 our counsels had so much contributed. 
 
 Thus Pitt's war policy had failed dismally ; the 
 renewed Coalition had crumbled almost to nothing. 
 And what added to the gloom of the exit of the passing 
 century was the internal condition of the country. Wheat, 
 which in the year the war began was at 48 shillings 
 the quarter, had risen to 112. x Pitt ascribed this to 
 the bad harvest, not to the war ; but whatever the cause, 
 the war, which had made the wealthy wealthier, had 
 reduced the poorer classes to beggary, and almost to 
 starvation. 2 Famine raged in the land at the end of 
 1800, and the starvation with which we had threatened 
 
 * Ann. Reg., 1801, II., 167. 2 Pari. Hist., XXXIV., 1224.
 
 THE CRUSHING OF AUSTRIA 103 
 
 France in 1793 was being turned against us by all the 
 Powers of Europe. 1 The poor rate had risen in parts 
 of Yorkshire from £522 to £6,000.' Over the country 
 generally they had increased by five millions. 3 Agri- 
 cultural wages fell to the low level of eight or nine 
 shillings a week, whilst the prices of all foods rose 
 enormously. The general misery expressed itself in riots 
 and in the seizing of corn by mobs. The general distress 
 reached the higher social strata ; " there never was a 
 time when the higher ranks of society were reduced to 
 such privations. "4 It became necessary to do something. 
 To economise bread, none might be sold within twenty- 
 four hours of baking, and this reduced consumption 
 in London by one-sixth. It was advised to show charity 
 to the poor, not in bread or flour, or money, but in rice 
 and soups ; substitutes for bread were recommended ; 
 and, as advised by the Archbishop of Canterbury, many 
 peers and commoners signed an agreement to allow their 
 afflicted families only a low maximum of bread per week 
 and to forbid them pastry in any form. 
 
 Pitt wrote to Addington on October 8th, 1800 : " the 
 question of peace or war is not in itself half so formidable 
 as that of the scarcity with which it is necessarily combined, 
 and for the evils and growing danger of which I see no 
 adequate remedy,"5 but for this side of the war few seemed 
 to care so long as the other side of the shield showed a 
 brighter aspect ; so long as commerce and the moneyed 
 interests revelled in the gains which the war brought 
 them. " Contractors and loan-mongers," said one 
 speaker, " are the only persons who have not been 
 impoverished by the war." 6 Bonaparte, according to 
 Bourrienne, often called contractors a curse and leprosy 
 upon nations, nor would he ever grant them honours ; 
 he regarded contractors and rogues as synonymous terms ; 
 as Moreau found them to his cost at Toulon. Wars are 
 
 * ib., XXXV., 709. « ib., XXXV., 1064. 3 ib., XXXV., 701. 
 
 4 ib., XXXV., 932. 5 Pellew's Sidmouth, I., 263. 6 ib., XXXV., 699.
 
 104 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 unimaginable without contractors, who in the last analysis 
 probably do more to cause and sustain them than ambitious 
 kings or incapable diplomats. 
 
 But there was another class besides contractors that 
 was not impoverished by the war ; for, whilst nine shillings 
 a week represented the labourer's living wage, Lord Warwick 
 declared that the farmers round him were making profits 
 of 200 per cent. ; that they were rich enough to play 
 whist at guinea points, and to mix brandy with their 
 wine. 1 They sold barley at twenty shillings a bushel, 
 when ten would have paid them well, and Lord Warwick 
 got a sound scolding from Lord Grenville for suggesting 
 that a legal maximum of ten should be fixed. 
 
 With Austria hopelessly beaten, and only Portugal, 
 Naples, and Turkey left to us as allies, it was a serious 
 thing that the neutral Powers were now turning against 
 us. The war party had made the liberties of Europe 
 their pretext for the war, and in the name of those very 
 liberties Russia, Sweden, Denmark and Prussia were 
 rapidly drifting to open war with us. 
 
 Russia was passing from alliance to enmity. She 
 had so far quarrelled with Germany as to refuse to receive 
 a German ambassador (October 15th, 1800), nor had she 
 forgiven us for the disastrous campaign to which we had 
 committed her against Holland in 1799. The " magna- 
 nimity " of Paul, on which Pitt had built such hopes 
 of a solid alliance, was turning to malignity ; though 
 one unfortunate Englishman had actually been fined 
 and imprisoned for expressing doubts of Paul's sin- 
 cerity.* 
 
 Yet a more judicious exercise of our maritime rights 
 by our Admiralty might have averted the trouble. 
 Denmark was the chief sufferer from our too rigorous 
 policy towards neutrals. Many of her ships, found after- 
 wards to be free of contraband, were brought into our 
 
 1 Pari. Hist., XXXV., 833, 4. 
 * Pari. Hist., XXXV., 652.
 
 THE CRUSHING OF AUSTRIA 105 
 
 ports, 1 and in December, 1799, she offered armed resistance 
 to a demand to search some ships under convoy. The 
 right to search merchantmen under convoy of a ship of 
 war was one we had never surrendered, though several 
 treaties rendered such ships immune between the Baltic 
 Powers and with the United States. Persistence in 
 enforcing the right was not justified by necessity ; and 
 when in July, 1800, the Danish frigate, the Freya, 
 and her convoy were brought into the Downs after an 
 engagement that had resulted in the deaths of two Danes 
 and five Englishmen, Paul I. took strongly the Danish 
 side. Lord Whitworth, sent with an armed squadron 
 as negotiator, succeeded in effecting a compromise which 
 deferred till a later date the settlement of the disputed 
 right, but Paul was so incensed at his passing the Sound, 
 to the danger of Russian trade in the Baltic, that he 
 placed an embargo on all British property in Russia ; 
 prepared on September 10th to raise an army for a possible 
 rupture ; and started active preparations for a naval 
 war. The embargo was taken off on September 22nd, 
 when the Anglo-Danish dispute had been settled. 
 
 But the settlement was only temporary. At the end 
 of October, Paul announced his intention of reviving the 
 Armed Neutrality of 1780. And the question of Malta in- 
 creased the friction. Paul, as Grand Master of the Order 
 of St. John, had been led to think that Malta, when taken 
 from the French, would become his, and in August, 1800, he 
 sent the Russian fleet from the Black Sea to take possession 
 of the island when that happened. When Malta was taken, 
 and the English took possession, he protested strongly, and 
 proceeded again to put an embargo on English ships in all 
 his ports till his rights were satisfied. 3 As many as 300 
 British ships were thus seized, and their crews and captains 
 marched off as prisoners into Russia : an outrage that 
 was virtually a declaration of war. 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1801, 92. 
 
 * November 18th and 23rd. Ann. Reg., 1800, II., 253.
 
 to6 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Prussia, too, was drawn into the list of our fresh 
 enemies. In October, 1800, a Prussian vessel, laden with 
 naval stores for Holland, was taken by an English frigate 
 into Cuxhaven, a port of Hamburg. King Frederick 
 William sent 2,000 troops to occupy Cuxhaven, nor could 
 the politest remonstrances from Lord Carysfort, our 
 ambassador, induce him to remove them, though he still 
 professed his strong friendship for George III. And 
 Denmark was naturally drawn into the orbit of Prussia. 
 
 On December 15th, 1800, Russia and Sweden signed 
 their Convention, ratified shortly afterwards, of the Armed 
 Neutrality, 1 and within a few weeks both Denmark and 
 Prussia acceded to it. On the British demand for 
 explanations Denmark openly avowed her adhesion to the 
 Northern Confederacy on December 31st, 1800. 
 
 The Convention itself followed the lines of the Con- 
 vention of September 30th, 1800, between France and the 
 United States. 2 It defined contraband, excluding naval 
 stores ; permitted neutrals to trade on belligerent coasts ; 
 insisted on only an effective blockade making ships 
 capturable ; and, above all, made enemy property, 
 save contraband, exempt from capture under the neutral 
 flag. In the event of their ships being insulted, plundered 
 or captured in violation of these principles by any ship of 
 war or privateer, the contracting Powers agreed to support 
 one another, failing redress on remonstrance, in reprisals 
 against the offending State. 
 
 That free ships made free goods and that a blockade 
 to be operative must be effective were principles admitted 
 into the maritime law of most nations by the Treaty of 
 Paris in 1856, but Pitt said that the principles of the 
 Baltic Powers " imperiously called on Englishmen to 
 resist them to the last shilling and the last drop of 
 blood, "3 and Nelson held that the principle of " free ships, 
 free goods," was so " monstrous in itself " that had not 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1800, II., 260-4. 3 *&■» 1800, II., 282-290. 
 3 Pari. Hist., XXXV., 1128.
 
 THE CRUSHING OF AUSTRIA 107 
 
 Russia yielded the point by the treaty of June 14th, 1801, 
 " we ought not to have concluded the war while a single 
 man, a single shilling, or even a single drop of blood 
 remained in the country." 1 And the King, whose mind 
 was generally fixed upon most subjects, wrote that there 
 was nothing on which it was more fixed than on this one.' 
 So great are often the errors of even the greatest minds. 
 Bonaparte cleverly turned to his own advantage this 
 estrangement between England and Russia. An embassy 
 from Russia reached Paris on December 18th, 1800, to 
 treat for an exchange of prisoners. Seven thousand 
 Russian prisoners had been taken in the Dutch adventure, 
 and England had refused to exchange them for an equal 
 number of French prisoners ; Bonaparte ordered all these 
 7,000 to be sent back to Russia without exchange or 
 condition of any sort, clothed in new uniforms, and 
 with their arms and lost standards restored ; a gracious 
 act, which converted Paul I. into Bonaparte's most 
 devoted friend. Thus, with Bonaparte's support and 
 encouragement, the Northern Confederacy raised fresh 
 and just alarm in England ; for though navally weak 
 individually, Russia, Sweden and Denmark might soon 
 have a collective naval force of 100 ships of the line : a 
 force which might possibly suffice to raise our blockade 
 of the French ports and so enable a French fleet to operate 
 again in the Channel. 
 
 1 ib^ XXXVI., 262. a Pellew's Sidmouth, I., 365.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 1 80 1. The Belated Peace of Amiens 
 
 The new century, coinciding with the first meeting of 
 the United Parliament, thus began under the blackest 
 clouds, with a new war added to the old one ; and with 
 nothing less likely than an all-round pacification in 
 Europe. 
 
 The peace of Luneville, between France on the one 
 hand and Austria and the German Empire on the other, 
 signed on February 9th, 1801, was a stunning blow to 
 Pitt's policy and hopes. Despite the stipulation against 
 a separate peace in our treaty of the preceding year, our 
 consent to release our ally, brought to her knees by our 
 encouragement to further warfare, was unavoidable. 
 And considering how much the recent French victories 
 over Austria had added to French power, the moderation 
 in the terms of peace was remarkable ; for they went 
 little beyond those of the treaty of Campo Formio in 1797. 
 Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine were definitely 
 ceded by Austria and the Empire to France ; whilst Venice 
 and her territories as far as the Adige were guaranteed 
 to Austria, and the independence guaranteed of the 
 Republics round France, the Batavian, Helvetic, Cisalpine, 
 and Ligurian. So far from France being confined to her 
 old boundaries, as the Allies had intended, her boundaries 
 were extended farther than ever. 1 
 
 And to this loss of our chief ally as a motive for peace 
 another motive was supplied from Ireland, which, despite 
 or in consequence of the Union, still afforded a vulnerable 
 point for French attack. 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1801, II., 270-4. 
 
 108
 
 THE BELATED PEACE OF AMIENS 109 
 
 But, necessary as Peace had become, Pitt not only 
 could not make it, but was drifting into a new war. The 
 shame of a peace that fell short of his proud professions 
 of the last eight years could only be avoided by casting 
 upon other shoulders the disgrace of a peace bound to 
 be unpopular. A difference between the Minister and the 
 Monarch on the immediate admission of Catholics to 
 Parliament, sincerely as Pitt desired their admission, 
 supplied him with a good ground for resigning office in 
 the very nick of time. In February Pitt resigned, and 
 Speaker Addington was chosen in his place : Pitt being 
 followed by the whole of the war crew, Dundas, Windham, 
 Canning, Lord Grenville and Lord Spencer, who, under 
 his captaincy, had succeeded in running the ship of State 
 well nigh on to the rocks. 
 
 But it was not till March 13th that Addington took 
 over the seals of office, and meantime the dispute with 
 Pitt had thrown the King into a violent illness. Addington 
 from the first stood for peace. When Lord Malmesbury 
 complained to the Duke of York that Addington was 
 meditating peace, the Duke said that it would have the 
 worst effect on his father should he learn on his recovery 
 that such a thing had been agitated. 1 " The Lion," 
 Malmesbury, thought peace " an unwise and weak 
 measure," and was much incensed, as was also Canning, 
 by the help that Pitt gave to Addington in the matter, 
 Canning complaining that Pitt had always been too pacific. 
 
 Shortly after the ratification of the Treaty of Lun£- 
 ville Mr. Merry " was sent to Paris as an agent on the 
 part of the British Ministry,"* and on March 21st, 1801, 
 the British Government began overtures with M. Otto, 
 who, since 1799, nominally as superintendent for the 
 exchange of prisoners, had been kept by Bonaparte in 
 England for negotiating a peace. 3 Still it is not quite 
 clear to which Power belongs the honour, or the shame, of 
 
 1 Diaries, IV., 29. * Ann. Reg., 1801, 275. 
 
 3 Pellew's Sidmouth, I., 477 ; Alison, IV., 623.
 
 no THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 having opened negotiations. Not only was the most 
 profound secrecy to be observed, but there was to be no 
 suspension of arms. Whilst war generally begins with 
 all publicity, with the cheering of crowds, the firing of 
 cannon, and the pealing of bells, shame-faced peace must 
 sneak back to the world by hidden ways and under 
 ridiculous disguises. And in this case so successful was 
 the secrecy that, when the preliminaries were tardily 
 signed on October ist, 1801, they came on the world 
 with a shock of surprise ; nor is it credible that without 
 such secrecy peace could have ever been made, in the 
 face of a Jingo public long deluded by a Jingo Press. 
 
 But meantime there was no relaxation of the war. 
 Pitt replied on January 14th, 1801, to the Russian embargo 
 by laying a similar embargo, not only on Russian ships 
 in our ports, but on Swedish and Danish ships as well. 
 Sweden fairly complained of this as outrageous, as neither 
 she nor Denmark were concerned in the dispute between 
 England and Russia about Malta. 1 Privateers also were 
 given free play, and of 450 Swedish vessels then abroad, 
 as many as 200 were captured at sea or detained in port. 
 On February 27th Denmark declared herself a principal 
 contracting party in the Petersburg Convention. 
 
 Bonaparte showed his diplomatic skill in attaching 
 Prussia to this Northern League. In vain Lord Carysfort 
 solicited the continued friendship of Prussia ; Haugwitz 
 in his reply of February 12th expressed Prussia's " utmost 
 grief " at the violent and hasty measures of England ; 
 complained of her usurpation of the seas ; avowed 
 Prussia's adhesion to the Petersburg Convention, and 
 refused all friendship whilst the embargo remained in 
 force. 3 Soon afterwards, on March 30th, 1801, the 
 Prussian King declared his intention of closing against 
 British ships the mouths of the Elbe, the Weser, and the 
 Ems, and of occupying George III.'s Hanoverian domin- 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1801, II., 237-7, 244. 
 * ib., 1801, II., 239.
 
 THE BELATED PEACE OF AMIENS in 
 
 ions. 1 Hanover was accordingly occupied, and an embargo 
 placed on British shipping, as it had been previously in 
 the ports of Sweden and Denmark. The English annalist 
 declared that " never was war carried on by any Power 
 with greater dignity, civility and decorum " than it was 
 by Prussia. 2 By making peace with Naples on March 
 28th, 1801, of which one of the conditions was the shutting 
 of her ports against British shipping, Bonaparte had 
 succeeded in closing nearly all the Continent against 
 British trade. 
 
 Nor was the gravity of this situation much affected 
 by such naval successes as Admiral Duckworth achieved 
 in the Windward Islands, by which, during March and 
 April, the Swedish island of St. Bartholomew, the Dutch 
 island of St. Martin, the Danish Islands of St. Thomas 
 and St. John, and the islands of St. Eustatius and Saba 
 submitted to the British flag. Spain, too, was induced 
 on February 27th to declare war on Portugal, for whose 
 protection we could do nothing, in the absence of our 
 Expeditionary Force against the French in Egypt ; and 
 Paul and Bonaparte had concocted a detailed plan of 
 campaign, by which 35,000 Russians and as many French 
 were to march within 120 days against our empire in 
 India. 3 
 
 But at this point the goddess of Fortune, on whom 
 he so much relied, deserted Bonaparte, as she had when 
 Kleber had been assassinated in Egypt on June 14th, 
 1800. The midnight murder of Paul I. on March 23rd, 1801, 
 put an end to all these dreams of conquest, and the strong 
 anti-French reaction that set in with his son, Alexander I., 
 who on April 7th released the English captives and 
 removed the embargo on corn, soon broke up the Northern 
 Confederacy. But not before the desperate battle at 
 Copenhagen on April 2nd, when the British fleet under 
 Sir Hyde Parker and Nelson had caused Christian VII. 
 
 1 ib., II., 250 a tit,, 1801, 107. 
 
 3 Rambaud's Russie, 524.
 
 H2 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 of Denmark to pay dearly for his part in what was 
 considered a conspiracy against the maritime rights of 
 Great Britain. In the settlement of this quarrel both 
 Lord Nelson and Addington's Cabinet showed a con- 
 ciliatory disposition, and the Convention of June 14th, 
 1801, with Russia, acceded to by Denmark on October 
 23rd, 1801, and by Sweden on March 30th, 1802, brought 
 the needless strife to an end. But that much was ceded 
 for which the Baltic Powers had fought was proved by 
 Lord Grenville's bitter attack against the Convention. 
 The neutral flag was in future to protect merchandise of 
 enemy growth or manufacture purchased by neutrals ; 
 privateers lost the right of searching ships under convoy ; 
 contraband was restricted to certain specified articles ; 
 blockade to be recognised must be effective ; and the 
 trial of neutral ships was to be uniform and prompt. 1 
 These, though falling short of the freedom of the seas 
 for which Russia had fought, were great concessions, and 
 a great modification of Pitt's declaration that such 
 concessions must be resisted to our last man and our last 
 shilling. The grievance of neutrals was no less felt by 
 the United States, to whose complaint of our claim to 
 capture neutral merchandise on March 13th, 1801, Lord 
 Hawkesbury had to yield. 3 So that, if Paul was rightly 
 counted mad, it was not in regard to a naval policy in 
 which most of the world participated. 
 
 But was his madness more than a political fiction ? 
 Alison adduces singular evidence of his insanity :3 
 the report in the Petersburg Gazette of December 30th, 
 1800, that he conceived the idea, for the speedier ending 
 of a war otherwise interminable, that himself and other 
 belligerent Monarchs should meet in single combat, with 
 their several Ministers ; Pitt, Thugut, and the rest, 
 serving as their squires and heralds. Seldom, surely, did 
 a brighter thought illumine a human brain ! 
 
 » Pari. Hist., XXXVI, 18-25. 
 
 * Ann. Reg., 1801, II., 263-5. 3 IV., 541.
 
 THE BELATED PEACE OF AMIENS 113 
 
 The murder of Paul caused as much rejoicing in 
 England as in St. Petersburg, and corresponding lamenta- 
 tion in France. Bonaparte left it to history to unveil 
 the connection he suspected between the murder of the 
 Czar on March 23rd and the passing of the Sound by the 
 British fleet on March 30th. 1 This suspicion has generally 
 been attributed to Napoleonic malice ; as by Prof. Morfill, 
 who wrote : " Napoleon vainly endeavoured to insinuate 
 that this crime was committed at the instigation of the 
 English."* But his History was published in 1902, 
 probably before he had read Prof. Schiemann's Ermordung 
 Paul's (the Murder of Paul), published at Berlin the same 
 year. This book quoted in full two contemporary 
 testimonies previously unknown. One was by Prince 
 Lobanow-Rostowski, distinguished both as a general and 
 a diplomat, who in the latter capacity had served in 
 Vienna, Berlin and London, and was at one time Foreign 
 Secretary at St. Petersburg. He availed himself of these 
 positions to discover what he could from Russian and 
 foreign archives and from the best living sources relating 
 to Paul I. Another contemporary writing published 
 was by Senator Sernow, also resident in St. Petersburg 
 at the time and holding an office in the Russian Home 
 Office. 
 
 The Prince's story is that the real originators of the 
 conspiracy, not originally for the murder, but only for 
 the dethronement of Paul, were Sir Charles Whitworth, 
 the English ambassador, Count Nikita Panin and Admiral 
 Ribas ; Alexander, then in his eighteenth year, being 
 in the secret from the first. The plot was formed at the 
 end of 1799 : Paul was to be declared insane and to be 
 dethroned in favour of his eldest son Alexander. Paul 
 had made Panin his Vice-Chancellor in September, 1799, 
 and as all correspondence between the Czar and foreign 
 ambassadors had to pass through the Vice-Chancellor, 
 Sir Charles Whitworth and Panin were thrown obviously 
 
 1 Alison, IV., 539. * Hist, of Russia, 272.
 
 ii 4 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 into close political relations, intimate as their relations 
 may have been before that date. Whitworth had repre- 
 sented us in Russia since 1788, and out of gratitude to 
 him for having carried through the Anglo-Russian treaty 
 of 1798 Paul had pressed the British Government to 
 reward him with a peerage, and thus on March 21st, 1800, 
 Sir Charles became Lord Whitworth. But when friction 
 soon afterwards occurred with England Paul demanded 
 Whitworth's recall, and on May 27th, 1800, he left Russia. 
 Any part, therefore, that Whitworth played in the con- 
 spiracy must have been before that date. And it seems 
 that the conspiracy slumbered throughout the year 1800, 
 though after Panin, owing to a quarrel with Paul, had 
 been dismissed from his office on November 15th, 1800, 
 it was carried on with so little concealment that it even 
 reached the ears of Paul himself. 
 
 Sernow's account, which gives the fullest details of 
 this ghastly tragedy, agrees with the former in so far as 
 it connects Whitworth with the origin of the conspiracy. 
 Sernow says that Whitworth and Olga Sherebzow, sister 
 of the Subow brothers, consulted Panin, who had been 
 banished to his country estates, through Count Ribas. 
 But the dates disprove some of this story. Panin was 
 banished to his estates on December 15th, 1800 ; Ribas 
 died on December 2nd, 1800, and Whitworth had left 
 Russia on May 27th, 1800. But the chief difference in 
 the two accounts is in the addition of the lady to the 
 number of the original conspirators. Anything more 
 atrocious than Panin's share in the murder of his master, 
 with whom he had been educated in his boyhood, it would 
 be difficult to conceive. Alexander remained a consenting 
 party to the plot, only stipulating that his father should 
 not be killed ; but when Paul had been killed he immedi- 
 ately recalled Panin as Vice-Chancellor ! When his mother, 
 Paul's widow, refused to let Panin kiss her hand till he 
 had given his word of honour that he had had no hand in 
 the late revolution, Panin tried to prove his innocence by
 
 THE BELATED PEACE OF AMIENS 115 
 
 referring to his absence from St. Petersburg at the time. 
 Alexander was unable to keep her in error, and a letter he 
 showed her from Panin to Whitworth to convince her of his 
 complicity put Panin beyond the bounds of her forgive- 
 ness for the rest of his life. Alexander therefore banished 
 him in October, 1801, and when he recalled him in 1804, 
 and his mother said that he must choose between herself 
 and his friend, he again banished him, and this time for 
 the rest of his reign. 
 
 But others shared with Panin in blood-guiltiness. 
 The worst perhaps of all was Von Pahlen, who used 
 his position as Military Governor of the capital to 
 further the plot, though careful to play so double a 
 part between Paul and his enemies as to be on the 
 right side whichever party might prevail. General 
 Benningsen, so conspicuous in Russia's later wars with 
 France, was among the principal conspirators ; when 
 the plotters had reached the Czar's sleeping-room, and 
 some began to make proposals of his resignation, Ben- 
 ningsen cried out : " Have we come here to talk ? " 
 whereupon Nicolai Subow, the brother of Lord Whit- 
 worth's friend Olga, struck the kneeling Czar on the 
 left temple with a golden snuff-box, and the other 
 distinguished murderers did the rest. 1 But Alexander 
 escaped the crime of parricide, though consenting to a 
 plot, which, according to Russian precedent, could hardly 
 have ended otherwise than by his father's death ; yet this 
 was the young man who a few years later, in 1804, was 
 so morally shocked by the execution of the Due d'Enghien 
 that he ordered his whole court into mourning. 
 
 This account differs slightly from the story given by 
 Prince Czartoryski, who derived some of his details from 
 Benningsen himself. According to this story Benningsen 
 only heard of the conspiracy for the first time on the 
 evening of the murder and then placed himself at the 
 head of the band ; he told Paul to consider himself his 
 1 Schiemann, 30.
 
 n6 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 prisoner and to sign an act of abdication ; but he had 
 just left the room when the assassination took place. 1 
 
 But the point of chief interest is not so much Benning- 
 sen's part in the conspiracy as Lord Whitworth's. For if 
 these Russian stories are true, he must have been among 
 the few original conspirators for Paul's dethronement, 
 and in that case the notion that an ambassador takes 
 no part in the politics of the country to which he is 
 accredited must go the way of other popular delusions. 
 
 Paul's death was doubly unfortunate for Bonaparte ; 
 for, by releasing Turkey from the Russian menace, it set 
 her free to assist, or at least not to hinder, the British 
 expedition against the French in Egypt. Early in March 
 Sir Ralph Abercromby landed his force of over 17,000 
 men, and after a series of brilliant victories over the 
 French, bought dearly by the death of Abercromby 
 himself, Cairo was compelled to capitulate on June 22nd, 
 and Alexandria on August 27th. The result was the 
 same that would have been achieved a year sooner by the 
 treaty of El-Arish ; the French, some 24,000, were forced 
 to return to France, with their arms, baggage and 
 artillery. It was the greatest triumph Great Britain had 
 achieved in the war, and it smoothed the way for the near 
 but unsuspected peace. 
 
 Meantime since September, 1800, great camps, of 
 which the principal one was at Boulogne, had been in 
 formation for the threatened invasion of England ; and 
 the peace with Austria relieved very large French forces 
 for an object which, according to his secretary, Bourrienne, 
 Bonaparte never intended. Nor was invasion a feasible 
 chance against our superior naval force, which the course 
 of the war had so greatly increased. Since the war began 
 only three of our ships of the line had been captured, and 
 of those one had been retaken ; at the outside we had lost 
 two frigates, and most of our smaller captured vessels 
 had been retaken. On the other hand, France had lost 
 
 1 Memoirs, I., 228-255.
 
 THE BELATED PEACE OF AMIENS 117 
 
 78 ships of the line, 483 war vessels in all, plus 743 priva- 
 teers ; the Dutch had lost 15 war ships, and the Spaniards 
 76 ; altogether a grand total of 1,317 vessels. 1 
 
 Besides the flotilla under Nelson which, with the 
 Channel fleet, guarded the coasts, we were able to keep 
 fleets in the West Indies, in the Indian Ocean, at the mouth 
 of the Nile, two fleets in the Mediterranean, and a small 
 one in the Baltic. If the invasion of France was impos- 
 sible from our side, much more was our invasion impossible 
 from the ports of France and Holland, in the face of the 
 ships of war which guarded the whole extent of our 
 coasts. The failure of Nelson that August to attack 
 successfully the flotilla at Boulogne signified that at sea 
 neither side could injure the other. The deadlock thus 
 reached was a strong stimulant to the desire for peace, 
 and flags of truce were daily passing through the hostile 
 armaments between Dover and Calais. 
 
 Portugal, too, lay at the mercy of France. After her 
 half-hearted war with Spain had been ended by the 
 treaty of Badajoz on June 6th, she had been obliged to 
 close her ports against us. Bonaparte, refusing to ratify 
 a treaty otherwise objectionable to him, sent a French 
 army, which a subsidy from us of £900,000 did not help 
 Portugal to resist, when it was men rather than money 
 that she needed. A treaty, therefore had to be concluded 
 at Madrid on September 29th, two days before the pacifi- 
 cation with England and her allies. Consequently the 
 renewed exclusion of all British vessels from her ports 
 amounted to little more than a fresh menace to England ; 
 and such a disadvantage from the loss of the Portuguese 
 alliance was not the least of the British motives for desiring 
 peace. 2 
 
 When it was announced on October 2nd, 1801, that 
 preliminaries of peace had been signed the day before 
 
 1 Dundas, March 25th, 1801 ; Pari. Hist., XXXV., 1086. But 
 cf. Ann. Reg., 1801, II., 182. 
 
 2 Ann. Reg., 1801, II., 293-5.
 
 n8 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 between England and France and their respective allies, 
 the joy manifested both in Paris and London came near 
 to frenzy ; in London there had been nothing like it since 
 the restoration of Charles II. ; it was specially manifested 
 on October ioth, when Bonaparte's aide-de-camp, 
 Lauriston, arrived with the ratifications, and the popu- 
 lace, releasing the horses, drew his carriage themselves 
 through the main streets of the town ; for which honour 
 Lauriston rewarded them with a gift of ten guineas for 
 drink. On two successive nights the metropolis was 
 illuminated, and at the magnificent Guildhall banquet 
 on Lord Mayor's day, the loudest cheers, on his 
 entry into the hall, was for Citizen Otto, whose tact 
 and good sense had, with Lord Hawkesbury's, turned 
 the French and English nations from enemies to 
 friends. 
 
 But the French emigrants in London looked on the 
 peace as the end of all their hopes ; and the peace was 
 equally hated by the English war party, which had sus- 
 tained and shared their hopes of a Bourbon restoration. 
 Their anger was extreme, as expressed in such papers 
 as the Morning Post, the Morning Chronicle, the Courier, 
 the Star, the St. James' Chronicle and the Porcupine 
 (Cobbett's paper), in opposition to the Times, the Herald, 
 the Sun and the True Briton. 1 Lord Malmesbury wrote of 
 the " childish exultation and joy " of the people ; Windham 
 wrote angrily of the joy of " the swinish multitude."* 
 He wrote to Addington on October ist : " I must not 
 omit to thank you for your note, however dreadful the 
 intelligence which it contains" (ie., the peace prelimin- 
 aries) ; he had no idea how any recovery was possible, 
 and thought it; the death blow of the country. 3 On 
 October 17th, 1801, he wrote to his nephew : " We are 
 all going fast down the gulf stream and shall never stop, 
 I fear, till with the rest of Europe we fall under the 
 
 x Windham, Papers, II., 174. 3 Papers, II., 175. 
 
 3 ib., II., 172, 3.
 
 THE BELATED PEACE OF AMIENS 119 
 
 universal empire of the great Republic." 1 On October 
 29th he declared in Parliament " with the solemnity 
 of a death-bed declaration," that his friends who had 
 signed the treaty had signed the death warrant of their 
 country.* 
 
 But the grief was even greater in higher quarters, 
 if Cobbett's account to Windham on October 20th, 1801, 
 be true : " The King upon reading the preliminaries, 
 lifted his hands and eyes to Heaven, and after remaining 
 in that attitude for some minutes dropped his hands on 
 the paper with a heavy sigh, since which he has not spoken 
 to any living soul about the peace. The Duke of Kent 
 and the Prince, and all the younger princes are shocked 
 at the terms of this abominable peace, and with you are 
 fully persuaded that the country and the monarchy is 
 exposed to great and almost imminent danger. "3 But 
 whose fault was it that the peace did not give more 
 satisfaction ? Whose but the King's and his Ministers', 
 who, when they might have made a better peace in 
 January, 1800, had scorned the offer, and paid the price 
 of their fear of a premature peace by a belated and 
 insecure one ? 
 
 The main idea of the peace was the restoration to 
 France of our conquests in return for her evacuation of 
 Egypt and its restoration to Turkey. But news of the 
 capitulation of Alexandria and of the evacuation of 
 Egypt did not reach London till the day after the 
 preliminaries were signed. Nor did the Turkish 
 ambasssador at Paris know of it till October 10th, the 
 day after he had signed a peace treaty with France, of 
 which the restoration of Egypt was treated as a voluntary 
 restitution^ and by which France was admitted to the 
 commercial privileges of the most favoured nation, 
 whilst England derived no return for the enormous sacri- 
 
 1 Diary, 436. 
 
 2 Papers, II., 178 ; Pari. Hist., XXXVI., 14. 
 
 3 ib., II., 176. 4 Ann. Reg., 1801, 280.
 
 120 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 fices she had made for the Porte. The diplomatic honours 
 of the year rested assuredly with Bonaparte and 
 Talleyrand. 1 
 
 But for some time the peace was far from safe. To 
 convert the preliminaries into a definitive treaty lasted 
 from October, 1801, till March 27th, 1802. Lord Corn- 
 wallis, no diplomat by training, was perhaps hardly a 
 match for Joseph Bonaparte ; and it often looked as if 
 the peace might fail. Especially about Malta, which 
 people had come to talk of as a stepping-stone to Egypt, 
 and so as the key to India ; and which, owing to our 
 disclaimer at the beginning of our blockade, we could not 
 claim for our own possession. By the preliminaries 
 Malta was to be evacuated by the British and restored to 
 the Order of St. John of Jerusalem ; whilst, to make it 
 independent of either France or England, it was to be 
 placed under the guarantee of a third Power, to be agreed 
 on by the definitive treaty. The First Consul, objecting 
 to Russia as this third Power as too strong, and to Naples 
 as too weak, proposed the demolition of the fortifications as 
 the best solution (November 26th and 28th, 1801), and this 
 was repeated on December 13th, by his brother Joseph : 
 " As the only value of Malta is the extraordinary strength 
 of its fortifications, let us blow up the work, and there will 
 be an end of all jealousy on the subject." This excellent 
 plan was proposed repeatedly and Cornwallis himself 
 inclined to it, but unfortunately the King's opposition 
 proved fatal. 8 
 
 The alternative plan proved in the result as unwork- 
 able as it seemed to Lord Cornwallis eccentric. By Article 
 10 of the definitive treaty and its thirteen explanatory 
 clauses, Malta and its dependent islands were declared to 
 be perpetually neutral, like the Order to which they were 
 to be restored. Their independence was placed under 
 the guarantee and protection, not of Russia only, but of 
 France, Austria, Prussia, Great Britain and Spain. The 
 
 1 Alison, IV., 630. 2 Pellew's " Sidmouth," II., 13-15.
 
 THE BELATED PEACE OF AMIENS 121 
 
 Maltese ports were to be free to all nations at equal and 
 moderate duties. And subject to some complicated 
 provisions about the election of a Grand-Master, and to 
 the previous arrival of a garrison of 2,000 Sicilians, the 
 islands were to be evacuated by the British within three 
 months of the ratification of the treaty. 
 
 In other respects the Definitive treaty differed little 
 from the Preliminary treaty, and was received with no less 
 furious and frivolous abuse. The usual epithets were 
 hurled against the unfortunate peace. Windham, the 
 great defender of bull-baiting, feared for the havoc that 
 the peace was likely to make on our principles and morals. 
 But even those who had fought for peace from the outset 
 did not hail it with enthusiasm. Grey, for instance, 
 called it " by far the most dangerous " peace we had ever 
 made. 1 But Sheridan best expressed the common sense 
 of the matter : it was a peace " which every man ought 
 to be glad of but no man proud ; " it involved a degrada- 
 tion of the national dignity, which no truly English heart 
 could feel with indifference ; but then the war was one 
 of the worst in which we had ever been engaged, and the 
 peace was as good as was possible in the circumstances. 3 
 And the best defence of it that Lord Hawkesbury could 
 make, was the same that Pelham had made of the peace 
 of Aix-la-Chapelle, that, though the arrangement was 
 not the best conceivable, it was " as good as circumstances 
 would permit." 
 
 It was certainly disappointing, considering the wild 
 hopes that had been held out to the country and the 
 crushing taxation which the war had caused. 
 
 The Government, often challenged to state its war 
 aims, had from time to time given different answers. 
 Generally the answer was the phrase " indemnity for the 
 past, security for the future. "3 " Our simple object," 
 said Pitt, on June 17th, 1799, " is security, just security, 
 
 1 Pari. Hist., XXXVI., 628. * ib., XXXVI., 17. 
 
 3 Pari. Hist., XXXI., 633, XXXIII., 596.
 
 122 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 with a little indemnification thrown in." 1 And again on 
 February 17th, 1800, he put it as " security against a 
 danger, the greatest that ever threatened the world."* 
 But it was precisely security that the peace did not give, 
 and wherein lay the indemnification ? Sometimes it was 
 said that the object of the war was the liberation of 
 Belgium from France ; the war, said Grenville, on March 
 27th, 1797, was fought, not for this or that province ; 
 " it was whether the French should possess the whole of 
 the maritime coast of the Continent opposite to this 
 country "3 : a reasonable enough object, but Belgium 
 remained French. 
 
 Canning had proclaimed the deliverance of Europe 
 as the great purpose of the war ; yet Austria had been 
 laid prostrate at the feet of France, to say nothing of the 
 other countries that were subject to her yoke. Again, 
 the destruction of Jacobinism was professed as the object 
 of the war ; but it was the Consulate's administration, 
 not our arms, which had destroyed Jacobinism. So that 
 from every point of view urged in defence of the war by 
 its partisans the war had been a great failure, notwith- 
 standing the brilliant naval successes that outshone no 
 small number of naval disasters. The last of these 
 occurred on September 14th, 1801, when an attempt by 
 Admiral Warren to relieve Porto-Ferrajo, besieged by the 
 French, and to reduce the whole island of Elba, resulted 
 in 800 English being killed or wounded, and in 200 
 being made prisoners. 4 
 
 But our navy had brought immense accessions to the 
 British Empire ; for a superior naval Power always 
 holds at its mercy the colonies of a navally inferior 
 enemy. To take possession of the French Colonies, and 
 subsequently of those of Holland and Spain, had from the 
 first been the main object of our strategy ; nor would 
 anyone listen to Lord Lansdowne, who, as early as 
 
 1 ib., XXXIV., 1047. 2 ib., XXXIV., 1442. 
 
 3 ib., XXXIII., 193. < Ann. Reg., 1801, 71, 2.
 
 THE BELATED PEACE OF AMIENS 123 
 
 February 1st, 1793, had predicted that we should ultimately 
 have to restore these captures as an equivalent for the 
 losses of our allies on the Continent. 1 Yet this was just 
 what happened. 
 
 To France, Holland, or Spain, we restored : in the 
 West Indies, Martinique, Tobago, Guadaloupe, part of 
 St. Domingo, and Curacoa ; in the East Indies, Pondi- 
 chery, Cochin, Negapatam, the Spice Islands ; in Africa, 
 the Cape, Goree, and Senegal ; in North America, St. 
 Pierre and Miquelon, and (by a secret treaty) Louisiana ; 
 in South America, Demerara, Berbice, Essiquibo and 
 Guiana, as far as the Amazons ; in the Mediterranean, 
 we were to give up Malta and Minorca. All these were to be 
 restored within different periods ; and all that we kept was 
 Ceylon from Holland and Trinidad from Spain, whilst the 
 Newfoundland fisheries were restored to their pre-war 
 settlement. So was the Ottoman Empire. The French 
 evacuated the territories of Naples and of Rome, whilst we 
 evacuated Porto Ferrajo and all the ports and islands we 
 held in the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. 
 
 It had been hotly debated in Parliament whether the 
 war had been a success or a failure. Dundas had pro- 
 claimed it an " unexampled success " by reason of the 
 very conquests we now surrendered. Windham had 
 argued its success from our still having a British Parliament 
 where British legislators might sit. And the best that 
 Pitt could say for it was that it had not cost us a single 
 foot of territory. But it was undeniable that a better 
 peace might have been made at Lille in 1797, to the saving 
 of 150 millions of debt ; or in 1800, to the saving of the 
 73 millions which the continuance of the war entailed. 
 Fox on March 25th, 1801, fairly tested the war by its 
 professed objects. Had we restored monarchy to 
 France ? Had we reduced her power ? She was aggran- 
 dised beyond the wildest dreams of former ambition ; 
 whilst, so far from having been driven within her ancient 
 
 * Pari. Hist., XXX., 331.
 
 124 THE WAR F0R MONARCHY 
 
 frontiers, she had enlarged herself from the Rhine to the 
 Alps, and added five millions to her population in the 
 centre of Europe. " Tell me one single object of the war 
 that you have obtained ; tell me one evil that you have 
 not brought upon the country." 1 
 
 And did some such reflections never occur to George III. 
 himself, who from the first had been, not only the leading war 
 spirit of the nation, but also, as the Dropmore Papers show, of 
 predominant weight in the direction of our military counsels ? 2 
 When, on perusal of the peace proposals he lifted his royal 
 hands and eyes to Heaven, was it without some sense of his 
 own need of forgiveness for his large personal share in the 
 prolongation of a war that had cost the world so much misery 
 and ended with so little glory? 
 
 1 *&., XXXV., 1 147, 8. 2 Rose's Pitt and the Great War, 115, 127, 8.
 
 THE SECOND ACT, 
 
 1802-1815
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 1802. Fresh War Rumblings 
 
 " Those who would tell the truth cannot, or dare not. Thus mankind 
 walks in Darkness." — Sir Robert Wilson, Diary, II., 390, June 17th, 1814. 
 
 The mutual Press provocation between England and 
 France did more than anything else to bring about a 
 renewal of the war. It was this that prevented the war 
 atmosphere from cooling down. 
 
 Napoleon was often charged with super-sensitiveness 
 to attacks from the Press, and in France he put a strong 
 curb upon its freedom. But other Governments, especi- 
 ally the English, put no curb on its public writers. Our 
 Government gave its support to writers like Jean Peltier, 
 an exiled Royalist emigre, who in the first war edited in 
 London a violent anti-republican journal, entitled 
 Paris, and whose weekly print L'Ambigu, or Atrocious 
 and Amusing Varieties, grossly abusive of Napoleon, was 
 one of the impediments to the signing of the Peace of 
 Amiens. On February 5th, 1802, before the Definitive 
 Treaty was signed, Joseph Bonaparte remonstrated with 
 Lord Cornwallis about this publication, and begged to 
 have Peltier controlled. > 
 
 As a sort of counter-blast to L'Ambigu, the French 
 on their side wrote very bitter things against England ; 
 an English paper, called The Argus, being published in 
 Paris in June, 1802, and being marked by violent abuse 
 of this country, its King, and its Ministers. 2 
 
 Papers on the same line as Peltier's were Cobbett's 
 Political Register, and the Courier Francois de Londres, 
 the latter of which was " understood to be to a great 
 
 1 Pellew's Sidmouth, II., 29. 2 Ann. Reg., 1803, 237. 
 
 127 o
 
 128 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 degree under the peculiar patronage of his Majesty's 
 Government." 1 Otto remonstrated with Addington about 
 Peltier in May, 1802, at a concert, but the Prime Minister 
 declared the Government to be powerless in the matter, 
 and Lord Hawkesbury, Foreign Minister since February 
 24th, 1801, took the same line of defence in answer to 
 reiterated requests from France that the annoyance might 
 cease. He expressed the Government's displeasure at a 
 recent article by Peltier, and promised to submit the case to 
 the law officers of the Crown (July 25th, 1802). But this 
 sufficed as little as the plea for the liberty of the press ; in 
 vain Hawkesbury argued that the press could not be ex- 
 pected to be more tender to foreign Governments than it 
 was to the Home Government. For to vilify a Foreign 
 Government to an extent that threatened the peace was a 
 punishable libel by the English law ; as had been shown in 
 the case of John Perry, proprietor of the Courier, who on 
 May 30th, 1799, was sentenced to a fine of £100 and to six 
 months of prison because his paper had said on November 
 1st, 1798, that our Russian ally, Paul I. of Russia, made 
 himself as obnoxious to his subjects by his tyranny, as 
 he made himself ridiculous to Europe by his inconsistency. 2 
 And the Alien Act gave the Government ample power to 
 expel offending foreign writers from the country. 
 
 The argument from the liberty of the press, therefore, 
 rang false and shallow. Lord Lansdowne, on March 25th, 
 1801, had declared in the Lords that the Government had 
 " annihilated the freedom of the press,"3 and, if in the 
 autumn of 1798 John Walter of the Times could be 
 sentenced in time of war to a fine of £50, an hour of the 
 pillory (though this was remitted), imprisonment for a year, 
 and security for his good behaviour for seven years, for 
 a censure on the Duke of York, and, for two other libels 
 against the Duke and the Prince of Wales, to another 
 year of prison and a fine of £200, surely in time of peace 
 
 * Pari. Hist., XXXVL, 1510. s State Trials, XXVII., 627-42. 
 
 3 Pari. Hist., XXXV., 1065.
 
 FRESH WAR RUMBLINGS 129 
 
 the defamation of a foreign ruler, with instigations to his 
 assassination, lay within the power of Government to 
 stop. To such a degree had Pitt's rule been fatal to the 
 liberty of the press that at the close of the eighteenth 
 century there was scarcely a single provincial editor who 
 would venture to write an original article on public 
 affairs, 1 and presumably metropolitan editors enjoyed as 
 limited a freedom. 
 
 Moreover, apart from the general principle, the first 
 clause of the Treaty of Amiens bound each side neither 
 to assist, nor protect, directly or indirectly, " those who 
 should cause prejudice " to the other. 
 
 Unfortunately Addington, instead of taking a strong 
 line against the Press, preferred to put private pressure 
 on editors ; as when he informed Heriot, editor of the 
 True Briton, that he could no longer receive the pro- 
 tection of Government if he suffered such paragraphs to 
 appear as the one he described as " abominable " in the 
 issue of August 10th, 1802. But the mischief was done. 
 The Moniteur retorted with an article which Mackintosh 
 described as " that most atrocious of all libels against the 
 King and people of England," 2 but which Addington 
 regarded as only " the sudden effusion of feelings 
 warrantably irritated. "3 
 
 Thus the mutual irritation grew worse ; though at 
 last the British Government so far admitted the justice 
 of the French complaint as to institute proceedings against 
 Peltier. The day of the trial on February 21st, 1803, 
 was one of great excitement, and if it was memorable for 
 the eloquent, if somewhat sophistical, speech in his 
 defence delivered by Mackintosh, it was no less so for the 
 summing up by Lord Ellenborough, who directed the 
 jury that certain numbers of L'Ambigu were a libel, 
 since by their incitement to the assassination of Napoleon 
 they tended to a breach of the peace between England and 
 
 1 Hunt's Fourth Estate, 278. * State Trials, XXVIIL, 576. 
 
 3 Pellew's Sidmouth, II., 157.
 
 130 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 France. And so the jury found, though the renewal of 
 the war saved Peltier from being called upon to receive 
 judgment. 1 But he seems to have continued to write 
 till the year 1815. As it had been in the days of Walpole, 
 so it was in the days of Pitt, in respect of the Secret 
 Service money that bound some portions of the Press to 
 Government by chains of gold. Arnall, who wrote in 
 the Free Briton under the pseudonym of Francis Walsing- 
 ham, boasted of having received within four years as large 
 a sum as £10,997 6s. 8d. from the Treasury for abusing 
 every one opposed to Walpole ; and this sum was part of 
 the larger sum of £50,077 which the secret Committee 
 of Inquiry found that the writers and printers of the 
 Free Briton, and other papers, had reaped from Walpole 
 (Lord Orford) in the ten years between February, 1731 
 and 1741.* And in a country of long surviving habits 
 it is conceivable that similar links between Government 
 and the Press may have descended to our own times. 
 
 Never was a war more clearly of press creation : the 
 invectives of each country against the other becoming more 
 bitter as diplomatic negotiations became more difficult. 
 
 Neither country lacked just grievances against the 
 other. Bonaparte reasonably objected to this country 
 being used as a base for Royalist intrigues against his 
 Government, and to French exiled prices and others 
 appearing at the British Court in the insignia of the 
 abolished French orders. He had little reason to 
 love the Royalist party, which, after the decree of 
 November 26th, 1800, permitting the return to France of 
 the greater number of the emigres, was proved on 
 January 31st, 1801, to have been guilty of the attempt to 
 blow him up on his way to the opera on December 24th, 
 1800. It was accordingly solicited by the French Govern- 
 ment that certain French royalists and bishops should be 
 sent out of England and Jersey ; and recommended that 
 
 1 State Trials, XXVIII., 530-620. 
 
 2 Andrew's British Journalism, II., 137, 8.
 
 FRESH WAR RUMBLINGS 131 
 
 the French princes should go to Warsaw, and emigrants 
 be removed who wished to continue to wear the ancient 
 orders (August 17th, 1802). 
 
 Hawkesbury's answer was couched in conciliatory terms 
 as regarded some of these requests. His Majesty would 
 expel the bishops on proof shown of their intrigues against 
 France ; he was contemplating measures for the removal 
 of the Vendean chief Georges and similar royalist con- 
 spirators ; but to expel the Bourbon princes and the few 
 wearers of extinct orders could as little consist with his 
 honour as it did with his resolution to concede nothing 
 of the liberty of the press to foreign menace. (August 
 28th, 1802). 
 
 These side issues did not make it easier to settle the 
 territorial disputes, of which the main one regarded 
 Malta. The British evacuation of this island, a " miser- 
 able rock," as Talleyrand called it, within three months 
 of the ratification of the treaty, was so hedged round with 
 conditions that pretexts for our remaining there were not 
 wanting, though the peace began with no such intention. 
 At the same time the Cape was not given back to the 
 Dutch within the specified term, nor Egypt to the Porte. 
 It is an extraordinary thing that so late as November 30th, 
 1802, Lord Hawkesbury learnt with surprise that General 
 Stuart, in default of a royal warrant to evacuate Egypt, 
 had remained there with 4,000 men ; nor were direct 
 orders given to him to leave Egypt, in compliance with the 
 request of General Andreossi, the French Ambassador. 
 
 On the other hand we fairly complained of the contin- 
 uance of French troops in Holland as contrary to treaties ; 
 of the annexation of Piedmont to France on September nth, 
 1802, though sanctioned by Austria, Russia and Prussia. 
 But it was French intervention in Swiss affairs that caused 
 us most irritation. The eleventh article of the Treaty 
 of Luneville mutually pledged Austria and France to 
 guarantee the independence of the Helvetic Republic, 
 and to acquiesce in any form of Government which it
 
 132 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 preferred. But we were no parties to that treaty, nor more 
 concerned with its infraction than with that of any other 
 treaty between two independent Powers ; it was for 
 Austria to remonstrate or to go to war for Switzerland, 
 not for us, when French action interposed to stop the 
 civil war that had raged in that country between July 
 and October, 1802. Our remonstrance at Paris on 
 October 10th had no effect beyond irritating Bonaparte. 
 But our sending orders on October 17th to their respective 
 Governors to delay the restitution of the Cape and other 
 Dutch and French Colonies, as agreed by the Treaty of 
 Amiens, was altogether unjustified by the French occupa- 
 tion of Switzerland. On the insurrection in Switzerland 
 being thus ended, counter-orders were sent on November 
 15th against the detention of the Colonies. 1 But though 
 Pondicherry in the East, and Martinique, Tobago, and St. 
 Lucia in the west, were thus restored to the French, the 
 Cape was excepted from the colonies restored to the 
 Dutch. Most of the English garrison was embarked for 
 removal from the Cape when the orders to remain 
 arrived,* and the relanding of the troops, pending the 
 arrival of the counter-orders of November 15th, was in 
 direct violation of the treaty. 
 
 It was argued in England, nor was it denied in France, 
 that the French occupation of Switzerland ; the conversion 
 of the Cisalpine into the Italian Republic; the French 
 occupation of the Duchies of Parma and Placentia and 
 of Elba ; made such an accession to French power since 
 the treaty as to give us a just claim to compensation. 
 But Bonaparte was obdurate against Malta providing such 
 compensation ; he stuck legitimately to the observance 
 of the letter of the treaty. On February 9th, 1803, Lord 
 Hawkesbury offered to waive all claims based on French 
 encroachments ; but a fresh grievance now took the 
 foremost place, and our Foreign Secretary refused so much 
 as to discuss Malta any further till the famous Report of 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1803, 250-2. a ib., 1803, 264.
 
 FRESH WAR RUMBLINGS 133 
 
 Colonel Sebastiani was satisfactorily explained. 1 Malmes- 
 bury was for clear language to France, being sure that 
 Bonaparte would recede as we advanced, or advance as 
 we receded, and he encouraged Addington to a more 
 spirited attitude. Ambassador Whitworth was instructed 
 to ask for explanations about Egypt, and to declare that 
 without them Malta would not be given up. 3 Andreossi, 
 French Ambassador in London, tried to reassure 
 Hawkesbury about French designs, but Lord Hawkesbury 
 thought Bonaparte very like Paul I., " really mad, and 
 that his temper grew quite outrageous. "3 
 
 The strange omission to withdraw General Stuart 
 from Alexandria in July, 1802, according to the treaty, 
 was the main cause or pretext of Sebastiani's mission to 
 the East. Arriving at Alexandria on October 16th, 1802, 
 he waited the same day on the commandant with Talley- 
 rand's order to demand a speedy evacuation of Egypt. 
 Stuart replied that he had received no orders to 
 leave and that he expected to spend the winter there. 
 The Report went on to give an account of Sebastiani's 
 travels, of his commercial arrangements, and ended with 
 a statement of the British and Turkish forces then in 
 Egypt ; declaring the Turkish army to be so ill-armed and 
 ill-disciplined that 6,000 French would suffice to conquer 
 it ; a remark intended not so much to suggest another 
 attack on it, as to emphasise the falling off in the Turkish 
 army between 1798 and 1802. The report laid stress on 
 the popularity of Bonaparte and of France in Egypt, and 
 generally in the East. 
 
 This Report, soon after its publication in the Moniteur 
 of January 30th, 1803, was translated in the English 
 papers. It is difficult to understand the sensation it 
 caused, though just offence was taken at an accusation 
 in it of a letter from General Stuart to the Pasha of Cairo, 
 which Sebastiani interpreted as conveying an insinuation 
 
 1 Pari. Hist., XXXVI., 1294, 5. 
 
 a Diaries, IV., 206. 3 ib., IV., 20, February 16th.
 
 134 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 to resort to assassination. 1 It was this charge mainly 
 that was held to justify a demand for satisfaction or 
 explanation, whilst the supposed threat of a fresh French 
 attack upon Egypt gave a new claim to Malta as security 
 against such a policy. On these pleas of satisfaction and 
 security Lord Hawkesbury was able to take the line of 
 the aggrieved party, and, instead of continuing to ascribe 
 to uncontrollable circumstances our remaining in Malta, 
 to adduce this report as giving us a new and valid right 
 to its retention. 
 
 As therefore this Report was among the chief causes 
 of the renewal of the war, its origin is of much historical 
 interest. The French regarded it as an answer to Sir 
 Robert Wilson's book on " The British Expedition to 
 Egypt " of 1801. Wilson had himself taken part in that 
 memorable episode at the age of twenty-three, and next 
 year (1802) he published his book. Considering that 
 England and France were then at peace, nothing could 
 have been in worse taste than the abuse he heaped upon 
 Bonaparte. He put the worst construction possible on 
 Bonaparte's conduct in the Syrian expedition ; after a 
 description of the massacre of the surrendered Turks 
 at Jaffa, he told the story of Bonaparte's having ordered, 
 on his retreat from Acre, the administration of opium 
 " in gratifying food " to 580 wounded or dying soldiers 
 in the hospitals of Jaffa, and he declared that full details 
 of this fact had been given before the Institute at Cairo 
 by the physician who had since confessed to the execution 
 of the order. 2 Long afterwards, when it was too late 
 to undo the mischief he had caused, Sir Robert regretted 
 the credence he had given to this story. Major Frye, who 
 had also been in Egypt with Abercromby's army, and 
 who knew that there was not " a syllable of truth in the 
 story," which he considered as a " most unjust and un- 
 founded aspersion, "3 says that on April 13th, 1816, Wilson's 
 
 1 Par. Hist., XXXVI., 1354. * Fourth ed., I., 120-3. 
 
 3 After Waterloo, 147.
 
 FRESH WAR RUMBLINGS 135 
 
 sister, Mrs. Wallis, told him that her brother had " ex- 
 pressed deep regret that he ever gave credence and 
 currency to such a report ; and that he acknowledged 
 that he was himself deceived. But he did Napoleon an 
 irreparable injury, and undoubtedly his work on the 
 Egyptian campaign contributed in a very great degree 
 to excite the hatred of the English people against 
 Napoleon." 1 In the long philippic against France, of 
 July, 1803, sent round to be read by every officiating 
 minister in England, this story of the poisoning of the 
 580 was told with great effect, and of course believed all 
 over England. 3 
 
 As to the story itself, Bourrienne's version conveys 
 the impression that a few hopeless sufferers had their 
 few remaining hours of life mercifully shortened, but not 
 580. Savary (the Due de Rovigo) pronounced the whole 
 story an atrocious calumny, and says that the army had 
 no opium at the time. 3 But Savary was then in Upper 
 Egypt. Yet his denial was confirmed by Desgenettes, 
 the physician ; by General Andreossi ; and by M. d'Aure, 
 all of whom were present. It also favours their denial 
 that Sir Sidney Smith, in his letter to Nelson of May 30th, 
 1798, though referring with just indignation to the 
 horrible massacre of Jaffa, says not a word about any 
 deliberate poisoning of the sick and wounded. 4 
 
 Alison argued that Wilson's charges had nothing to 
 do with Sebastiani's Report, because Sebastiani left 
 Toulon on September 16th, 1802, and Wilson's book was 
 not then published. 5 But the Report itself was not 
 published till January 30th, 1803, and Wilson's book had 
 gone through more than one edition in 1802. In answer 
 to Lord Hawkesbury's complaint to General Andreossi 
 on March 15th, 1803, of " the very extraordinary publica- 
 tion " of Sebastiani, on March 29th Andreossi treated the 
 matter lightly, as neither long nor difficult, and one that 
 
 1 ib., 147. a Ann. Reg., 1803, 58Q. 3 Memoires, I., 161. 
 
 4 Ann. Reg., 1798, II. 9^ 5 Alison, V. 117.
 
 136 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 almost might be passed over : " A colonel in the English 
 army has published a work in England, filled with the 
 most atrocious and disgusting calumnies against the 
 French army and its general. The lies it contains have 
 been contradicted by the reception which Colonel Sebas- 
 tiani experienced. The publicity of his report was at 
 once a refutation and a reparation which the French army 
 had a right to expect." 1 In the fourth edition of his 
 book in 1803, Wilson repeated his charges, 2 as he also did 
 in the Preface to his Brief Remarks on the Russian Army, 
 published in 1810.3 
 
 But, when all is said of the mutual grievances that 
 again broke the peace, the state of party politics in 
 England cannot be left out of the account. 
 
 Hardly had Addington taken Pitt's place as Premier 
 than Pitt's old supporters wished him back in office. 
 These men, who for their opposition to the peace and 
 inclination to war were known, in the journalistic slang 
 of the day, as " the blood-hounds, "4 Lord Malmesbury, 
 Grenville, Canning, Windham, and others, caballed from 
 the first to have Pitt recalled. And so little did Pitt 
 seem to care for the Catholic claims that within a month 
 of resigning on the Catholic question, he for a time gave 
 way to the pressure of his friends, and intimated to the 
 Duke of Portland his readiness to discuss the matter, if 
 both the King and Addington wished it earnestly. 5 But 
 though at first the plot failed, it revived shortly 
 afterwards with the hope of working on the King through 
 the Duke of York. " Perhaps, if his Majesty knew," 
 wrote Malmesbury to the Duke on November 2nd, 1802, 
 " that Mr. Pitt had entirely given up the Catholic question, 
 his return to office would be even an agreeable circumstance 
 to him." 6 Pitt was ready to sacrifice the Catholics for 
 the Premiership, but he insisted on remaining so far loyal 
 
 1 Pari. Hist., XXXVI., 1319. * II. 308-14. 3 Pref., XXII. 
 4 Ann. Reg., 1803. 140, 237. 5 Pellew's " Sidmouth," 1, 335. 
 6 Diaries, IV. 86.
 
 FRESH WAR RUMBLINGS 137 
 
 to Addington as not personally to press him to retire in 
 his favour. 
 
 A better chance for effecting the change was by a 
 warlike policy against France ; for this was the King's 
 most accessible side. The King had never liked the 
 peace. He called it " an experimental peace," " a fearful 
 experiment " ; one he could not avoid, failing a greater 
 force of opinions like his own. 1 But he bore it with 
 philosophy, saying wisely to Lord Malmesbury : " If we 
 are not become wise enough to consider every event 
 quietly and with acquiescence, we must have lived very 
 negligently." 
 
 Malmesbury also disliked the peace ; he complained 
 of " the childish fondness for peace," which, he said, 
 had brought us " neither credit, satisfaction, nor even 
 security." The obvious plan by which to get Pitt back 
 was to represent Addington's policy to France as too 
 pusillanimous. So Malmesbury complained of " a system 
 of concession and giving way to France as the prevailing 
 one."' The Duke of York represented the King as 
 " infinitely hurt at what was going on ; he lamented most 
 feelingly the submissive tone we held to France, and both 
 on the peace itself and what had arisen out of it his feelings 
 were as strong as ever. "3 The plotters persuaded them- 
 selves that in wishing Pitt back for a more spirited policy 
 their object " was to prevent war, not to make it, "4 or, 
 as Canning said, " to give the country its right tone, and 
 to restore it to its right level and rank, both at home 
 and abroad ; this did not mean war, but only the wearing 
 an aspect of preparation and defence. "5 Canning found 
 it easy to work on Pitt from this side. The peace had 
 hardly been made before Pitt professed himself suspicious 
 of Bonaparte, and advocated that, under the guise of 
 peace, everything in the country should bear the aspect 
 of war ; " that we should appear warlike in our 
 
 1 ib., IV., 63. 2 ib., IV., 189, Jan. 29, 1803. 3 ib., IV., 83. 
 
 4 ib., IV., 114. 5 ib., IV., 82, October 20th, 1802.
 
 138 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 provincial measures, warlike in our diplomatic ones, and 
 above all warlike in our military and naval establish- 
 ments." He also complained of the peace he had helped 
 to make as made in such " an unskilful, hasty, and 
 conceding way." 1 He valued peace rather as a recruit- 
 ing period for the next war than as valuable in itself. 3 
 He thought the moment of a certain war would be the 
 right moment for his resuming office ; in this differing 
 from Malmesbury, who wished to save his friend from 
 the reputation of being a war-loving minister. 
 
 Public opinion was therefore forced into a warlike 
 vein in the interests of Pitt's return to power. Adding- 
 ton, finding his place untenable, proposed in April, 
 1803, to admit Pitt into his Cabinet ; but on Pitt's 
 insisting on the return of the old war-gang with him 
 (Lords Grenville and Melville, Windham and Spencer), 
 the Cabinet intimated that they would prefer to dispense 
 with Pitt than to have men forced on them who were 
 hostile to the interests and peace of the country. 3 
 When the King was shown the correspondence, he 
 wisely remarked that it was " a foolish business from 
 one end to the other ; began ill, conducted ill, and 
 terminated ill." 
 
 This state of internal politics helps to explain the 
 external politics. But for the pressure on them by 
 Pitt and Malmesbury for a more aggressive policy it is 
 probable that Addington and Lord Hawkesbury would 
 have kept the peace, and that Malta would not have 
 been made a casus belli. 
 
 On February 18th, the First Consul received Lord 
 Whitworth in audience, declared his wish for peace, 
 but expostulated on the English attitude towards himself, 
 especially in reference to the two French newspapers 
 which we paid to abuse him ; said that he would rather 
 see us in possession of the Faubourg St. Antoine 
 
 1 ib., IV., 64, 75. 2 ib., IV., 66. 
 
 3 ib., IV., 178, 9, April 13th, 1803.
 
 FRESH WAR RUMBLINGS 139 
 
 in Paris than of Malta ; that he would not provoke 
 war, but talked of a possible army of 400,000 men, and 
 of a possible invasion of England. 
 
 On February 21st, Talleyrand softened down these 
 expressions, and said that Bonaparte would consent 
 to arrangements for our keeping Malta for even six 
 months, and Andreossi told Lord Hawkesbury the same, 
 admitting that the increase in France's power justified 
 our keeping pace with it. 
 
 On February 22nd, Bonaparte addressed the Legis- 
 lative body in very much the same terms with which 
 he had addressed Lord Whitworth. 
 
 Unfortunately at this time, Bonaparte laid before 
 the Legislative body of France on February 21st, 1803, 
 a document known as the " Acts of the Republic," 
 which had an even worse effect on England than Sebas- 
 tiani's Report. If the Report had caused a sensation, 
 this created a boiling ferment. For after re-capitulating 
 what the Consulate had done in France for the restora- 
 tion of religion, of education, of justice and of commerce, 
 it concluded with a review of the military situation of 
 Europe and with particular reference to England. In 
 that country, it said, two parties struggled for power ; 
 one that seemed to wish to keep the peace it had made ; 
 the other that had taken an oath of eternal hatred to 
 France. Hence the attitude of England was both 
 menacing and pacific. Precaution therefore was 
 needed ; but 500,000 men would be forthcoming for 
 defence, and whatever happened in London, " no other 
 people will be involved in new combinations — the 
 Government says, with conscious pride, that England 
 alone cannot maintain a struggle against France." 1 
 This was taken in England as a defiance to single com- 
 bat, though in itself it only stated what had long been 
 an axiom with our statesmen, that without Continental 
 Allies we could do little in a war on the Continent. 
 
 1 Pari. Hist, XXXVI., 1361-70.
 
 140 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 And it was the case that at that time we had no Con- 
 tinental Allies. But in the electrical state of the political 
 atmosphere it would have been better left unsaid. 
 
 On March 8th, a King's Message was addressed to 
 both Houses : " Very considerable military prepara- 
 tions " in the ports of France and Holland, though 
 avowedly for colonial service, were said to necessitate 
 precautionary measures on our side. This was followed 
 by another Message on March ioth, for calling out the 
 Militia ; and 10,000 fresh seamen were voted for the 
 Navy. But as the " very considerable military pre- 
 parations " in the Dutch and French ports consisted 
 only of two frigates in the roads of Holland and of three 
 corvettes in those of Dunkirk, contemporary opinion 
 could only explain the Royal message on the ground 
 that the Government wished to be prepared for the 
 outbreak of hostilities likely to ensue when their act 
 of hostility in retaining the Cape was known at Paris. 1 
 News a few days later of the arrival at the Cape of 
 counter-orders caused regret for their precipitate action 
 in the delivery of a Message which spread universal 
 alarm, and proved in fact fatal to peace. 
 
 But for this Royal message peace might still have been 
 kept. For even the contemporary English chronicler, 
 whose mistrust of Bonaparte and dislike of Addington's 
 Government was quite conventional, admitted that up 
 to that point, Bonaparte had shown his wish to avoid 
 war by making every possible concession to the English 
 demands resulting from the Sebastiani Report. He 
 had agreed to secure the integrity of the Turkish Empire ; 
 to place Malta in the hands of Russia, Austria, or 
 Prussia ; nor had he denied the English claim for terri- 
 torial compensation. 2 But now all was changed. Lord 
 Whitworth found Talleyrand greatly agitated by the 
 Royal Message, and it was in vain that he represented 
 our arming as merely precautionary. Talleyrand showed 
 
 * Ann. Reg., 1803, 276. 2 ib., 1803, 277.
 
 FRESH WAR RUMBLINGS 141 
 
 him a paper drawn up by himself and Bonaparte, which 
 threatened retaliatory French measures ; such as the 
 marching of 20,000 men into Holland, failing explana- 
 tion of the English armaments ; encampments on the 
 French coasts and on the frontiers of Hanover ; and 
 the counter-ordering of the withdrawal of French forces 
 from Switzerland. At the same time he laid stress on 
 the First Consul's desire for peace, which was borne 
 out by Bonaparte's previous conversation with Lord 
 Whitworth, when, as regards Egypt, he said that, 
 had he had the smallest wish to take it by force, 
 he could easily have done so by sending 25,000 men 
 to Aboukir against the British garrison of 4,000 in 
 Alexandria ; but he would not do so, since, however, 
 he might wish for it as a colony, " he did not think it 
 worth the risk of a war, in which he might perhaps be 
 considered as the aggressor, and by which he should 
 lose more than he would gain, since, sooner or later, 
 Egypt would belong to France, either by the falling to 
 pieces of the Turkish Empire, or by some arrangement 
 with the Porte." 1 The latter remark, relating to remote 
 contingencies, was taken as a reason the more for our 
 insisting on keeping Malta as a security for Egypt. 
 
 On Sunday, March 13th, occurred the famous scene 
 at the Tuilleries when, in the presence of 200 people, 
 Bonaparte expressed himself about our armaments with 
 much excitement. 3 On March 16th, Lord Whitworth 
 complained of this outburst to Talleyrand, who replied 
 that Bonaparte, regarding himself as personally insulted 
 by the English charges against him, had taken the first 
 available opportunity of exculpating himself in the 
 presence of the ministers of the different Powers of 
 Europe ; but he assured him that nothing similar should 
 occur again. 
 
 1 Pari. Hist., XXXVI., 1298. Whitworth to Hawkesbury, 
 February 21st, 1803. 
 
 2 ib„ XXXVI., 1310.
 
 142 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Bonaparte then evinced a more conciliatory disposi- 
 tion. On March 18th, Talleyrand made repeated 
 declarations to Lord Whitworth of his willingness to 
 offer us any security about Egypt, but of his refusal 
 to compromise about Malta. Lord Malmesbury described 
 the British Ministers as most anxious to keep this 
 message secret, and he justly asked, why ? 
 
 Various proposals passed between the two countries. 
 In answer to our claim to keep Malta in perpetuity, 
 Bonaparte declared that no consideration on earth would 
 induce him to consent to such a thing ; and as Lord 
 Whitworth replied that rather than abandon Malta, 
 we were prepared to go to war for it, peace was not 
 worth many days' purchase. On April 27th, Lord 
 Whitworth received orders from home to leave Paris 
 within seven days, unless Bonaparte agreed to our keeping 
 Malta for ten years and promised to evacuate Holland 
 and Switzerland. Talleyrand then asked if we meant 
 to give up Malta, and, being answered in the negative, 
 said that the negotiation was at an end ; for that Bona- 
 parte would never consent to our keeping it. At 8 a.m., 
 of May 5th, a forged paper stuck up in the Stock 
 Exchange from Lord Hawkesbury to the Lord Mayor, 
 to say that France agreed to all our proposals, sent the 
 funds up from 63I to 71 J. And a similar paragraph 
 appeared in the Times of May 7th. 1 
 
 But it was a false hope. Whitworth was ordered 
 to leave Paris within thirty-six hours, failing a satis- 
 factory answer, and he left on Friday, May 12th. Yet 
 he made a last effort for peace. He suggested that 
 we should keep Malta for ten years, and in the mean- 
 time fit up Lampedusa, which belonged to Naples, as 
 a naval station for large ships ; the French accepted, 
 provided the terms of our tenure were indefinite, and 
 France received some compensation ; but Whitworth was 
 censured for listening to such a proposal. 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1803, 386.
 
 FRESH WAR RUMBLINGS 143 
 
 The differences were of a kind which mediation 
 might have adjusted, and Fox's motion on May 27th, 
 to appeal to Russia for mediation met with the full 
 approval of the Addington Government. Napoleon 
 also desired mediation. He sent Colonel Colbert to 
 Petrograd to solicit the young Czar's mediation, and 
 Colbert returned to Paris after succeeding in his mission 
 on May nth or 12th 1 On May 12th, Lord Whitworth 
 left Paris ; the very day of, or the day after Colbert's 
 return with the Czar's consent to mediate. But for 
 some mysterious reason this consent to mediate was not 
 conveyed by the Russian Ambassador till May 24th, 
 when it was too late to avert the war. 3 
 
 On May 15th, orders were given to the Fleet under 
 Lord Cornwallis to sail off Brest, and for letters of 
 marque to be issued. 
 
 On May 16th, Andreossi left London, and an Order 
 in Council granted general reprisals on all French ships 
 and goods, and put an embargo on all French and Dutch 
 ships in our ports. 
 
 But the matter was not yet closed ; for on the same 
 day a French messenger came with an offer to leave 
 us Malta for ten years, provided France might occupy 
 Otranto in the Bay of Tarentum for a similar period. 
 But this was rejected at once on the ground that his 
 Majesty would scorn to be a party to an act of spoliation. 
 
 Yet on May 17th, the British war party trembled, 
 lest war should be averted. Malmesbury wrote at 
 9 p.m., Tuesday, May 17th : " It is manifest Bonaparte 
 still is very anxious for peace, rather dreads war, and 
 at this very hour I have a misgiving he will end by 
 agreeing to all our proposals ; and that for the present 
 war will be evaded. "3 
 
 But on May 18th, these fears were dispelled by the 
 laying before Parliament of Great Britain's Declaration 
 
 1 Malmesbury, IV., 253. 3 Alison, V. 113. 
 
 3 Diaries, IV., 253.
 
 144 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 of war against France. 1 Malmesbury's wish was 
 fulfilled. 
 
 On May 22nd, news reached Paris from Brest of the 
 capture of two French merchant vessels in Audierne 
 Bay, previous to the declaration of war ; in reply to 
 which " the ferocious Corsican " made prisoners of war 
 of all Englishmen between eighteen and sixty, then in 
 France, as hostages for such French citizens as might 
 have been captured by the British vessels. 2 More than 
 10,000 luckless Englishmen thus found their way into 
 French prisons, from which many did not emerge till 
 1814 ; reprisals far in excess of the wrong done, though 
 not, one might think, beyond the reach of removal by 
 timely reparation for an undenied breach of belligerent 
 custom. 
 
 The time had now come for Pitt to blow his war 
 blast ; which he did with such effect on May 23rd, that 
 Malmesbury thought his speech the finest he had ever 
 made ; " never was any speech so cheered, or such 
 incessant and loud applause ; it was strong in support 
 of war. "3 
 
 On the same day, May 23rd, Fox too made one of the 
 greatest speeches of his life, 4 in which he criticised vigor- 
 ously the several reasons for war adduced in the King's 
 Declaration of May i8th.5 Whilst sharing in the general 
 indignation against French action towards Holland and 
 Switzerland, he denied that it menaced Great Britain ; 
 war would need to be perpetual and the French exter- 
 minated, if everything she did to increase her power 
 was to be taken as hostile to us. So telling was his 
 speech against the assigned reasons for the war that 
 Windham's anger burst all bounds ; he complained of 
 the speech as wicked as well as mischievous ; said that 
 Fox had shown himself the " pander to all the base and 
 
 * Ann. Reg., 1803, 388. * ib., 1803, 390, 1. 
 
 3 Diaries, IV., 256, 4 Pari. Hist., XXXVI., 1437-90. 
 
 5 ib , XXXVI., 1377 85.
 
 FRESH WAR RUMBLINGS 145 
 
 illiberal passions of the people," and contrasted his lack 
 of patriotism with Pitt's. 1 And by 398 to 67 the House 
 of Commons approved of the renewal of the war ; the 
 King writing to Addington on March 25th of the pleasure 
 with which he had seen the defeat of Grey's amendment 
 to the Address by so great a majority : " a most favourable 
 event at the onset of the business." 3 
 
 But history cares nothing for large majorities, nor for 
 the opinions of Kings. Thus even Alison, the Tory 
 historian of the war, sums up quite coolly but decisively 
 on the side of Fox and his minority, that " the British 
 Government manifested a feverish anxiety to come to a 
 rupture, and that, so far as the transactions between the 
 two countries are concerned, they were the aggressors." 
 All that had happened indicated a " determined spirit 
 of hostility, and a resolution, on one pretence or another, 
 to put an end to amicable relations between the two 
 countries."3 
 
 But though the war party were thus successful in 
 driving Addington and Hawkesbury into war, they did 
 not succeed in the immediate restoration of Pitt to power, 
 as it was hoped would be the result of war. On June 3rd, 
 Colonel Patten moved his famous resolution of censure 
 against the Addington Government, and Pitt moved his 
 amendment for " reading the orders of the day," a more 
 contemptuous expression of Parliamentary displeasure, 
 But the attack was premature, and misfired ; he could 
 only gather 58 votes against 335 ; and the censure on 
 Ministers was defeated by 227 to 36. Not till May of 
 the next year did Pitt succeed in supplanting Addington, 
 his old friend whom he had made his enemy ; and then it 
 was to the misfortune of both England and Europe. 
 
 * ib., XXXVI., 1490. 2 Pellew's Sidmouth. II., 185. 
 
 3 V. 126.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 1803. The Threatened Invasion 
 
 The war began with vigour and promptitude on both 
 sides. On May 25th General Mortier, with his army 
 prepared on the Hanoverian frontier after the King's 
 message, summoned the Hanoverians to surrender. 
 Nothing had been done on our side to resist such an 
 attack, nor did the Duke of Cumberland's proclamation 
 prevail on the people to shed the last drop of their blood 
 for the sake of the Elector of Hanover. They refused 
 to rise in mass, and their conquest was virtually complete 
 by June 4th, when the Convention of Suhlingen would 
 have allowed the Hanoverian army to retire beyond the 
 Elbe with the honours of war. George III.'s refusal to 
 ratify this convention only led to a worse one concluded 
 on July 5th. The Hanoverian army was disbanded ; 
 the French took possession of large military stores, and 
 continued in occupation of the country, without the 
 smallest protest by either Austria or Prussia against this 
 attack on one of the Princes of the German Empire. For 
 these Powers cared little about Malta, for which the First 
 Consul claimed the right to hold Hanover as a hostage. 
 England in those days paid dearly for a King who in his 
 separate personality as Elector of Hanover exposed this 
 country constantly to Continental complications. When 
 George III. heard of the loss of Hanover, he bore it, says 
 Malmesbury, " with great magnanimity and a true 
 kingliness of mind." 1 
 
 At the same time the French re-occupied Brindisi, 
 Otranto, and Tarentum, in the kingdom of Naples, to 
 hold as long as the English held Malta. 
 1 Diaries, IV., 270. 
 
 140
 
 THE THREATENED INVASION 147 
 
 On our side orders were sent on the day war was 
 declared to attack the French and Dutch colonies that 
 had been given up at the recent peace. Thus St. Lucia 
 was won back on June 22nd, 1803 ; Tobago on June 30th ; 
 St. Pierre and Miquelon on the same date ; the Dutch 
 colonies of Berbice, Demerara, and Essiquibo in September. 
 Our intervention in St. Domingo between the French and 
 the blacks ended with the surrender and removal of the 
 French forces from the southern parts of the island, and 
 with the collapse of Bonaparte's hope of making the island 
 a powerful and flourishing French colony. In their 
 contest with the natives great atrocities were attributed 
 to the French ; the natives, forced on board ships, were 
 drowned or suffocated with sulphur fumes, and it was 
 said that " tortures of the most cruel nature," such as 
 burning at slow fires, " were daily and hourly practised 
 by the French armies and government." 1 But who shall 
 judge of the truth of atrocities attributed by enemies to 
 one another ? 
 
 Bonaparte's energies turned again to our invasion, and 
 on a larger scale than ever. The great American 
 province of Louisiana had been ceded by Spain to France 
 on October 1st, 1800, and by its sale to the United States 
 on April 30th, 1803, for £3,200,000 he not only saved 
 it from becoming an English conquest, but secured 
 a large sum towards the cost of his plans for invasion. 
 The sums of £2,880,000 and of £650,000, exacted later 
 in the year by treaty from Spain and Portugal respec- 
 tively, contributed to the same end. But how far did 
 he really believe invasion to be possible ? In his 
 interview with Lord Whitworth on February 17th 1803, 
 he talked much on the subject. What had he to gain, 
 he asked, by a war with England ? A descent on England 
 was his only means of offence ; and was it likely that, 
 unless driven to it by necessity, he would risk his position, 
 his life, and his reputation, when the chances were that 
 
 * Ann. Reg., 1803, 330.
 
 148 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 himself and the greatest part of the expedition would go 
 to the bottom of the sea ? But, though the chances were 
 a hundred to one against him, he would make the attempt, 
 if war ensued. 1 This rather confirms Bourrienne's 
 statement of December 15th, 1803, that Napoleon had 
 no real idea of an invasion, and that his massing of 
 men on the northern coasts of France had another 
 purpose. And what could any flotillas or the newest 
 gun-boats do against a navy which Pitt wrote of on 
 December 13th, 1802, as superior to the navies of all 
 Europe put together ? 2 What need was there for alarm, 
 Addington fairly asked, when during the last war the 
 French navy had dwindled from 105 sail of the line to 39, 
 that of Spain from 79 to 68, that of Holland from 27 to 16, 
 whilst we had 192 ships of the line, besides other ships ; 
 an excess of 60 sail of the line above the combined fleets 
 of the three powers, and could add another 50 sail within 
 a month ?3 
 
 But of course no risks could be taken. Against a 
 French army of 427,000 men our regular army of 130,000, 
 and a militia of 80,000 seemed so inferior that on June 28th 
 the House of Commons voted a force of 50,000 conscripts, 
 the first time in English history ; but the exemption of 
 volunteers from such conscription relieved from the 
 stigma of compulsion the force of 300,000 men who came 
 forward to resist the impending danger. In France, in 
 1803, the conscripts raised amounted to 120,000 ; 
 more than half of the 208,233 young men calculated to 
 reach the age of twenty in the population of France ; 
 and the blood tax grew more exorbitant as the war 
 advanced. So great was the success of the British 
 volunteer force that " long before the year had expired, 
 all sense of fear " had vanished4 ; but the degree of alarm 
 the projected invasion had reached in the summer may 
 be judged of by the extraordinary circular sent round 
 
 1 Pari. Hist., XXXVL, 1298. 2 Malmesbury's Diaries, IV., 156. 
 
 3 Pari. H'st., XXXVJ., 1039. 4 Ann. Reg., 1803, 328.
 
 THE THREATENED INVASION 149 
 
 to every parish to be read in the churches J This appeal 
 to patriotism was based on fear. People were told of the 
 most awful atrocities alleged against the French in their 
 invasions of Germany in 1796 and 1798 ; and how the lower 
 classes had been the special objects of their bitterest 
 malignity; "against them was directed the sharpest 
 bayonet ; for their bodies the sharpest torment ; " 
 among the poor alone did the soldiers defer the murder 
 of parents till they heard the shrieks of their children in 
 the flames that burnt their homes. People were warned 
 of the dreadful consequences of a French landing ; " they 
 would affix badges upon us, mark us in the cheek, shave 
 our heads, slit our ears, or clothe us in the habits of slaves." 
 Such was the style of war propaganda little more than a 
 century ago. 
 
 Yet the year cannot have closed without some real 
 alarm ; for in December rumours came from Paris that 
 Bonaparte was about to leave that city; that oxen were 
 being slaughtered at Bordeaux for the victualling of the 
 fleet ; that ships and transports were ready to sail from the 
 Texel and from Brest ; and that Christmas day was fixed 
 on for the sailing. How real the anxiety was is shown by 
 the fact that plans were made for the King's moving to 
 Chelmsford or to Dartford ; for the Queen's going to 
 Worcester with the Royal family ; for the Bank books 
 being moved to the Tower ; and for the artillery and 
 stores from Woolwich Arsenal being transported inland. 3 
 Rightly no risks were to be taken. 
 
 1 ib„ 1803, 585-594. a Pellew's Sidmouth, II,, 237-9.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 1804. Pitt to the Helm again 
 
 From a military and naval point of view Addington's 
 conduct of the war had been reasonably successful ; but 
 Pitt's political support, warmly promised to his successor 
 in 1802, had waxed colder as time went on ; and, if he 
 and his friends were to return to power, it could only be 
 by criticism of Addington's defensive measures. A series 
 of attacks by Pitt and Windham in February, March and 
 April, 1804, resulted on April 25th in so small a Govern- 
 ment majority that Addington yielded to the Parliamentary 
 Coalition formed against him, and the destinies of the 
 country were on May 12th again entrusted to the same 
 Minister who had so signally failed to bring the last war 
 to a satisfactory conclusion. 
 
 Yet there was no real reason for a change, nor did any 
 clear gain result from it. Addington justly boasted that his 
 military measures had raised our forces to 580,000 men ; 
 a larger number than France or any other nation possessed, 
 and amply sufficient for the defence of England and 
 Ireland. 1 It was mainly by his plan for improving 
 recruiting that Pitt supplanted Addington, but his 
 Additional Forces Bill, which threw the responsibility 
 of recruiting on the parishes, was admitted before the 
 end of the year to have been a complete failure. In Kent 
 the new Act produced only eleven men ; in the Cinque 
 Ports only one ; in the North Riding not one. ' The 
 complete failure of the Recruiting Bill," wrote Addington 
 on December 3rd, 1804, " is confessed, and I am assured 
 that our military force is less than it would have been if 
 * Pellew, II., 266. 
 
 150
 
 PITT TO THE HELM AGAIN 151 
 
 that Bill had not passed. So much for the promised 
 augmentation of the army ; and as to its promised exer- 
 tions, and all that was said of offensive operations, we 
 have now reached the end of a campaign without a single 
 instance of success against the enemy in any part of the 
 world, except the taking of Surinam, which was planned 
 and executed by the late Government." 1 
 
 It was a great misfortune that the King was obdurate 
 against Pitt's wish to make Fox a member of his new 
 Cabinet. Between these great rivals there had arisen 
 such political sympathy at last that Pitt in May, 1804, 
 intended Fox to be his Foreign Secretary, and the mere 
 rumour of such a chance of peace caused the funds to rise. 
 But George III. blocked the way by refusing to hear of 
 such a thing. Yet one may well believe that, when in the 
 following month a feeler of peace came from France, Pitt, 
 with Fox at his side, instead of Lord Harrowby, might 
 not have " thought that no good consequences could 
 result from the communication," and so nipped the 
 negotiation in the bud. * This was one of the many 
 opportunities of peace during this war which were never 
 tested, but rejected more or less offhand on the idle 
 assumption of their insincerity. 
 
 It was hoped that the substitution of Lord Melville 
 (Dundas) for Lord St. Vincent at the Admiralty would 
 greatly improve the condition of the navy, nor did Lord 
 Melville fail to infuse greater vigour into that service. 
 Our navy, overwhelmingly strong before, became still 
 stronger. But all its attempts against the Boulogne 
 flotilla failed, and the Catamaran project ended in ridicule. 
 Catamarans were small oblong copper vessels, filled with 
 combustibles and arranged for a time explosion ; 
 possibly the progenitors of the modern torpedo ; they had 
 been tried with no success against our ships in the 
 American war, nor was there reason to expect of them a 
 greater success in 1804. But Lord Melville won great 
 
 1 ib., II„ 326, * Rose's Diaries, II., 160.
 
 152 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 credit for his supposed origination of such a plan for 
 blowing up the Boulogne gun-boats ; the press raised 
 public hope to a feverish expectation of success, even 
 going so far as to publish a false account of the blowing 
 up of 150 gun-boats before the news came of the absolute 
 fiasco of the whole scheme under Lord Keith on October 
 2nd, 1804. 1 
 
 But the chief difference between Addington and Pitt 
 referred to the question of Continental Alliances. 
 Addington was for friendship, not for alliances, with the 
 Continental monarchies, such as had proved so disastrous 
 in the previous war. Between England and France alone 
 a naval decision seemed to him the only one possible, and, 
 confident of such decision being in our favour, he was 
 averse from diverting the issue to a war on the Continent, 
 where the chances were more favourable to France. But 
 Pitt, despite experience, saw our best defence in a new 
 Coalition, which should divert French strength from 
 ourselves alone, and dissipate it against other foes on the 
 Continent. 
 
 The course of events seemed to play into his hands. 
 Europe was in the state of a powder magazine which 
 needed but a spark for its explosion. Such a spark was 
 supplied by the great Royalist conspiracy and trial in the 
 early half of 1804. Georges Cadoudal, the Breton chief, 
 and other conspirators had landed from England in August, 
 1803, and proceeded to Paris to execute their design. 
 It was said that this design was not the murder of 
 Bonaparte, but an equal combat, just as it was said that 
 the plot against Paul I. only incidentally led to his 
 murder. Pitt, according to Cadoudal's story, in supplying 
 his uncle Cadoudal with a million francs for his venture, 
 strongly exhorted him not to inflict a mortal wound on 
 Bonaparte, but to take him, if possible, alive, with a view 
 to deport him to England, and thence to St. Helena. 3 
 
 * Ann. Reg., 1804, 141, II., 553, 4. 
 
 a Georges Cadoudal, by his nephew, G. de Cadoudal, 1887, 296.
 
 PITT TO THE HELM AGAIN 153 
 
 The letters to Cadoudal from the future Louis XVIII. 
 and from Windham show how close was the reliance 
 placed in these quarters on this courageous rebel. 1 But 
 all these hopes were destroyed by the easy detection and 
 miserable collapse of the plot. After a trial of twelve 
 days, Cadoudal and seventeen others of the forty-five 
 prisoners were on June 10th condemned to death, after 
 the tribunal had deliberated for twenty-four hours ; in 
 the case of nine Bonaparte remitted the capital sentence; 
 five were sentenced to two years' imprisonment, whilst 
 the rest were acquitted. 2 General Moreau was deported 
 to the United States ; Lord Malmesbury's evidence is 
 that in 1803 he had asked for £500,000 for raising a royalist 
 army in France under Pichegru.3 Pichegru's death in 
 prison saved him from the capital sentence. 4 The French 
 believed that this plot aimed at the assassination of 
 their First Consul. 
 
 Closely mixed up with this plot were two of our 
 ambassadors, Drake at the Court of Bavaria, and Spencer 
 Smith at that of Wurtemberg. The French police 
 cleverly succeeded in getting addressed to themselves the 
 letters which betrayed the nature of the conspiracy that 
 was afoot, and the several Courts of Europe to which 
 Bonaparte sent the evidence of their complicity in the 
 royalist plot evinced feelings of strong condemnation. 
 Lord Hawkesbury's defence on the matters was easily 
 brushed aside by Talleyrand's reply of September 5th, 
 1804 6 ; to the effect that it was an abuse of international 
 usage to invest men with diplomatic functions for the 
 easier execution of the functions of spies. 
 
 But it was the punishment of the unfortunate Due 
 d'Enghien for his share in this plot which really gave 
 fresh life to the slumbering war fever. The young Due 
 was only thirty-four, the son of the Due de Bourbon, 
 
 1 ib., 235, 419, 438. 2 Bignon's " France," II., 371, 2. 
 
 3 Diaries, IV., 277. 4 Ann. Reg., 1804, 638. 
 
 5 April 30th. 1804, Ann. Reg., 1804, 600-3. 6 ib., 657-9.
 
 154 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 and grandson of the Prince de Conde\ By the French 
 military penal code anyone engaged in a plot tending to 
 civil war, or to the overthrow of the Republic, was 
 punishable with death ; and among the six charges on 
 which a military commission of March 21st, 1804, 
 sentenced the Due to death was one for fomenting a rising 
 in certain departments of France, and one for participating 
 in the plot for the assassination of the First Consul. 1 
 But it was his arrest on the neutral territory of Baden 
 by an armed force on March 15th, that vexed the moral 
 sense of Europe, especially of Russia, joint guarantor 
 with France of the integrity of Germany. Ten other 
 emigrant conspirators were taken at the same time.* 
 On March 10th Talleyrand informed the Elector of Baden 
 that, a previous request to arrest these emigrants having 
 failed, their forced arrest by two French detachments was 
 intended. And on July 2nd the Elector of Baden, in 
 reply to the strong protest presented by Russia to the 
 Diet at Ratisbon, sensibly deprecated such further 
 consequences of the incident as might again disturb the 
 peace of Germany.3 But Bignon, whom Napoleon by 
 his will entrusted with writing the history of his time, 
 was of opinion that the charges, founded on suspicions 
 and conjectures, were never proved, and that the sentence 
 was both illegal and barbarous. 4 
 
 Sweden and Russia were loudest in remonstrance. 
 Alexander I. put his Court and all his Ministers at foreign 
 Courts into mourning ; at a Court function he passed the 
 French ambassador without a word. Although Alexander 
 at his accession had adopted a pro-English policy, he had 
 continued on friendly terms with Bonaparte. Their 
 treaty of peace of October 8th, 1801, had been followed 
 on October nth, by a secret treaty, in which, for preserving 
 the general peace, they had agreed to settle between them 
 the troubles of Italy and Germany. But on neither side 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1804, 628, 9. 8 ib., 1804, 627. 
 
 3 ib., 1804, 635. 4 III., 273, 291-307.
 
 PITT TO THE HELM AGAIN 155 
 
 had all the terms been executed ; the King of Sardinia 
 had not received the promised conpensation for the loss 
 of Piedmont; nor was Bonaparte's occupation of Hanover 
 and of Neapolitan territories in accordance with the 
 treaty. Friendliness had turned to coldness, and on 
 July 21st, 1804, Alexander demanded the evacuation by 
 France of Naples, as also of Germany, and respect for its 
 neutrality ; and compensation for the Sardinian King. 
 Talleyrand retorted by a demand from Russia of her 
 engagements under the treaty ; among others, of a spirit 
 of less partiality towards England, and of her uniting 
 with France to effect a general peace. The embittered 
 correspondence came within an ace of a rupture. Russia 
 made warlike movements, and when on May 18th, 1804, the 
 title of Emperor was conferred on the First Consul, Alex- 
 ander refused to recognise the new title of his former friend. 
 
 But not so Francis of Austria, who on August nth 
 assumed for himself and his heirs the title of Emperor of 
 Austria, to balance the assumption of such a title by the 
 ruler of France. Yetalso in Austria, no less than in Russia, 
 though her attitude was so far pacific that in deference to 
 requests from France she ordered the French emigres 
 to quit her dominions, strenuous preparations were made 
 for the war that seemed rumbling on the horizon. 
 
 Prussia also was becoming restive. Frederick 
 William III. had been among the first to recognise the new 
 Imperial constellation in the political firmament. Count 
 Haugwitz had been for ten years the great supporter of 
 the French alliance, and when in 1803 Napoleon, whose 
 strongest interest was to keep Prussia as a neutral buffer 
 state against a Russian or German attack, offered Prussia, 
 in return for an offensive and defensive alliance, the 
 cession of Hanover in perpetuity, Haugwitz and other 
 leading statesmen would have accepted the offer. But 
 the King, who, influenced by the Queen and the Court, 
 had become strongly anti-French, would not comply, 
 and the ultimate agreement was that, provided the French
 
 156 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 forces in Hanover did not exceed 30,000 men, Prussia 
 as a neutral would permit no Russian or other troops to 
 march across her territories. But the substitution of 
 Count Hardenberg for Haugwitz as Prussian Foreign 
 Minister was indicative of the coming change in the 
 politics of Prussia. 
 
 To these elements of a world-conflagration Sweden 
 contributed her share. The anger of the King of Sweden 
 at the Due d'Enghien's fate did not cool ; and a note of 
 September 7th, 1804, from the Swedish ambassador at 
 Paris, addressed to Monsieur Napoleon Bonaparte, put 
 an end to all former amity. On December 3rd Pitt made 
 a treaty with Sweden, granting her an annual subsidy of 
 £80,000 in return for certain military advantages conferred 
 on us in Pomerania. 
 
 But in France Napoleon's position had been much 
 strengthened by a succession of ceremonies and pageants 
 highly captivating to the public imagination. The 
 assumption of the Imperial title, with a general raising of 
 titles ; the splendid fetes at Paris and Boulogne to inaugurate 
 the institution of the Legion of Honour ; the vote of 
 3,574,898 against 2,569 for making the Empire hereditary 
 in Napoleon's family, followed next day, December 2nd, 
 1804, by his coronation by the Pope in Notre Dame, 
 seemed to place the restoration of the Bourbons far beyond 
 the bounds of a reasonable expectation. 
 
 In these circumstances the addition of Spain to the 
 force arrayed against us was a deplorable addition to the 
 difficulties of England. By the treaty of 1796, Spain, 
 if called on, was bound to supply France with 15 ships of 
 the line, and 24,000 men, or with her whole forces, if 
 emergency required ; but in October, 1803, the liability 
 was commuted into an annual subsidy of £2,880,000 ; 
 so great an increase to the power of France as to justify 
 much resentment in England, and a strong diplomatic 
 remonstrance. News at the end of September, 1804, of 
 great naval preparations in Spanish ports led on our side
 
 PITT TO THE HELM AGAIN 157 
 
 to more menacing remonstrance, which the Spanish 
 promise on October 3rd to desist from armaments, whose 
 object had been misinterpreted, failed to satisfy. Two 
 English frigates were ordered to cruise off Cadiz to inter- 
 cept the homeward-bound treasure-ships from America, 
 and to stop all Spanish ships laden with stores of war 
 materials. The refusal of the Spanish commander of the 
 four treasure-frigates on October 4th to be detained, led 
 to an engagement, in which the Spanish frigate, Mercedes, 
 was blown up with the loss of 240 men, and the other three 
 were captured with a smaller loss of life, but with a 
 treasure on board estimated at £2,000,000. As this 
 premature act of hostility occurred before any declaration 
 of war, whilst our ambassador was still at Madrid and 
 negotiations were still in progress, Spain declared war on 
 December 12th, despite our efforts at explanation and 
 expressions of regret. But the justice of a war so begun 
 was hotly debated in Parliament, and the Parliamentary 
 majorities on the affirmative side were rather of numerical 
 than of moral value. 
 
 The British case was explained at great length in the 
 Declaration of War, dated January 24th, 1805. 1 
 
 The King of England had in those times a direct pecuni- 
 ary interest in a war by reason of the Droits of Admiralty, 
 which from an early period had come down to him as 
 Lord High Admiral of England. All ships taken before 
 the declaration of war were among the rights that helped 
 to swell his private fortune ; to which were added all ships 
 detained before a declaration of war, all ships coming to 
 our ports in ignorance of such declaration, all goods 
 acquired from wrecks or from pirates. The custom had 
 some reason in days when, before the Revolution of 1688, 
 the expenses of wars fell more on the Crown than on 
 Parliament ; but when the cost of war was transferred to 
 the country, to the country should also have gone the 
 profits. Between the year 1793 and May 30th, 1810, a 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1805, 608-15.
 
 158 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 sum of £7,344,677 yielded to the Crown an income of 
 £180,000 a year. From the gross sum there were con- 
 siderable deductions, as of £2,336,745 given to the 
 captors of ships, and other sundries, but there remained 
 enough to enable the King to give large presents of 
 money to the Royal family, or to any person for any 
 purpose. The custom, as Brougham said, gave the 
 Crown an interest in going to war : " It gave an interest, 
 not merely in commencing hostilities, but it gave an 
 interest in commencing them in a way the least honour- 
 able to the national character." He instanced the Dutch 
 war in the reign of Charles II. as a war " entered upon for 
 the sole purpose of intercepting the Smyrna fleet . . . 
 a war exceeding in atrocity even the late attacks on the 
 Spanish and Dutch ships." 1 Yet the calling the seizure 
 of an enemy's ships before declaration of war a piracy was 
 rebuked in Parliament as an unpatriotic imputation on 
 the national character. 2 
 
 The relations of the States of Europe to one another 
 were based on principles hardly higher than might prevail 
 between brigand bands. Charges of perfidy were uni- 
 versally interchanged. The French thought as meanly 
 of our respect for the law of nations as we thought of 
 theirs. Thus Talleyrand's circular note of September 5th, 
 1804, to all French agents abroad charged the British 
 Government with having for the last half century sought 
 to abolish the system of public law which united all 
 civilised nations ; with having sported with the sanctity 
 of oaths and of treaties ; especially in regard to maritime 
 law, the old conventions of which were violated on every 
 shore and in every sea ; so that a mere proclamation of 
 blockade by squadrons 200 leagues away sufficed to prevent 
 neutrals from trading with her enemies. 3 And the 
 capture of the Spanish ships gave some ground for 
 justifying Spain's declaration of war by the disregard for 
 
 * Pari. Deb., XXL, 242-77. * Pari. Deb., XXI., 275. 
 
 3 Ann. Reg., 1804, 657.
 
 PITT TO THE HELM AGAIN r 59 
 
 international law manifested by the incident.' Lord 
 Grenville, now in opposition to Pitt, spoke of the capture 
 as an " atrocious act of barbarity, contrary to all law of 
 nations, and one that stamped indelible infamy on our 
 name."^ The Duke of Clarence (William IV.) called it 
 an act of piracy that had disgraced the annals of our 
 naval glory.3 But these were the sentiments of a 
 negligible minority. 
 
 1 ib., 1804, 699-703. 
 
 2 February nth, 1805, Pari. Deb., III., a6o. 
 
 3 ib., III., 502.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 1805. Pitt's Last Coalition Against France 
 
 The new year began with an incident which, if rightly 
 used, might have saved the world from many years of 
 needless bloodshed. Napoleon, again defying diplomatic 
 pedantry, wrote to George III., on January 2nd, a direct 
 offer of peace. " I am not ashamed," he said, " to make 
 the first advances. Peace is the wish of my heart, but 
 war has never been adverse to my glory. I conjure your 
 Majesty, therefore, not to refuse yourself the satisfaction 
 of giving peace to the world. Never was an opportunity 
 more favourable for calming the passions, and giving 
 ear only to the sentiments of reason and humanity." 
 The King, he went on, had in ten years gained more than 
 the whole extent of Europe in territory ; if a coalition 
 of the Continental Powers were the object of war, such a 
 coalition would only strengthen the French Empire ; 
 if the French Colonies were the object, to France her 
 colonies were only secondary considerations. It was a 
 melancholy prospect for two great nations to fight for 
 fighting's sake. The world was large enough for France 
 and England to live in, and reason still had power to 
 reconcile them, if only the inclination were not wanting. 
 
 But that, unfortunately, was just what was wanting. 
 King George, always a stickler for his royal dignity, 
 addressed his astonishment to Pitt at " the French 
 usurper's " approaching him in this objectionable way, 
 and approved of Pitt's answer that no reply could be 
 returned till after communication with the Allies and 
 especially with Russia. 1 Both he and his Minister 
 repeated the mistake of January, 1800, by refusing to 
 
 1 Rose's Pitt, 516. 
 160
 
 PITT'S LAST COALITION AGAINST FRANCE 161 
 
 think of Peace. Pitt called the letter " a very unexpected 
 and singular communication," and could see in it nothing 
 but a trick to embarrass his Government at the beginning 
 of the sessions Had the King not proscribed Fox from 
 office, it is probable that the French peace offer might 
 have received so much more conciliatory a reply than 
 it received from Lord Mulgrave as might have resulted 
 in a peace. For there would have been no assumption 
 of Napoleon's insincerity without the least attempt to 
 test it. There was indeed no evidence that it was 
 insincere. Apart from motives for peace derived from 
 his wish to improve the condition of France, Napoleon 
 was aware of the Coalition which Pitt was again trying 
 to weave round him, and had nothing further to gain from 
 war. But peace would have destroyed Pitt's plans for 
 another Confederate war ; he had already gained Russia 
 and Sweden, and was hopeful of gaining Austria and 
 Prussia ; therefore the answer was, as delivered in the 
 King's speech of January 15th, 1805, that the King's 
 desire for peace was dependent on its being conducive 
 to the general peace of Europe, and that the offer could 
 only be answered after consultation with certain Con- 
 tinental Powers, especially with Alexander of Russia. 
 Thus was shelved a peace which it was an hypocrisy to 
 pretend that either the King or Pitt desired. And on 
 January 19th a secret note to the Russian ambassador 
 laid down the lines of the new Anglo-Russian policy. 
 France was to be reduced to her pre-Revolution limits ; 
 that is, all that she had conquered was to be conquered 
 back ; new barriers were to be drawn round her, by 
 annexing Belgium to Prussia, by restoring Lombardy 
 to Austria, and by annexing Genoa to Piedmont. The 
 Coalition aimed at restoring to their former state Switzer- 
 land and the United Provinces, the kingdoms of Sardinia 
 and Naples, and the Duchies of Modena and Tuscany. 
 More difficult war-aims were excluded from this 
 1 Pellew's Sidmouth, II., 348. January nth.
 
 162 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 programme, such as the restoration of Belgium to Austria, 
 the restoration to Germany of the States on the left bank 
 of the Rhine, or any change regarding Parma and Placentia. 
 It was hoped that the bribe of Belgium would tempt 
 Prussia into the war ; the bribe of Lombardy, Austria. 
 
 In this scheme of conquest, which differed but little 
 from that of Paul I., whom the world called mad, 
 George III. and Alexander I. flattered themselves that 
 their views were "pure and disinterested;" but why 
 plunge England into a new war of indefinite duration, 
 from which only Prussia and Austria and Sardinia were 
 to derive definite benefits ? Why disturb the existing 
 repose of Europe for a repose in the dim future, only 
 possibly attainable by arms ? Why should not the 
 European Powers have guaranteed at once each other's 
 possessions, as they then stood, instead of deferring such 
 guarantee till they had overwhelmed the world with war 
 and misery ? Why should they not at once have 
 established that system of public right which they looked 
 for as only obtainable by war ? Pitt, now in the last 
 year of his life, did not live to answer these questions, 
 nor were they ever answered. 
 
 Were it not that no statesman of modern Europe can 
 ever offer the olive branch with one hand without holding 
 the sword tight in the other, the secret convention that 
 Napoleon made with Spain only two days after his offer 
 of peace to George III. (Jan. 4th, 1805), might be taken 
 for proof of the insincerity of his offer. Nothing more 
 likely than that he had long conceived the idea, failing 
 peace, of adding Spain's naval force to his own for our 
 invasion. And it was this addition of thirty Spanish 
 ships of the line to thirty-eight French that made possible 
 that wonderful naval design which caused more just alarm 
 of a practicable invasion than any previous threat of it. 
 The successful issue of the combined fleets from their 
 several blockaded ports ; their arrival in the West 
 Indies ; their pursuit by Nelson ; their thirty days'
 
 PITT'S LAST COALITION AGAINST FRANCE 163 
 
 start of Nelson back to Brest, whence they were to cover 
 the passage from Boulogne of the 2,500 transports pre- 
 pared for 150,000 invaders, accorded with a plan 
 which mainly owed its defeat to the resourcefulness of 
 Nelson and to Sir Robert Calder's great victory over 
 Villeneuve, on July 22nd. Though Napoleon turned 
 instantly to carry out his vast designs against Austria, 
 it was not till Villeneuve had failed in another attempt at 
 a combined attack that he desisted from an embarkation 
 that seemed imminent, and on September 1st, ordered 
 the whole of the invading army to march towards the 
 Rhine. No invasion was possible after that, but what 
 put the final seal on all further ideas of invasion was the 
 great battle of Trafalgar on October 21st, that memorable 
 date when Nelson, with 27 sail took 19 of the combined 
 fleet of 33, and fell himself a sacrifice to his victory. 
 
 Whilst these events signalised Napoleon's amazing 
 energies at sea, his energies on land were no less con- 
 spicuous. His coronation at Milan on May 26th, with 
 the Iron Crown of Charlemagne, as King of Italy, was 
 followed on June 8th by the annexation to France of the 
 Ligurian Republic, celebrated on June 30th by Napoleon's 
 entry into Genoa on the usual scale of magnificence. The 
 absorption of Parma and Placentia followed. Italy was 
 greatly the gainer. Lombardy never flourished more 
 than under the Vice-Royalty of Eugene Beauharnais, 
 Napoleon's son-in-law, thanks to " the admirable principles 
 of Government which he received from the sagacity and 
 experience of Napoleon." 1 Splendid edifices, useful 
 canals, marked the French government of North Italy. 
 
 But the complete expulsion of the French from Italy 
 and Elba was among the foremost war-aims of the new 
 League. To re-deliver populations to their old oppressors 
 and servitudes was called the deliverance of Europe. 
 Russia entered the League on April nth, 1805, with a 
 promise from Pitt of £1,250,000 for every 100,000 men. 
 
 1 Alison, V., 280.
 
 164 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Austria also joined soon after the resignation in June of 
 Cobenzl, head of the pacifist party, and the transfer of 
 power to the Austrian militarists. Three millions were to 
 be paid her for 320,000 men for 1805, four millions for the 
 year 1806, though not without grumblings that this was not 
 enough. 1 Sweden, already in the League, on August 31st, 
 dived into the pocket of the British tax-payer at the rate 
 of £12 10s. a man. And these military slaves of the 
 Continent, bought for a price below that of a dog, were 
 supposed to be fighting for the freedom of Europe ! But 
 the pretexts for war have generally been mere phrases ; 
 like that mirage of a " lasting and solid peace " which 
 these preying powers promised the world in return for 
 its bloodshed. 2 
 
 The mediation of Prussia stayed the hand of Austria 
 for a short time, but the war fever soon prevailed. When 
 asked by Napoleon the intention of her increased arma- 
 ments and military preparations Austria declared that it 
 was for no hostile purpose, but that she was ready to 
 negotiate a peace on the most moderate terms, involving 
 no interference with the internal affairs of France, as were 
 also Russia and England. Talleyrand replied for 
 Napoleon on August 13th and 16th : Austria had only 
 to declare her neutrality, and peace would follow with 
 England on the terms of the Peace of Amiens ; one con- 
 sequence of such a peace should be a separation of the 
 crowns of France and Italy. Why, he asked, should the 
 Emperor of Germany and Austria form magazines and 
 bake biscuits ; it was the common law of Europe that the 
 assembling of troops, the formation of magazines, the 
 baking of biscuits, amounted to a declaration of war. 
 Austria must choose ; if she desired peace, she must return 
 to a peace footing ; if war, the Emperor flattered himself 
 with the hope of the same successes as in former wars. 3 
 
 Austria chose war, risking the fulfilment of Napoleon's 
 
 1 Pari. Deb., VI., App. 12. 2 ib., App. 6. 
 
 3 Pari. Deb., VI., App. 63-85.
 
 PITT'S LAST COALITION AGAINST FRANCE 165 
 
 hope. Still she hesitated, proposing to her Russian ally 
 a more favourable conjuncture for beginning hostilities, 
 and knowing herself outnumbered by the French. But 
 just as our Minister at St. Petersburg was urging on 
 Russia in early September " the expediency of losing no 
 time in beginning the war," so Russia urged the Austrian 
 Court to "renew the war as speedily as possible;" being 
 certain of the good faith of her Russian ally, she could 
 safely oppose France alone, in reliance on the Russian 
 troops, which were ready to march. 
 
 Austria accordingly took the offensive. After demands 
 on Bavaria, then in alliance with France, to unite her 
 army with the Austrian or to disband her army, the 
 Austrians crossed the Inn and occupied Munich, from 
 which the Elector and his army had retired on September 
 8th. The Elector complained that the Austrians had 
 conducted their invasion with the customary ruthless- 
 ness of invaders ; levying requisitions, laying fields waste, 
 plundering cattle, and forcing Bavarians into the Austrian 
 service. 1 
 
 Wrong as was Austria's disregard for Bavaria's 
 neutrality, it was in keeping with the universal lawless- 
 ness of the time. In 1803 General Mortier on his march 
 to Hanover had passed through neutral States that lay 
 on his way, and occupied Hamburg, Bremen, and Cux- 
 haven. Alexander, with equal contempt for the 
 neutrality of Prussia, threatened to march through 
 Silesia and Pomerania on his way to Bavaria ; and, 
 according to Czartoryski, Lord George Gower, meeting 
 the Russians on his return from England promised 
 Russia a subsidy, originally meant for Prussia, if it were 
 necessary to force a passage through Prussian territory. * 
 On the sea we paid as little regard to the neutrality of 
 Spain. But the worst case of offence came from France. 
 
 It was the obvious policy for Napoleon to attack the 
 Austrians before the Russians could join them and 
 1 October 10th, 1805. Ann. Reg., 1805, 708. 2 Memoirs, II., 98.
 
 166 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 this he did by the marvellous rapidity with which from 
 north, west and south he poured his legions into Bavaria, 
 whither they converged by their several routes, without 
 a hitch. Scant respect was shown for the neutrality of 
 Prussia, through whose territories of Anspach and Bay- 
 reuth Bernadotte marched on October 3rd with 60,000 
 men ; even the pacific King was roused to anger, nor was 
 easy to appease, though Napoleon sent Marshal Duroc to 
 make ample reparation. But to the Prussian war party the 
 incident was a perfect god-send as providing a cause of 
 offence against the French. The beautiful Queen was 
 the head of the war party ; a lady who, loving amusement 
 much, loved war even more, as the more exciting form of it. 
 From her the war craze spread throughout the social 
 structure, and for a time tended to throw Prussia into the 
 arms of Russia and England. If only Pitt, at the instance 
 of the Russian ambassador in London, would have con- 
 sented to cede Hanover to Prussia, the alliance of Prussia 
 might have been had for the price, and the Coalition of 
 the three monarchies might have anticipated its ultimate 
 triumph by nine years ; as it was, Prussia adhered to her 
 neutrality, and later received Hanover from Napoleon as 
 the reward of her conduct. 1 
 
 Things moved rapidly. But the Allied plan of 
 campaign failed. Though the Russian forces reached the 
 place agreed on for a juncture with the Austrians two days 
 before the time, the Austrians, by not waiting for them, 
 threw out the whole plan, and led to disaster. 3 The 
 French cut the communications between the Russians and 
 Austrians. On October 20th, the Bavarian stronghold 
 of Ulm immortalised itself as well as General Mack, its 
 gallant defender, by a capitulation which compelled a 
 garrison of 30,000 men to march out and lay down their 
 arms at the feet of Napoleon ; for which Mack was 
 sentenced to twenty years of imprisonment. On October 
 24th, Napoleon was received with great joy into Munich, 
 
 1 Czartoryski's Memoirs, II., 84. 2 Pari. Deb., VI., 144.
 
 PITT'S LAST COALITION AGAINST FRANCE 167 
 
 the Bavarian capital, nor did it take more than three 
 weeks for Ney to clear the Austrians out of the Tyrol and 
 to occupy all their strongholds (November 18th). On 
 November 13th, the French entered Vienna, whence the 
 Emperor had fled and where the excellent discipline 
 of the French and their abstention from plunder afforded 
 some alleviation for the enormous contribution exacted 
 from the city and the conquered parts of Austria. After 
 that, on November 19th, the disasters of Austria were 
 somewhat relieved by their belated junction with their 
 Russian allies. 
 
 Meantime Alexander had gone to Berlin (October 25th), 
 where by a secret convention on November 3rd, with 
 Frederick William III., Prussia was bound to begin 
 hostilities against France on December 15th, unless 
 Napoleon consented to give up all French acquisitions 
 made since the treaty of Luneville, and to restore Switzer- 
 land and Holland to their independence. The day 
 following this treaty of Potsdam a romantic midnight 
 meeting between the two monarchs at the tomb of 
 Frederick the Great bound each of them by the most 
 solemn oaths to the inviolability of their joint compact. 
 Count Haugwitz was to be the bearer of this defiant 
 ultimatum to Napoleon, who was little likely to be pleased 
 by it. 
 
 But a very unpleasant surprise was shortly in store for 
 Prussia. 
 
 For Europe was on the eve of the battle of Austerlitz. 
 On November 25th Napoleon sent General Savary to 
 Alexander to congratulate him on his arrival at the head- 
 quarters of the Allied army and to suggest a reconciliation. 
 But after three days of parley Savary returned with nothing 
 gained but a reciprocation by Alexander of the friendly 
 tone of Napoleon's letter. 1 It was too late for the 
 Russians to be willingly baulked of a victory they thought 
 certain. They attributed the Austrian defeats to 
 
 1 Alison, V., 495-7-
 
 168 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Austria's incapacity, and thought Paris lay straight before 
 their own invincible troops. The French were mere 
 " canaille," and Prince Dolgorouki, aged twenty-five, 
 was sent with a letter insultingly addressed to " the chief 
 of the French nation," not to " the Emperor." France, 
 it said, might have peace at once for her abandonment of 
 Italy; if beaten, she must surrender the Rhine, Piedmont, 
 Savoy and Belgium. 1 
 
 The answer was Austerlitz, on December 2nd, 1805, 
 with such a defeat of both Russians and Austrians that 
 the Russians sought an immediate peace, and the Austrians 
 an armistice. Alexander, whose bravery was conspicuous 
 on many later occasions, was compelled to precipitate 
 flight, nor did Czartoryski scruple to tell him that his 
 personal presence on the battlefield was only an embarrass- 
 ment to his generals : " It was precisely in the place where 
 you were that the rout was immediate and complete " — 
 a bold thing for a subject to say to a sovereign.* 
 
 The Emperor of Austria undertook that his brother 
 of Russia would abide by the armistice, provided his 
 troops were suffered to return unmolested to Russia. 
 When Alexander asked Savary what guarantee Napoleon 
 would require, or what security he himself could have for 
 a suspension of his pursuit, Savary replied, " He asks only 
 your word of honour, and has instructed me, as soon as 
 it is given, to suspend the march of Marshal Davoust." 
 " I give it with pleasure," replied Alexander, " and should 
 it ever be your fortune to come to St. Petersburg, I hope 
 I may be able to render my capital agreeable to you. "3 
 
 Thus when the Prussian envoy reached Napoleon's 
 camp, it was hardly the time to present him with an 
 ultimatum of war ; for Austria no longer belonged to the 
 Coalition. The very day on which hostilities with France 
 should have begun, December 15th, Haugwitz agreed to an 
 alliance with France, by which, in return for ceding 
 
 1 Rambaud's Russie, 536, 7. 3 Corresp., 44. 
 
 3 Savary, II., 142, 3.
 
 PITT'S LAST COALITION AGAINST FRANCE 169 
 
 Anspach to Bavaria, and Neuchatel and Cleves to France, 
 and for acceding to the approaching Peace of Presburg, 
 Prussia was to annex Hanover and all the Continental 
 dominions of George III., till a general peace. And the 
 Prussian King ratified this treaty with an insignificant 
 modification. Naturally this produced great anger in 
 England, where great hopes had been built on Prussian 
 help in the war. 
 
 Austria had no choice but to make her separate peace. 
 By the Peace of Presburg on December 27th, 1805, she 
 had to give up to the Kingdom of Italy Venice and Istria 
 and Dalmatia, the port of Cattaro, and the Venetian Isles ; 
 all in short that she had gained by the treaties of Campo 
 Formio and Luneville in exchange for the loss of the 
 Netherlands. She had to cede the Tyrol and other 
 territories to Bavaria ; to recognise as Kings the late 
 Electors of Bavaria and Wurtemburg. These two kings, 
 and the Elector of Baden, became legislatively independent 
 of the Emperor of Germany, and received accessions of 
 territory ; whilst Austria only gained the county of 
 Salzburg, and together with France guaranteed the 
 independence of Switzerland and of the Batavian Republic. 
 These were the chief points in the humiliating treaty by 
 which Austria had to pay for having yielded to the 
 seductions of Pitt. 1 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1805, 668-73.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 1806. The Peace that Failed 
 
 The new year opened blackly. The collapse of the 
 Continental confederacy had happened just as Fox had 
 predicted in his opposition to it on July 21st, 1805, when 
 he warned the House of Commons against granting money 
 where the chances were 100 to 1 against success, and where 
 Austria's having to submit to a peace dictated by France 
 would be the probable result ! l Pitt's Ministry was 
 virtually doomed. As Lord Sidmouth wrote on January 
 5th, public discontent was at its height, and might be 
 traced on every countenance. Then on January 23rd, 
 1806, died Pitt ; " died of old age," wrote Lord Malmesbury, 
 " at 46 as much as if he had been 90. "2 The last year 
 of his life, 1805, was enough to kill any man. Not least 
 among the misfortunes of that year was the scandal of 
 the exposure of the frauds connected with Lord Melville's 
 administration of the Navy. Henry Dundas had been 
 Treasurer of the Navy from 1784 to 1800 ; had himself 
 in 1785 carried a Bill for the better regulation of the office 
 of Treasurer of the Navy, to prevent public money from 
 being used by the Treasurer for his private use. Yet here 
 was this same man, created Lord Melville on December 
 24th, 1802, charged before Parliament with this very 
 offence. Even Pitt had failed to save his old friend and 
 colleague, one of the foremost in the previous war against 
 any peace with France. The case against Melville was 
 too strong, nor had he any other course than to resign 
 the Admiralty on April 6th, and the next month his 
 
 * Pari. Deb., V., 537, 8. a Diaries, IV., 346. 
 
 170
 
 THE PEACE THAT FAILED 171 
 
 name was erased from the Privy Council. Lord Malmes- 
 bury tells of the huzzas and shouts in the House of 
 Commons on his condemnation, and says that the pro- 
 ceedings against him " exceeded in party spirit and 
 savage feeling all that he ever recollected in this country." 1 
 
 Pitt, feeling his power waning, had again tried in 
 September, 1805, to get the King to withdraw his proscrip- 
 tion against the admission of Fox to office ; but the King 
 was as obdurate as he had been in May, 1804, when Pitt 
 had begged that Fox might be a member of his new Cabinet. 
 
 Pitt had also seen his military schemes fail signally 
 in 1805. Nothing had been gained by sending the Russian 
 and English forces to Naples, except to tempt the King 
 of Naples to a breach of his neutrality and so to his 
 dethronement. As to the forces, 18,000 British, 12,000 
 Swedes, and 10,000 Russians, landed in October in 
 Pomerania for the recovery of Hanover ; their late arrival 
 and the quarrels of their commanders resulted in nothing 
 more than in their all returning home again. The news 
 of Trafalgar, reaching London on November 7th, 1805, 
 must have greatly relieved the gloom caused by the 
 news of the Austrian capitulation at Ulm, which Pitt 
 at first flatly refused to believe ; but the news of Auster- 
 litz was too much even for his optimistic spirit, and Lord 
 Malmesbury's assertion may well be believed that he never 
 recovered from it.* 
 
 His death caused no small consternation ; and on 
 Lord Grenville's succeeding to his office, the King himself 
 had to yield and to accept as his Foreign Secretary the very 
 man whose earlier admission to that office would probably 
 have ended the war. But Fox's life now was but a matter 
 of months. 
 
 Those last months were spent in an endeavour to 
 negotiate a peace with France, and, but for his death in 
 September, it is possible that he would have achieved his 
 end. How strong was his will to peace is shown by his 
 
 1 ib., IV., 338. * Diaries, IV., 339, 40.
 
 i 7 2 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 correspondence with Prince Czartoryski, then at the head 
 of the Russian Foreign Office, at the end of March. 1 
 Count Woronzov, the Russian ambassador in London, 
 represented him as in favour of a peace at any price, even 
 of that of the abandonment of our allies. 3 But a states- 
 man who favours peace is always exposed to such a charge 
 from a statesman who prefers war. 
 
 Negotiations began with a letter from Fox to Talleyrand 
 on February 20th, telling him of a recent visit from a 
 man who had a plan for the murder of Napoleon, and 
 warning him to take precautions. The contemporary 
 whisper that Fox invented this story, in order to get into 
 touch with Talleyrand, is perhaps, silenced by the state- 
 ment that the would-be French assassin was kept in custody 
 till March 7th, when he was embarked at Harwich on 
 a vessel bound for Husum.3 The ice being thus broken, 
 Napoleon replied through Talleyrand, that he desired 
 peace with this country and would for his part not delay 
 it for a moment. In all the subsequent transactions the 
 sincerity of this desire was manifest. 
 
 The strange thing was that, before the negotiation 
 began, the restoration by France of Hanover to George III. 
 was insisted on by us as an indispensable preliminary. 
 " The French," said Lord Grenville, on January 2nd, 
 1807, " felt the injustice of the act, and consented to 
 restore it. This was consented to previous to the com- 
 mencement of the negotiation, and never afterwards 
 became an object of dispute. "4 But nothing of this great 
 concession appeared in the heavily censored papers 
 submitted to Parliament about the negotiations. 5 
 
 We were bound to Russia to make no separate peace, 
 and from the first Fox insisted on a condition which has 
 so often barred the road to peace. Napoleon vainly 
 offered the recognition of our right to Hanover, Malta, 
 
 1 Czartoryski's Memoirs, II., 133-7. 
 
 2 ib., II., 145. 3 Ann. Reg., 1806, 174. 
 4 Pari. Deb., VIII., 266. 5 -b„ VIII., 92-209.
 
 THE PEACE THAT FAILED 173 
 
 and the Cape ; Lord Yarmouth at Paris could consent to 
 nothing without the leave of Russia. 
 
 But Russia herself had not the same moral qualms 
 about her duty to us. She sent M. d'Oubril to negotiate 
 with France, and on July 20th her signature of a separate 
 peace morally dissolved the bond between us. When at 
 a later stage Alexander I. refused to ratify this treaty, 
 we were under no moral obligation to revert to our bond- 
 age to Russia, which placed us at her mercy for the 
 making of peace or war. 
 
 But the chief difficulty was Sicily. We were in 
 actual possession of Sicily, in trust for the King of Naples, 
 and as we believed that Talleyrand had offered to base 
 the peace upon actual possession, that is, on the uti 
 possidetis principle, our retention of Sicily was insisted 
 on by us as a sine qua non of peace. As the admission of 
 this principle did not exclude, as Lord Grenville said, the 
 discussion of mutual cessions, the endless disputations 
 on the point were a needless waste of time. Why not 
 compensation elsewhere for the King of Naples ? France 
 suggested the Hanse Towns as compensation (July 1st) ; 
 then Dalmatia, Albania, and Ragusa (July 9th) ; Fox so 
 far yielded to the principle of compensation as to suggest 
 the addition of Istria, the whole of the Venetian States, 
 and Venice itself (July 18th) ; the Russian Minister 
 promised to get the Balearic islands accepted in lieu of 
 Sicily (July 20th). 
 
 The French, regarding their separate treaty with 
 Russia as equivalent to a great success in war, then began 
 to raise their terms : they intimated a return of Pondi- 
 cherry, St. Lucia, Tobago, Surinam, Goree, Demarara, 
 Berbice, and Essiquibo to France and Holland. At the 
 end of July Lord Lauderdale was sent to Paris to assist 
 Lord Yarmouth in the negotiation ; but he, like Lord 
 Yarmouth, made the demand for his passports an implied 
 threat of a continuance of the war. When Lord Lauder- 
 dale landed at Calais on August 3rd, he was met by crowds
 
 174 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 on the shore, loud in their prayers for peace. But he was 
 dogged about Sicily, though open to suggestions of " just 
 and adequate indemnification " to the King for its 
 cession (August 7th) ; and on August nth the French 
 negotiators said that, if the uti possidetis meant exchange 
 and compensation, the Emperor adopted it. Surely 
 then nothing was left but to settle the actual exchange. 
 
 But all went wrong when news reached Paris on 
 September 6th, of the refusal of Russia to ratify her 
 treaty, although Alexander I. on April 3rd had promised 
 " on his Imperial " word the faithful execution and his 
 Imperial ratification of all that d'Oubril might sign. 1 
 By one of those sudden changes so frequent in Russia, 
 the war party had gained the upper hand over the in- 
 calculable mind of the Czar, and Czartoryski had retired 
 from the Foreign Office on June 17th, though as a member 
 of the Imperial Council he still continued to advocate in 
 December a peace with Napoleon. 3 Although this 
 refusal to ratify the treaty of July 20th, 1806, which 
 provided for the evacuation of Germany by France, 
 released us from our obligations towards Russia, our 
 Court continued to say that it could do nothing without 
 Russia's leave. It was in vain that Napoleon raised his 
 offers to secure peace, nor did these cease after Fox's 
 most untimely death on September 17th. Well might 
 George III. say that he never thought to live to regret 
 Fox's death. On September 19th Talleyrand promised 
 great concessions for peace : Lauderdale might insert 
 in the treaty " whatever he might conceive would tend to 
 reconcile the existing differences between France and 
 Russia." On September 25th the French offer added 
 Tobago and East Indian settlements to Hanover, Malta, 
 and the Cape, provided Sicily were ceded to France, and 
 the Sicilian King indemnified with a fair annuity and the 
 Balearic isles. Had Fox only lived, Lord Lauderdale 
 would hardly have been allowed to maintain his stiff, 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1806, 797, 8. 2 Memoirs, II., 174-88.
 
 THE PEACE THAT FAILED 175 
 
 unbending attitude, nor to rebuff the new proposals, not 
 only by a repeated demand for Sicily, but for compliance 
 with " all the objects " insisted on by Russia (September 
 26th). As Russia pressed for the surrender not only of 
 Sicily but of Dalmatia, which France had acquired by 
 the Treaty of Presburg, and France would only yield 
 Corfu, the whole negotiation collapsed, and Lord Lauder- 
 dale on October 5th received the passports for which he 
 had so frequently and so vexatiously asked. War con- 
 tinued for another ten years because we chose to fetter 
 our destinies with those of Russia ; because we acted as 
 the vassals of a Power whose military existence depended 
 on our money. 
 
 Curiously friendly were the concluding letters between 
 Talleyrand and Lord Lauderdale. Napoleon, wrote 
 Talleyrand, would be ready to renew negotiations in the 
 midst of any events, and to replace them on the basis laid 
 in concert with the illustrious Minister whom England had 
 lost, and who, but for having been snatched from the 
 world in the midst of his work, had nothing to add to his 
 glory but the reconciliation between the two nations 
 (October 1st). Lord Lauderdale expressed his pleasure at 
 the tone and moderation of this communication on 
 October 6th, and on October 21st appeared the King's 
 Declaration, giving the royal version of the failure to 
 make peace, and of course throwing all the responsibility 
 on the wickedness of the enemy. 1 
 
 Few victories could have caused greater delight in 
 England than the news of the failure of Lord Lauderdale's 
 mission. " The shouts of applause," with which the news 
 was received at Lloyd's Coffee House, expressed a feeling 
 universal over the country. The appetite for conquest 
 was strong at the time, having been whetted by the ease 
 with which Sir Home Popham, after the re-capture of 
 the Cape on January 13th, 1806, had sailed across the 
 Atlantic, without orders, and taken Buenos Ayres on 
 
 1 Pari. Deb., VIII., 209-13.
 
 176 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 June 27th. The longing for the gold mines of Potosi 
 and Peru was as strong as when in 1739 it had painted the 
 war with Spain in such glorious colours ; nor did many 
 pause to reflect that Buenos Ayres was 1,800 miles from 
 the mines of Potosi. The easy expulsion of our forces 
 from Buenos Ayres on August 12th did not allay the hope 
 of still conquering the whole of Spanish South America, 
 if only peace were not made. " We must with shame 
 acknowledge," writes the chronicler of the time, " that the 
 prevalent sentiment of the nation was joy at the prospect 
 of extended commerce and conquest in South America 
 rather than disappointment at the failure of peace." 1 
 
 It was not that the nation did not love peace, but 
 that powerful interests loved profit more. Plato never 
 made a truer generalisation than when he made Socrates 
 say that the real motive for all wars was money, and in 
 the last resort the satisfaction of men's bodily lusts. 3 
 War aims may be cloaked under concern for the " liberties 
 of Europe," or for " religion," or for " justice," but 
 the real aim is always wealth by the acquisition of 
 more or better markets. In all our wars of the eighteenth 
 century the Newfoundland fisheries were the one object 
 that was always constant. Napoleon probably spoke 
 truly, when on October 20th, 1805, he said to the sur- 
 rendered Austrian officers after Ulm, " I want nothing 
 on the Continent ; it is ships, colonies, and commerce 
 which I desire." And it was our disappointment at 
 Napoleon's not consenting to a commercial treaty on a 
 free trade basis that was our chief cause of dissatisfaction 
 with the Treaty of Amiens ; as Talleyrand wrote to Fox 
 on April 1st, 1806, that in Napoleon's opinion the true 
 cause of the renewal of the war was his refusal to make 
 us a treaty of commerce. 3 
 
 Whilst diplomacy was thus contending for Sicily, the 
 real contest was by force. As we needed the control of 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1806, 185. 2 Phaedo 66. Jowett's Plato, I., 439. 
 3 Pari. Deb., VIII., 95. Bignon, III., 6.
 
 THE PEACE THAT FAILED 177 
 
 Egypt for the safety of India, so we needed Malta for that 
 of Egypt, and now Sicily for that of Malta. The French 
 must be kept out of it at any cost. So on November 20th, 
 1805, a Russian Squadron of 14,000 men and a British 
 force of 10,000 had landed at Naples, to encourage the 
 King of Naples to join the Anglo-Russian Coalition. 
 But on September 21st, 1805, the King of Naples had 
 agreed with the French to a treaty of neutrality, ratified 
 by Napoleon on October 8th, by which, in return for the 
 French quitting Neapolitan territory within a month, the 
 King had promised to let no belligerent land or make use 
 of his ports nor put his armies or garrisons under an officer 
 of belligerent nationality. 1 When therefore six weeks later, 
 though the French had gone, the King of Naples broke 
 the treaty by suffering the Allied forces to land, and by 
 placing his army under a Russian general, the anger 
 manifested by Napoleon was not surprising. Austerlitz 
 made him master of the situation, and on December 27th, 
 1805, he punished his perfidious ally by pronouncing him 
 dethroned. The Russians had to sail back to Corfu ; 
 the English, under Sir James Craig, retired to Sicily, 
 whither the Court soon followed towards the end of 
 January, 1806, to the unconcealed delight of its subjects, 
 whose hatred for the Queen was more especially marked. 
 
 The middle of February, 1806, saw the triumphant 
 entry of Joseph Bonaparte into Naples, and when on 
 March 30th, Joseph was proclaimed King of the Two 
 Sicilies by Napoleon, nobles and people alike manifested 
 their aversion for the old Government by the joy they 
 displayed for the new one. Joseph did what was possible 
 to alleviate the distresses caused by the invasion, and the 
 beneficent reforms he introduced into every department 
 of Government fully justified the changed loyalty of the 
 Neapolitans. 3 It would have been better to have left 
 Naples to his undisturbed possession. 
 
 Unfortunately the British Government took up the 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1805, 664. 2 Alison, V., 677, 686.
 
 178 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Bourbon cause with an ardour that now seems amazing. 
 Sir Sidney Smith arrived at Palermo, where the Neapolitan 
 Court was, in the middle of April, 1806, and Sir James 
 Craig resigned the English force to Sir John Stuart, who 
 reluctantly consented to the wish of the Court to under- 
 take an expedition against Calabria, whence the French 
 were intending to invade Sicily. It was on this 
 expedition that he won against much superior French 
 forces on July 6th, 1806, the battle of Maida, in which 
 the English loss of life is said to have been 45 as against 
 700 French, and for which he was by King Ferdinand 
 created Count of Maida. This signal victory caused 
 a rising against the French in Calabria, and a consequent 
 warfare of the most terrible ferocity. The Calabrians 
 had for leaders such criminals as Fra Diavolo and the 
 priest Pane de Grano. " Galley slaves, polluted with 
 every crime, were collected by order of the Court of 
 Palermo, and landed among its former subjects, in order 
 to keep alive the insurrection." 1 Sir John Stuart had to 
 send troops expressly to check the enormities committed 
 by our Calabrian Allies. The French retaliated, and 
 many villages and their inhabitants were destroyed by fire. 
 When General Fox was sent to take over the command 
 of the English army, nothing would induce him to comply 
 with the Court's wish to attempt to drive the French from 
 Naples, and, after the fall of Gaeta to the French had 
 released 18,000 men, Massena had small difficulty in 
 recovering all that the English and Calabrians had at one 
 time taken. Finally Joseph Bonaparte ended the futile 
 contest by an amnesty. By malaria or the sword the 
 French were said to have lost about 15,000 men, nor had 
 we at last anything to show for our military intervention 
 but months of carnage and destruction and atrocity that 
 contributed nothing to winning the war. If the Neapoli- 
 tan episode was of Pitt's conception, it adds one more to 
 the many failures for which he was responsible. 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1806, 146.
 
 THE PEACE THAT FAILED 179 
 
 Louis Bonaparte was made King of Holland a few 
 months after his brother Joseph had been made King of 
 the Two Sicilies. 1 Thus on all sides monarchial forms of 
 Government were transplanting republican, and this 
 under the direction of the very man who was the leading 
 representative of the republican ideal, and who found in 
 all his brothers most unsatisfactory kings. 
 
 Europe lived in the excitement of incessant political 
 changes, many of them probably beneficial. The greatest 
 of all these changes was the formation of the Confederation 
 of the Rhine on July 12th, 1806, which placed Bavaria, 
 Wurtemburg, Baden, and other lesser German States 
 under the protection of Napoleon, and cut them off 
 entirely from the old Empire of Germany. On August 6th 
 the Emperor Francis II. had perforce to declare his 
 resignation both of the Imperial Crown and of the 
 Imperial Government. In effecting this scheme Napoleon 
 only successfully carried into execution a plan long 
 before conceived by the old French monarchy, and taken 
 up by the Republic. 2 On a small scale this new plan 
 anticipated the idea of a League of Nations, establishing 
 an alliance between France and these German States, 
 and making the war of any one of them the common war 
 of all. 3 It was a great improvement on the old constitu- 
 tion of the Empire, under which so loose was the tie 
 between the several members of the League to one another 
 or to their head, that any State might make war or an 
 alliance with any foreign State without let or hindrance. 4 
 And as placing a population of sixteen millions between 
 France and her Austrian and Russian enemies it was one 
 of the greatest triumphs of Napoleon's diplomacy. 
 
 The dissolution of the German Empire gave Denmark 
 the opportunity of declaring Holstein for ever separated 
 from the German Empire, and annexed to Denmark : 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1806, 698-701. 
 
 3 Fournier, Congress von Chatillon, 3. 
 
 8 Ann. Reg., 1806, 818-25. 4 Pari. Hist., XIII., 358.
 
 180 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 a transaction destined to bear bitter fruit in 1863 in the 
 decisive defeat of Denmark by Prussia and Austria. 
 
 This Confederation of the Rhine brought Prussia back 
 into the war. With the wealth and prosperity that had 
 come from many years of peace, the wish for war had 
 grown. Prussia had long halted between the English 
 and the French alliance. The ample subsidies promised 
 by England in the autumn of 1805 and the blandishments 
 of Alexander I. were neutralised by Austerlitz, after which 
 she agreed with France to occupy Hanover till a general 
 peace. On January 26th, 1806, Count Hardenberg 
 requested the removal of French troops as part of the 
 conditions of the Prussian occupation, and the next day 
 announced the departure of the French troops and the 
 occupation by Prussian. But Napoleon wanted a stronger 
 treaty than this, and on February 15th, at Paris, it was 
 agreed that Prussia should hold Hanover permanently and 
 exclude the British flag from all North German ports, in 
 return for the cession of Anspach and Bayreuth to Bavaria. 
 On March 16th Prussia closed all ports and rivers under 
 her control against British trade and shipping, and on 
 April 1st Hanover was formally annexed to Prussia. 
 
 All this, of course, was very displeasing to England. 
 On March 17th, Fox protested strongly— the transfer of 
 Anspach and Bayreuth to Bavaria could not justify the 
 seizure of what belonged to the Elector of Hanover ; 
 nor would George III. ever consent to the alienation of 
 his rightful possessions. On April 20th, George III. 
 issued a long declaration expressive of the same resolution, 
 and calling on the German Emperor as well as on Russia 
 and Sweden to defend his cause. 1 And in the course of 
 the same month retaliation began : the Prussian rivers 
 were blockaded by English vessels, an embargo placed 
 on Prussian vessels in British ports, and the British 
 ambassador recalled from Berlin. Thus began our first 
 war with Prussia. 
 
 * Ann. Reg., 1806, 692-7.
 
 THE PEACE THAT FAILED 181 
 
 Fox's condemnation of Prussian policy as combining 
 everything that was contemptible in servility with every- 
 thing that was odious in rapacity well expressed the general 
 English sentiment. For to take the property of somebody 
 else in exchange for something given to another party was 
 clearly conduct that needed defence ; but an age which 
 had ceased to pay more than lip service to the sanctity 
 of treaties and the laws of nations had no just claim to 
 regard Prussia as a sinner above all other nations. The 
 tangle of cross-purposes into which her diplomacy or 
 duplicity led her touched indeed the comical ; and when 
 Lucchesini, her ambassador at Paris, came to learn that 
 whilst Prussia was receiving at Napoleon's hands the long 
 coveted Hanover, he was making the restoration of 
 Hanover the basis of his peace negotiations with England, 
 the cup of Prussia's indignation became full to overflowing. 
 Patriotism took the place of reason ; war songs in the 
 theatres silenced reflection, and the Queen, riding in 
 uniform at the head of her regiment of Hussars through 
 the streets of Berlin, roused the war fever to the pitch of 
 frenzy. Frederick William III. is said to have been the 
 last person in his Cabinet to give his vote for war. 1 
 
 During September the usual movement of troops and 
 the usual protests heralded the coming storm. Napoleon 
 had nothing to gain from a war with Prussia, on whose 
 continued neutrality he based his policy of neutralising 
 the enmity of Russia and Austria. He described a 
 Franco-Prussian war as a political monstrosity. The 
 long recital of Prussia's grievances, justifying war, cited 
 not one which necessitated it. 3 But the expected favour, 
 if not the aid of England and Russia, and the natural wish 
 for war in an army of 250,000 men turned the scale to the 
 more perilous course. Prussia's demand on October 1st, 
 that France should evacuate Germany and offer no obstacle 
 to the formation of a Northern German Confederation of 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1806, 168. 
 * Ann. Reg., 1806, 800-1 r.
 
 182 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 the States not included in that of the Rhine received no 
 answer ; or rather it received that answer which made 
 the months of October and November for ever memorable 
 for one of the greatest military disasters in history. 
 
 The Duke of Brunswick, of the once famous manifesto 
 of 1792, as commander-in-chief of the Prussian forces, 
 lost his reputation and his life in the rapid campaign that 
 ensued. The battles of Auerstadt and of Jena both on 
 the same day, October 14th, virtually settled the campaign 
 against Prussia ; thenceforth the tale was of nothing but 
 of flights and surrenders. The flying Prince Hohenlohe 
 had to capitulate with 17,000 men ; strong fortresses 
 like Spandau, Stettin, and Custrin fell like packs of cards ; 
 the garrison of Magdeburg, 12,000 strong, surrendered as 
 prisoners of war. Berlin itself was entered by the French 
 on October 25th, and by Napoleon on October 27th. 
 Within a few weeks the mighty military instrument of 
 Prussia was levelled with the dust. The French took 
 over the whole military and civil government of Prussia 
 between the Rhine and the Elbe. Brunswick, Hesse 
 Cassel, and Hanover were occupied, and the contributions 
 levied by the French surpassed all previous records : 
 six millions from Prussia alone. 
 
 Saxony, which had shared Prussia's defeat, was easily 
 detached from the Prussian connection, and by a treaty 
 with France on December 12th, 1806, was admitted into 
 the Confederation of the Rhine. It was some consolation 
 possibly for the heavy contribution levied upon her that 
 her Elector was raised to Royal dignity ; and she remained 
 faithful to the French alliance through all the subsequent 
 years of war. 
 
 The King and Queen of Prussia and their Ministers 
 fled to Memel, soon the only place left to them. On 
 November 28th the king refused to ratify the armistice 
 at Charlottenberg, which stipulated for the cession till 
 a general peace of all his territories between the Rhine 
 and the Vistula. Ultimately he gained little by not
 
 THE PEACE THAT FAILED 183 
 
 making peace before worse befell. But he relied on the aid 
 of that most mutable of monarchs, the young Czar of Russia, 
 for the restoration of his fortunes ; and Alexander was 
 thinking more of conquering Turkey than of helping Prussia. 
 Though a dispute between himself and the Porte had been 
 adjusted, the Czar proceeded to invade the Turkish 
 provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia (Rumania) with as 
 little concern for moral principle as was ever shown by 
 Napoleon. He was keen on conquest, and before the end 
 of the year had conquered large districts of Turkey. 
 
 The French continued their victorious career over 
 Prussian Poland. The entry of Napoleon into Warsaw 
 was greeted by the Poles with an enthusiasm for their 
 expected deliverer which was only exceeded by their 
 ultimate disillusion. The gaieties enjoyed in that city 
 put but little check on military operations. Indecisive 
 battles between the French and Russians continued till 
 the retirement of both armies into winter quarters. The 
 chief Russian general of this time was Benningsen, 
 the hero who on the occasion of the murder of Paul I. 
 had played so prominent a part. When the conspirators 
 had got Paul on his knees, it was Bennigsen's words : 
 " Have we come here to talk ? " which preceded the fatal 
 blow given by Nicolai Subow. 1 
 
 Prussian militarism had thus been crushed beyond 
 any visible prospect of recovery, and the Queen was 
 correct in her later remark to Napoleon, " Prussia has 
 been well punished for her folly." 
 
 As for Prussia, she had no claims on our assistance. 
 We had been at a sort of war with her since April 23rd, 
 though Baron Jacobi, her ambassador, was not recalled 
 from London till August 15th, 1806. And when Jacobi 
 wished to settle Prussian differences with us, it was not 
 till October nth that, after his return to London on the 
 10th, he saw our Ministers : and Jena was fought on 
 October 14th. Her war with France came on the world 
 1 Schiemana's Ermordung Paul's, 30,
 
 184 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 as a swift surprise. And when Lord Morpeth was sent to 
 Berlin to negotiate the terms of our assistance, Prussia 
 would make no definite promise to restore Hcnover, for she 
 then hoped to beat the French ; nor in that case would she 
 pledge herself to restore Hanover to George III. 
 
 THE MARITIME QUARREL 
 
 It was in this same year that the maritime war 
 assumed a fiercer aspect. Napoleon's Berlin Decrees of 
 November 21st, 1806, are only intelligible by connecting 
 them with his contention that the laws of war at sea 
 ought to be the same as the laws of war on land. Thus 
 the declaration that all English property in French or 
 allied dominions might be seized as lawful prize was his 
 reply to our claim to capture and confiscate the private 
 property of merchants at sea. The declaration that all 
 British subjects found in France or in allied territories 
 should be made prisoners of war was his answer to our 
 custom of making prisoners of enemy merchant crews. 
 And the prohibition of all commerce with England and the 
 declaration of the British islands as in a state of blockade 
 was provoked, if not justified, by the order in Council, 
 signed by Fox on May 16th, 1806. 
 
 This famous Order was itself an act of reprisal against 
 the French confiscatory Decrees of October 18th and 
 November 3rd, 1805. It took the form of a declaration 
 to the United States Minister, that, in consequence of the 
 new French measures against English commerce, " all 
 the coasts, rivers and ports, from the river Elbe to the 
 port of Brest, inclusively, were in a state of blockade, 
 such rivers and ports being deemed to be actually 
 blockaded." But it was not meant to prevent neutral 
 vessels charged with non-enemy cargoes, not being 
 contraband, from approaching this coast or from entering 
 or leaving such rivers and ports (except the coast, rivers 
 and ports between Ostend and the Seine, already strictly 
 blockaded), provided such neutral vessel was not loaded
 
 THE PEACE THAT FAILED 185 
 
 in a port hostile to Great Britain, nor destined for any 
 hostile port on its departure. 1 
 
 Lord Grenville argued that this was not a fictitious 
 but a real blockade, " perfectly conformable to the under- 
 stood and acknowledged laws of war."* But the French 
 view was that our extension of the right to blockade 
 ports to the blockade of coasts with no real blockading 
 force was an illegal departure from customary maritime 
 law. " It is only to the new extension given to the right 
 to blockade," wrote Napoleon to Champagny, on 
 January 10th, 1810, " that I opposed the Berlin decree. 
 . . . I only regard it as a sort of protest, and a violence 
 opposed to a violence "3 Ultimately, in 1856, after the 
 Crimean war, most of the Powers agreed with Napoleon's 
 view, and declared that a blockade to be legal must be 
 effective ; though it was left undecided whether a 
 blockade from any distance was legitimate : The war 
 might have been shortened by many years if Napoleon's 
 wish for a Congress to bring into harmony the different 
 maritime laws of different States had not been repulsed 
 by the other Powers. 
 
 As it was, reprisals only begat reprisals, and the 
 anarchy was made worse than ever. On January 7th, 
 1807, the Whig Ministry replied to the Berlin decree by 
 authorising British vessels and privateers to warn or seize 
 all neutral ships trading between one French or allied 
 port and another. And when this failed to get the Berlin 
 decree repealed, the new Tory Minstry on November nth, 
 1807, issued fresh Orders, which made it compulsory on 
 neutral vessels to French or Continental ports to pay 
 tribute first in British harbours. To which Napoleon 
 replied with the Milan Decree of December 17th, 1807, 
 which made good prize any neutral vessel that submitted 
 to the British orders. 4 The justice and policy of these 
 
 1 Schoell, " Recueil," IX., 342. 
 
 * Pari. Deb., X., 478. February 15th, 1808. 
 
 3 Correspond ance de Napoleon, XX., 109, 10. 
 
 4 Pari. Deb., X., 126-148. Alison, VI., 335*357.
 
 186 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Orders was fiercely debated in Parliament. Lord Erskine, 
 " as a peer of the realm in this great Council " of Parali- 
 ment, arraigned them as a violation both of the law of 
 nations and of the law of the land on March 8th, 1808 ; 
 and though the Lords decided against him by a majority 
 of 66, it should perhaps weigh more with posterity that 
 in the same camp with Lord Erskine were Lord Grenville, 
 who had been a Prime Minister, and Lord Grey, who was 
 destined to become one.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 1807. Friedland, Tilsit, Copenhagen. 
 
 In the winter campaign of 1806-7 the Prussian fortressess 
 in Silesia fell to the French within a few months ; 
 Breslau, the capital, on December 31st, 1806, Brieg, 
 Kosel, Schweidnitz, Neiss, and Glatz, last of all, on 
 June 4th, 1807. These places, which had cost Frederick 
 the Great so much bloodshed over so many years to set 
 up as barriers against Austria and Russia, were totally 
 dismantled by Napoleon's orders, and Jerome Bona- 
 parte was made Governor of Silesia. 
 
 On January 28th, 1807, England agreed with Prussia 
 to bury in " eternal oblivion " her recent offences ; 
 Prussia renouncing all her pretensions to Hanover, and 
 opening her ports, and England releasing all captured 
 Prussian ships. 1 So repentant Prussia was received 
 back into the fold of respectable monarchical Powers. 
 
 Of the battles between the French and their Russian 
 and Prussian enemies the one that most struck the 
 imagination of Europe was that of Eylau, fought on 
 February 7th and 8th in all the misery of a snowstorm. 
 The losses on either side surpassed those of any battle 
 yet fought in the war, and the masses of dead and 
 wounded lying on the snow-covered ground presented 
 a most sickening spectacle. Each side sang Te Deums 
 for victory and exaggerated the slain of the enemy, but 
 the French remained on the [ground and it was Benning- 
 sen who retired from it. 
 
 Nevertheless, Sir Robert Wilson, who was present 
 throughout this campaign, thought the defeat of the 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1807, 712-4. 
 187
 
 188 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 French decisive of the fate of Europe and expected them 
 to retreat. His great dread was lest Napoleon should 
 save himself by a peace : "I would rather lose two 
 limbs than that peace should be signed with France on 
 this side of the Rhine." 1 Wilson's estimate of Napoleon 
 was expressed in a letter to Lord Hutchinson on 
 February 2nd, 1807, that the Napoleonic mind was 
 " intoxicated with the success with which cowardice 
 had gorged him." 2 Napoleon has been charged with 
 many sins, but it was probably reserved to Wilson to 
 charge him with personal cowardice. George Jackson 
 described Sir Robert as "one of the most harum-scarum 
 fellows that perhaps ever existed " ;3 but few played 
 a more prominent part as general, diplomat, or spy 
 than was played by Sir Robert in those days. 
 
 Napoleon made several efforts for a peace after 
 Eylau. Benningsen told the French truce-bearer that 
 his orders were to fight, not to negotiate, and he sent him 
 on to the King of Prussia, at Memel, with his strong 
 advice to accept no terms. The terms offered were the 
 restoration to the Prussian King of all his dominions 
 as before the war, and (except as regards Russia 
 and England) a free hand in the matter of alliances. 4 
 Sir Robert Wilson says that several letters passed between 
 Napoleon and Frederick William. 5 Napoleon entreated 
 the Prussian King to believe him sincere and as no less 
 desirous of peace with Austria and England than with 
 Prussia. 6 And throughout the campaign Sir Robert says 
 that Napoleon " had been induced frequently to solicit 
 peace. "7 But the allies preferred war. In vain Napoleon 
 proposed a Congress of France, England, Sweden, Russia, 
 Prussia, and Turkey ; the Jingo counsels then prevalent 
 in Russia and Prussia rejected all overtures, and on France 
 was cast the blame for the continued war. Sir Robert 
 
 1 Life, II., 130. * ib., II., 415. 3 Diaries, II., 108. 
 
 < Jackson, Diaries, II., 88. 5 Russian Campaign, 172. 
 
 6 Alison, VI., 88. 7 Russian Campaign, 172.
 
 FRIEDLAND, TILSIT, COPENHAGEN 189 
 
 Wilson expressed his delight that all proposals for an 
 armistice with a view to peace were rejected with scorn : 
 a rejection for which there was soon to be ample cause 
 for repentance. 
 
 In his message to the French Senate, dated March 20th, 
 Napoleon said, " We offered peace to England before the 
 fourth Coalition ; the same peace we offer to England 
 still." He proclaimed his readiness to offer the same 
 terms of peace to Russia that she had lately rejected. 
 At this stage the continuance of the war was not due to 
 Napoleon. 
 
 It was by no fault of England that Alexander I. had 
 weakened his own strength against France by sending 
 60,000 men on an unjust invasion of Turkey ; yet he threw 
 on England the chief blame for his failure. An English 
 force, with a Swedish and Prussian, it was argued, should 
 have landed on the Baltic, raised the siege of Stralsund, 
 marched up the left bank of the Oder, besieged and taken 
 Stettin, and thence marched to Berlin. So easy it seemed 
 — on paper. Sir Robert Wilson shared the Czar's views 
 about our failure to send troops ; if we did not send 
 troops we should become in Russian eyes " a despicable 
 ally and a mercenary people, seeking colonies for private 
 advantage instead of assisting the common cause of 
 Europe." 1 But the Whigs were then in office, and party 
 spirit affected Wilson's vision. 
 
 Peace having failed, the French conscripts not due till 
 September, 1808, had to be called upon in March, 1807. 
 The pace was increasing ; 240,000 youths for the slaughter 
 in seven months was a heavy demand, nor can the orator 
 who announced the necessity in the French Senate have 
 been alone in the tears that are said to have been drawn 
 from him on the occasion. 
 
 In April the Emperor Francis II. made simultaneous 
 offers to mediate between the four warring Powers, with 
 a view to a general peace. France accepted the offer. 8 
 
 1 Life, II., 163-4. 2 Ann - Re S«» l8o 7» 7 12 -
 
 i 9 o THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 and the offer was accepted on April 25th by Canning, then 
 Foreign Minister, subject to its acceptance by the other 
 belligerents. But before all the replies could reach Vienna 
 the war put an end to all further thought of negotiation. 
 Yet not before the Convention of Bartenstein of April 25th 
 had been agreed upon between the Russian and Prussian 
 monarchs, by which they defined as their chief war aims :— 
 
 1. The restoration to Prussia of her territories of 
 
 1805. 
 
 2. The dissolution of the Confederation of the Rhine. 
 
 3. The restoration of the Tyrol and Venetia to Austria. 
 
 4. The restoration of the House of Orange, and 
 
 indemnities to the Kings of Naples and Sardinia. 
 
 To this Convention both England and Sweden soon 
 afterwards acceded ; and we resolved to send 20,000 men 
 to co-operate with a Swedish force in Pomerania against 
 the French rear ; to take more Swedes into our pay ; 
 and to pay Prussia a million for the campaign of the year. 
 A few weeks sufficed to reduce all these designs and hopes 
 to vanity itself. 
 
 The 20th of May saw the capitulation of Dantzig, at 
 the mouth of the Vistula, after a long siege by the French. 
 Napoleon made a direct proposal to Alexander for a 
 negotiation, declaring his readiness to consider any over- 
 tures. In the sincerity of this proposal the contemporary 
 English chronicler fully believed, describing him as 
 manifesting an " even earnest desire for the end of 
 hostilities." 1 But, like the losing gambler, Alexander 
 preferred to try another throw of the dice with fortune. 
 
 Nor had he long to wait. The spring campaign, 
 begun on June 5th, was finished by June 25th. If the 
 battle of Eylau could be counted indecisive, there was no 
 indecisiveness about the battle of Friedland on June 14th. 
 The losses on both sides were on a prodigious scale, and 
 the battle lasted sixteen hours. Wilson attributed the 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1807, 167-169.
 
 FRIEDLAND, TILSIT, COPENHAGEN 191 
 
 Russian defeat entirely to Benningsen, who " seemed 
 physically as well as morally imbecile on this occasion." 1 
 He himself was sick with grief and vexation at England's 
 humiliation, and he hoped that Vienna might be sacked 
 for Austria's failure to assist. 3 Alexander sent Benningsen 
 orders to treat with the conqueror. Another Coalition 
 had failed, like its predecessors. 
 
 For its failure great blame was thrown at the time both 
 in Russia and England on the Whig Government of Lord 
 Grenville, so triumphantly terminated by George III 
 in March, 1807. And this blame has passed unquestioned 
 into such histories as Alison's. The drift of the criticism 
 of the policy of Lord Howick, Foreign Secretary in the 
 Grenville Ministry, by Canning, his successor in the Tory 
 Ministry of the Duke of Portland, and by Lord Castle- 
 reagh, Secretary at War, was that we ought to have 
 co-operated more closely with Russia ; ought to have 
 subsidised her more lavishly ; ought to have prevented the 
 Prussian catastrophe in October, 1806 ; above all, ought 
 to have sent 25,000 or 30,000 men to Pomerania to join 
 with a Swedish force in cutting off the retreat of the French 
 from Poland back to France. Windham's reply to Lord 
 Castlereagh's suggestion of our sending 25,000 men to the 
 aid of Russia was that it was too absurd to be necessary 
 to answer. 3 And would not the Baltic have been frozen 
 for some time after the battle of Eylau on February 8th ? 
 Yet Mr. Temperley writes that if after this battle we had 
 sent strong reinforcements we might have struck at the 
 French communications and even have fought a successful 
 rearguard action with the main French army. 4 
 
 After Friedland came the amazing Peace of Tilsit. 
 The story may be doubtful, inasmuch as it rests on the 
 unsupported statement of Bignon,5 that the first thing 
 Alexander I. said to Napoleon on their first meeting in 
 
 1 Life, II., 273. * ib., II., 275. 
 
 3 Pari. Deb., IX., 1034, July 31st, 1807. 
 
 4 Life of Canning, 71. 5 VI., 302. 
 
 13
 
 192 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 the middle of the river Niemen, was, " I hate the English 
 as much as you do ; I will second you in all you undertake 
 against them " ; but the story was based on probability. 
 Yet this was an ally to whom it was said we ought to have 
 given permission to raise a loan of six millions in London, 
 or to have granted a liberal subsidy. Had we not spent 
 enough in loans or subsidies to bolster up these undeserving 
 Continental despotisms, that we must continue to place 
 our wealth at their disposal for the easier waging of 
 unnecessary wars ? Were we to be, as Windham justly 
 asked, " merely the great bank of Europe, on which the 
 different nations were empowered to draw in defence of 
 their own existence ? '*« As for diversions on the coasts 
 of Holland and France, for which the Russians pestered 
 us all that winter, had not Pitt's experiments in that 
 direction been warning enough against a renewal of them ? 
 In any case the Peace of Tilsit marked a wonderful 
 reconciliation between the French and Russians. The 
 world was astonished at the friendly meetings between 
 Alexander and Napoleon on the raft in the middle of the 
 river Niemen ; at their dinings and ridings together, with 
 the King of Prussia uncomfortably in their rear ; at the 
 fraternisation of the officers, and their exchanges of 
 uniforms. But the world was disgusted as well as 
 astonished. Wilson wrote bitterly of the ease with which 
 Alexander became Napoleon's friend — Alexander, whom 
 less than a month before he had heard denounce Napoleon 
 at a public dinner as a madman and a tyrant.* But 
 that was the cant of the day, and friendship between 
 monarchs is seldom sincere. On a later occasion, when 
 Alexander pleaded his friendship for the King of Prussia 
 as an obstacle to his annexing a part of Prussia, Napoleon 
 retorted : " Friendship ! Amongst us there are no 
 friends. "3 As was only too well to be proved in their 
 own particular case. 
 
 1 Par]. Deb., IX., 1038, July 31st, 1807. 
 3 Life, II., 282. 3 ib., II., 322.
 
 FRIEDLAND, TILSIT, COPENHAGEN 193 
 
 The Treaty of Tilsit that resulted from the sudden 
 Franco-Russian fraternisation was signed on July 7th, 
 1807, and added to the world's astonishment. 
 
 To Prussia, as Alexander's ally, and at his entreaty, 
 were restored Pomerania, Silesia, and sundry other 
 territories ; but Russian Poland was transferred to the 
 King of Saxony as the Duchy of Warsaw, with a military 
 road through Prussian territory to connect Saxony with 
 Warsaw. Prussian provinces on the left of the Elbe 
 were transferred to Jerome Bonaparte as King of West- 
 phalia. Dantzig, formerly Prussian, was placed under 
 the protection of the Kings of Prussia and Saxony, and 
 made again independent, but conditionally on the freedom 
 from all tolls of the navigation of the Vistula. The effect 
 of the Treaty of Tilsit and of the separate Franco-Prussian 
 Treaty of July 19th, 1 was that Prussia lost more than 
 four millions of her population, nearly half of the whole ; 
 this and a crushing war contribution were a heavy price 
 for her militarist adventure. 
 
 The Treaty of Tilsit was intended to lead to a general 
 peace. Napoleon was to mediate between Russia and 
 Turkey, and Alexander was to mediate between France 
 and England, provided England accepted his mediation 
 within a month of the ratification of the treaty. 2 
 
 Never was there a better occasion for such a peace. 
 To General Savary, sent after Tilsit as French ambassador 
 to St. Petersburg, Napoleon wrote in his instructions : 
 " I have just concluded peace ; they tell me I have done 
 wrong and that I shall repent it ; but we have had 
 enough of war."3 
 
 The " Correspondance de Napoleon," his letters to 
 Alexander and others, throw interesting light on the 
 secret schemes of the two Emperors. On July 3rd he 
 sent the Czar the proposed treaty divided into five heads, 
 to the first of which was appended a treaty of alliance 
 
 1 Arm. Reg., 1807, 714-8. 2 ib., 1807, 720-4. 
 
 i Savary, Memoirs, III., 96-7.
 
 i 9 4 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 regarding the manner of Alexander's mediation with 
 England and of his own with Turkey ; to be kept secret 
 whilst it seemed best to them. 1 
 
 The original of this secret treaty of alliance disappeared 
 in 1815, and only became public property when Tatistcheff 
 unearthed it from the Russian archives and published it 
 in the appendix to his work on " Alexandre I. et Napoleon" 
 in 1891. 3 But Bignon's summary of its contents was 
 certainly based on correct knowledge of it. 3 It bound 
 each ally to the fullest military and naval support of the 
 other, and pledged each against a separate peace. If 
 England refused Russia's mediation, or had not by 
 November 1st consented to make peace on the basis of 
 the recognition of the equality and perfect independence 
 of all flags on the sea, and of the restitution of all colonial 
 conquests made since 1805, the Czar was to declare his 
 intention of making common cause with France and 
 withdraw his ambassador from London some time after 
 December 1st. On the other hand, in the event of 
 acceptance, Hanover was to be restored in return for the 
 restored colonies. But, in the event of refusal, Denmark, 
 Sweden and Portugal were to be summoned to close their 
 ports against England, withdraw their ambassadors, and 
 to declare war, subject otherwise to being treated as 
 enemies by the two Emperors. Forcible insistence was 
 to be used to bring Austria to co-operate in the same way. 
 But not a word about the forcible seizure of the Danish 
 fleet. 
 
 Alexander next day, July 4th, thanking Napoleon for 
 the treaty, only put in a humble word on behalf of his 
 unhappy Prussian ally,4 to which Napoleon replied the 
 same day by a long note regarding their alliance. In this 
 he objected strongly to the idea of his brother Jerome 
 being made King of Saxony and Warsaw. He expressed 
 his fear of custom-house quarrels developing into hos- 
 
 * XV., 381. No. 12846. 3 615-9. 3 VI., 322. 
 
 4 Tatistcheff, 163.
 
 FRIEDLAND, TILSIT, COPENHAGEN 195 
 
 tilities if the frontiers of France and Russia were con- 
 terminous. This alleged aspirant to universal empire 
 did not wish his personal influence to extend east of the 
 Elbe, and so proposed to make a buffer State of the 
 territory between the Elbe and the Niemen for the better 
 avoidance of those pin-pricks {coups d'epingle) which were 
 so often the prelude to wars between nations. 1 
 
 But his proposals in this letter about Prussian 
 boundaries not being to the Czar's liking, Napoleon made 
 others, which the Czar accepted ; as he did also the 
 definitive project of the treaty, to which Napoleon had 
 added some fresh articles calculated to constrain England 
 to accept the proferred olive-branch. He hoped that the 
 Czar's influence would have the desired effect, with the 
 alternative of commercial exclusion from the whole 
 Continent. If the overture were rejected, hostilities were 
 to be threatened. He thought that December 1st would 
 be a better date than November 1st for their commence- 
 ment, as a period of five months would give more time for 
 the first heat of England to cool down. 3 
 
 Subsequent history throws much interest on the fact 
 that, but for Alexander's intercession at this period, 
 Prussia would have ceased to have any existence, 
 Napoleon's idea having been to dethrone Frederick 
 William III. and to make his own brother Jerome Bona- 
 parte king in his stead. French history would have 
 been very different, possibly happier, had not Napoleon 
 yielded to the softer side of his nature in order to please 
 Alexander. 
 
 On July 9th, he sent a note suggesting the form that 
 Alexander's offer of mediation should take to the English 
 Foreign Minister, Canning. It was to be pointed out that 
 England's accession to the peace was one of the essential 
 articles of the treaty ; and the Czar was to offer to support 
 the execution of the stipulations with all the forces of 
 Russia ; a guarantee which would enable George III. to 
 
 1 Corresp., XV., 382, No. 12849. 2 ib., XV., 392, No. 12865.
 
 196 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 ratify without mistrust his humane and pacific senti- 
 ments. 1 And accordingly this proposal was made on 
 August ist to Canning by Alopeus, the Russian Minister 
 in London. 3 
 
 CANNING AND COPENHAGEN 
 
 It was unfortunate that this overture came after a 
 letter from Russia of June 30th, strongly reproaching 
 England for her inefficiency as an ally ;3 also after Canning 
 had committed himself to the coercion of Denmark, 
 which destroyed all chance of peace. 
 
 George III. was often made to expatiate on his wonder- 
 ful moderation and forbearance in dealing with weaker 
 Powers. Possibly the hypocrisy was rather his minister's 
 than his own. As an instance of this moderation had 
 been his dealing with the Porte in February of this year, 
 when, at Russia's instigation, and to compel the Turks 
 to peace, a squadron under Sir John Duckworth had 
 forced the Dardanelles and come within striking distance 
 of Constantinople. All that was asked for peace was the 
 surrender of the Turkish warships, twelve of the line and 
 nine frigates, and naval stores or provisions ; failing the 
 acceptance of these friendly and moderate terms 
 Constantinople would be bombarded ! And bombarded 
 it would have been but for the resistance organised by the 
 French ambassador, General Sebastiani, who had started 
 life as a monk ; nor was it without loss and much danger 
 that the expedition found its way back through the 
 Dardanelles to safety. 
 
 The same forbearing moderation was shown to 
 Denmark. Lord St. Vincent said that on July 19th the 
 fleet received its orders for the Copenhagen expedition. 4 
 Canning sent Francis Jackson, a diplomat of thirty-five, as 
 his messenger of peace, with a fleet of twenty-seven ships 
 
 » ib., XV., 400, 1, No. 12884. 2 Pari. Deb., X., 113. 
 
 3 Pari. Deb., X., 112. 
 
 4 Pari. Deb., X., 379. February 8th, 1808.
 
 FRIEDLAND, TILSIT, COPENHAGEN 197 
 
 of the line and 20,000 men to enforce it. Lord Cathcart's 
 proclamation on landing in Zealand requested " in the 
 most amicable manner " the merely temporary deposit of 
 the Danish fleet : " we ask deposit — we have not looked 
 to capture " ; otherwise the Danes were threatened with 
 the horrors of a beseiged and bombarded city, and were 
 to hold themselves responsible for the consequent blood- 
 shed. Many words were spent, where the more familiar 
 formula, " Your navy or your city," would have been 
 enough. 
 
 Jackson, arriving at Copenhagen on August 7th, had an 
 interview with Count Bernstorff, the Danish Minister, 
 whom his proposals threw into " paroxysms of passion " 
 and whose " anger quite got the better of him." 1 The 
 Prince Regent of Denmark said that history did not con- 
 tain a more odious act of aggression than his uncle George's, 
 and that the pirates of Barbary were more honourable 
 than the British Government. But Jackson thought 
 otherwise : if the Danes, " contrary to reason and 
 common-sense, persisted in incurring the evils of war," 
 the responsibility rested with them. On August 16th 
 his belief was that " the Danes must be lashed a little 
 before they would give in." 2 
 
 In consequence of this policy towards Denmark, 
 Canning did not answer the Franco-Russian peace offer 
 of August 1st till August 5th, and then to the effect that 
 the acceptance of the Russian mediation must be con- 
 ditional on the disclosure of those secret articles made at 
 Tilsit, the very fact of whose secrecy obviously made their 
 divulgence by Alexander impossible without a breach of 
 faith on his part with Napoleon. He also asked, with 
 more reason, for a more explicit statement of tl ose 
 equitable terms on which France professed herself as 
 willing to treat. 
 
 The " lashing a little " of the Danes, that Jackson 
 anticipated, took the form of a bombardment for three 
 
 1 Diaries, II., 191. 3 ib., II., 199.
 
 i 9 8 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 nights and days of the town of Copenhagen, in which 
 i, 800 houses and the cathedral were destroyed and 
 many people were killed (September 2-5th). 
 
 Lord Chancellor Eldon, dining at the Admiralty on 
 Saturday, September 19th, with several generals and 
 admirals just returned from Copenhagen, was told how 
 " in one street our mortars destroyed 500 persons, 
 principally poor helpless women and children." It made 
 the good Chancellor's heart ache and his blood run cold 
 to hear the accounts these gentlemen gave. 1 George 
 Jackson, the younger brother of Francis by fifteen years, 
 had the luck to see the beginning of the bombardment on 
 his way back from Memel to England. He told his mother 
 that he could not describe the appalling effect the sight 
 had on him, and, being still young, he concluded senti- 
 mentally, " Alas, poor Danes ! I could not but feel for 
 them. "3 He also described Lord Cathcart as " loth to 
 fulfil his instructions " ; " the idea of burning a capital 
 city . . . and shedding much innocent blood seemed to 
 weigh more heavily on his mind than on others " ; the 
 admirals thinking every moment lost that the bombard- 
 ment was delayed. 3 The glare of the conflagration made 
 broad daylight at sea even at the distance of five miles. 
 Francis Jackson's verdict on one of the worst acts in 
 history was that the Danes had " behaved towards us in 
 a dastardly manner ! "4 Our action seemed to him one 
 of saintly innocence. 
 
 On September 25th, 1807, a Declaration, purporting 
 to be Royal, was issued, justifying to Europe the cruel 
 necessity which had driven poor George III. to an action 
 which all Europe thought piratical. 5 Francis Jackson, of 
 all people, modestly boasted on September 26th that he 
 had had " some share " in the framing of this royal absur- 
 dity. 6 Thus is history handed down to posterity ; most 
 
 1 Twiss' Life of Eldon, II., 59. 2 Diaries, III., 210. 
 
 3 ib., II., 2X1. 4 ib., II., 218. 5 Pari. Deb., X., 115. 
 
 6 Jackson's Diaries, II., 220.
 
 FRIEDLAND, TILSIT, COPENHAGEN i^g 
 
 of it as valueless as the war propaganda of all belligerents. 
 And it is quite clear that till October 2nd our Govern- 
 ment was undecided as to holding Zealand permanently ; 
 the King of Sweden offered 20,000 men to help us to hold 
 it, and Jackson favoured the scheme. 1 
 
 CANNING'S DEFENCE. 
 
 In the subsequent Parliamentary debates on the 
 negotiation, the Franco-Russian proposals do not appear 
 to have become matter of general knowledge. It is 
 curious that whilst Canning and his eulogists have always 
 supported his seizure of the Danish fleet on his alleged 
 knowledge of the secret articles of Tilsit, Lord Leveson 
 Gower, our Minister at St. Petersburg, writing to the 
 Russian Foreign Minister as late as September 24th, said 
 that " the secret articles of the Treaty of Tilsit are still 
 unknown to the Court of London."* The day after Lord 
 Leveson Gower wrote of such knowledge as absolutely 
 lacking, the Royal Declaration of September 25th, 
 justified the King's piratical act against Denmark on the 
 ground of " the most positive information " of Napoleon's 
 intention to seize the Danish marine for the invasion of 
 Great Britain ! So the secret articles were both known 
 and unknown after Copenhagen had been ruined because 
 of them ! 
 
 But might not a peace have been made on the basis of 
 what we now know to have been its proposals ? The 
 restitution of the colonies we had conquered since 1805, 
 besides leaving us Malta, would have involved us in a 
 lesser surrender of our conquests than we actually made 
 at the final peace ; for this, and for our acceptance of the 
 existing European settlement, and for such concessions of 
 our maritime rights as we made fifty years later in 1856 
 at the Peace of Paris, peace was to be had, and was well 
 worth having ; if for no other reason, because it would 
 
 1 ib., II., 221-4. 3 Pari. Deb., X., 212.
 
 200 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 have saved us our five years' quarrel with America, 
 which in 1812 resulted in a war of two years' duration. 
 
 Rumour supplied the place of knowledge with regard 
 to the secret articles ; but even rumour did not reach to an 
 intended seizure by France of the Danish fleet. On 
 July 15th, several days before it is pretended that any 
 information of the articles had reached Canning, Francis 
 Jackson wrote of himself as " positively assured that 
 Bonaparte had sent eventual orders to Denmark to shut 
 the Sound against us ; " x to the alarm of naval circles. On 
 July 16th Francis Jackson thought there was " some 
 exaggeration in the views attributed to the Danes," though 
 he thought we must vindicate at any sacrifice the rights 
 they " seemed inclined to contest."* But of no rumour 
 did he seem aware of a French seizure of their fleet. It 
 was not until July 31st, that Napoleon instructed Talley- 
 rand to send a complaint to Denmark of keeping up her 
 correspondence with England ; she was to be asked her 
 intentions, if England refused a make a reasonable peace ; 
 she was to be told that in that event all European ports 
 were to be closed against England, and war declared upon 
 her by the Continental Powers ; if England refused 
 mediation, Denmark must then choose between war with 
 England and war with France. 3 Denmark was thus placed 
 between the devil and the sea. 
 
 Napoleon prepared for the eventuality of war against 
 Denmark. On August 2nd he instructed Bernadotte, as 
 Governor of the Hanseatic towns, to make military 
 dispositions with that object and to inform him of the 
 opposition Denmark could make. If Denmark did not 
 declare war on England, on a refusal of mediation, his 
 intention was to declare it on Denmark, and it would be 
 Bernadotte's duty to occupy all Continental Denmark. 
 But not a hint about the seizure of the Danish fleet. 4 And 
 
 * Diaries, II., 173. 2 ib., II., 186-7. 
 
 3 Corresp., XV., 459, 6", No. 12962. 
 
 4 ib., XV., 467, No. 12974.
 
 FRIEDLAND, TILSIT, COPENHAGEN 201 
 
 till that date he still thought an English acceptance of 
 the mediation not impossible. 
 
 But he was soon undeceived by our proceedings 
 against Denmark, whom only peace could have saved 
 from one aggressor or the other. On hearing of 
 Denmark's declaration of war against England his first 
 thought was for the safety from English capture of 
 Danish ships in Toulon, Genoa, Leghorn, or Venice. 
 Fouche's unauthentic Memoirs describe the rage into 
 which our Danish expedition threw him, nor is there 
 reason to doubt that this slamming of the door in the face 
 of the desired peace caused him much vexation. On 
 August 26th he wrote to the Czar : he was impatient to 
 know what his ally would do for Denmark's aid and for 
 forcing Sweden into common action for the independence 
 of the Baltic. He wished Alexander to persuade Austria 
 to close her ports against us ; he hoped for the expulsion 
 of all English ministers from the Continent and for the 
 arrest of English individuals. 1 
 
 Although there is no evidence either in the Tilsit 
 treaty itself nor in Napoleon's letters of any contemplated 
 seizure of the Danish fleet, the eventuality of hostilities 
 between France and Denmark might have resulted in the 
 addition of the Danish ships of war to those of France. 
 But that contingency would have been averted by a 
 general peace. The interesting question is, how could 
 Canning on July 19th, when the fleet received its orders 
 for the Danish expedition, have been informed of a French 
 design to seize the Danish fleet ? For, in default of such 
 information, the disclosure at a later date of an intention 
 to force Denmark into a Continental League would be no 
 justification of naval operations as a preferable alternative 
 to treating for peace. 
 
 Much mystery still attaches to the story of infor- 
 mation of a French intention to seize the Danish fleet 
 reaching Canning. Did it come from an informant 
 
 1 ib., XV., 553, Nos. 13078-9.
 
 202 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 whose name the Government was justified in not stating, 
 from regard to his personal safety ? Alison says that the 
 names of the persons who gave the information were laid 
 before Parliament in 1817, when their deaths had 
 removed them from danger. 1 But in that case it is very 
 odd that Stapleton, Canning's secretary and biographer, 
 in his " Life of Canning," published so late as 1859, should 
 not have mentioned these names, but referred to a 
 person (not persons) who, hidden behind a curtain in a 
 tent at Tilsit overheard Napoleon propose and Alexander 
 consent to the seizure by the French of the Danish fleet, 
 and whose information thereof carried immediate convic- 
 tion to Canning's mind (125). It is to the last degree 
 inconceivable that Stapleton should have published so 
 unlikely a story without Canning's authority for it. Dr. 
 Holland Rose is justly sceptical of the hidden spy story, 
 and suggests that the mysterious informant was a Mr. 
 Mackenzie, an English agent of uncertain functions, who, 
 two days before the first interview on the raft, after a 
 courteous reception by the defeated General Benningsen, 
 dined with that hero, and may have learnt from him the 
 design against Denmark.* But Benningsen is not likely 
 to have been in the councils of the two Emperors, and 
 it seems a fatal objection to the Mackenzie theory that he 
 did not reach England till July 23rd — two days after 
 Canning had acted on his information !3 For it was on 
 July 22nd that Canning sent his secret despatch to Brooke 
 Taylor, whom he sent to take Garlike's place as our 
 ambassador at Copenhagen, referring in it to intelligence 
 received the day before (July 21st), direct from Tilsit, 
 of a proposal by Napoleon to Alexander of a maritime 
 League against England, to which Denmark's accession 
 was both certain and essential. It seems certain that it 
 was this intelligence, not any letter of despatch of an 
 
 1 VI., 491. 
 
 3 Napoleon I., II., 140. English Historical Review, XVI., 
 
 713-8. 
 
 3 Temperley's Canning, 93. Malmesbury's Letters, 27.
 
 FRIEDLAND, TILSIT, COPENHAGEN 203 
 
 earlier date, which mainly influenced our Foreign 
 Minister. 
 
 The story comes from Malmesbury 1 that the infor- 
 mation reached Canning from the Prince Regent of 
 Portugal, and Bell in his " Life of Canning," in 1846 
 speaks of the first intimation of Napoleon's wicked design 
 as having been made by the Prince of Wales to the Duke 
 of Portland in Carlton House in the month of May, two 
 months before the treaty of Tilsit was signed ; the Prince 
 deriving his information from the Prince Regent of 
 Portugal ! a 
 
 The mystery therefore remains unsolved. No des- 
 patches can have left Memel before the 27th of June ; for 
 George Jackson, who was there, says that a furious 
 hurricane prevented anything from leaving Memel on 
 the 25th and 26th. 3 Not till July 4th did he hear that a 
 messenger had been sent from Tilsit to London with a 
 view to negotiation. 4 But that was hardly information of 
 a kind to make an attack on Denmark imperative. 
 Probably the information was only of the usual alarmist 
 unverifiable type, as is indicated in a letter to George 
 Jackson from his brother Francis, who had been Canning's 
 instrument in the Copenhagen iniquity : " The question of 
 the accuracy of our information is one which I have 
 nothing to do with. "5 But what chiefly throws suspicion 
 on the whole story is Lord Malmesbury's statement that 
 as early as May, 1807, our Ministers had undoubted infor- 
 mation that Napoleon meant to invade our north-eastern 
 coast with the Danish fleets One may guess that the 
 suspicion or apprehension of such a design produced the 
 story. 
 
 But what is generally ignored by the eulogists of 
 Canning regarding these secret articles is that the scheme 
 about Denmark and Portugal was an alternative to the 
 peace between all the belligerent Powers which Napoleon 
 
 1 IV., 391. a 238. 3 Diaries, II., 157. 
 
 < ib„ II., 161. 5 ib., II., 229. 6 Diary, IV., 391.
 
 204 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 and Alexander primarily desired. The biographers of 
 Canning — Bell in 1846, Stapleton in 1859, Marriott in 
 1903, and Temperley in 1905 — calmly ignore this fact 
 altogether. The charge against Canning is that he never 
 gave any serious thought to this better possibility, but 
 acted in haste on information of uncertain value. Napier 
 speaks of " the utter unfitness of Canning to conduct great 
 affairs " ; l and his failure even to treat of peace, and his 
 putting everything on the hazard of war was a foretaste 
 of a political incapacity for which the country paid daily 
 whilst Canning remained at the head of the Foreign Office. 
 At this juncture, had he consented to treat, and a 
 peace resulted, no question of the Danish ports or fleet 
 need have disturbed his nerves at all. Even Dr. Holland 
 Rose admits that Alexander and Napoleon both desired 
 peace, in this reflecting the general wish of all classes in 
 France to have done with the war, as reported by 
 Lucchesini in 1806. 3 Had peace been accepted, not only 
 would there have been no seizure by us of the Danish 
 fleet, with its consequential war with Denmark and 
 Russia, but there would have been no Peninsular war ; 
 for the French motive for acquiring the ports and fleets 
 of Spain and Portugal would have been removed. That 
 Portugal placed all her hopes on a general peace as her 
 only escape from the French menace is proved by Lord 
 Strangford, our Minister at Lisbon, who, on August 19th 
 wrote : " The Portuguese Ministers place all their hopes 
 of being able to ward off this terrible blow in the certainty 
 which they entertain of England being obliged to enter 
 into negotiations for a general peace. . . The very 
 existence of the Portuguese monarchy depends on the 
 celerity with which England shall meet the pacific 
 intentions of the Emperor of Russia." 
 
 Unhappily war was preferred, and the Peninsula was 
 turned into an earthly hell for many years. Who was 
 responsible for this fatal choice ? Canning, on the face of 
 
 1 ib., III., 268. 3 Napoleon I., II., 138.
 
 FRIEDLAND, TILSIT, COPENHAGEN 205 
 
 the matter, must bear the blame ; but a careful writer 
 like Joyneville, in his " Life of Alexander," declares that 
 both Canning and the Prince of Wales favoured a peace on 
 the lines proposed by France and Russia, but that 
 " nothing could overcome the repugnance of the aged 
 George III. to conclude any peace with Imperial France." 1 
 And this consorts with probability, as regards at least 
 the King. 
 
 Whitbread, on whom had fallen the pacifist mantle of 
 Fox, attacked vigorously on February 29th, 1808, the 
 failure of Canning to negotiate a peace, so clearly desired 
 both by Alexander and Napoleon. There was " a cold, 
 formal, and repulsive note " in Canning's replies to the 
 Russian overtures ; too much " suspicion, petulance, and 
 half-confidence " in his despatches. The desire of the 
 country for peace was proved, he said, by the great 
 number of petitions to Parliament to put an end to the 
 war ; but the " personal hatred " of Napoleon was " as 
 if each man had a personal quarrel with him," and it was 
 this feeling, reflected in Canning's diplomacy, that made 
 peace impossible. In England people only saw Napoleon 
 as a great conqueror ; nor was caution, of course, inad- 
 visable in treating with him ; but Napoleon's chief interest 
 was in the great material works he was conducting for 
 the improvement of France — her canals, harbours, 
 bridges, and so forth. There was truth in Talleyrand's 
 letter to Lord Lauderdale, of October 1st, 1806, that 
 " the power of France had only been increased by the 
 reiterated efforts to oppress her."* It was Pitt and 
 George III. who really made Napoleon an Emperor ; 
 George III.'s refusal to recognise him as such was a 
 pitiful policy; if the French preferred his rule to that 
 of a Bourbon it was their concern, not ours ; and that 
 the French did so prefer it is proved by the fact that 
 despite the oppression of his prisons and conscriptions 
 they adored him. 
 
 1 II.. 14- 3 Pari. Deb., VIII., 202.
 
 2o6 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 But we won what we wanted : a fleet of eighteen 
 Danish ships of the line and fifteen frigates were at last 
 in October carried off to England ; nor was the loot of 
 £960,000 in value unwelcome as prize-money to the 
 victorious troops. And when the expedition started 
 350 Danish ships with cargoes worth two millions were 
 seized in British harbours. One can understand that the 
 Prince Regent of Denmark did not accept his uncle 
 George's tender forbearance quite as eagerly as the 
 English war party, which thought the episode a great 
 feather in Canning's cap. 
 
 Although Admiral Gambier was made Lord Gambier, 
 Lord Cathcart Viscount Cathcart, and three others 
 became baronets for their part in this adventure, and 
 although Parliamentary majorities supported Canning, 
 the verdict of posterity supports the adverse criticism 
 of Whitbread, Windham, Lord Grey, and other statesmen. 
 One thing was never answered. The British fleet received 
 its orders for Copenhagen on July 19th ; if the secret 
 articles of the Treaty of Tilsit justified the expedition, 
 why was such insistence made at St. Petersburg 
 to extort them from the Russian Ministers from 
 September 2nd to October 7th, when the Czar flatly 
 refused to reveal them, on the hypothesis that the 
 British Government knew them all the time ? And how 
 get over Lord Leveson Gower's admission that on 
 September 24th, some time after Copenhagen lay in ruins, 
 the secret articles were still unknown in London ? 
 
 The absurdity of the whole episode is shown by the real 
 worthlessness of the Danish ships to either France or 
 England. Of the eighteen ships of the line that we took, 
 only four were less than ten years old. 1 " Strange indeed," 
 was the comment of Dean Pellew, son of ithe Admiral, 
 "that all this blood-guiltiness should have been incurred 
 by our government for the sake of some old rotten 
 ships."* 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1807, 697. 3 Sidmouth's Life, II., 484.
 
 FRIEDLAND, TILSIT, COPENHAGEN 207 
 
 Napoleon certainly hoped for a time when, if the war 
 continued, a combined continental navy might challenge 
 our maritime supremacy with some chance of success, 
 but such a time lay in a dim distance. At the actual 
 moment was any combination possible that justified a 
 real alarm ? Trafalgar had reduced the French fleet to a 
 very low figure : Napoleon, writing to Admiral Decres, on 
 July 8th, 1807, expressed a wish for his whole fleet to be 
 collected at Toulon : the six then at Cadiz, the six at 
 Brest, the six at Rochefort, the six at Toulon, including 
 frigates. In the same letter he wished to know whether 
 there would be anchorage for ten Russian warships at 
 Brest, L'Orient, or Toulon, and for ten other warships at 
 Cadiz ; he counted on a combined Franco-Russian fleet 
 of forty. 1 Lord Mulgrave put the Russian war fleet at 
 that time at thirteen. » Francis Jackson on September 
 1st, 1807, said that the whole Swedish navy amounted only 
 to seven sail of the line and nine frigates. 3 Both Lord 
 Mulgrave and Lord Wellesley calculated that forty ships 
 might have been added to those of France ; but if to these 
 were added the Danish ships and the nine Portuguese, how 
 could such a combination have endangered a maritime 
 supremacy which rested on 240 ships of the line and nearly 
 1,100 lesser vessels ?4 Even with deduction from this vast 
 superiority of the ships needed for service in the Medi- 
 terranean, the Pacific, or the Atlantic, it is difficult to 
 see wherein the danger lay. It is true that Napoleon, 
 in a letter to Admiral Decres, dated April 12th, 1808,' 
 expressed the hope that in 1809 he would have a French 
 fleet of sixty-four battleships, which, added to twelve 
 Russian, twenty-five Spanish, and ten Dutch, would 
 make a total of in ;5 but such danger as might have 
 arisen from so considerable a force would have been 
 averted altogether by a peace made in August, 1807. 
 
 1 Corresp., XV., 297. No. 12878. 2 Pari. Deb., X., 381. 
 
 3 Diaries, II., 206. 4 Alison, VII., 674, 814. 
 
 5 Corresp., XVI., 493, No. 13738. 
 
 14
 
 208 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Of far more importance to us than the seizure of the 
 Danish fleet was the surrender to Admiral Russell on 
 September 5th of the Danish Island of Heligoland ; of 
 immense value to us at that time, commented the 
 Admiral, as the key to the rivers Ems, Weser, Jade, Elbe, 
 and Eyder, and capable, at slight cost, of being made 
 " a little Gibraltar."^ 
 
 The Copenhagen affair was, of course, highly dis- 
 pleasing to Napoleon and Alexander, though a powerful 
 party in Russia rejoiced in it. The Czar's sudden 
 friendship for Napoleon was far from being shared by 
 Russian society, which showed its strong anti-French 
 leanings by its systematic " cutting " of the unfortunate 
 Savary, sent as French ambassador after Tilsit. But it was 
 the Czar's mind which counted, and he at once declared his 
 infinite concern at the treatment of Denmark, and at no 
 intimation of it having been given to him by the British 
 Ministry.* Alexander told Lord Hutchinson in an inter- 
 view on September 4th " in the most peremptory lan- 
 guage, tone, and manner, that he would have satisfaction, 
 complete satisfaction, for this unprovoked aggression," 
 He closed the conversation " by repeating with much 
 emphasis, that he would have satisfaction for Denmark. "3 
 Lord Hutchinson thought that the fact of Russia's having 
 two fleets at sea and therefore in danger from our ships 
 accounted for no immediate breach taking place ; but 
 the arrival on November 8th of a demand from Napoleon 
 for an immediate execution of the secret articles of Tilsit 
 resulted next day in more vigorous action. Lord Leveson 
 Gower was ordered to leave, and the Russian mission was 
 recalled from London ; there should henceforward " be 
 no relations between the two countries ; " all previous 
 treaties were annulled, especially that of 1801 ; the 
 principles of the Armed Neutrality were reasserted ; and 
 satisfaction to Denmark declared a condition of peace. 
 Yet the British war party professed to believe that the 
 
 * Ann. Reg., 1807,686. * Pad. Deb., X., 211. 3 tb., X., 353.
 
 FRIEDLAND, TILSIT, COPENHAGEN 209 
 
 attack on Denmark had nothing to do with the war 
 which thus began between Russia and England ! 
 
 Napoleon made a last effort for peace. Through 
 Prince Starhemberg, the Austrian ambassador, Austria 
 again offered her mediation on November 20th, and was 
 so far encouraged by Canning's reply of November 23rd 
 as to propose on January 1st, 1808, the immediate sending 
 of British envoys to Paris for the opening of negotiations. 
 Canning, however, hedged round his consent to treat with 
 such reservations and couched his reply in such bittei 
 language on January 8th, that on January 12th, 1808, 
 Starhemberg and his embassy were recalled from London. 1 
 Professions of peace, subject to conditions which easily 
 averted it, served George III. through a long reign to 
 cloak his habitual will to war. Where Fox would have 
 made peace Canning prolonged war ; it was the difference 
 between the Liberal and the Tory mind ; between a 
 conciliatory and a bellicose foreign policy. 
 
 Thus the year which had begun under so bright an 
 omen as the capture on New Year's Day of the island of 
 Curacoa from the Dutch went out ingloriously. It had 
 been remarkable for its failures ; that against Constanti- 
 nople in February ; the failure to seize Egypt in March 
 and April, ending, after heavy loss, with the evacuation of 
 Alexandria on September 23rd ; the disastrous campaign 
 of General Whitelock against Buenos Ayres in the summer. 
 Ever since Sir Hugh Popham's expedition of 1806, so 
 great was the longing in England for the new markets of 
 the vast province of Buenos Ayres that the Whig Govern- 
 ment had been compelled in the autumn of 1806 to organise 
 new plans on a vaster scale for the conquest and annexa- 
 tion of this Spanish colony. It was mainly owing to the 
 wild hopes held out by such a conquest that all chances 
 and offers of peace were rejected. And when General 
 Whitelock was defeated with great loss in an attempt to 
 take the city of Buenos Ayres by assault, and was forced to 
 
 1 Pari. Deb., X , ic6-8.
 
 210 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 surrender the fortress of Monte Video, and to evacuate 
 South America altogether, the disappointment knew no 
 bounds. After a trial of seven weeks the General was 
 found guilty on every charge, and was cashiered. 
 
 To our war with France Canning had thus added a 
 war with Russia and with Denmark, which on October 
 16th made an offensive and defensive alliance with 
 Napoleon, whilst Napoleon added Tuscany and Flushing 
 to the French dominions. The war had assumed more and 
 more of a maritime nature. Our declaration in May, 1806, 
 of several hundred miles of the French coast in a state of 
 blockade was condemned even by Alison as unusual and 
 unwise. In retaliation Napoleon published the Berlin 
 Decree of November 21st, and other decrees to shut out 
 our trade from as many Continental ports as he could 
 control. In August, 1807, it was demanded of Portugal 
 to close her ports against England, to arrest all English 
 residents, and to confiscate all English property. The 
 ultimate, if reluctant, compliance of the Prince Regent 
 with these demands on November 8th, threatened a 
 rupture with England, but the approach of the French 
 forces under Junot put to flight the House of Braganza, 
 which Napoleon had declared dethroned. The British 
 squadron off the Tagus fired a cheering salute of guns as 
 the whole royal family in the Portuguese fleet of some 
 thirty-six sail made their mournful escape to Brazil just 
 before Junot made his unopposed entrance into Lisbon 
 with a reduced and half-starving force of 1,500 men. 
 
 To the French blockade and exclusion of our com- 
 merce from the continent we replied with a number of 
 Orders in Council, which, no less than Napoleon's decrees, 
 paid scant regard to the rights of neutrals. Neither side 
 cared a groat for the law of nations. 
 
 But America was one of the neutrals, and a most 
 regrettable incident occurred in June which was to bear 
 war fruit after five years of bickering. The Captain of 
 the Chesapeake frigate refused to have his vessel searched
 
 FRIEDLAND, TILSIT, COPENHAGEN 211 
 
 for deserters by our Leopard. After an action, in which 
 eighteen men on the Chesapeake were wounded and three 
 killed, her captain submitted, and four deserters were 
 taken away. Whereupon President Jefferson on July 2nd 
 closed all American ports against the British navy, and 
 demanded satisfaction. Our Orders in Council, for- 
 bidding all neutral trade with countries not at amity 
 with us, might be fair as against France, but why should 
 American trade be swept from the Mediterranean in 
 consequence ? In December Congress suspended trade 
 and intercourse with both belligerents, and war was 
 barely averted. 
 
 These evils and the subsequent Peninsular war were the 
 result of our refusal to treat with France and Russia for 
 a general peace after Tilsit, when there was no evidence to 
 show that a peace, honourable for all, might not have been 
 effected. Yet many historians have praised Canning's 
 policy as crowned with success and of great benefit to 
 his country. 
 
 Napoleon was clearly disappointed at the failure of 
 the Tilsit arrangement to produce a peace. On December 
 7th, 1807, he ended a letter to the Czar with the remark, 
 " We shall get the better of England, we shall pacify the 
 world, and the peace of Tilsit will prove, I hope, a new 
 epoch in the annals of the world." 1 But this hope 
 unhappily was doomed to disappointment. 
 
 1 Corresp., XVI., 187.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 1808. War in the Peninsula 
 
 The Treaty of Tilsit was not many months old before 
 difficulties arose between Alexander and his French ally. 
 The peace had made Alexander so unpopular in Russia 
 that in August, 1807, there was a military plot to take his 
 life. Marshal Soult, learning the fact from some Russian 
 prisoners, informed the Czar of his danger, who, in a con- 
 versation with General Savary, said that the one thing 
 that troubled him was General Benningsen, for he was, in a 
 sense, a traitor and capable of heading a party against 
 him. 1 Soult afterwards told Lord Holland that Benningsen 
 was engaged in such a plot, 3 but if Benningsen, who 
 had been so prominent an actor in the murder of 
 Paul, escaped from a similar deed of foul play against the 
 son, the incident reveals the strong feeling against a Czar 
 who had effected a peace for which there was so little to 
 show. Napoleon should have made the alliance a national 
 rather than a personal one by some territorial con- 
 cession that would have gratified Russian ambition. 
 
 There were the Turkish provinces of Moldavia and 
 Wallachia, which Alexander had agreed at Tilsit to 
 evacuate. On October 14th, 1807, came an enquiry from 
 Paris : Why were the Russian troops still there ? On 
 account of difficulties with the Turks about the Armistice 
 was Alexander's reply to Napoleon on November 15th, 
 1807. Napoleon, whilst preferring the literal execution of 
 the treaty, would consent to Alexander's retention of 
 those provinces for compensation to himself at the expense 
 of Prussia. The idea of further sacrifices from his friend, 
 
 1 Tatitscheff, 198. 2 Foreign Reminiscences, 185. 
 
 212
 
 WAR IN THE PENINSULA 213 
 
 the King of Prussia, horrified Alexander, who wrestled for 
 months on the subject, first with Savary, and after Dec- 
 ember 17th, 1807, with Caulaincourt, Savary 's successor at 
 the Russian Court. On January 14th, 1808, the French 
 Foreign Minister, Champagny, wrote to Caulaincourt to 
 say that Napoleon would, for friendship's sake, leave 
 Alexander in the Danubian principalities, but at the price 
 of Silesia as compensation. Alexander fought against 
 this as unfair to Prussia, and as bringing France into too 
 close neighbourhood with Russia. 
 
 Matters were in this promising state for a new quarrel 
 when Parliament met on January 21st, 1808, and both 
 Houses carried without a division a vote of thanks for 
 the Regent's address, approving the Government's 
 rejection of the Russian mediation and of its proposed 
 vigorous prosecution of hostilities. The war had become 
 popular. As the mover of the address, Lord Hamilton 
 said our commerce had flourished, our wealth had increased, 
 our possessions had multiplied ; war, the curse of every 
 other nation, had been to Great Britain a comparative 
 blessing ; and only by its continuance could the 
 advantages derived from it be maintained. 1 The few 
 critical voices did little to disturb the general harmony. 
 
 The effect of this debate was to put new and more 
 grandiose ideas into Napoleon's head, and to start him on 
 a fresh negotiation with Alexander. He wrote to the latter 
 on February 2nd a letter which rejoiced the heart of the 
 Czar : Alexander would have seen how the British 
 Parliament had decided to carry on the war to the 
 bitter end ; peace called for measures on a vast scale ; 
 Alexander should increase his Army, and extend his 
 frontiers at the expense of Sweden, without the 
 least fear of French jealousy. An army of 50,000 
 French and Russians, with perhaps some Austrians, 
 should march by Constantinople into Asia, where, once 
 arrived on the Euphrates, they would cause England to 
 
 * Par!. Deb., X., 38.
 
 214 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 tremble, and their menace to India would make her submit. 
 All might be signed and settled by March 15th, and by 
 May 1st, the French might be in Asia and the Russians at 
 Stockholm. " Your Majesty and I," he went on, " would 
 have preferred the charm of peace and the passing of our 
 lives in the midst of our vast empires, engaged in giving 
 them life and happiness by the arts and benefits of govern- 
 ment ; the enemies of the world will not have it. We 
 must be more great, in spite of ourselves. It is wisdom 
 and policy to obey destiny and to follow the guidance of 
 irresistible events. Then this cloud of pigmies .... 
 will yield and will follow the movement we shall have given 
 them, and the Russian people will rejoice in the glory, 
 the riches, and the fortune which will be the result of these 
 great events . . . The work of Tilsit will regulate the 
 destinies of the world. Perhaps on your Majesty's part 
 and mine some pusillanimity led us to prefer a certain and 
 present good to a better and more perfect state ; but since 
 England will not have it, let us recognise that the time 
 has arrived for great changes and great events." 1 
 
 On the same date he wrote in the same strain to 
 Caulaincourt, who was to tell Alexander and Romanzov 
 that he was not far from an idea of an expedition to 
 India and of a partition of Turkey ; that nothing was 
 easier than an expedition of some 25,000 Russians, 10,000 
 Austrians, and 40,000 French into Asia and thence into 
 India. But the partition of Turkey was a necessary 
 preliminary, and for that he and the Czar must have a 
 personal interview. He was animated by no timid 
 policy, but by the sole desire of giving peace to the world 
 by the preponderance of France and Russia, etc. There 
 need no longer be any question of Alexander's evacuating 
 the Principalities nor of the French evacuating Prussia. 3 
 
 The perusal of this letter threw the Czar into a sort of 
 ecstasy. Leave to retain the Principalities would reconcile 
 him to his subjects, who would have looked on their 
 
 * Corresp., XVI., 498-9. * Tatitscheff, 309-11.
 
 WAR IN THE PENINSULA 215 
 
 evacuation as the loss of a Russian province. His 
 imagination quickly took fire from that of his friend. At 
 Tilsit he had regarded the Indian idea as quixotic ; now 
 he fell in with it, and looked on India as England's most 
 vulnerable point. 1 
 
 Endless discussions ensued during March between 
 Caulaincourt and Romanzov, or with the Czar, about the 
 partition of Turkey. At Tilsit the Imperial friends had 
 stopped short at the driving of the Turks back into Asia, 
 with only Constantinople and Roumelia left to them in 
 Europe ; Russia taking her provinces north of the Danube, 
 and France annexing Albania, the Morea, and Candia. 
 But now ambitions took a wider sweep. France was to 
 have the Greek Isles, Cyprus, Rhodes, Syria, Egypt and 
 Salonika ; whilst Austria, a buffer between Russia and 
 France, was to have Servia and a slice of Macedonia ; 
 Russia, of course, was to have Constantinople. But 
 what was Constantinople without the Dardenelles, which 
 France insisted on as part of her share ? On this rock 
 the negotiations were for the time wrecked, a final 
 agreement being wisely deferred to a personal interview 
 between the two Emperors. 3 If this cutting-up of Turkey 
 with no more compunction than the cutting-up of a cake 
 seems morally censurable, Alexander must share in all the 
 blame bestowed upon Napoleon ; but the world had so 
 long given itself up to the government of men no more 
 restrained by moral principles than the captains of 
 brigands that both Napoleon and Alexander may fairly 
 claim an acquittal for acting on the predatory system 
 which the long acceptance of the rule of force had 
 established in the world. It was an agreed thing that 
 national self-interest took precedence of any other 
 motive ; and this was spoken of as " the new morality." 
 
 Unforeseen events caused the larger partition to mis- 
 carry : though, considering the anarchy then raging in 
 Turkey and the later troubles of the Turkish question, 
 
 1 ib„ 319. a Tatitscheff, 307-78.
 
 216 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 such miscarriage was probably a misfortune for Europe. 
 But Alexander was suffered to keep his Turkish provinces, 
 nor did he lose time in carrying out that part of the 
 programme which related to Sweden. On February 21st, 
 he declared war on Sweden ; early in March Finland was 
 declared part of Russia, and on May 10th, Alexander sent 
 the good news to Napoleon that the fall of Sweaborg on 
 May 3rd had completed the conquest of that province. 
 Early in October the Czar wrote to Napoleon to inform 
 him of the peace of Friedricshavn and its terms : Sweden 
 forced to adhere to the Continental system, to close its 
 ports against all English vessels, and to cede to Russia 
 Finland and the Aland Islands. This, he added, would 
 justify to the Russians their alliance with France ; and if 
 France had the same success with Austria, the two allies 
 could then turn their joint efforts against England, and 
 so bring about that general peace which all desired. 1 
 
 But in the meantime events had happened in the 
 Spanish Peninsula which were fated to have a disturbing 
 and finally a dissolving influence on these ingenious and 
 sanguine plans for the pacification of the world. 
 
 Napoleon's invasion of Spain and Portugal was destined 
 to break the spell of his power. In August, 1806, the 
 Russian ambassador at Madrid had made with the Spanish 
 and Portuguese Courts a secret agreement by which the 
 Court of Spain, when the French armies were far enough 
 away on their march for the Prussian campaign, was to 
 begin a war with France on the Pyrenees, and to invite 
 English aid. When Napoleon learnt this fact from his 
 ambassador at Madrid, he kept his anger in reserve ; as 
 also when on the evening after the battle of Jena he read 
 the proclamation of October, 1806, by the Spanish 
 favourite and Minister Godoy (called from his share 
 in the Peace of Basle of 1795, the " Prince of the Peace ") 
 summoning the Spaniards to prepare for war. For the 
 time the only consequence was the call for a large 
 
 1 Tatitscheff, 504.
 
 WAR IN THE PENINSULA 217 
 
 Spanish force to take its share in the campaign on the 
 Baltic. 
 
 The ultimate consequence was the Peninsular war. 
 Spain and Portugal could no longer be trusted as tributary 
 allies ; from the French point of view an alliance between 
 France and Spain could only be secure which attached 
 each country to the same family. A Bonaparte on the 
 Spanish throne seemed as desirable to Napoleon as a 
 Bourbon had seemed to Louis XIV. The steps by which 
 this was effected evoked a storm of moral indignation ; 
 and Canning, who had robbed the Danes of their fleet 
 and bombarded Copenhagen, waxed eloquent on the 
 " perfidy " and " villainy " of Napoleon. On October 
 27th, 1807, Napoleon made a treaty with Charles IV. of 
 Spain for the partitioning of Portugal ; and Junot was 
 sent with an army to seize the fortresses of Lisbon and 
 the fleet of ten sail of the line before the English could 
 anticipate him. 
 
 Napoleon's instructions to Junot on November 12th, 
 1807, for his conduct in Portugal were in somewhat 
 remarkable contrast with his general orders to make the 
 invaded country pay for the keep of the invader. Junot 
 was to give rise to no complaints ; to give an example of 
 the purest disinterestedness ; he was to behave well, as 
 Napoleon would himself ; and to practise the greatest 
 incorruptibility {purete) ; for a fortune nobly earned was 
 better than one acquired by illicit and shameful methods ; 
 if there was little military glory to be won in Portugal, let 
 him acquire that of an honest and blameless administrator. 1 
 How far Junot followed this advice is another matter. 
 
 There was something like a race between France and 
 England for the seizure of the Portuguese fleet. On 
 October 22nd, 1807, we made a convention of mutual 
 alliance with Portugal ; but Sir Sidney Smith was sent 
 to blockade the mouth of the Tagus, and he was instructed 
 by Canning on November 6th to make his blockade more 
 1 Corresp., XVI., 157, No. 13351.
 
 218 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 rigorous, unless the Regent of Portugal ratified the 
 Convention and refused to close the ports. The blockade 
 was only to cease on surrender of the Portuguese fleet, 
 which would be restored after the war ; and every 
 Portuguese ship was to be seized or destroyed. 1 We 
 intended, as Charles Bagot wrote to Lord Fitzharris, on 
 August 26th, 1807, " immediately to play the same game 
 at Lisbon that we are now playing at Copenhagen,"* Be- 
 tween Napoleon's orders to Portugal to close her ports 
 against us, to confiscate all British property, and to seize 
 all British subjects before September 1st, and our own 
 threats if she did close her ports, our unhappy ally was 
 placed in a most uncomfortable dilemma. 
 
 The intrigues and infamies of the Spanish Court played 
 into Napoleon's hands. The French had already taken 
 Barcelona and the Spanish garrisons when, on March 19th, 
 1808, -the news of the intended emigration of the Spanish 
 royal family caused a riot at Aranjuez, which frightened 
 Charles IV. into abdicating in favour of his son, Ferdinand, 
 the Prince of the Asturias. Murat, or the Duke of Berg, 
 was then on his way to Madrid, which he occupied on 
 March 23rd, two days before the Prince entered the city 
 as Ferdinand VII. Such had been the misgovernment 
 in Spain that Napoleon expected the people to accept 
 Murat gladly as their deliverer. The imprisonment of 
 the Prince of the Peace, after barely escaping with his 
 life, on March 19th, gave such general delight that some 
 600 monks danced wildly in the streets of Salamanca, and 
 the church bells rang for joy. 
 
 Napoleon was puzzled how to act. He wrote on March 
 29th to Murat : " The events of the 19th March have 
 singularly complicated our affairs. I am in the greatest 
 perplexity. . . I have no wish to use violence towards 
 that family (the royal) ; it is never expedient to render 
 oneself odious, and inflame hatred. . . Consistently 
 with the interests of my empire I can do infinite good to 
 1 Temperley's Canning, 80. 2 Malmesbury's Letter?, 39,
 
 WAR IN THE PENINSULA 219 
 
 Spain. What are the means of attaining that object ? 
 Should I advance to Madrid and assume the rights of a 
 protector by declaring for the father against the son ? 
 . . . Do not commit me to meet with Ferdinand in Spain 
 unless you deem it expedient for me to recognise him 
 as King of Spain. Above all, take care that the Spaniards 
 do not suspect what part I am about to adopt ; you can 
 have no difficulty in doing so, for I have not fixed on one 
 myself. . . If war breaks out, all is lost." 
 
 Napoleon anticipated little trouble. Writing from 
 Bayonne on April 13th, 1808, to Caulaincourt, his 
 ambassador in Russia, he said : " I hope not to be kept 
 here long " ; and, alluding to the increasing troubles : 
 " I hope soon to be free of all that." 1 Events rather 
 governed him than were governed by him. The quarrel 
 between Charles IV. and his son Ferdinand was not of his 
 making, though the abdication he enforced from both in 
 his own favour at Bayonne on May 4th, was made all the 
 easier by the unfortunate discord between father and 
 son. It was the tumult in Madrid on May 2nd, suppressed 
 by Murat with great severity, which set the heather alight. 
 Napoleon himself had not failed in using " every method 
 he could devise for conciliating the favour of the 
 Spaniards." 2 But the executions in Madrid set the greater 
 part of Spain aflame for the expulsion of the foreigner. 
 
 It little availed, therefore, that on May 6th, Murat 
 issued a proclamation promising that the Spanish 
 monarchy should be preserved ; that the country should 
 not be dismembered by so much as a village, nor be sub- 
 jected to contributions. The spirit of patriotism had been 
 roused, nor was it abated by the not illiberal Consti- 
 tution issued with the approval of the Assembly of Spanish 
 Notables at Bayonne on July 7th, when Joseph Bonaparte 
 was raised from being King of Naples to be King of Spain. 
 Many weeks earlier both Charles IV. and Ferdinand VII 
 
 1 Vandal, Napoleon et Alexandre I. III., 557. 
 3 Ann. Reg., 1808, 161.
 
 220 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 both of whom had been made to abdicate on May 5th, 
 were removed far into France ; but would either of 
 them have ever granted a Constitution on lines so liberal 
 as those of the new plan ? In the Cortes the twenty-five 
 nobles and twenty-five ecclesiastics would have been 
 outnumbered by the 100 deputies of the popular choice ; 
 forty of whom were to be eligible by the provinces and 
 fifteen by the chief cities. In addition, twenty Colonial 
 deputies were to represent the several colonies in the 
 Cortes. One single civil code was to take the place of all 
 separate jurisdictions, nor could anyone be arrested 
 without lawful warrant. 1 Was it likely that any Bourbon 
 king would have provided better for Spanish liberty ? 
 
 How little Napoleon foresaw the future is shown by 
 another letter to Caulaincourt, dated June 15th. He 
 thought Spain was settled by the recognition and pro- 
 clamation of Joseph ; "I do not keep a village for 
 myself J the Cortes are maintained with all their rights." 3 
 
 The enthusiasm in England for the Spanish insurgents 
 fully responded to the martial enthusiasm of Spain, 
 stained though the insurrection was by the most bar- 
 barous murders. For not only were the French massacred, 
 as the 300 French merchants who had taken refuge in the 
 citadel of Valencia on June 5th, at the instigation of 
 Calvo, a canon of Madrid, but the Spanish commander, 
 Fernando Saavedra, and the Spanish governor of Badajoz, 
 and Solano, governor of Cadiz, and Count d'Aguila, a chief 
 magistrate in Seville, were among the victims of the 
 savagery of the mob. It was like the early years of the 
 French Revolution over again. 
 
 It sufficed for popular sympathy that the Spaniards 
 had risen against the French, and although no definite 
 treaty with Spain was signed till January 14th, 1809, 
 promising our utmost assistance to Ferdinand VII., one 
 of the most worthless of the House of Bourbon,3 Spain 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1808. 326-31. 2 Vandal, III., 561. 
 
 3 Pari. Deb., XIII., 809.
 
 WAR IN THE PENINSULA 221 
 
 became virtually our ally whilst still technically our 
 enemy. Many years of military training had produced in 
 England a military ardour which was deaf to all counsels 
 of reflection. The Duke of Norfolk was almost alone in 
 asking for more definite knowledge of the aims of Spain 
 before committing ourselves too deeply to her cause. 
 Even Sheridan, so long a counsellor of peace,was now strong 
 for war. Since the revolution began, he said, there had 
 never been such an opportunity for striking a blow " for 
 the rescue of the world " ; till then British Ministers had 
 pursued a petty policy, gone about filching sugar islands 
 and neglecting all that was dignified ; henceforth we 
 should stand up for " the salvation of the world. "» Only 
 Windham had the courage to throw what Lord Castlereagh 
 called " worse than cold water upon the hopes of the 
 retrieval of Europe." 2 
 
 Accordingly the readiest promises of assistance were 
 made on June 12th, to the deputies that came from 
 Asturias ; peace with Spain was proclaimed on July 4th ; 
 and we were in the whirlpool of a new war, which was to be 
 fought no longer on our own element but on land, and of 
 which only a very distant end was visible. 
 
 In accordance with this spirit of martial ardour, from 
 June to the end of the year we lavished on the Peninsula 
 £3,100,000 ; more than 23,000,000 cartridges, 16,000 hats 
 and bonnets, with other equipments in proportion, and 
 immense sums were raised by private subscription. 
 
 Murat left Madrid on his way to Naples, where he was 
 to take the place of Joseph Bonaparte, now elevated to 
 the throne of Spain ; and Napoleon sent Savary to Madrid 
 to act as Viceroy instead of Murat, with a caution to be 
 wise and moderate, and to observe the strictest discipline. 
 " For God's sake permit no pillage," he wrote : a counsel 
 easier to give than to observe. 
 
 From the tangled mass of military operations that 
 ensued the bravery and frequent success of the Spanish 
 
 * Pari. Deb., XI., 888. * ib., XL, 897, June 15th, 1808.
 
 222 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 peasant forces was a conspicuous and surprising feature. 
 The first siege of Saragossa lasted from mid- June to mid- 
 August, and ended with the retirement of the French 
 forces. But the defeat of the Spaniards by Bessieres at 
 Rio Seco on July 15th, was so decisive as to lead Napoleon 
 to think the rising so far suppressed as to make it safe for 
 Joseph to go to Madrid whilst he himself left Bayonne for 
 Paris. Joseph entered Madrid on July 21st, his Ministry 
 consisting mainly of the former Ministers of the exiled 
 Ferdinand. But his stay was only short ; for after the 
 defeat of General Dupont at Baylen on July 19th, flight 
 seemed the wiser course, and on July 30th, King Joseph 
 and the French evacuated Madrid and retired to the north 
 of Spain. The victory at Baylen surprised the world ; 
 it divested the French of their reputation of invincibility. 
 On August 5th and 23rd Napoleon expressed his extreme 
 annoyance at a defeat which, he said, was an extra- 
 ordinary act of folly and stupidity on the part of Dupont, 
 and one which compromised all his plans. 1 "Dupont," 
 he wrote, " has utterly disgraced himself, and dishonoured 
 my arms. "2 But the capitulation of 20,000 French as 
 prisoners of war on condition of being sent by sea to France 
 was only less amazing than the atrocious Spanish violation 
 of the condition. Instead of being sent to France some 
 18,000 men were consigned by the Junta of Seville to a 
 slavery worse than death on the Spanish hulks at Cadiz — 
 one of the blackest incidents of the war. Poor Dupont, 
 though allowed to return to France, was there court- 
 martialled and condemned to be shot, 3 though his sentence 
 was commuted at the instance of Napoleon. 
 
 It is possible that this defeat at Baylen encouraged 
 Austria in her thoughts of a fresh war with France ; for 
 at this time Napoleon's letters show increasing anxiety 
 in that direction. He writes of having had to place all 
 the troops of the Rhine Confederation on a war footing so 
 
 1 Vandal, III., 565, 567. 3 Ann. Reg., 1808, 213. 
 
 1 New Letters of Napoleon, by Lady Mary Lloyd, 101.
 
 WAR IN THE PENINSULA 223 
 
 that he might be able to march against Austria with 
 200,000 men ; but if the Czar would only speak a strong 
 word to Vienna and promise 100,000 men, in the event 
 of Austria's attacking him, he would release those troops. 
 He was beginning to be mistrustful of the Russian support 
 that had been agreed upon. 1 
 
 Meantime the infection of war spread rapidly from 
 Spain to Portugal ; the rising that began on June 18th soon 
 drove the French from northern Portugal. Sir Arthur 
 Wellesley (Wellington) landed at Corunna on July 20th 
 with 100,000 men in aid of Portugal ; hearing there of the 
 Spanish defeat at Rio Seco, he offered military aid to the 
 Junta of Galicia, only to have the offer thrown back in his 
 face with the answer that money and arms, not men, 
 were all that was wanted from the British Government. 
 In Portugal, on August 21st, he won so decisive a victory 
 over Junot's army at Vimiera that Junot offered to 
 capitulate, and on August 30th was signed the famous 
 Convention of Cintra, which caused such indignation in 
 England that many papers would not print the terms, or 
 put themselves into mourning to do so. It was galling 
 to think that the French troops were not only not made 
 prisoners of war but were to be embarked for France in 
 English ships and at English cost, with their artillery 
 and horses, military chest and private property, and be 
 free to serve again after landing in France. On the other 
 hand the French were to evacuate the fortresses and the 
 whole of Portugal 3 ; and as the liberation of Portugal 
 was the great thing, public opinion ended by coinciding 
 with Wellington's, that consent to the Convention was 
 the best course in the circumstances. But the military 
 Board of Inquiry came to a lame conclusion, which, whilst 
 deprecating any further proceedings, eulogised Sir Hew 
 Dalrymple, Sir Harry Burrard, and Sir Arthur Wellesley 
 for the lustre that their zeal and firmness had reflected on 
 
 1 Vandal, III., 567, August 23rd. 
 3 Ann. Reg., 1808. II., 267-70. 
 
 »5
 
 224 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 His Majesty's arms. 1 The Portuguese ambassador actu- 
 ally demanded compensation from us for the Convention, 
 to Canning's not unnatural indignation. But in those 
 days the fleecing of Great Britain seems to have been 
 widely regarded as the chief reason for her existence. 
 
 The war manifested itself with more than usual fright- 
 fulness. Atrocities always come as surprises in every 
 fresh war, and each enemy accuses the other of degener- 
 ating from some supposed past noble standard of " good " 
 warfare. When the pursuing French took Rio Seco, 
 they sacked and plundered it " with merciless severity, 
 and all the nuns in convents, etc." 2 At the sack of 
 Cordova by the French " every public establishment was 
 sacked, every private house plundered. Armed and un- 
 armed men were slaughtered indiscriminately ; the 
 churches plundered ; even the venerable cathedral 
 . . . stripped of its riches and ornaments, and defiled 
 by the vilest debauchery." The general Dupont and 
 the superior officers set an example in rapacity, Dupont 
 realising £100,000 from the plunder. 3 The churches were 
 turned into stables.4 When Joseph Bonaparte retired 
 from Madrid to Burgos, all the villages on the way were 
 pillaged, and many burnt. When 10,000 Portuguese 
 peasants and 4,000 Spanish soldiers were overcome in 
 the town of Evora, there was an indiscriminate massacre, 
 in which " neither age nor sex was spared." History 
 lends no countenance to the idea, so often revived, that 
 modern war is far more civilised than war in pagan times. 
 War itself is the great atrocity, of which particular 
 atrocities are but the inseparable accidents. 
 
 So long as the Grand Army, 200,000 strong, were in the 
 north and west of Germany, Napoleon had little reason 
 to fear the latent hostility of Austria ; but the diversion 
 of large French forces to Spain altered the situation. 
 Austria forthwith raised a large army by conscription, 
 and otherwise made warlike preparations, for which 
 * ib., II., 272-7. 2 Alison, VI., 719. 3 ib., VI., 723. 4 Ann. Reg., 1808, 199.
 
 WAR IN THE PENINSULA 225 
 
 Napoleon demanded explanations. The explanations, 
 as usual, pleaded the needs of self-defence ; and pacific 
 assurances were interchanged, of which each understood 
 the worthlessness. 
 
 But Napoleon had neither motive nor wish to have 
 another Austrian war on his hands ; and to avert this, 
 if possible, was one of the reasons for his famous con- 
 ference with the Czar at Erfurt in Prussia, which lasted 
 for a fortnight from September 27th. But the original 
 motive was a settlement of Turkish affairs ; Napoleon 
 thinking wisely that two men in fifteen days might settle 
 what otherwise might take three years for thirty couriers 
 and thirty conferences to settle. 1 He wanted a confer- 
 ence unhampered by such preliminary conditions as 
 Romanzov asked for ; the Eastern question was already 
 on the world, and he ended his letter of May 31st from 
 Bayonne with the significant words : " The foundation 
 of the great question is always Constantinople : Who 
 shall have Constantinople ? " ' 
 
 It is conceivable that, had Austria been invited to the 
 Erfurt meeting, her recognition of Joseph as King of 
 Spain might have kept the peace of Europe : for 
 Metternich on August 25th in an interview with Napoleon 
 had promised such recognition. For there seems no 
 reason to doubt that a sincere wish to settle such a general 
 peace was the main motive for the meeting. The two 
 Emperors signed a secret treaty on August 12th, by which, 
 in consideration for compliance with his policy in the 
 Peninsula, Napoleon allowed Alexander a free hand as 
 regarded Finland and the Turkish Principalities. And 
 with a further view to conciliate Prussia, Napoleon so 
 far acceded to Alexander's solicitations for Prussia as to 
 reduce greatly her war contribution and to withdraw all 
 French forces from Prussia, except from the fortresses 
 of Stettin, Custrin and Glogau. Early in December the 
 Prussian King and Queen returned from Russia to their 
 1 Vandal, III., 557 . 2 ib. III., 5 6i.
 
 226 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 delighted subjects in Berlin, there to dream of future 
 revenge. 
 
 In accordance with their desire to effect a general 
 peace, Alexander and Napoleon signed a joint letter on 
 October 12th to George III., pleading for his consent to a 
 peace. 1 Champagny wrote on the same day to Canning : 
 " The uti possidetis, as formerly desired by England; or 
 any other basis founded on justice was offered, and 
 England should choose the meeting-place of the 
 plenipotentiaries." 
 
 That an equally strong wish for peace prevailed in 
 England, though insufficiently represented in the Tory- 
 Jingo Parliament of the time, is shown by the [Letter 
 of Miles to the Prince of Wales on April 12th, 1808. 
 He spoke of our existence as a nation as in jeopardy, 
 with no other avenue to salvation save by peace. * 
 He was sure that a direct overture to France to that effect 
 would be well received, and was in any case an experiment 
 worth trying. 3 His advice to the Prince, whom he 
 begged to cease to be a cypher in the country, was as 
 follows : " Leave to France the task of arranging the 
 Continent of Europe, of which she is become the absolute 
 mistress ; her claim, the right of conquest. It is pre- 
 cisely the same as that we have to Oude, or to any other of 
 the Asiatic provinces we have seized or made tribu- 
 tary." 4 But peace is seldom popular in the quarter 
 to which Miles made his vain appeal. 
 
 Here the question arises, whether, with this wide- 
 spread desire for peace, the war should not have been 
 ended in this autumn of 1808. Undoubtedly it should ; 
 for there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of the 
 two Emperors in wishing to bring England into a 
 general pacification. Where then was the hitch ? In 
 Canning, the Foreign Minister, who, as a disciple of Pitt, 
 could not rise above an overstrained mistrust and was 
 eager to try again the system of coalitions and subsidies 
 
 * Ann. Reg., 1808, 351. 2 88. 3 108. 4 109.
 
 WAR IN THE PENINSULA 227 
 
 which had failed so often before. English emissaries 
 had been working for some time on the war party in 
 Austria to re-enter the war ; for clearly, if peace was not 
 to be the alternative to continuing the war for the liber- 
 ation of Spain, the best military policy for England was 
 to divert Napoleon's energies from ourselves to Austria ; 
 and, though the Archduke Charles opposed the venture, 
 the Emperor and the nobility and large masses of the 
 Austrian people inclined strongly towards it. 
 
 It was not difficult to reject the overture. Canning 
 replied on October 28th in a letter of studied offensiveness. 
 He professed a difficulty in answering the two Emperors 
 without admitting a title in one of them " which His 
 Majesty never had acknowledged;" nor could he act 
 without the consent of our Swedish ally, or without 
 the inclusion in the negotiation of the Junta that acted 
 for Ferdinand VII. 
 
 Insult was naturally answered by insult. Alexander 
 gave great offence by refusing to admit to a Peace 
 Congress the plenipotentiaries of " the Spanish in- 
 surgents." But though he had himself recognised Joseph 
 as King, he saw no reason why a difference of opinion 
 about the Spaniards need prevent or delay the opening 
 of a Congress, and he renewed the original offer of 
 negotiation on November 28th. 
 
 But Canning, persistent in the opinion that the offer 
 was merely a French trick to delay our sending help to 
 Spain, stuck to the condition about Spain which destroyed 
 all chance of peace. And on December 15th he published 
 for George III. a defence of his conduct, expressing great 
 indignation at the Spaniards being called" insurgents," 
 and asking how a negotiation could have been begun 
 which involved the abandonment of a brave and loyal 
 people. The declaration, of course, regretted the limi- 
 tations which the King's love of honour placed on his 
 love of peace. 1 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1808, 353.
 
 228 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Neither Canning's declaration nor his speech in defence 
 of it on January 31st, 1809, escaped severe criticism. 
 That negotiation did not involve the abandonment of 
 Spain was proved by Alexander's second offer that the 
 Spanish question need not preclude the continuance of 
 negotiations. It would naturally have been one of the 
 subjects for a Peace Congress. And Lord Grenville 
 fairly asked how Napoleon could reasonably be called on 
 to recognise Ferdinand VII., as a preliminary to nego- 
 tiation, when Ferdinand's position was the main object 
 of dispute. Lord Liverpool (Lord Hawkesbury) admitted 
 the fairness of the original offer ; yet Canning's whole 
 action was based on the assumption that the overtures 
 were on the face of them delusive. He had indeed not 
 gone beyond public opinion, which was for the prompt 
 rejection of the overture, but the taunts and sarcasms of 
 his replies to the two Emperors were responsible for those 
 offensive phrases in their rejoinders which proved fatal 
 to peace. Whitbread was probably right, that a more 
 conciliatory reply to the first overture might have had a 
 different result, and that the Ministerial professions of a 
 wish for peace were and had been always insincere. 1 
 And had peace resulted, we should not have had to lament, 
 as Lord Auckland said, " the useless sacrifice of the 
 finest army that Great Britain had ever sent into the 
 field," in allusion to Sir John Moore's retreat to Corunna.* 
 
 But the real reason why the Canning Ministry would 
 not treat for peace was sufficiently betrayed in the Royal 
 Declaration of December 15th. They had every hope of 
 their inducements to Austria to resume hostilities 
 proving successful : " The delusive prospect of a peace 
 between England and France " might relax the prepar- 
 ations of any nation which might be balancing " between 
 the certain ruin of a prolonged inactivity and the con- 
 tingent danger of an effort to save themselves from that 
 ruin." It was thought better to gamble once more 
 
 1 Pari. Deb., XII., 167-9, 210-40. * ib., XII., I, 4.
 
 WAR IN THE PENINSULA 229 
 
 with the lives of Englishmen on a chance that had always 
 failed than even to attempt to settle a peace. The 
 events of the next year were to show the criminal futility 
 of the decision that was taken. 
 
 Meantime, Napoleon, having secured peace with 
 Russia and so indirectly with Austria, hastened himself 
 to Spain, where by early November he found himself at 
 the head of forces, drawn from all quarters, of over 
 300,000 men. By the decisive defeats of the Spanish 
 forces during November at Espinosa, Burgos and 
 Tudela, the way was cleared for Napoleon's advance to 
 the capital. With its capitulation on December 4th 
 Joseph was re-instated in his new kingdom ; and so little 
 difference does it make to the greater number of mankind 
 under what rule they live, and so little do they often care, 
 that within a short time the re-opened shops and theatres 
 indicated the return of life to its normal note of gay 
 indifference. Great reforms were introduced. Above 
 all, the Inquisition was abolished : its funds and those of 
 one half of the estates of the suppressed convents, one- 
 third in number, went to the reduction of the national 
 debt ; feudal rights were abolished, and all commercial 
 restrictions between the different provinces. x The 
 Treaty of Tilsit abolished slavery in the new Duchy of 
 Warsaw ; introduced the civil code of France, and 
 gave publicity to judicial procedures ; and so in the new 
 kingdom of Westphalia the new constitution did away 
 with serfage, feudal privileges and abuses. 3 It was this 
 tendency to liberal reforms that not only explains the 
 facility and extent of the French victories but also the 
 bitter opposition to Napoleon by so many of the 
 monarchical and aristocratic governments of Europe. 
 In their battle with him their real battle was against 
 reform. 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1809, 731-3- 2 Bignon, VI., 37°-2.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 1809. Austria's Fourth Defeat 
 
 The first six months of the Peninsular War had brought 
 great disillusion. The same Press, which before Auster- 
 litz had treated the downfall of Napoleon as a certainty, 1 
 had led people to believe that Spain could put 
 400,000 men into the field with a reserve of a million 
 more ; and experience had shown that she could do 
 nothing of the sort. Her enthusiasm too for the war 
 proved equally fictitious. Letters from our generals in the 
 autumn of 1808 found that the patriotic spirit of June 
 had wholly subsided. Sir John Moore wrote on Nov- 
 ember 27th, 1808, to Frere, our ambassador at Madrid, 
 that he found no enthusiasm in the people ; that they 
 would suffer so few as a dozen French cavalrymen to 
 exact contributions from the villages without the least 
 opposition. And from Salamanca he wrote on Dec- 
 ember 10th : " I have little hope of the success of the 
 Spanish cause ; for I see no marks anywhere of enthusiasm 
 or a determined spirit, either amongst the people or the 
 government." 3 
 
 Frere' s unfortunate persistence in the contrary 
 opinion tempted Sir John Moore to that advance from 
 Salamanca towards Madrid with only 26,000 men, which, 
 Madrid being then in French occupation, necessitated 
 his distressful retreat to Corunna. The 250 miles were 
 with great suffering accomplished "on January 13th, 
 1809, and then came the battle of Corunna, wherein, 
 though the French were defeated, the heroic commander 
 of the British Army lost his life. On April 21st, 1809, 
 * Pari. Deb., XIV., 146. * n,, t XIV., it. 
 
 230
 
 AUSTRIA'S FOURTH DEFEAT 231 
 
 as many as thirty-nine peers against ninety-two voted 
 with Lord Grey that 7,000 men had been " sacrificed 
 without advantage in enterprise, without plan, com- 
 bination, or foresight, and equally ill-timed and mis- 
 directed" 1 and posterity supports the minority. But 
 the martial mind can draw glory even from adversity, 
 as when Canning said after Corunna : " If we had been 
 obliged to quit Spain, we had left that country with fresh 
 laurels blooming on our brows." During the war both 
 sides must have worn on their brows whole groves of 
 " blooming laurels." 
 
 The public interest in the war had by this time been 
 much overshadowed by the scandal connected with the 
 Duke of York and his mistress, Mrs. Clarke, in connection 
 with the sale of commissions. So much was this the case 
 that on March 13th, 1809, Francis Jackson wrote to his 
 brother that, if half a dozen Spains had been lost and 
 half-a-dozen armies with them, no thought would have 
 been given to it, and Spain's past, present, and future 
 were quite forgotten. 3 
 
 As the name of Sir John Moore is celebrated for its 
 connection with one of the most famous episodes in our 
 military history, so it is with one of the most ludicrous. 
 When the Portland Tory Government came into power 
 in April, 1807, one of the first things they did was to in- 
 crease the subsidy to Sweden as well as to Prussia ; and a 
 subsidiary treaty on February 18th, 1808, entitled the 
 King of Sweden to £100,000 a month. 3 Gustavus 
 Adolphus IV. was half crazy in his fanaticism for war. 
 In May, 1808, Sir John Moore was sent to Sweden with 
 11,000 men, with the object, as Lord Liverpool said on 
 June 18th, 1813, " to co-operate with Sweden in the 
 conquest of Norway as a compensation for the loss of 
 Finland, "4 but his troops were not allowed to land at 
 Gothenburg. Proceeding to Stockholm he found the 
 
 1 ib., XIV., 150. 2 Diaries, II., 419, 421. 
 
 3 Pari. Deb., X., 1054. 4 Pari. Deb., XXVI., 722.
 
 232 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 king bent on the most impossible schemes of conquest, 
 and, being ordered not to leave the capital, it was only 
 in disguise that he was able to effect his escape from an 
 ally we had so heavily subsidised. In 1809, Gustavus, 
 for cashiering a bodyguard of 4,000 young Swedes, who 
 had refused to attack 12,000 Russians, was arrested 
 by some of his nobles on March 13th, and his uncle, 
 Charles XIII., was in May made King in his place. The 
 uncle's address to Sweden on March 15th, 1809, shows that 
 the main reason for the dethronement of Gustavus was his 
 ineradicable love for war. 1 At, and after, Tilsit, he obstin- 
 ately refused all proposals of peace, and by continuing 
 at war with France became at war with Russia and 
 Denmark, to the great detriment of Sweden and her 
 final loss of Finland to Russia. If, instead of encourag- 
 ing this mad-cap King, Canning had insisted on his 
 making peace, Charles XIII., the uncle, might not have 
 found himself on September 17th, 1809, obliged to sign 
 a treaty with Russia that annexed Finland and Aland 
 and other Russian conquests finally to Russia, and 
 compelled him to close his ports against us. a A good 
 result perhaps for Finland ; for the Russian autocrat 
 gave her liberal institutions, and soon made himself 
 as popular as any of the old Swedish Kings had ever 
 been before him. 
 
 Whilst Sweden thus passed from a useless ally to an 
 open enemy to England, Turkey was cajoled back to 
 friendly relations ; and the treaty with her of January 
 5th, 1809, to some extent defeated Napoleon's exclusion 
 of our commerce from Continental ports by opening 
 a passage for it through the Dardanelles up the Danube 
 into Central Europe. 
 
 We had reached a turning point in the war. To 
 stop or continue it, especially in the Peninsula ; that 
 was the question. Alison thought that but for " the 
 constancy of the aristocratic party " the Peninsular 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1809, 746-8. a Ann. Reg., 1809, 784-9.
 
 AUSTRIA'S FOURTH DEFEAT 233 
 
 war would have been extinguished by the withdrawal 
 of our troops. 1 A large public opinion, ably led by 
 Lord Grey and Grenville in the Lords, and by Whitbread 
 and Ponsonby in the Commons, dissented from the 
 aristocratic party, whose militarist fervour always rose 
 with its rising rent-roll. But, though the war ended 
 with ultimate success, no statesman who could have 
 only foreseen such success at the close of six more years 
 of war, with all the cost of life and treasure involved 
 in it, could have wished not to have done with it then 
 and there. We had rescued Portugal, our constant 
 ally, from the French ; but what did we owe to Spain, 
 so frequently and recently our enemy, that, deceived 
 by false representations of her military strength and 
 ardour, we should have entered into a quixotic crusade 
 for her defence against France ? History had moved 
 in a strange circle ; a hundred years before we had been 
 fighting the war of the Grand Alliance to prevent a 
 Bourbon from sitting on the throne of Spain, and now 
 everything was to be risked for the sake of placing one 
 there. History often suggests the reflection that the 
 moon exercises the same sort of influence over nations 
 that is claimed for it over individuals. Public opinion 
 seems to have its tides like the sea. 
 
 Why not have left Spain alone ? Even the rule of Joseph 
 would have benefited Spain far better than the rule of 
 Ferdinand VII. could ever do. And the better part 
 of the Spanish nation showed a preference for Joseph. 
 The heads of 28,000 families at Madrid signed their 
 names as favourable to his government, and a similar 
 spirit was manifested by many responsible political 
 bodies in the country. 2 
 
 In these circumstances even Canning, at that time 
 in his Tory-Jingo stage of life, might have hesitated to 
 commit this country to a war in the middle of Spain, 
 with forces inevitably far inferior numerically to the 
 
 1 VII., 662. a Ann. Reg., 1809, 419. Alison, VII., 691.
 
 234 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 French, but for the fatal reliance that his party placed 
 on that singularly unsuccessful Emperor, Francis II. 
 Napoleon said of Francis that he was always of the 
 opinion of the last man he had spoken with ; and there- 
 fore his personal pacific leanings were at the mercy of 
 his Foreign Minister, Count Stadion, and others of the 
 Austrian war party, opposed though that party was 
 by the Archduke Charles. The Treaty of Presburg 
 indeed bound Austria to peace, but what of a treaty 
 if a chance offered of reconquering the Tyrol and other 
 lost dominions ? The news of the Spanish rising seemed 
 to offer such a chance, and immediately in June, 1808, 
 a most oppressive conscription had been decreed in 
 Austria. The renewed alliance between Napoleon and 
 Alexander, at Erfurt, prompted to immediate caution, 
 but the clear intention of Austria to break the peace 
 was the main motive of the British Government's refusal 
 of the peace offer made after Erfurt, as admitted in the 
 Royal Declaration of December 15th, 1808. It was 
 resolved in England to risk all on the off-chance of an 
 Austrian victory over France. 
 
 It is rather obscure to what extent English instigation 
 urged Austria to this perilous course. Alison writes of 
 amicable relations as established with Austria in 1808, 
 and of a promise of subsidies ;* but Canning denied all 
 responsibility for Austria's action. " The communi- 
 cations with the Austrian Government were few and 
 precarious, and in none of these communications was 
 any specific promise of assistance held out to her. It 
 was indeed stated to her that if she was likely to be 
 engaged in an inevitable contest there would be a dis- 
 position to assist her ; but that that disposition would 
 be greatly limited by the circumstances of the times."* 
 And, though the Government " did not discourage 
 Austria from making an effort which she deemed 
 necessary to her own honour and safety, it could not 
 
 1 VII., 246. a Pari. Deb. XIV., 541, May 12th, 1809.
 
 AUSTRIA'S FOURTH DEFEAT 235 
 
 be said to offer any counsels that could commit itself 
 to the undertaking." 1 Ponsonby, rather simply, took 
 this as meaning that we had " no concern whatever in 
 advising Austria to engage in the present war." 2 
 
 In any case England at the time had a great interest 
 in engaging Austria in war with France ; namely, to divert 
 Napoleon from the west. And the new war had that 
 effect, as admitted repeatedly by Napoleon in his letters 
 to Caulaincourt in St. Petersburg. On January 7th, 
 1809, he wrote that but for his alliance with Russia, 
 he would have already been in Austria with 200,000 
 men, and he wanted his Russian ally, whom he was 
 beginning with reason to mistrust, to give him the 
 stipulated aid by diplomacy or by arms to keep Austria 
 at peace. " We should perhaps have had peace but 
 for the hopes the English had founded on the dispositions 
 of Austria." It was these Austrian armaments, he 
 complained, which had prevented him from forming 
 a camp at Boulogne for our disquiet, and from embarking 
 20,000 men on his Toulon squadron for some expedition 
 against Egypt or Syria. 3 England, he said, had been 
 much alarmed by the march of his divisions to Boulogne, 
 and Austria had rendered her an essential service by 
 obliging him to countermand their march. Not only at 
 Boulogne, but at Brest and Toulon he had intended to 
 have camps, wherefrom to have threatened our colonies, 
 but Austria's conduct had prevented him. " If I had 
 at this moment," he wrote, on February 23rd, " 80,000 
 men at Brest, 30,000 at Flushing, 30,000 at Toulon, 
 as I counted on having, England would be in the most 
 sorry position." 4 These troops on their way to these 
 places he had been forced to send instead to form an 
 observation camp at Strasburg. 
 
 Thus, on the assumption of peace being undesirable, 
 there was no doubt of the interest we had in fomenting 
 
 1 ib., XIV., 825, May 31st, 1809. 
 
 2 ib., XIV., 542. 3 Vandal, III., 574. 4 ib. f III., 578.
 
 236 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 war between Austria and France. And the vexation of 
 Napoleon was the measure of our success in that policy. 
 
 His vexation with the Czar for his lukewarmness as 
 an ally was also great. The only chance of keeping the 
 Continent at peace was, he held, by a decided tone and 
 a firm resolution ; but the Czar would not speak the 
 strong enough word. As for the provinces of Austria, 
 Napoleon wrote, he wished for none of them for himself ; 
 he and the Czar would do with them as seemed best. 
 He leant to dividing Austria into three separate kingdoms : 
 Bohemia, Hungary, and Austria ; with these Austrian 
 States and Prussia between France and Russia, Russia 
 need have no fear of France. Such a division he regarded 
 as the likeliest means of pacifying Europe ; for this great- 
 est of militarists nursed pacifist hopes, and perceived 
 the danger of the coming militarisation of the world. 
 " We shall then," he said, " be able to diminish the 
 number of our troops, and substitute a small number 
 of regular troops for these general levies which tend to 
 the arming even of women, and thus change the system 
 of large armies which the late King of Prussia introduced. 
 Barracks will become workhouses {depots de mendicite), 
 and the conscripts will remain farm labourers. Prussia 
 is at that point already ; we must do the same by 
 Austria." 1 This at least shows Napoleon's hope for 
 the future on March 6th, 1809 ; but whatever founda- 
 tion there was for it was wrecked on the disloyalty of the 
 Czar Alexander, who not long after the Erfurt meeting 
 had sent the young Count Nesselrode as an agent to 
 Talleyrand as a spy to assist the malcontent party in 
 France in the plot he was beginning to weave over Europe 
 for the overthrow of his friend and ally. 2 
 
 For under the mask of friendship and of frankness 
 
 Alexander made an easy dupe of Caulaincourt, Napoleon's 
 
 ambassador at his Court. The early and full extent 
 
 of the Czar's treachery was not revealed till different 
 
 * Vandal, III., 581. * Vandal, III., 43.
 
 AUSTRIA'S FOURTH DEFEAT 237 
 
 Foreign Office archives came to be ransacked and exposed 
 to the world in Vandal's Napoleon et Alexandre I. in 
 1897. His schemes for the overthrow of Napoleon he 
 kept secret even from his Chancellor Romanzov, who 
 was too pacific for his policy. Side by side with his open 
 diplomacy, as expressed by his official ambassadors, 
 he kept up a secret and different diplomacy by unavowed 
 agents ; whilst Count Stackelberg was his ostensible 
 ambassador at Vienna, the real agent was Senator 
 Koschelef, through whom information was to reach 
 Alexander without coming through Romanzov ; r and 
 whilst Prince Kurakin was his official ambassador at 
 Paris, the important minister was the young Count 
 Tchernicheff, who served as his spy to foment feeling 
 against Napoleon. 3 These intrigues for a coalition 
 against France he carried on by spies in every Court ; 
 from 1809 he carried on a direct and indirect corres- 
 pondence with Talleyrand, already one of the foremost 
 in the defection against the Emperor. 3 Alexander never 
 tired of expressions of attachment to the alliance he was 
 burning to break ; and the musical tones of his voice 
 as they issued from his smiling lips, to which no smile 
 of the eyes corresponded, both captivated and deceived 
 Caulaincourt. He carried deception so far that with 
 regard to his increasing armaments he told Caulaincourt 
 in January, 1811, that he had not added a bayonet to 
 his forces at the very time when he confided to the 
 Swedish Minister that he had just created thirteen fresh 
 regiments.4 Alexander had many virtues, but veracity 
 and loyalty were not the most conspicuous. 
 
 It seemed likely that, apart from our aid, Austria 
 would have to stand alone. She had tried in vain to 
 tempt Prussia and Russia into the same venture. Prussia 
 had learnt caution, whilst no enticements from the 
 Austrian ambassador Prince Schwartzenberg at St. 
 
 1 Vandal, III., 37. 2 ib., III., 41. 3 ib., III., 25. 
 
 4 a., in., 51.
 
 238 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Petersburg could as yet seduce Alexander from his 
 promises to Napoleon. At most he would not act as an 
 enemy. The opportune moment had not come. 
 Alexander so often spoke with two voices that his true 
 mind was rarely known ; but it seems from an intercepted 
 letter from Champagny to Napoleon, dated December 
 nth, 1808, that he was then genuinely vexed at Austria's 
 refusal to recognise Joseph as King of Spain, and at 
 her determination to form a new Coalition with England, 
 Turkey and the Spanish patriots against France. He 
 predicted disaster, if not ruin, to Austria from such a 
 course. 1 And Napoleon had gone to all lengths, " with 
 an extraordinary degree of earnestness and anxiety " 
 to incline the Austrian Government to remain at peace ; 
 even promising to withdraw his troops from the Silesian 
 garrisons, and to break up his camps in Germany, if 
 they were an object of alarm to Austria.* A letter from 
 Champagny to Andreossi of August 16th, 1808, showed 
 that Napoleon pressed peace on Count Metternich, then 
 Austrian ambassador at Paris, " with a degree of earnest- 
 ness and emotion that could not well be counterfeited.'^ 
 In a letter of March 24th, 1809, to Caulaincourt, whilst 
 still hoping for Russian help, he authorised his ambassador 
 to sign any kind of treaty or convention that might be 
 proposed by the Czar ; " I wish for no aggrandisement ; 
 I only wish for the maritime peace, and Austria armed 
 is an obstacle to this peace. "4 
 
 As soon as Napoleon knew that, if he could not count 
 on Russia's sincere aid, he at least need have no fear of 
 her hostility, the French ambassador was recalled from 
 Vienna, and both sides prepared for a war from which 
 Austria had little reason to hope for clemency if defeated. 
 Austria was bent on war, that is, the military and aristo- 
 cratic classes, which in Austria as elsewhere were the only 
 classes that counted ; and on April 6th, 1809, she 
 
 * Ann. Reg., 1809, 468. a ib., 174. 3 Ann. Reg., 203. 
 
 4 Vandal, III., 586.
 
 AUSTRIA'S FOURTH DEFEAT 239 
 
 declared war in a proclamation by the Archduke Charles 
 and by another two days later by the Emperor Francis. 
 The Archduke's manifesto based the justification for war 
 on no specific offence, but on the usual platitudes of a 
 certain victory and a lasting peace. 1 The real justifi- 
 cation was the distance of Napoleon, who, however, 
 left Paris for the front on April 13th, only four days after 
 the main Austrian army had begun the war by crossing 
 the Inn into Bavaria. The Tyrol rose against the rule 
 of Bavaria ; and in Italy and Bohemia fighting began. 
 But Austria had counted on the revolt of the Rhine 
 Confederacy against the French, and was disappointed. 
 The Archduke wrote to his brother the Emperor, " All 
 the operations of the campaign were based on the pro- 
 bability of an early success, and on the co-operation of 
 the Rhenish Confederacy, which in fact declared against 
 us. Would it not be expedient then to try the result of 
 a negotiation before the enemy has invaded Austria ? "2 
 The Emperor consented, but before Napoleon received 
 the Archduke's overtures, events had brought him far 
 on his way to Vienna. 
 
 On April 22nd, he had won the battle of Eckmiihl; 
 taken Ratisbon, and after the battle of Ebersberg on 
 May 3rd, the road to the capital lay open before the 
 French. 
 
 On May 13th, Vienna for the second time capitulated, 
 and the French became possessed of the immense military 
 stores in the arsenal. All this in little more than a month. 
 
 Although desperate battles on the Danube at Essling 
 and Aspern, on May 21st and 22nd, retrieved the military 
 honour of Austria, and cost the French about 30,000 
 casualties and the Austrians 20,587, the campaign was not 
 settled " decisively" in favour of Napoleon till six weeks 
 later by the hard-fought battle of Wagram, on July 5th. 
 It comforted the friends of Austria to say that, had the 
 Archduke John appeared on the field before his brother 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1809, 749. 2 Alison, VII., 310. 
 
 16
 
 240 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Charles had left it, the result would have been different ; 
 but history is unaffected by hypothetical arguments. 
 What mattered was that the subsequent armistice and 
 long negotations ended on October 14th, with the 
 Treaty of Vienna, 1 which forced Austria to yield large 
 territories, numbering three-and-a-half millions of people, 
 to Bavaria, to the Kingdom of Italy, to the Grand Duchy 
 of Warsaw, and a slice of Galician territory to Russia 
 for her not very friendly neutrality. During the con- 
 tinuance of the maritime war Francis II., was to reduce 
 his army to 150,000 men, and the occupied provinces 
 had to submit to a contribution of £3,400,000. On October 
 17th, before Napoleon left Vienna for Paris, the beautiful 
 ramparts and fortifications of Vienna were mined and 
 blown up. 
 
 When Alexander read the terms of the treaty of 
 Vienna, on October 27th, he was too angry for words. 
 One-and-a-half million Galicians had been added to the 
 Duchy of Warsaw, and only half-a-million transferred 
 to Russia. His chief fe?r had been lest a French victory 
 should add Galicia to the Duchy of Warsaw with a view 
 to the restoration of an independent Poland, for which 
 he had his own designs ; and, therefore, though he had 
 been willing enough for Austria to get " a good lesson" 
 from the war, he had not wished her to be beaten to her 
 knees. Though he had professed himself as having no 
 more desire for an additional province than for an 
 additional village, he had told Caulaincourt beforehand 
 that at the peace he would not suffer Galicia in whole 
 or in part to pass from Austrian possession. 3 To ease 
 the mind of his ally, Napoleon, on October 20th, instructed 
 Champagny to inform Count Romanzov that, to prove 
 the sincerity of his having no intentions of restoring 
 Poland, he would have the very name of Poland erased 
 from all official acts. This, and the declaration of 
 Montalivet, French Minister of the Interior, to the 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1809, 791-6. 2 Tatitscheff, 473.
 
 AUSTRIA'S FOURTH DEFEAT 241 
 
 Legislative Body on December 1st, that whilst the whole 
 of Galicia might have been annexed to the Duchy of 
 Warsaw, only a portion had been so annexed, out of 
 consideration for Alexander, almost the whole of the 
 original partition remaining to Austria, sensibly quieted 
 the Czar's fears for a time. 
 
 But for the shortest possible time. No assurances 
 could relieve his mind about Poland. On January 4th, 
 1810, Caulaincourt and Romanzov signed a Convention 
 to the effect, among other things, that the kingdom 
 of Poland should never be re-established ; but when 
 Napoleon learnt that his ambassador had signed this 
 Convention without his approval his annoyance was such 
 that he refused to ratify it. He was ready to promise 
 not to favour or aid any such scheme, but he not 
 unreasonably declined to bind France for all time to put 
 down any movement for the restoration of Poland, 
 especially without any reciprocal obligation on Russia's 
 part towards France. The last despatch on the subject 
 on July 1st, 1810, was expressed in the strongest terms, 
 with no other result than mutual irritation. 1 
 
 The Side Wars 
 Of the side wars that branched out of the main Franco- 
 Austrian war that of most interest broke out in the 
 Tyrol, where, with great vicissitudes of success and 
 defeat, the peasantry under Hofer fought throughout 
 the summer to free themselves from the French and 
 Bavarians. By the tenth article of the Treaty of Vienna, 
 Napoleon promised to secure a complete amnesty for 
 the Tyrolese ; but, though Hofer at first counselled 
 acceptance of the proffered amnesty, a useless resistance 
 was renewed and prolonged till December, when most 
 of the Tyrolese leaders submitted, Hofer alone resisting 
 all solicitations of the French generals and after capture 
 being sentenced to be shot ; a sentence that should 
 have been remitted to so heroic a soul. 
 
 1 Corresp., XX., 148-161, 161 77-81.
 
 242 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Another branch war in the north conducted by the 
 Archduke Ferdinand was attended by such temporary 
 success that the King of Saxony had to retire from his 
 dominions, Dresden and Leipzig being taken ; whilst 
 Warsaw, the capital of this Duchy of Warsaw, capitu- 
 lated to the Austrians, though it was recovered on May 
 30th, when circumstances compelled the retreat of 
 Ferdinand. Napoleon expressed to Savary his indigna- 
 tion at Alexander's suffering Warsaw to be taken in the 
 presence almost of his army, and the incident was the 
 first rift in a friendship whose continuance afforded the 
 best hope for the pacification of Europe. 
 
 The Austrian war had also its effect in Italy. Pius 
 VII. in 1807 had been willing to close his ports against 
 the English, and to suffer French troops a passage through 
 his territories ; but to declare war against England 
 he altogether refused. In February, 1808, the French 
 had entered and occupied Rome ; and in April the 
 annexation of four of the Papal provinces followed 
 the deprivation of the Pope of his Government, and his 
 virtual imprisonment in the Quirinal. On May 17th, 1809, 
 the annexation of the Papal States to the French Empire 
 was declared, and Rome constituted a free city; nor did 
 the Pope's excommunication of the man he had so lately 
 crowned an Emperor have the effect it might have had in the 
 middle ages. On July 5th the Pope was seized and taken 
 to Grenoble ; after which he lived for three years under 
 guard at Savona. Sir John Stuart's expedition with 
 15,000 men to capture Naples, if possible, coincided with 
 these events ; his fleet reached the Bay of Naples on 
 June 24th, 1809, and before the end of the month the 
 Islands of Ischia and Procida had surrendered. Murat 
 meantime had 25,000 men massed in Calabria for an 
 attack on Sicily. It was a great military inconvenience 
 to the French to have an intervening State between 
 North Italy and the Kingdom of Naples ; and in those 
 days, when " the new morality " was in fashion in all
 
 AUSTRIA'S FOURTH DEFEAT 243 
 
 countries, military advantage justified anything. The 
 abolition of the Inquisition and the great material 
 improvements in Rome effected under the French afforded 
 some compensation for the conscription and taxation 
 which were the inevitable accompaniments of the new 
 Government. 
 
 But these events and strivings in Italy, North 
 Germany, and the Tyrol were of little account compared 
 with the broad fact that for the fourth time Austria had 
 been decisively conquered by France. On the 10th of 
 October, Napoleon wrote to the Czar, hoping that the 
 undeserved moderation he had shown to Austria would be 
 pleasing to His Majesty. 1 But the moderation deprived 
 Austria of 50,000 square miles : Bavaria being enriched 
 by Salzburg and part of Upper Austria ; the Grand 
 Duchy of Warsaw by Western Galicia ; and the French 
 Empire by those districts, called the Illyrian Provinces, 
 which gave it what would now be called a " corridor " 
 all the way to Turkey. Considering all the disasters 
 that followed the resolution of the British Cabinet to 
 refuse the peace overtures after Erfurt, the guilt that 
 must be divided between Canning and the King for not 
 using their influence to keep Austria at peace is very 
 great. On June 20th, 1809, a Vot e of Credit of three 
 millions was placed by Parliament at the disposal of the 
 King for the assistance of Austria, Spain and Portugal ;* 
 a small part of which sum paid to Austria to keep at peace 
 could have saved the world from five more years of 
 needless warfare. 
 
 Was the hope of further colonial conquests among 
 the motives for continuing the war ? Our maritime 
 supremacy had reached a height which enabled us to 
 capture whatever we had a mind to capture ; and a great 
 rounding-off of outstanding French possessions marked 
 the year 1809. After the capture of Cayenne, Martinique 
 and the city of St. Domingo, the French flag ceased to 
 * Ann. Reg., 1809, 79°. 2 Statutes, XLIX., 562.
 
 244 THE WAR F0R MONARCHY 
 
 fly in the West Indies, save at Guadaloupe. France 
 also lost her Senegal settlement, and in the Indian 
 Ocean the Isle de Bourbon. In the Mediterranean, 
 Corfu and the six other Ionian Islands came under 
 British control. 
 
 Loudly as we complained of the French lust for 
 fresh territory, were we innocent ourselves of a similar 
 sin ? Some Englishmen thought it rather a case of the 
 pot calling the kettle black; as, for instance, Sir Robert 
 Wilson, who had the deadliest hatred for Napoleon 
 and who took a prominent part in the chief events 
 of his day, yet saw the mote in the English eye 
 as clearly as he saw the beam in the French. He 
 complained that English policy had " as great a prone- 
 ness to power, by the acquisition of all that the world 
 possessed of value as ever frenzied and ruined the 
 Roman Empire." 1 " We are, in fact, resolved upon the 
 possession of all the islands in the world " ; though history 
 certified that " the spirit of conquest was the source 
 of the decadence of empires. "a 
 
 All this had come of a British policy which wavered 
 between encouragement and its opposite. When 
 Austria had failed, and the time came for apology, the 
 King's speech on January 23rd, 1810, defended this 
 policy as follows : " Although the war was undertaken 
 by that Monarch (Francis II.) without encouragement 
 on the part of His Majesty, every effort was made for 
 the assistance of Austria which His Majesty deemed 
 consistent with the due support of his allies, and with 
 the welfare and interest of his own dominions " ; which 
 was a roundabout way of saying that we had encouraged 
 and discouraged her at the same time. 
 
 And what makes it the more inexcusable that the 
 
 Duke of Portland's Cabinet not only did not insist on 
 
 Austria's keeping the peace, but refused to consider the 
 
 Erfurt overtures for peace, was that his Cabinet, torn 
 
 * Diary, 37. 3 ib., 48.
 
 AUSTRIA'S FOURTH DEFEAT 245 
 
 in twain by internal dissensions, was the least competent 
 to wage war successfully of all the Cabinets we ever 
 had. The position was almost grotesque. Canning, 
 the Foreign Secretary, was scarcely ever in agreement 
 with Lord Castlereagh, the Secretary for War, and in 
 April, 1809, so convinced was he of his lordship's 
 incompetence that he told the Duke of Portland that his 
 own continuance in office must depend on Castlereagh' s 
 expulsion from it. The Duke contrived to smooth 
 over the breach for some months, but when Castlereagh 
 discovered that Canning had been sitting amicably 
 with him in the same Cabinet whilst plotting for his 
 removal, he was much incensed, though the fault was 
 not Canning's. The scandal was such that both these 
 discordant spirits resigned, Canning on September 7th 
 and Castlereagh on September 17th. On the 19th, 
 Castlereagh challenged his colleague to a duel, which 
 resulted in a wound in the Foreign Minister's left thigh, 
 and soon afterwards in the resignation of the Duke, 
 whose end, long approaching, and accelerated by these 
 troubles, came on October 30th, five days after the 
 Jubilee day of the fiftieth year of George III.'s reign. 
 Spencer Perceval then succeeded as Prime Minister, 
 with Lord Wellesley in the place of Canning, and Lord 
 Liverpool in that of Castlereagh. But there was little 
 harmony between Perceval and Wellesley. No wonder 
 the enemy rejoiced. On October 10th, Napoleon wrote 
 to the Czar of the condition in England as that of 
 " perfect anarchy." 1 Success in war was hardly probable 
 in such conditions ; yet it was a Ministry of such a 
 character which for no consideration would contemplate 
 peace. 
 
 But, if Canning was right about Castlereagh's incom- 
 petence as a War Minister, what of Canning as Foreign 
 Secretary ? The Peninsular War is an everlasting monu- 
 ment to the glory of Wellington, but it is a monument 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1809, 790.
 
 246 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 of very much the reverse to those who were responsible 
 for its early stages. 
 
 Wellington (Sir A. Wellesley) landed at Lisbon on 
 April 22nd, and having driven Soult from Oporto and 
 Northern Portugal in the middle of May, proceeded to 
 join forces with Cuesta and his Spanish forces on July 
 22nd, preparatory to a march on Madrid. Together 
 they both defeated the French on July 27th and 28th 
 at Talavera. 
 
 George Jackson on August 3rd, 1809, summed up the 
 battle as follows : " Nineteen thousand men gloriously 
 repulsed an army of from forty to fifty thousand, but 
 were prevented from following up their victory from 
 want of food ; the British troops were starving, and 
 destitute of the commonest necessaries and assistance 
 for their wounded men. The French, therefore, made 
 good their retreat unmolested." 1 The discovery was 
 made that we had overrated the value of our Spanish 
 allies. Jackson says that Wellington spoke " in the 
 highest terms of the cavalry regiments, El Rey parti- 
 cularly", which made, he says, a most excellent and 
 well-timed charge," the colonel being promoted on the 
 field. But how can this be reconciled with Wellington's 
 letter to his brother Lord Wellesley on August 2nd, 
 that " whole corps threw down their arms in my presence 
 and saved themselves by flight, although they were neither, 
 attacked nor menaced with an attack, but merely 
 frightened, I believe, by their own fire ? " In any case 
 an advance to Madrid seemed unwise with such allies as the 
 Spaniards, and the approach of Soult from the rear 
 made a retreat to Portugal advisable ; so that The Times, 
 much to Jackson's indignation, questioned whether 
 Talavera ought to be called a victory at all.* Wellington 
 had to leave some 2,000 sick and wounded in hospital 
 at Talavera to the charge of Cuesta. This general, 
 described as " a crusty old gentleman, of undoubted 
 1 Diaries, II., 472. * ib., II., 492.
 
 AUSTRIA'S FOURTH DEFEAT 247 
 
 bravery," 1 led a force which perhaps made crustiness 
 pardonable, but on Cuesta's abandoning Talavera, 
 Wellington had to appeal to Marshal Mortier for the care 
 of the abandoned wounded. Nor did he appeal in vain. 
 " The conduct of the French," wrote Bankes on October 
 5th, 1809, " to our wounded, both officers and men, 
 has been most handsome, and in fact exceeds anything 
 I ever heard of." 3 And this was borne out by Welling- 
 ton's despatch of August 30th, 1809. 
 
 A bright spot on a dark background ; for the suffer- 
 ings of the Portuguese and Spaniards between the rival 
 enemies were past imagining. To the incredible horrors 
 of the renewed siege of Saragossa, which surrendered 
 to the French on February 20th, or of the siege of Gerona, 
 which surrendered later, must be added the miseries 
 which were the mere incidents of the war. Thus in Soult's 
 retreat from Galicia, not only were the peasantry merci- 
 lessly massacred, but their houses were burnt along the 
 whole line of march ; in Masse na*s march in May, 18 n, 
 the villages were invariably burnt, and orders from 
 headquarters condemned the town of Leyria and the 
 convent of Alcobaca to the flames. Peasants found 
 in arms were hanged by Augereau's orders on 
 great gibbets all the way from Gerona to Figueras in 
 May 1810. But it was devilry against devilry. In 
 retaliation for Marshal Ney's treatment of some Spanish 
 prisoners, the Spanish general Barros loudly boasted 
 in Seville of having driven 700 French prisoners into 
 the river Minhol.3 
 
 Among these horrors must in fairness be set Sir 
 John Moore's lamentation over the pillagings of his 
 troops on his desperate retreat to Corunna. George 
 Jackson, writing at Seville on March 16th, 1809, gives 
 the evidence he heard on this subject from British 
 officers he met at Lisbon. " The pillage, the scene of 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1809, 183. 2 Malmesbury's Letters, II., 147. 
 
 » Lord Wellesley, Pari. Deb., XVI., 382, 3, March 30th, 1810,
 
 248 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 disorder, of wanton cruelty, could not, they say, be 
 exaggerated ; for no pen could describe, or imagination 
 conceive the horrors that were perpetrated." 1 So 
 Wellington wrote of his army on June 17th, 1809, as 
 " excellent on parade, excellent to fight, but worse than 
 an enemy in a country." When removed from the 
 supervision of their officers the men committed outrages 
 without end on the defenceless inhabitants, who had 
 hailed them as their deliverers. 2 Such facts give but 
 a feeble idea of the misery caused in the countries to 
 which we professed to be bringing liberty and happiness. 
 We brought them neither. Better by far not have 
 intervened at all than at such a cost, or for such a man 
 as Ferdinand VII. who, when at last restored to his 
 people, immediately restored the Inquisition and 
 annulled all the liberal institutions which in his absence 
 the Cortes had set up for the benefit of Spain. 
 
 Talavera taught Wellington that, if Spain was to 
 be delivered, it must be by British valour alone. It 
 was a strange policy to go through fire and water to 
 deliver a country that, if it wished for deliverance, showed 
 no signs of wishing to be indebted to us for it. The 
 failure of the Spaniards to supply the promised provisions 
 reduced Wellington's army almost to starvation and 
 compelled him to withdraw to the region of Badajoz, 
 where for a month his men died like flies ; two-thirds 
 dying of the 7,000 in hospital. Not least of the obstacles 
 to Wellington's success in Spain was what Napier calls 
 " the undisguised hatred of the Spanish Government. "3 
 In the circumstances it was fortunate that Wellington's 
 expedition into Spain and back to Portugal did not end 
 as Sir John Moore's had ended the year before ; it 
 seemed to contemporaries " most improvident, his 
 escape most fortunate. "4 Deprived of his aid, the 
 insurgents could hope for little success ; their victory 
 
 1 Diaries, II., 394. 2 Alison, VII., 775. 
 
 3 Peninsular War II., 219. 4 Ann. Reg., 1809, 195.
 
 AUSTRIA'S FOURTH DEFEAT 249 
 
 over the French on October 24th was followed by a mighty 
 defeat at Ocana on November 19th, where the flight of 
 a cavalry regiment led to such a panic and rout that 
 some 20,000 prisoners fell into the hands of the French. 
 At Alba de Tormes on November 25th, the Spanish 
 cavalry fled without striking a blow on the approach 
 of a French body of horse under Kellermann, and the 
 next day the whole Spanish army took to flight, leaving 
 their artillery and stores, at the entrance into the town 
 of a French patrol. No wonder that at the close of 1809 
 all the Spanish armies had been dispersed, all the Spanish 
 garrisons had fallen. Into such an alliance had Canning, 
 in response to the popular clamour of 1808, light- 
 heartedly conducted his country, and then tried to throw 
 on Castlereagh the blame of the failure. 
 
 The Portland Cabinet was even more unfortunate 
 in North-West Europe than in the Peninsula. As 
 Russia in 1807, so Austria in 1809, blamed us for 
 inefficient assistance. Why had we not created diversions 
 in her favour by landing an army in the Adriatic and 
 co-operating with the Archduke John in Italy, or by 
 aiding in North Germany the insurrectionary movements 
 of Schill and the Duke of Brunswick? Canning justly 
 ridiculed the idea of our landing a force in Trieste and 
 marching through the Tyrol to Swabia ; but Sir John 
 Stuart's expedition in June with 15,000 men to South 
 Italy had only been desisted from when the retreat of 
 the Archduke had rendered co-operation with him 
 impossible. As to an expedition to North Germany, 
 what, he asked could have been more inhumane than to 
 encourage a rising we could not permanently support P 1 
 
 The Expedition to the Scheldt, to capture or destroy 
 Antwerp, was only partially thought of as a diversion for 
 Austria ; it was mainly directed to our own interests. 
 Nor indeed was the military conception of destroying 
 Napoleon's fleets and arsenals a bad one, had the execu- 
 
 * Pari. Deb., XVI., 330-6.
 
 250 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 tion succeeded. For, if there ever could be a question 
 of invasion, it was from Antwerp the danger would come. 
 Before the French Revolution, Antwerp had fallen to 
 so low a state that her trade had almost departed, and 
 grass was growing in its once thriving streets. * From 
 this condition Napoleon had raised it to a condition of 
 strength and prosperity which only fell short of his 
 ulterior dreams. He regarded Antwerp as a province 
 in itself. And it was there that he hoped in time to 
 have a respectable navy ; the annual Report of the 
 French Empire on November 3rd, 1808, gave ten ships 
 of the line as actually in Antwerp, twelve to have been 
 launched in the year, and twenty-five to be in course 
 of building as well as twenty-five frigates.* Considering 
 that we possessed 242 ships of the line and over 1,000 
 ships of other sizes 3 the Antwerp menace gave no serious 
 cause for quaking, but its removal was a fair military 
 aim, provided it were a fair military possibility. 
 
 Lord Grey on January 23rd, 1809, said that such a 
 scheme had often been pressed on the Government of 
 which he, as Lord Howick, had been Foreign Minister 
 in 1807, and always rejected as impracticable.4 Min- 
 isters were as woefully misinformed about Antwerp as 
 about Spain, and were the ready prey of deceptive hopes. 
 Nor was it easy to catch Napoleon asleep ; it was even 
 said that as far back as March he had warned his officers 
 of the plan that was brewing. 5 So that the expedition, 
 when it started on July 28th, " the greatest," said Lord 
 Liverpool, " that was ever sent from this or any other 
 country upon any occasion," 6 thirty-seven ships of the 
 line, 138 minor vessels and transports and 40,000 men, 
 never gave Napoleon a moment's uneasiness. " We 
 are glad," he wrote, " to find the English crowding into 
 the marshes of Zealand ; let them be merely kept in 
 
 • Pari. Deb., XVI., 338. 2 Ann. Reg., 1808, 360. 
 
 3 Alison, VII., 674, 814. 4 Pari. Deb., XV., 32. 
 
 5 Pari. Deb., XVI., 397- 6 Parl - Deb -» XVI '» 4-
 
 AUSTRIA'S FOURTH DEFEAT 251 
 
 check, and their army will be speedily destroyed by the 
 bad air and the epidemic fevers of that country." 1 This 
 was just what happened. Lord Chatham never got near 
 Antwerp ; the bombardment, siege, and capitulation 
 of Flushing involved operations whose protraction by 
 unforeseen causes fifteen days longer than was expected 
 deprived an attack on Antwerp of all hope of success, 
 and after 15,000 men left to garrison Walcheren Island 
 had for the most part perished, that island was com- 
 pletely evacuated on December 23rd: a melancholy 
 ending to a foolish adventure that had cost the country 
 twenty million pounds and a deplorable death-roll. 
 
 The Government naturally had to find scapegoats 
 for the blame of so great a disaster. The first was that 
 unfailing scapegoat for all military blunders, the weather ; 
 Lord Liverpool put it all down to " difficulties arising 
 from the unusual state of the weather. "2 But Lord 
 Chatham, the commander, was the chief scapegoat. 
 And he, in a report delivered unconstitutionally to the 
 King directly instead of through the Secretary of State, 
 threw much of the blame on the Admiral, Sir Richard 
 Strachan, who vigorously defended his action in the 
 matter.3 Lord Chatham has always been blamed for not 
 having made an immediate attack on Antwerp, and 
 perhaps captured it by a sudden assault whilst insuffici- 
 ently defended ; but his instructions of July 16th, had 
 given him wide discretion : the destruction of the 
 arsenals and docks at Flushing and the reduction of the 
 Island of Walcheren were quite as much an object as 
 similar operations at Antwerp. 4 Much and strong 
 military evidence before the Parliamentary Committee 
 supported his defence of his conduct, and he himself 
 persisted in the assertion that Castlereagh's belief in 
 the defencelessness of Antwerp was founded on error. 5 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1809, 780. 2 Pari. Deb., XVI., 4. 
 
 3 Pari. Deb., XVI., 1105-30. 4 Pari. Deb., XV., App. i. 
 
 5 ib., App. 42, 383, 391.
 
 252 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 The press in those days as in our own could always serve 
 as a lightning conductor of public wrath from the Govern- 
 ment to some unfortunate general, and Brougham 
 declared in Parliament that most of the charges against 
 Lord Chatham were based on calumnies, and that he had 
 been " basely traduced by the whole of the Press under 
 control of the Government." 1 Lord Castlereagh was 
 primarily responsible for a venture that depended for its 
 success, as regards Antwerp, on that city's being either 
 defenceless or indefensible, and Sir Home Popham, of 
 Buenos Ayres fame, was supposed to have put the idea 
 into Castlereagh' s head. 2 Canning, according to his 
 secretary, gave his sanction, not his approval, to his 
 colleague's scheme. 3 
 
 There were signs that the country was growing restive 
 under a military oligarchy which could show little but 
 failure in every direction. But in vain Lord Grenville 
 appealed to the patriotism of the Peers to free themselves 
 from a Government " broken, distracted, incompetent, 
 incapable of exerting any energy or of inspiring any 
 confidence." 4 Even the City of London complained 
 of the " imbecility " of the Cabinet and pressed His 
 Majesty for an inquiry into the Scheldt fiasco, only to 
 receive in reply a curt and snubbing refusal. 5 
 
 » Pari. Deb., XVI., 7. 
 
 2 Ann. Reg., 1809, 225. 
 
 3 Stapleton's Canning and his Times, 172. 
 
 4 Pari. Deb., XV., 22, January 23rd, 18 10. 
 
 5 Ann. Reg., 1809, 590, I.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 1810. A Lost Peace Chance 
 
 The repeated failures of the Tory Government produced 
 a widespread desire to change the Government and 
 abandon the Peninsular War. What could be more 
 humiliating, exclaimed Lord Erskine, than to see the 
 Government of a great empire in the hands of men " who 
 seemed not to be fit to be a vestry in a small parish." 1 
 Lord Moira declared on February 22nd, 1810, that he 
 was speaking the language of 99 per cent, of the whole 
 population of the country, when he asserted that 
 Ministers who, whilst boasting of their power to liberate 
 the Continent, had only brought danger close to our 
 own shores, deserved marked reprobation and exemplary 
 punishment. 2 Nothing short of a Divine miracle, said 
 Lord Grenville, could enable us to save Portugal. 3 
 
 Great abuse has been poured on the peace party of 
 the time for their wish to get out of the Peninsular War. 
 Dr. Holland Rose, for instance, complains of the 
 " factious conduct " of their opposition to the Govern- 
 ment, and of their " unmanly whinings."4 And equally 
 great praise has been lavished on Lord Wellesley, then 
 Foreign Minister, and on Lord Wellington for their deter- 
 mination to continue the war, and for their optimistic 
 forecasts of its success. But the optimism of the brothers, 
 though finally justified by results, was not at the time 
 justified by reason. Lord Grenville and Lord Grey, 
 Ponsonby and Whitbread, were right, by all that 
 balancing of probabilities which is the only guide of 
 
 1 Pari. Deb., XII., 136. * ib., XV 531. 
 
 3 ib., XV., 512. 4 Napoleon, II., 209. 
 
 253
 
 254 THE WAR F0R MONARCHY 
 
 statesmen. The prophecies of the optimists had been uni- 
 formly falsified ; and Whitbread cannot have been singular 
 in being tired of the Parliamentary boastings of the last 
 sixteen years, which, instead of ending in the destruction 
 of France, had only ended in her aggrandisement. 1 
 
 Political interest had indeed some good reasons for 
 continuing the Peninsular war. It kept some 300,000 
 Frenchmen fully occupied far away from our shores ; as 
 Perceval put it, the longer we enabled Spain to exhaust the 
 military resources of France, the more we should promote 
 our own interests.* So Lord Liverpool, on March 21st, 
 18 1 1, expressed the opinion that, " so long as there was 
 a fair prospect of success, it was the policy of this country 
 to avert the battle from its own shores." 3 And, of course, 
 if the war had to continue, the French possession of the 
 ports of Spain and Portugal would have been a menace 
 to Ireland. But these arguments presupposed an 
 unnecessary premiss. 
 
 The counsel of Probability was against the war 
 party. How was any force we could send likely to drive 
 300,000 French out of the Peninsula ? So overwhelming 
 seemed French supremacy that Napoleon, always as 
 optimistic as Wellington himself, had thought the French 
 victory of Ocana on November 19th, 1809, decisive of 
 the campaign ; and subsequent operations had lent 
 fresh countenance to his hopes. Grenada had fallen on 
 January 28th, 1810 ; on February 1st King Joseph 
 entered Seville, " amidst the acclamations of the popu- 
 lace " ; Malaga fell on February 5th, whilst Cadiz had 
 only just been saved by the arrival of reinforcements 
 under Albuquerque, and the result of its siege still hung 
 on the knees of the gods. To continue the war in these 
 conditions was little better than a gambler's chance ; 
 for the coming Franco- Russian war could not possibly 
 be foreseen, with its consequent great withdrawals and 
 diminution of the French forces in the Peninsula. 
 
 1 Pari. Deb., XII., 67. 2 ib., XVI., 16. 3 ib„ XIX., 461.
 
 A LOST PEACE CHANCE 255 
 
 Nor could Napoleon's mistakes be foreseen ; of which 
 the chief related to his brother King Joseph. The new 
 king had not been long in his palace of the Escurial 
 before a thousand signs convinced him of the popular 
 antagonism to his rule. Two thousand men employed 
 in the royal stables gave up their posts at the same hour, 
 and Joseph was left with a single postilion. But he 
 gradually so improved his position that his rapid success 
 in Andalusia was only less surprising than the reception 
 accorded him. Soult wrote to Berthier on February 10th, 
 that he was received everywhere " with enthusiastic 
 joy." When Sebastiani entered Grenada on January 28th 
 he was greeted by the " universal acclamation of an 
 immense multitude of people. No one fled. All in the 
 public employments of the State, and all men of rank and 
 property, were ardent in their professions of attachment 
 and eager to take an oath of allegiance to King Joseph."* 
 And so it was at Seville ; though the sycophancy of all 
 popular acclamations must of course be discounted. 
 Even Joseph began to be cheerful, writing on February 
 24th, 1810, from Xeres, " Everything here is in the best 
 possible state ; the provinces of Andalusia are pacified, 
 because justice reigns there and I have nothing but praise 
 for the generals. "2 On March 5th, he wrote to his wife 
 from Malaga, of the " inconceivable enthusiasm " with 
 which he was received everywhere, ..." the way 
 I have been received here surpasses all imagination ; 
 if I were only allowed free action, this country would soon 
 be happy and quiet. "3 
 
 But his chances of success were thwarted by his 
 brother, who on February 8th divided the country into 
 military governments, leaving Joseph at the head of an 
 army of only 19,000 men, and depriving him of the govern- 
 ment of the provinces, of which Aragon was placed under 
 Kellermann, of whose rapacity Joseph had complained to 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1810, 154. 
 
 2 Du Casse, Les Rois Freres de Napoleon, 30. 3 ib., 35. 
 
 17
 
 256 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Napoleon. With an insufficient force and an insufficient 
 purse, Joseph soon found his position most galling. He 
 wrote to his wife on July 16th, " If I am required to govern 
 Spain merely for the benefit of France, that cannot be 
 hoped of me. ... I have duties of conscience in 
 Spain, and I will never betray them." When he heard 
 that his youngest brother Lucien had been taken prisoner 
 by the English, he said that he envied him, and that he 
 would prefer his lot a thousand times to the humiliating 
 figure to which he was himself reduced. ..." I 
 have much reason to praise the inhabitants of Madrid 
 and all the Spaniards who know me. The war would 
 soon be finished and Spain pacified if I might have a free 
 hand." 1 Possible as this was, he never got his free hand, 
 and on September ist, he wrote in his despair, " As to 
 my actual state, I am inclined to any course to get out of 
 it ; my soul is degraded, and I would rather have death 
 than this condition."* But our English optimists, 
 ignorant of these things, had no reason to count on 
 Napoleon's thus playing into their hands by the mistaken 
 course he took at this juncture. 
 
 Whether King Joseph could have reconciled Spain 
 to his rule is less doubtful than that under no rule 
 of his could Spain have suffered more than she 
 did in the six years between 1814 and 1820, when 
 Ferdinand VII. occupied the recovered Spanish throne. 
 Our infatuation for this most sorry specimen of the 
 Bourbon family was truly extraordinary. This young 
 man's affection and admiration were all for Napoleon ; 
 George III. inspired him with neither. He is rumoured 
 to have congratulated King Joseph on the defeat of his 
 fellow-countrymen at Ocana. On March 21st he sent 
 the Emperor the warmest congratulations on his coming 
 marriage with Marie Louise, daughter of the defeated 
 Francis II., and promised a lifelong gratitude for permis- 
 sion to be present ; and on April ist, at the marriage 
 
 1 ib., 38. 2 ib., 39.
 
 A LOST PEACE CHANCE 257 
 
 festivities, he was the first, at the end of the Te Deum, 
 to cry out, " Long live the Emperor." It was at this 
 time that occurred the strange episode of Baron Kolli, 
 the Irish spy, in whom Lord Wellesley and the Duke of 
 Kent placed so implicit a trust as to send him, well equipped 
 with funds, to try to rescue Ferdinand from his imprison- 
 ment. Kolli, falling into the hands of spies cleverer 
 than himself, was captured in Paris, and consigned to 
 Vincennes, where he remained a prisoner till the victory 
 of the Allies in 1814 ; but the French artfully sent a false 
 Kolli to Valencay on the same mission, to see what 
 Ferdinand would do. Luckily for Ferdinand, he was 
 only greatly alarmed and angry with the British for their 
 plot to rescue him. So a promising tragedy ended in 
 comedy ; and on May 3rd Ferdinand wrote to Napoleon 
 expressive of his " lively desire to become his adoptive 
 son;" for this would remove from a blinded people 
 every pretext for continuing to cover their country 
 with blood in the name of a prince, become by his 
 own choice and by adoption a French prince and son of 
 Napoleon. 1 
 
 When at the age of thirty, in 1814, the course of events 
 restored Ferdinand to Spain as King, the forces of reaction 
 triumphed as they seldom have in any country. The 
 new king fell completely under the influence of the monks 
 and the Church. On May 4th the Cortes was declared 
 an illegal assembly and the Constitution illegal ; 
 subsequently a strict censorship was placed on the 
 Press ; the Inquisition was restored, and the old 
 tortures revived ; the Jesuits were recalled, and persons 
 of liberal opinions subjected to every form of persecution. 
 And this state of things lasted till 1820, when a successful 
 counter-revolution brought a remedy. History presents 
 few greater ironies than the fact that for six years we shed 
 our blood like water, and spent our wealth in lavish 
 profusion for the deliverance of Spain, only to subject 
 1 Memoires Historiques sur Ferdinand VII., 364.
 
 258 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 her to the mercy of our protege, and to a tyranny that 
 has seldom been surpassed. The lesson against our 
 intervention in the affairs of foreign states was never 
 more conclusively taught. 
 
 The military situation seemed to Napoleon favourable 
 for peace negotiations. In Spain his arms had nearly 
 triumphed, and the great autocratic monarchies of Europe 
 had been reduced to a state of restless repose. Only 
 England remained at war with France, and the dis- 
 appointments of Walcheren and of Talavera inclined 
 even her to a pacific disposition. To a similar disposition 
 Napoleon was himself impelled by his new matrimonial 
 tie with the Austrian princess, Marie Louise, daughter of 
 his aforetime enemy, the Austrian Emperor, and successor 
 to the divorced Josephine ; for even Napoleon, though 
 we called him " the Corsican monster," and he called us 
 " leopards " in return, was a human being at bottom. 
 The wedding took place at Vienna on March nth, and 
 surely in this amazing world of our ancestors, where men 
 and monarchs fought to-day and kissed to-morrow, 
 the most amazing picture of all is that of the Archduke 
 Charles, Napoleon's bitter adversary on so many a battle- 
 field, acting as proxy for him at the nuptial ceremony. 
 It was a world where nothing was impossible, nothing 
 justified surprise. 
 
 Napoleon's idea was to use his policy towards Holland 
 as a means to peace. His brother Louis, made King of 
 that country in 1806, much against his will, had loyally 
 accepted the position, but was no more disposed than 
 Joseph to a tame subservience to the fraternal suzerainty. 
 He would be no nominal king, but a real one ; and 
 his independence constantly thwarted the policy of 
 Napoleon, especially in reference to the Continental 
 system, which he detested as likely to ruin Holland 
 sooner than it could ruin England. He winked therefore 
 at the illicit importation of British goods, with which a 
 brisk trade was carried on. So far as his hands were free,
 
 A LOST PEACE CHANCE 259 
 
 he made an excellent monarch, introducing a new civil 
 and criminal code, and making reforms of a liberal kind 
 which won him the real affection of his subjects. But 
 he feared all the time that Napoleon was meaning to 
 annex his kingdom to the French Empire, and, after 
 the menace to Antwerp by the English expedition in 1809 
 had revealed the weakness of the Dutch frontier, Napoleon 
 took steps in that direction. Such annexation being 
 obviously most contrary to British interests, Champagny 
 (Due de Cadore), the French Foreign Minister, was 
 instructed to persuade Louis to inform his Ministers 
 that such signs of annexation were only meant to frighten 
 the English into making a peace as an alternative. Louis, 
 at first indignant, ended by writing to that effect on 
 January 9th, 1810, from Paris to his Ministers, instructing 
 them without delay to send some trusty merchant to 
 England to point out that only a cessation of the maritime 
 war could save the independence of Holland. 1 But the 
 King's accompanying projected letter to be sent to Lord 
 Wellesley was disapproved of by Napoleon, who was not 
 satisfied till January 24th with a projected note, corrected 
 by his own hand, to be sent by the Dutch merchant 
 Labouchere to England. This note to the Dutch 
 ministers was a long recital of French grievances under 
 the British system of blockade 2 and was intended to be 
 the basis of a proposal that, if we would cease to act on 
 that system and would withdraw our Orders in Council, 
 he would withdraw his Berlin and Milan decrees, and would 
 not annex Holland. On January 10th he wrote indig- 
 nantly to Champagny of the British claim to put a tax 
 on the commerce of all nations, and to treat the sea as 
 he might treat the Seine, the Scheldt, or the Rhine. But 
 he had heard that we had ceased to levy such taxes ; he 
 wished Champagny to ascertain if it were so, for once he 
 was assured that England would not place an octroi on 
 navigation he also could relax on many points. 3 This 
 
 1 Du Casse, 124-6. » ib., 131-4. 3 Corresp., XX., no, No. 16127.
 
 260 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 shows him to have been in no intractable mood, but 
 prepared to meet concession with concession. Labou- 
 chere's instructions were dated February ist, but Lord 
 Wellesley's reply on the 12th, that France showed no 
 disposition to peace nor to the abatement of her claims, 
 sent Labouchere back convinced of the hopelessness of 
 an agreement. 1 
 
 Dr. Holland Rose thinks that our chief objection to 
 treat was an objection more " against the man himself 
 and his whole policy," than against the intrinsic merits 
 of the proposal ; 2 a not very convincing reason for 
 an indefinite prolongation of the war. This was the 
 seventh overture of peace Napoleon had made which 
 directly or indirectly would have included England : 
 the first in June, 1804, the second in January, 1805, the 
 third and fourth after Eylau in 1807, the fifth in August, 
 
 1807, tne sixth in October, 1807, the seventh in October, 
 
 1808. The assumption that these offers were insincere 
 or that they might not have led to satisfactory terms was 
 the ordinary pretext of a diplomacy that was either 
 indifferent or hostile to peace. In this case Napoleon's 
 sincerity is suggested by the fact that he soon made 
 another attempt, not mentioned by Dr. Rose, to negotiate. 
 On March 20th, he wrote to Louis to send Labouchere or 
 other agent again to London, but this time in Louis' own 
 name and not in that of his Ministers, and with a note 
 not signed nor traceable to any known individual. This 
 note was to say that the day the Orders in Council were 
 withdrawn the French would evacuate Holland, and 
 perhaps the Hanseatic towns ; and to point out how such 
 an arrangement would restore England's trade with the 
 Continent and maintain her peace with America. The 
 note concluded with the remark that " for not having 
 made peace sooner, England has lost Naples, Spain, 
 Portugal, and the market of Trieste. It is evident that, 
 if she delays to make it, she will lose Holland, the 
 
 1 Du Casse., 135. a II., 213.
 
 A LOST PEACE CHANCE 261 
 
 Hanseatic towns, and will hold Sicily with difficulty." 
 This remark, which was not without truth, occurs in 
 neither of the two letters of Napoleon to Charapagny of 
 March 20th (as stated by Dr. Rose), but in the note 
 enclosed in the Letter to Louis. 1 Nothing however came of 
 this note, though it appears that Fouche (Due d'Otrante), 
 Chief of Police, carried on a peace negotiation on his own 
 account soon afterwards, the result being a confusion 
 of his proposals with Napoleon's, who in a letter of June 
 3rd, thus expressed his annoyance : "A negotiation has 
 been opened with England ; conversations have taken 
 place with Lord Wellesley. This Minister knew that 
 these approaches were made in your name ; he should 
 have believed they were in mine ; hence a fatal upsetting 
 of all my political relations and, if I tolerated it, a stain 
 on my character which I neither can nor will suffer." 2 
 And the Due d'Otrante was deprived of his post. 
 
 Whether, if we had met Napoleon on the basis of 
 mutual maritime concessions, he would not have annexed 
 Holland may be open to doubt ; but, failing peace, 
 political advantage was so obviously on the side of annexa- 
 tion that, in days when no other moral principle was 
 recognised by any Power, the annexation itself cannot be 
 condemned. And Louis' abdication on July 1st released 
 him from a thraldom that had become intolerable. The 
 Hanseatic towns were also annexed, whilst Hanover was 
 incorporated with the Kingdom of Westphalia, and its 
 very name abolished.3 
 
 Meantime the French successes of the early part of 
 1810 continued on the Peninsula. On May 14th the 
 town of Lerida in Catalonia suffered at the hands of 
 Suchet's troops more than the [customary atrocities 
 which the accepted laws of war justify still in the case 
 of places taken by storm. For a whole night and day 
 the wretched population, seeking a vain refuge in the 
 
 1 Correspondence, XX., 275, 6, No. 16352. 
 Mb., XX., 392, No. 16529. 3 Ann. Reg., 1810, 238.
 
 262 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 citadel, suffered a cruel bombardment before the white 
 flag was hoisted to stop the butchery. 
 
 Marshal Massena with 86,000 men, began operations 
 early in June, cherishing no unreasonable hope that the 
 French eagles would soon wave over the towers of Lisbon, 
 and the English leopards be driven into the sea. Welling- 
 ton's forces were insufficient to prevent the capture of 
 Ciudad Rodrigo on July nth, and of Almeida on 
 August 27th. In the case of the latter a bomb falling on 
 150,000 lbs. of gunpowder, had blown the cathedral 
 and most of the edifices in the town to atoms, and, 
 causing a mutiny in the garrison, rendered a capitulation 
 unavoidable. Nor did the British victory at Busaco on 
 September 27th check Massena's invasion of Portugal ; 
 but Massena carried all before him till he came against 
 Wellington's lines of Torres Vedras, which presented an 
 impassable barrier ; and thus Lisbon first and ultimately 
 the whole of Portugal were saved from a conquest that 
 but for Wellington's foresight and skill seemed their certain 
 fate. The following March the Marshal moved his camp 
 from a region where he found it well-nigh impossible to 
 feed his forces ; and therewith the tide had turned. 
 
 But, as regards Spain, almost the whole of it, Cadiz 
 still holding out, was in French occupation, though the 
 growing guerilla warfare made it far from easy. Nothing 
 seemed less likely than success in a land war which was 
 costing us £360,000 a month. In November Sweden 
 joined Russia and Denmark in the war against us ; 
 whilst with America also war was coming daily nearer, 
 our refusal to give up our claim to search American vessels 
 for British seamen keeping up a continual soreness. l 
 Napoleon, heedless of the injury to his own country, 
 dealt a further blow at our maritime rights by his decree 
 of October 18th, which condemned to be burnt all English 
 goods found on land or sea. On the other hand, our 
 immense maritime supremacy placed all French colonial 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1810, 259.
 
 A LOST PEACE CHANCE 263 
 
 territory at our mercy ; the capture of Guadaloupe on 
 February 6th, deprived France of her last West Indian 
 Island, whilst on December 6th the capture of Mauritius 
 (the Isle of France) completed the conquest of the whole 
 colonial territory of France. Henceforth France had 
 nothing she could call her own in the East or the West 
 Indies. Whilst her military strength placed nearly the 
 whole of Europe under her control, our naval superiority 
 was such that almost any island we fancied was to be 
 picked up for the sailing. Neither enemy could throw the 
 other ; the contest had come to seem as hopeless as one 
 between a dog and a fish. 
 
 France and Russia 
 
 The chief hope lay in the growing impatience of 
 Alexander with his French alliance, and in the chance of 
 detaching him from it. The relaxation by Russia of her 
 exclusion of British goods and their permitted importation 
 by neutral American vessels clearly threatened the success 
 of the Continental system against England, and mightily 
 vexed its author. But what Napoleon regarded as a 
 crowning insult was the decree to burn all provisions 
 coming from France ; in reprisals for which he ordered all 
 wood, hemp, etc., coming from Russia to be burnt. 1 It 
 could not be represented by Alexander that the Russian 
 ukase against French commerce was in reply to Napoleon's 
 annexation of the German littoral, for Napoleon, on inquiry 
 into the dates, found that the senatorial decree of annexa- 
 tion was dated January 2nd, 1811, but the ukase on 
 December 31st, 1810. 2 And to these causes of difference 
 was added the refusal of the Russian court to suffer 
 Napoleon to marry the sister of the Czar, when in his 
 search for a successor to Josephine he had looked in that 
 direction before turning to Austria. 
 
 But the root of their difference was the Polish question. 
 The Duchy of Warsaw was the real cause of all further 
 troubles till and even during the Congress of Vienna at 
 
 1 Tatitscheff, 556, 7. « Vandal, III., 62.
 
 264 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 the end of the war in 1814. Alexander wanted to take it 
 from the King of Saxony and bring it under his own sway. 
 His secret letters with Prince Czartoryski prove that, 
 whilst professing fears of Napoleon's restoring Poland, 
 he himself was scheming to do so in a Russian sense. 
 That is, he hoped to make a new Poland out of the Russian 
 Polish provinces, the Duchy of Warsaw, and Galicia. 
 For the loss of Galicia Austria was to be offered in exchange 
 the Turkish provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia. The 
 essential condition was that this Polish kingdom should 
 for ever be united to Russia, whose Emperor was in future 
 to add the title of King of Poland to that of Czar of Russia. 1 
 But in this same letter this craftiest of monarchs says that 
 he tried to dissipate rumours of his intention to become 
 King of Poland by declaring such a thing impossible. 2 
 
 At the close of 1810 he regarded his projected 
 defection with great hopefulness. He told Czartoryski 
 on December 25th, 1810 his plans. He hoped to get 
 50,000 Poles from the Duchy of Warsaw ; and these, 
 added to 50,000 Poles from the Russian Polish provinces, 
 would probably tempt 95,000 German fighters from the 
 side of France to that of Russia ; Austria in gratitude 
 for the gift of the Turkish provinces in lieu of Galicia 
 would probably contribute 200,000 men, and thus against 
 a French total of only 60,000 men, the peace-loving 
 Alexander calculated that with a mixed army of Russians, 
 Poles, Prussians, Austrians and Danes, amounting to 
 559,000 men, he might safely venture on war with his 
 ally.3 In the same month this frank and honest monarch 
 was assuring Napoleon that he had nothing more at heart 
 than the continuance of their alliance, and that he put no 
 faith in the alarming reports of German statesmen, for 
 that he relied on Napoleon's assurances.4 If ever 
 duplicity was the chief characteristic of a human being, 
 it was that of the virtuous Alexander. 
 
 1 Czartoryski's Memoirs, II., 222-8, January 31st, 181 1. 
 a ib., II., 228. 3 »&., 11., 217, 8, 224. 4 Tatitscheflf, 542.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 1 8 1 1 . Continental Unrest 
 
 Henceforth the two emperors were as wolf against 
 wolf, snake against snake ; but Alexander had been the 
 first to show his fangs. Each mistrusted and feared the 
 other. In the early months of 1811 each moved fresh 
 forces towards his respective frontiers with the greatest 
 attempts at secrecy. Each hoped to have the advantage 
 of the first offensive, but while Napoleon counted on the 
 possibility of a full year's preparation, Alexander was 
 ready and willing to strike in the spring of 1811. Why 
 did he delay ? Because unforeseen circumstances upset 
 his calculations. The Poles in the Duchy of Warsaw 
 did not respond to his allurements ; they preferred 
 Napoleon to Alexander. He was compelled to tell Czar- 
 toryski that he had decided not to begin war till more 
 fully assured of the co-operation of the Poles. Metternich 
 moreover became suspicious of the Czar's intentions ; 
 going even so far as to say that if Russian troops were 
 concentrated near Galicia, Austria would feel obliged to 
 put herself on a war footing. 1 
 
 Hardly had France and Napoleon on March 20th, 
 1811, gone into a delirium of joy at the birth of an heir 
 to the Empire, than the most sinister rumours arrived of 
 Russian military movements threatening the Duchy of 
 Warsaw. The sky soon clouded over again. War was 
 again in the air, as desired and designed by France's 
 treacherous Russian ally. Nevertheless, the Czar's blow 
 having misfired, it was his interest, as also Napoleon's, 
 to preserve the forms of friendship and to feel or affect 
 
 1 Vandal, III., 105, 6. 
 
 265
 
 266 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 a wish to negotiate. In a letter of March 25th, 1811, 
 to Napoleon, Alexander summed up the grievances he had 
 against his ally. Among these a foremost grievance was 
 the annexation of the Duchy of Oldenburg to France. 
 Why, asked the Czar, should this little corner of the earth 
 have been taken from his brother-in-law, though as part 
 of the Rhine Confederation it was not only under 
 Napoleon's protection but guaranteed by the Treaty of 
 Tilsit ; and that without a word to Alexander before- 
 hand ? As to the new tariff, he denied that it was speci- 
 ally directed against France. Russia had no interest in 
 a war ; she had no need of conquests, having already 
 perhaps too much territory. There would be no war, 
 if Napoleon desired it as little as he did ; but if war came 
 it would be because Napoleon desired it. 1 
 
 The recriminatory tone of this letter was little 
 calculated to preserve harmony between two friends 
 whose position made mutual suspicion inevitable. With 
 swarms of spies all over Europe how could either increase 
 or move his forces without some knowledge of it reaching 
 the other ? How could either expect to be believed when 
 he resorted to the familiar platitude of a purely defensive 
 purpose, or to some such false reason as Napoleon 
 employed when an imaginary attack by an English 
 squadron on Dantzig was made to explain movements 
 of his troops in that direction P 1 Suspicion was also 
 increased by misinformation about the troop movements 
 of the other by their own servants, some of whom, like 
 Count Tolstoi at Paris, did their best to provoke a rupture. 2 
 
 The most interesting of Napoleon's war preparations 
 was his order for twenty-eight million bottles of wine and 
 for two million of brandy3 ; that was regarded as a year's 
 supply. How long would it last for a modern army ? 
 
 Napoleon was under no delusions. He took an almost 
 fatalistic view of the inevitability of a war, writing on 
 
 1 Vandal, III., 70. 
 2 Tatitscheff, 243. 3 Vandal, III., 233. 
 
 \
 
 CONTINENTAL UNREST 267 
 
 April 2nd, 1811, to the Duke of Wurtemburg : " The 
 war will take place ; in spite of myself, in spite of the 
 Emperor Alexander, in spite of French and of Russian 
 interests. I have already seen it so often, and it is my 
 experience of the past which reveals to me this future." 
 When all was over, in 18 16, he said the same : "I did not 
 wish the war ; I did not want to fight. Alexander did 
 not wish it any more than myself, but once in presence 
 of each other circumstances pushed us against one another, 
 and fatality did the rest." As fatality always will, so 
 long as mutual fear and overweening military pride win 
 their customary and easy victory over the forces of peace 
 and prudence. 
 
 Nevertheless Napoleon tried to avert the inevitable. 
 At first he treated the Oldenberg question as a trifle, and 
 proposed compensation for it at Erfurt or elsewhere. 
 But the Czar and Chancellor Romanzov saw in the dispute 
 a chance for compensation from the Duchy of Warsaw, and 
 in an interview on April 10th, between Napoleon and Col. 
 Tchernicheff, the Russian agent or spy, sent to propose 
 this bargain, Napoleon showed intense indignation at 
 the idea of giving up either the whole Duchy or Dantzig 
 in exchange for Oldenberg ; "to give up the Duchy of 
 Warsaw for Oldenberg would," he said, " be the height 
 of madness." Nevertheless, he made other definite 
 offers for compensation, only asking in return for a cessa- 
 tion of the burning of French goof's sent to Russia. On 
 such a basis he would proceed to propose a simultaneous 
 reduction of armaments. But though the talk after 
 four and a half hours ended on a friendly note, the sting 
 remained unextracted. 1 
 
 On June 5th Caulaincourt, returning to Paris from his 
 Russian embassy, had a several hours' talk with Napoleon, 
 of which Vandal has given so graphic an account. 2 
 Caulaincourt failed altogether to convince Napoleon of 
 Alexander's loyalty to the Alliance ; nor indeed could he 
 
 1 Vandal, III., 133. 2 ni., 175-89.
 
 268 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 pretend that Alexander would yield on the principal point : 
 the exclusion of British commerce from his ports. The 
 Czar's military preparations and intentions, which Prince 
 Poniatowski, the Pole, who by some means had seen the 
 Czar's letters to Czartoryski, had made widely known, 
 seem to have left no impression on Caulaincourt, still 
 under the enchantment of the monarch's musical voice 
 and honied phrases ; but Napoleon had the truer insight ; 
 " he is false and feeble," he cried, " he is false and is of 
 the Greek character." 1 But on one point Caulaincourt 
 was right : in warning Napoleon, in default of a peace 
 obtained by certain concessions, against the temptation 
 of a war carried into the heart of Russia itself. His forecast 
 of disaster was prophetic in its accuracy, but it beat in 
 vain against the military confidence of Napoleon. For 
 did not the number of his legions render him invincible ? 
 Both sides subsided for the time into a state of 
 indecisive bitterness, Alexander making the most of the 
 Oldenberg grievance, but steadfastly declining to answer 
 definitely what compensation would satisfy him and heal 
 the sore. All the summer Russian and English agents 
 of the neutral Courts worked and plotted for a new league 
 against France ; and American ships, no longer singly 
 or by stealth, but in fleets and openly, brought English 
 goods into Russian ports. Till at last came a day when 
 Napoleon's wrath exploded. This was on August 15th 
 1811, his fete-day, when before the Diplomatic Body he 
 harangued Prince Kurakin, the Russian ambassador, 
 for two hours. Poland, not Oldenberg, was the real 
 cause of the trouble, he said, but as to making any compen- 
 sation from the Duchy of Warsaw, he would not yield an 
 inch of it, even though the armies of Russia were encamped 
 on Montmartre ; not a village, nor a mill would he part 
 with in that direction. But he had not a thought of 
 restoring Poland ; such a policy was not the interest of 
 France ; though, if he were forced to war, he would make 
 
 1 III. 186.
 
 CONTINENTAL UNREST 269 
 
 use of Poland against Russia. He denied all wish for 
 war, or of making it that year, unless he were attacked ; 
 but if the crisis was not over by November, he would raise 
 100,000 additional men, and would continue righting for 
 two or three years till Russia had lost all her Polish 
 provinces. 1 And from that time onwaid his mind was 
 fixed on war for the following year, in June, though 
 pacific negotiations did not cease to accompany his 
 prodigious military preparations. 
 
 The quarrel between the two great lords of Europe 
 placed Prussia in a terrible dilemma. Should she seek 
 a French or a Russian alliance ? A forged document, 
 dated November 16th, 1810, and attributed to Champagny, 
 which advocated the annihilation of Prussia, strengthened 
 the Prussian anti-French party, and on July 16th, 1811, 
 Gen. Scharnhorst, famous for the re-organisation of the 
 Prussian army, was sent to St. Petersburg to crave 
 Alexander's alliance and aid. By devious ways and under 
 a disguised name Scharnhorst reached the Russian 
 capital, where in October he interviewed the Czar, 
 and on the 17th prevailed on him to sign a military 
 convention which promised a definite though restricted 
 co-operation with the Prussian armies. But meantime 
 Napoleon, become aware of the secret military prepara- 
 tions of Prussia and able at any moment to crush her, 
 was insisting on her discontinuing her feverish prepara- 
 tions for war as an alternative to his dethroning Frederick 
 William and wiping Prussia once for all off the map of 
 Europe. The King promised Napoleon compliance with 
 his wishes, but continued his preparations all the same, 
 hoping for a favourable answer from Russia. When 
 Napoleon discovered this treacherous conduct, on 
 November 14th, 181 1, he instructed Marshal Davoust 
 to prepare a military plan for the destruction of his 
 treacherous neighbour. But as the terms Napoleon 
 offered of an alliance seemed to the King, who saw, as 
 
 » ib„ in.. 274.
 
 270 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 he said, abysses opening on all sides of him, to offer the 
 best chance of safety ; and after Scharnhorst had been 
 sent to Vienna to solicit an Austrian alliance, and had 
 returned at the end of the year discomfited by Metter- 
 nich's polite but decided refusal, Frederick William and 
 Count Hardenberg had no option left but to accept 
 unconditionally on January 29th, 1812, the terms of an 
 alliance imposed by Napoleon. 1 
 
 Wellington's repulse of Massena from Lisbon doubt- 
 less encouraged Alexander in his plan for turning his 
 arms against his French ally ; for it showed that his 
 ally was not invulnerable. But the subsequent campaign 
 of 181 1 on the Peninsula fell short of the success achieved 
 at Torres Vedras, and probably had its share in causing 
 Alexander to postpone his meditated League of Nations 
 against France. 
 
 For the joy naturally felt in England at Wellington's 
 repulse of Massena' s march against Lisbon suffered some 
 abatement in the early months of 181 1 by reason of 
 incidents of a less pleasing nature. The fortress of 
 Olivenza surrendered to Marshal Soult on January 22nd, 
 and on March 10th the strong frontier town of Badajoz, 
 with its garrison of 8,000, capitulated, only two days 
 before Beresford arrived to relieve it. Massena the same 
 month found it necessary to leave his camp at Santerem, 
 some forty miles from Lisbon, and retire from Portugal 
 altogether ; the towns and villages he passed on his 
 retreat being invariably burnt. His invasion had cost 
 France 45,000 men : a foretaste of the invasion of Russia 
 in the following year. His retreat and Wellington's 
 pursuit caused frightful sufferings to Portugal ; but the 
 successful liberation of the soil from the invader justly 
 called for the reward of £100,000 voted by Parliament, 
 and for the still larger sums generously paid from every 
 corner of England to palliate the enormous distress which 
 the war had brought to the Portuguese. 
 
 * Vandal, III., 253-85.
 
 CONTINENTAL UNREST 271 
 
 Nevertheless no great success attended Wellington's 
 campaign in 181 1. For the future defence of Portugal 
 it was most essential to gain possession of the strong 
 frontier towns. Though Beresford recovered Olivenza, 
 he failed to take Badajoz. Soult came from Seville to 
 raise the siege, but after his great losses at Albuera on 
 May 16th, returned again southward, and the strong 
 reinforcements sent by Napoleon compelled Wellington 
 to raise the ineffectual siege. Nor did he succeed any 
 better against Ciudad Rodrigo ; so that of the confused 
 operations of the year only the victory at Albuera stood 
 out with any distinction. But it was one of the bloodiest 
 battles of the war, and Lord Liverpool in moving a vote 
 of thanks to General Beresford, had to qualify the 
 national satisfaction by connecting the victory with 
 a loss of life that had been seldom " surpassed. "* The 
 casualties were over 4,000, and it was said that several 
 British regiments were nearly annihilated. 2 
 
 By a strange coincidence on the same day, May 16th, 
 a naval action occurred off the American coast between 
 the American frigate, The President, and an English sloop 
 of war, called The Little Belt, with much loss of life to the 
 latter. The tension was fast growing. Our refusal to 
 withdraw the Orders in Council was the cause of such 
 friction that before the end of the year a force of 10,000 
 Regulars and 50,000 militia was proposed to be raised in 
 America. 
 
 The War in Spain 
 The liberation of Spain seemed further off than ever. 
 With the chief exception of Cadiz almost the whole of 
 Spain was subjugated, and the military chances of success 
 seemed infinitesimal. Marshal Suchet continued his 
 victories in Catalonia. Tortosa, besieged since November, 
 1810, surrendered on January 2nd, 1811. On March 29th 
 the unresisting town of Manressa was wantonly burnt 
 by the troops of Marshal Macdonald ; causing the war to 
 
 1 Pari. Deb., XX., 513. a Ann . Reg#> l8lI> Io6 
 
 18
 
 272 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 be still more fiercely waged by the proclamation of the 
 Spanish generals that French soldiers found in the vicinity 
 of a burnt town should receive no quarter. But Suchet's 
 most brilliant success was against the immensely strong 
 fortress town of Tarragona, the capture of whose arsenal 
 and harbour would complete the conquest of the Cata- 
 lonian coast. At the end of June the place was taken by 
 storm, with the usual atrocities. Suchet had expressed 
 the fear of having to make " a terrible example " by 
 intimidating Catalonia and Spain for ever by the destruc- 
 tion of the whole city. Soon afterwards he wrote : " the 
 terrible example I foresaw with regret in my last report 
 had taken place," a " horrible massacre " had occurred ; 
 4,000 had been killed in the city, and 10,000 prisoners 
 taken. The favourite militarist argument for cruelty 
 in war, that it mercifully shortens its duration, derived 
 as little justification from this instance of it as it has from 
 a thousand similar illustrations. 
 
 In his progress into the interior of the province Suchet 
 acted on the same principle ; yet he was by nature among 
 the more humane of Napoleon's marshals. And success 
 continued to follow his standard. After taking Mont 
 Serrat in July, and Figueras in August, he proceeded to the 
 province of Valencia, where on October 25th Murviedro, 
 perched on precipitous rocks, surrendered : a place 
 memorable in ancient days as Saguntum, whose chiefs 
 in the year 218 B.C. rather than fall alive into Hannibal's 
 hands had thrown themselves into the same fire into 
 which they had thrown their property. Thus 2,000 
 years made little difference : the same barbarity was in 
 progress 1,800 years after Christ that had disgraced the 
 civilisation of 200 years before that epoch. Suchet's 
 attention was next turned to Valencia, the richest city 
 in Spain after Cadiz, and its successful siege that ended 
 on January 2nd, 1812, was the greatest blow yet struck 
 against the Spanish cause. As many as 16,000 regular 
 troops were made prisoners, and immense stores and
 
 CONTINENTAL UNREST 273 
 
 ammunition taken. Thus the pacification of the province 
 of Valencia followed close on that of Catalonia. 
 
 Could such disasters have been prevented ; especially 
 the worst of all, the fall of Tarragona ? Alison thinks 
 so ; if only the British Government had not kept 12,000 
 troops marking time in Sicily, instead of sending them to 
 Catalonia. But might not Sicily have risen, and tried to 
 throw off an alliance which under Lord William Bentinck's 
 commandership of the British forces in Sicily bore little 
 difference from sovereignty ? Sicily was costing us 
 £400,000 a year : which entitled us, as the Queen said to 
 Sir Robert Wilson in May, 18 12, to give advice, " but 
 not to act as mistress without the declaration of war, 
 and the subsequent triumph of our power." 1 The world, 
 generally blind to those virtues that were so visible to 
 ourselves, attributed to us designs of universal annexation. 
 Even Spain, which we were liberating, was so firmly 
 convinced that we meant to annex Cadiz that Lord 
 Wellesley was constrained to write to the Spanish Secretary 
 of State to assure him of our perfect innocence of the 
 designs attributed to us by the Spanish press. 2 
 
 But outside Europe the wishes of our annexationists 
 were amply gratified. The islands of Amboyna and 
 Bantam became ours in February, and in September the 
 vast island of Java, 50,000 square miles, succumbed after 
 a vigorous resistance. The French and Dutch had thus 
 been driven from every possession they had ever had in 
 the Indian Ocean. Yet at the final peace all we kept 
 of the original French colonies were Mauritius, Tobago, 
 and St. Lucia ; whilst for retaining the Cape, Demarara 
 and Curocoa we paid six millions. If such terms were 
 sufficient to satisfy us, peace was not out of reach in 1811, 
 had there only been the will to make it on the part of the 
 Prince Regent, Perceval and Lord Wellesley. 
 
 In this state of things, when one Spanish fortress 
 after another was falling to the enemy, when in Portugal 
 
 1 Diary, I., 57. * Ann. Reg., II., 337.
 
 274 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 by October 19,000 British and 6,000 Portuguese soldiers 
 were in the hospitals, it is not surprising that in spite of 
 Wellington's successful defence of Lisbon, it should have 
 been debated whether it was wise to continue the Peninsular 
 war. Lord Wellesley's contention on March 21st, 1811, 
 that we were equally bound by honour and interest to 
 continue our assistance to Portugal, was strongly disputed 
 by Lord Grenville, whose view was that, as there was no 
 present chance against Napoleon in that quarter, we 
 should husband our resources till some chance in the 
 future gave us a prospect of effective intervention. Whilst 
 protesting against the gross misrepresentation which 
 pictured him as indifferent to the cause of Spain and 
 Portugal, he asked his fellow peers to pause in " this wild 
 mad career of thoughtless prodigality," and not to throw 
 away million after million in a hopeless cause. 1 
 
 In the temper of the ruling classes of that day he 
 might as well have argued with the sea ; though unrepre- 
 sented England would doubtless have voted with him 
 by a large majority. The force of argument, though 
 entirely on his side, was counteracted by the large powers 
 which a Government can always employ to foster the 
 popularity of any war so far as the Press of the day can 
 be taken as an index of it. The life of a War Government 
 is in danger if it once loses the cheap popularity which 
 J it acquires by those delusive hopes of ultimate victory 
 that can alone keep public opinion up to the level of its 
 first enthusiasm for a war. Therefore it must resort to 
 war propaganda, or deliberate distortions of facts, in order 
 to keep its policy in favour with the people. This plan 
 was freely used at this time. Everything was done to 
 belittle the numbers or courage of the enemy, and to 
 excite hatred against him by tales of atrocities that were 
 so often fictitious as to make much of the history of the 
 war totally valueless. " Members of Parliament," says 
 Napier, " related stories of the enemy which had no 
 
 * Pari. Deb., XIX., 450-7.
 
 CONTINENTAL UNREST 275 
 
 foundation in truth, and nothing that intrigue could 
 bring to aid party spirit and stifle reason was neglected." 
 Again, " Every Treasury newspaper spoke of battles 
 which were never fought, plans which were never arranged, 
 places taken which were never attacked, victories gained 
 where no armies were." 1 From this sea of mendacity 
 which constituted the war propaganda of those days, 
 how could contemporaries, how can posterity hope to 
 find a solid foothold for truth ? 
 
 In certain quarters the assassination of Napoleon 
 seemed the quickest method of liberating Europe from 
 his power. On June 24th, 181 1, Lord Grey complained 
 of the open advocacy of this plan in a French paper, 
 published in London, and widely read on the Continent. 
 Was this paper Peltier's L'Ambigu again ? Lord Wellesley 
 as strongly reprobated the doctrines of the paper, and 
 deprecated the vile abuse of Napoleon in which it indulged. 2 
 Whitbread in the Commons on July 1st spoke of these 
 doctrines as preached by more then one paper, by " a 
 part of the press," but in the French language, for 
 circulation abroad, where they were thought to be 
 sanctioned by our Government. Perceval, of course, 
 disavowed these papers as strongly as Lord Wellesley 
 had done, and on this point at least there was no difference 
 of paities.3 But whether steps were taken to check the 
 abuse does not appear. The same papers that advocated 
 the assassination of Napoleon said that a certain Hawk- 
 itzer had been sent from France to try to assassinate 
 George III. The fetish of the freedom of the press was 
 carried to the point of a foolish idolatry. 
 
 The year finished gloomily, with a total failure to 
 free the Peninsula. It did not appear to contemporaries 
 to be in our power " to afford such aid as should turn 
 the fortune of war " in favour of Spain.4 In the French 
 Annual Report to the Legislative Body on June 29th, 
 
 1 II. 383- 2 Pari. Deb., XX., 738. 
 
 3 ib., XX., 778-82. 4 Ann. Reg., 181 1, 122.
 
 276 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 it was declared that the only guarantee of the lasting 
 peace for which France craved was a fleet of 150 ships 
 of the line and an English Cabinet of different principles 
 to those of the existing Tory Government. 1 It was the 
 year of the Regency under restrictions, and the uncer- 
 tainty about the Ministry that the Prince Regent would 
 choose, when on the year's completion the restrictions 
 would be removed, that gave the country as poor a Govern- 
 ment as its worst enemy could desire. 
 
 It was difficult to be an optimist in such conditions ; 
 but there were two reasons which, had they been known, 
 would have lent some countenance to counsels of hope. 
 One was the difficult position of King Joseph in Spain. 
 On November 3rd, 18 10, he had written to his wife from 
 Madrid : " The position of affairs here is horrible, and 
 soon will become irremediable "; and on January 8th, 
 1811, he wrote that the decree of February 8th, 1810, 
 which had transferred all real power from himself to the 
 generals, had destroyed all his earlier hopes of winning 
 the goodwill of the Spaniards. 2 Napoleon kept him sadly 
 short of funds, and after Joseph had gone to Paris and 
 obtained from him a promise of a million francs a month 
 from July, the promise was so badly kept that on 
 October 1st Joseph desciibed himself as still in great 
 embarrassment. 3 Thus the political state of the new 
 kingdom was far weaker than its military successes 
 indicated. 
 
 The other reason was the French war with Russia 
 which destiny had in view for the following year. 
 Throughout the year the differences between Napoleon 
 and Alexander had been so acute as to lead to a wide 
 expectation of a declaration of war by one or the other.4 
 But for the time such a war was at best only a hopeful 
 possibility on which no political reliance could safely be 
 placed. 
 
 1 ib., 131. 2 Du Casse, 41, 43. 
 
 3 ib., 50. 4 Ann. Reg., 181 1, I37«
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 1812. Russia Invaded 
 
 In the year 1812 the misery caused by the war reached 
 high-water mark. One sees now to how little purpose. 
 First, the Peninsular War, with our forces battling to 
 restore Spain to a tyranny worse than the one we fought 
 to remove ; then the Russian war, to liberate Europe 
 from Napoleon, only to subject her to the coming Holy 
 Alliance of the European autocrats against freedom of 
 every sort. Of all the delusions by which nations are 
 lured into war the pretext of liberation is by far the most 
 fallacious ; since war always spells an increase of 
 despotism alike for the conquering as for the conquered 
 nation. 
 
 But, given the delusion, there was justifiable rejoicing 
 when news reached England of Wellington's having 
 taken Ciudad Rodrigo by storm on January 19th, 1812, 
 after a siege of only twelve days. The removal of large 
 French forces from Spain in December, 181 1, for the 
 expected Russian war' facilitated a success which had 
 been denied to the British arms in 181 1 ; the garrison 
 reduced to 1,500 could not withstand an assault of i2,ooo, 2 
 though Napier was of opinion that with a garrison of 5,000 
 this important frontier town would have been unassail- 
 able.3 It was unfortunate that the amazing valour 
 displayed in taking the place was marred by the subsequent 
 incidents that seem to be inseparable from the storming 
 of towns. For the plundering of churches, the pillage 
 of the wine cellars, the incendiarism, the drunkenness, 
 and the violence, Alison found comfort in the belief that 
 » Napier, IV., 81 a Pari. Deb., XXL, 874. 3 IV., 93. 
 
 277
 
 278 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 there was " no slaughter, either of the citizens or the 
 enemy," 1 but, though the capture of 1,500 French prisoners 
 partially confirms this, Napier in reference to the 
 sufferings of the citizens, writes : " Disgraceful were the 
 excesses of the allied troops : the Spanish people were 
 allies and friends, unarmed, helpless, and all these claims 
 were disregarded." 2 It is impossible to reconcile Napier 
 with Alison. 
 
 The still greater triumph of the storming of Badajoz 
 on April 6th, after a siege which had cost us no less than 
 5,000 British and Portuguese casualties, though it made 
 Portugal more defensible, and Spain more assailable by 
 our forces, was tarnished by similar scenes. " Shameless 
 rapacity, brutal intemperance, savage lust, cruelty and 
 murder," says Napier, raged for two days and nights,3 
 nor is the story much bettered by Alison's reflection that 
 when the French stormed Tarragona some four thousand 
 lost their lives, including those of the garrison.4 In 
 Napier's opinion it served as no excuse for such excesses 
 that the soldiers could not be controlled ; but from time 
 immemorial such deeds have belonged to the received 
 tradition of legitimate warfare. The Romans used to 
 kill dogs and other animals besides all human beings in 
 the towns they stormed. 5 
 
 The capture of these two fortresses profoundly improved 
 our military position, amounting in fact to the liberation 
 of Portugal, and indicative of the possibility of that of 
 Spain. The Ciudad Rodrigo success seemed to some in 
 England a favourable moment for a peace negotiation. 
 " I am so much of opinion," wrote Francis Jackson to 
 his brother George on February 12th, " that the present 
 is a good moment for negotiation with France that I want 
 to know what objection can be stated against it other 
 than those general ones about any peace with Bonaparte" 6 
 The financial distress of the country with its attendant 
 
 1 VIII., 481. 3 IV., 93. 3 IV., 122. 4 VIII., 503. 
 
 5 Pclybius, X., 15, 6 Bath Archives, I., 330,
 
 RUSSIA INVADED 279 
 
 riotings and discontent pointed in the same direction ; 
 nor was there any reason to suppose that the substitution 
 in February 28th of Lord Castlereagh for Lord Wellesley 
 at the Foreign Office would bring final victory any nearer. 
 Napoleon too had obvious motives for peace. No 
 cheering news came from brother Joseph, whom it was 
 impossible to supply with half the funds promised when 
 he visited Paris in 181 1, and of whom the Military 
 Generals were as jealous as they were of one another. 
 And the imminent Russian war necessitated the with- 
 drawal of 60,000 of some of the best troops and many of 
 the best generals. 
 
 The Franco-Prussian Alliance 
 
 On February 24th, 1812, Prussia had no choice but 
 to sign with great reluctance her treaty of alliance with 
 France, which involved a contingent application of the 
 exclusion of neutral commerce and a secret stipulation 
 of a supply of 20,000 Prussians for the field, and of as many 
 for garrison work. T The treaty was ratified on March 5th. 
 The French forces were on the frontiers, prepared to pass 
 through Prussia in any case ; it was advisable to accept 
 necessity with the best grace possible ; on March 28th 
 the French forces entered Berlin and occupied all the 
 public buildings except the Royal Palace. Berlin for 
 the time became a French city ; and enormous con- 
 tributions were extorted from the country, including 
 two million bottles of beer and two million bottles of 
 brandy : a hard trial of Prussia's love for her French 
 ally. 1 
 
 The Franco-Austrian Alliance 
 
 An apparently more willing treaty of alliance was 
 
 made by Austria with France. Metternich, who stood 
 
 for Austria in a far more real sense than Francis (the 
 
 first Austrian Emperor of that name, and formerly the 
 
 * Ann. Reg., 1812, II., 418. Alison, VIII., 750.
 
 28o THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 second German Emperor), whose levity or wisdom it 
 was to prefer fishing and horticulture to politics, saw more 
 momentary advantage from a French than from a 
 Prussian alliance. From a French alliance might he not 
 hope, in the event of a French victory, to recover Silesia, 
 which Prussia had taken from Austria under Frederick 
 the Great ? So Prince Schwartzenberg, Austria's ambas- 
 sador at Paris for the last two years, was at the end of 
 1811 given wide powers to treat ; and on March 14th a 
 treaty resulted which committed Austria to the supply 
 of 30,000 men to the allied cause ; to a joint guarantee 
 of the integrity of Turkey ; and to laws of maritime 
 war as settled at the Peace of Utrecht. 1 In return, hopes 
 of territorial gains were held out to her, with a prospect 
 even of Silesia if Prussia gave the least cause of offence. 2 
 Schwartzenberg was placed at the head of the Austrian 
 contingent ; the same Schwartzenberg who in 1813 and 
 1814 was to lead a changed alliance of forces against 
 the very same power of which he was now the willing 
 instrument. The fidelity of the instruments of these 
 warring Powers was as fickle as the potentates that ruled 
 them. To-day it was a League of Nations under France 
 against Russia ; to-morrow it would be a League of 
 Nations under Russia against France. 
 
 It is difficult to form an idea of the extraordinary 
 falsity of the monarchs and diplomats of this time. 
 Frederick William III. had no sooner signed his alliance 
 with France than he wrote to the Czar a letter of apology, 
 and continued friendly relations with the feigned enemy 
 through accredited but secret agents. 3 From Bavaria 
 and other German kingdoms Alexander received similar 
 assurances of sympathy. As for the crafty Metternich, 
 he let Russia understand that the French treaty need not 
 be taken seriously ; the two Powers should remain secret 
 friends, though apparent enemies ; Napoleon should 
 
 * Ann. Reg., 1812, II., 419. 2 Vandal, III., 287, 332. 
 
 3 Vandal, III., 449.
 
 RUSSIA INVADED 281 
 
 never have more than 26,000 men of the 30,000 promised, 
 nor should these march far over the Russian frontier. 
 Thus he bought off a threatened Russian attack on the 
 side of Hungary and Transylvania. 1 But if there were 
 degrees of duplicity it was Bernadotte who went furthest. 
 The alarm at first felt by the Czar at the news of the 
 Franco-Austrian alliance made Bernadotte fear lest his 
 Russian ally, by a possible peace with Napoleon, should 
 leave himself in the lurch and exposed to Napoleon's 
 wrath ; therefore he played the traitor to both sides, 
 offering, in return for French support in robbing Denmark 
 of Norway for certain compensations, an army of 50,000 
 Swedes, whilst at the same time continuing to assist 
 Russia by all sorts of intrigues against France. 2 But 
 perhaps the worst feature in this superlatively traitorous 
 nature was the use he made of fables of his own coining, 
 " colossal inventions," to blacken the character of his 
 former benefactor, and, through the Russian ambassador 
 at Stockholm, to keep Alexander's mind properly attuned 
 to an implacable hatred of Napoleon. 3 Probably much 
 that passes as historical about Napoleon flowed originally 
 from this polluted source. But what a strange crew 
 were all these potentates ; behaving to one another on 
 principles of deceit and fraud which in humbler walks 
 of life would have been accounted knavery, and thus 
 suggesting whether after all morality is not very much a 
 matter of social station. 
 
 Napoleon's Peace Overture 
 
 To close the Peninsular war, and so possibly to prevent 
 a Russian war, strongly prompted Napoleon again to try to 
 make peace with England. One of the most curious features 
 of this war was the frequency of Napoleon's overtures 
 for peace and their repeated rebuff by the Tory Ministry, 
 which took little or no pains to test their sincerity. Yet 
 when in April, after the fall of Badajoz, a flag of truce 
 
 1 ib., III., 448. 2 ib., III., 439-43- 3 *&•» HI., 371, 2,
 
 282 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 came from France, some even in the diplomatic world 
 were for seizing the opportunity. George Jackson 
 thought we should use the victorious moment for 
 negotiating a peace, but, mistrustful of his own opinion, 
 wished to know whether brother Francis (fifteen years 
 his senior) thought him right or wrong. 1 " I lean very 
 much," replied Francis, " to the idea of peace, because 
 we can never think of it with so good grace and so much 
 chance of success as when we are victorious." 2 And he 
 was persuaded that " Boney " would like peace, though 
 doubtful whether he would give up Spain to secure it. 
 
 There indeed lay the crux. The French proposal had 
 decided attractions. Portugal was to have her inde- 
 pendence and integrity guaranteed under the House of 
 Braganza. The most important clause ran : " The 
 integrity of Spain shall be guaranteed. France shall 
 renounce all idea of extending her dominions beyond 
 (du cote des) the Pyrenees. The actual dynasty shall be 
 declared independent, and Spain governed by a national 
 Constitution of the Cortes." The kingdom of Naples 
 was to be left under Murat, but Sicily under the Bourbon 
 family. The land and naval forces of both France and 
 England were to be removed from Spain, Portugal and 
 Sicily.3 
 
 Lord Castlereagh answered the Due de Bassano on 
 April 23rd, asking fairly enough for a more precise defini- 
 nition of the crucial clause. Did the independence of 
 the " actual dynasty " apply to King Joseph or to 
 Ferdinand VII. ; if to the latter, negotiation on the 
 proposed basis would not be refused.4 But to this no 
 answer was vouchsafed. 5 The reason for this was as 
 curious as it was unfortunate. The flag of truce that 
 conveyed Castlereagh's reply back to France, being fired 
 at from Calais, was obliged to land at Morlaix, so that the 
 
 1 Bath Archives, I., 357. 2 ib., I., 362. 
 
 3 Ann. Reg., 1812, 421. Pari. Deb., XXIII., 1159. 
 
 4 ib„ 1812, 422. 5 Pari. Deb., XXIII., 1068, 9.
 
 RUSSIA INVADED 283 
 
 despatch did not arrive till after April 25th, the day on 
 which the French despatches started to Russia, and it 
 was in vain that two messengers were sent to apologise 
 for the mistake which had caused the firing. 1 Sheridan 
 made great play with the perfidy and insidiousness of the 
 overture, but another Minister than Castlereagh might 
 surely have turned it to better account. How could the 
 proposed evacuation of Spain by France have been 
 compatible with Joseph's remaining as king ? Could he 
 have remained a day without French troops to support 
 him ? It was therefore at least possible that the words 
 " actual dynasty " referred to Ferdinand, not to Joseph. 
 Or the question between Joseph and Ferdinand might 
 have been submitted to the decision of Spain, where an 
 appreciable number would have preferred Joseph to the 
 very reactionary Bourbon whose later restoration they 
 had so much reason to deplore. A Russian victory over 
 France was at that date too improbable to justify the 
 rejection of any fair chance of peace. 
 
 The Franco-Russian War 
 
 Sincere as at one time was or seemed Alexander's 
 friendship or affection for Napoleon, his love for the King 
 of Prussia had for long surpassed it. The misfortune 
 of the King and his beautiful wife after Jena appealed 
 strongly to him as a monarch, nor did he heed Czartoryski's 
 remonstrances, who told him that his personal friendship 
 with a State of interests adverse to those of Russia was 
 one of the most unfortunate things that ever happened. 2 
 Thus the young Czar's affections were drawn in different 
 directions, though with a rapidly growing inclination to 
 his beloved Frederick William III. On his way to 
 Erfurt the Czar received a letter of August 28th, 1808, 
 from his brother of Prussia, complaining of the hard terms 
 attached by Napoleon to his promised evacuation of 
 Prussia : a contribution of 140,000,000 francs, and the 
 
 1 Pari. Deb., XXIII., 1125, 1131. 2 Memoirs, II., 125.
 
 284 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 French to continue to garrison Glogau, Stettin and Custrin 
 till it was paid. At Alexander's intercession Napoleon 
 agreed to reduce the sum by twenty millions, 1 and when 
 on his return from Erfurt the Czar touched at Konigsberg 
 and told the Prussian King and Queen of the approaching 
 evacuation of Berlin, he was greeted by them as their 
 saviour and thought to have achieved the impossible. 2 
 
 Never, wrote Mollien, the French Treasurer, had Paris 
 been gayer with balls and frivolities than in the three 
 first months of a year that was destined to end so 
 miserably. 3 On January 6th Napoleon wrote Mollien 
 a very secret letter with details of the enormous force 
 he was organising.4 But his plan of campaign was in no 
 way formed, being based on topographical details of 
 Russian roads, etc., which Bignon only received orders 
 to supply on January 2nd. 5 He still continued to throw 
 out feelers for peace, disclaiming again on February 15th 
 the designs attributed to him about Poland, but threaten- 
 ing war if English trade with Russia continued. He 
 thought other differences might be arranged ; it seemed 
 a pity that a hundred thousand men should die because 
 of a difference about the colour of a ribbon. 6 
 
 Also on February 18th the Due de Bassano instructed 
 Lauriston, the French ambassador at St. Petersburg, to 
 propose or welcome the idea of a Congress on the Niemen 
 or the Oder ; to offer a conditional arrest of the French 
 advance ; or in the last resort to propose a personal 
 interview between the two Emperors. Napoleon, he 
 said, would always welcome anything that could prevent 
 the war.7 There is no evidence that these proposals were 
 insincere, yet in partisan histories, like Alison's, they 
 do not figure at all, being in fact unknown before Baron 
 Ernouf published the results of his researches in the 
 French archives. If the idea be sound that truth always 
 
 1 Tatitscheff, Alexander I. et Napoleon, 457. 2 ib. t 462. 
 
 3 Memoirs, III., 123. 4 ib., III., 128. 5 Ernouf, 374, 5. 
 
 6 Tatitscheff, 583. 7 Ernouf, 343, 4.
 
 RUSSIA INVADED 285 
 
 conquers in the end, that end is apt to be so distant in 
 time as to deprive truth's triumph of all utility. 
 
 The steady refusal of the Czar for some fifteen months 
 to make other than evasive replies to French requests for 
 definite statements of satisfaction for his grievances 
 makes it probable that he meant war from the first. What 
 ultimately decided him seems to have been his treaty 
 of alliance with Sweden in the early days of April, 1812. 
 In Napoleon's plans for a Russian war the assumed assist- 
 ance of Sweden on one side of Russia, and of Turkey on 
 the other had filled a large place ; but in both cases 
 disappointment awaited him. Bernadotte, Crown Prince 
 of Sweden, found a plausible pretext for his long meditated 
 defection from the cause of his original country by 
 Napoleon's occupation of Pomerania in January, 1812 ; 
 for though Pomerania's disregard of the condition of 
 excluding British goods, on which she had been restored 
 to Sweden in 1810, justified the occupation, the conse- 
 quential loss of Sweden from the French side and its 
 transfer to the Russian side at once emboldened Alexander 
 to reply on April 8th to Napoleon's overtures in terms 
 calculated to make a settlement impossible. Nothing 
 less than the evacuation of Prussia and of Swedish 
 Pomerania and of all strong places east of the Elbe would 
 now satisfy him ; and this without any equivalent con- 
 cessions on his part but some commercial promises of 
 most uncertain quality. The Czar by this time had given 
 himself up wholly to the Russian war party, and to the 
 foreign war instigators who abounded at his Court ; and 
 on April 8th he sent Serdobin to Paris to deliver through 
 Prince Kurakin his ultimate terms. Serdobin reached 
 Paris on April 24th, and after several discussions the 
 Prince on April 30th delivered a note which Napoleon 
 regarded as a declaration of war : " To arrive at a state 
 of peace with France, it was essential that a neutral country 
 should exist between her and Russia. Consequently, 
 the first base of every negotiation could only be the formal
 
 286 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 engagement of the entire evacuation of the Prussian 
 States, of all the strong places, etc. This engagement 
 could alone render still possible a settlement, and it was 
 only after acceptance of this demand that the ambassador 
 would be allowed to promise that the settlement might 
 contain certain concessions, from which was formally 
 excepted the trade with neutrals, which Russia could 
 never renounce." 1 Thus concessions about Franco- 
 Russian commerce, or the Duchy of Oldenberg were made 
 conditional on a preliminary demand which made further 
 negotiation impossible : the evacuation of Prussia. 
 
 On April 12th the Czar told Czartoryski in a letter 
 that he thought war inevitable ; Napoleon, he said, 
 wanted all Russian trade with neutrals to be stopped, 
 yet asked that prohibited French articles of luxury, too 
 dear for Russians to buy, should be freely imported ; 
 and such pretensions were incompatible with the honour 
 of Russia. Napoleon on his side said that the evacuation 
 of Prussia, so imperiously demanded, was incompatible 
 with the honour of France. And, when Governments 
 talk of honour, war is always in the wind. 
 
 Alexander was the first to move to the headquarters of 
 his army at Wilna, the Lithuanian capital, in April ; 
 Napoleon leaving Paris for Dresden on May 9th. A few 
 days before he sent Count Narbonne to Wilna with two 
 letters, one from himself to the Czar, the other from the 
 Due de Bassano to Romanzov, with renewed assurances 
 of a wish for peace. These letters were dated April 25th, 
 but were not despatched till May 3rd, in order to indicate 
 that they were written before the Czar's ultimatum, 
 which must have precluded all further parley, was 
 officially known at Paris. 2 The letter of May 3rd from 
 the Due de Bassano to Narbonne is cited by Tatitscheff 
 to show that the Narbonne mission was insincere and 
 only intended to gain time,3 and the French historian 
 Vandal attributes these letters to a wish to delay a Russian 
 
 1 Ernouf's Maret, 352. z ib., 354. 3 ib., 586.
 
 RUSSIA INVADED 287 
 
 offensive and to retain the offensive for himself. 1 But 
 the Due de Narbonne always asserted Napoleon's 
 sincerity, and, claiming the idea as his own, said that 
 Napoleon had reluctantly assented to it. 2 When Prince 
 Kurakin, who personally wished for peace, received no 
 answer to the Russian ultimatum, his belief in Napoleon's 
 sincerity underwent a rapid change, and, on learning 
 that he was starting for Dresden in two days, he, with- 
 out any authorisation from the Czar, on May 7th 
 demanded his passports ; again on May nth, and again 
 on May 26th. On May 19th Alexander from Wilna 
 acknowledged Napoleon's letter sent by Narbonne, and 
 assured him of his unchanged kind feelings towards him, 
 and of his paramount desire to avoid war ;3 but always 
 on the assumption of compliance with his demands. 
 
 On May 20th the Due de Bassano instructed Lauriston 
 to go at once from St. Petersburg to Wilna, and to insist 
 on getting explanations from Romanzov which might 
 still leave a way open to a settlement ; but Lauriston 
 was not allowed to leave the capital.4 
 
 This refusal to see Lauriston, coupled with the dis- 
 covery that the Kurakin demands about Prussia were 
 known in Berlin, London and St. Petersburg, so angered 
 Napoleon that he at last sent Prince Kurakin his passports 
 and ordered Lauriston to demand his (June 12-16). 
 On June 24th he crossed the Niemen into Russia. 
 Alexander at once proclaimed that there could be no 
 talk of peace whilst a single Frenchman was on 
 the sacred soil ; and on June 25th he wrote to 
 Napoleon his last letter. In this he mentioned the 
 strange fact that a letter just received from Lauriston 
 showed that Napoleon considered war to have begun 
 when Prince Kurakin first demanded his passports, i.e., 
 since May 7th. But the Prince, he said, had not been 
 authorised to demand his passports, and as soon as 
 
 * III., 384, 5, 461. 2 Ernouf, 353. 
 
 3 Tatitscheff, 586. 4 Ernouf, 362. 
 
 19
 
 288 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Alexander knew of it he expressed his strong disapproval 
 and bade him remain at his post ; therefore, if Napoleon 
 was not determined to shed his people's blood for such a 
 misunderstanding, and would retire from Russian territory, 
 he would overlook what was past and a peace might still 
 be possible. 1 
 
 This letter he sent on June 27th by General 
 Balachof, Minister of Police, to Napoleon, now installed 
 in the same house at Wilna that had lately been occupied 
 by himself. But the unlikelihood of Napoleon's recrossing 
 the Niemen, without the slightest intimation of any 
 concessions from the Russian ultimatum, suggests that 
 by this letter Alexander only aimed at getting credit for 
 a wish for peace whilst insisting on a condition which 
 he knew would prevent it. 2 
 
 Of the historic interview between Napoleon and 
 Balachof a most graphic account has been drawn by 
 Tatitscheff from the Russian Archives. Things had gone 
 badly since the morning of the crossing of the Niemen, 
 when a fall from his horse, shying at a hare at its feet, 
 seemed to Napoleon himself and others an inauspicious 
 omen for the campaign. Napoleon was in no pacific 
 mood. What chiefly incensed him was the imperious 
 Kurakin note, a note, he said, that could hardly have been 
 presented to the smallest Court in Europe, not even to 
 Sweden ! All the Courts he had consulted regarded the 
 note as a declaration of war. The Czar, he said, had bad 
 advisers ; men like the Swedish General Armfeld, a 
 debauchee ; Benningsen, the regicide ; the Prussian 
 Stein, driven from his country as a good-for-nothing, 
 who would all drive him to the abyss. Did they suppose 
 that he had been at such prodigious expense and put off 
 his journey to Spain simply to come to look at the river 
 Niemen and not to cross it ? Russia did not want war ; 
 nor even did England, which had no wish to see Russia 
 weakened ; the only persons who wanted it were 
 1 Tatitscheff, 588. * Vandal, III., 495. 5*6.
 
 RUSSIA INVADED 289 
 
 Alexander's counsellors. What could Russia expect 
 from such a war ? The loss of her Polish provinces, and 
 this time the annexation of Prussia to France ? Why not 
 try to come to an understanding ? It might be that he 
 would comply with the Czar's desires. Let the Czar 
 know that the war had begun, but that he was not against 
 peace. Let Lauriston be sent to his headquarters to 
 explain the Russian wishes. 
 
 Balachof dined with Napoleon the same evening, and 
 after the meal there was some stormy talking followed by 
 a scene between Napoleon and Caulaincourt. The latter 
 had been a persistent pessimist about the war, earning 
 for himself thereby the nickname of a pro-Russian. On 
 this occasion, partly in anger, partly in chaff, Napoleon 
 told him that Alexander had made a Russian of him : 
 an insult which Caul'incourt strongly resented at the 
 time in language that another than Napoleon might have 
 found it difficult to listen to with patience. Happily, 
 the master of legions was also master of himself. 1 But 
 to Balachof he made no approach to a promise to leave 
 Russia, and the envoy was dismissed on a note of defiance. 
 On July 1st Napoleon wrote again to the Czar : he was 
 still ready to listen to peace proposals ; but he would 
 not leave Russia till Alexander had released himself from 
 the influence of the men who had always been the enemies 
 of Napoleon's family, his glory, and his Empire. 
 
 The Russian war party derived great encouragement 
 from the treaty of peace at Bucharest between Russia 
 and Turkey, signed on May 28th and ratified on July 14th. 
 This peace, and that between Russia and England, was 
 a great diplomatic triumph for Stratford Canning, in later 
 life the Lord Stratford de Redcliffe of Crimean fame, who, 
 left at Constantinople as our ambassador, at the age of 
 twenty-three, and without help or instruction from Lord 
 Wellesley, our Foreign Secretary, succeeded with infinite 
 difficulty in reconciling Turkey with Russia, and so 
 
 1 Vandal, III., 527-30.
 
 2go THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 releasing large Russian forces from service on the 
 Danube for service against France, and relieving her from 
 all fear of an enemy allied with France in her rear, as 
 Napoleon had designed. During the two years, 1810 to 
 1812, he had managed through neutral agents at St. 
 Petersburg to bring the Russian Court round to a policy 
 of peace both with England and with Turkey which 
 entirely disconcerted Napoleon's plans and led ultimately 
 to his overthrow. Nor was it an easy task to persuade 
 the Sultan to make a peace which was certain to dis- 
 please Napoleon. To do so Stratford Canning resorted 
 to an expedient which he " had long kept in reserve. 
 Mr. Adair (our previous ambassador) had obtained from a 
 secret source and consigned to my hands when he went 
 away, a plan for invading Turkey which had been prepared 
 at Vienna prospectively, in reliance no doubt on the 
 French Emperor's concurrence, and with a view to 
 partition at the first convenient juncture." 1 This 
 revelation of a scheme between Austria and France to 
 partition Turkey had the desired effect in estranging the 
 Turkish Government from France. Its potency provokes 
 astonishment at the long delay that passed before resorting 
 to so efficacious a weapon. Was the " secret source " 
 open to any suspicion ? Was Adair, and consequently 
 Canning, the dupe of some forger ? Baron Ernouf 
 alludes to a proposal of a division of the Ottoman Empire 
 in a forged letter from Napoleon to Alexander as being 
 used to alienate the Sultan from France, and the simi- 
 larity of the object in view and of its result tends to throw 
 some doubt on the authenticity of the document on which 
 Stratford Canning relied. 2 For can there have been 
 two documents : a genuine one implicating Austria, and 
 another forged one implicating Russia, in a scheme for 
 Turkey's partition, and each successful in alienating 
 Turkey from its French attachment ? 
 
 1 Poole's Life of S. Canning, I., 165. 
 - Ernouf's Maret, 323.
 
 RUSSIA INVADED 291 
 
 Each side counted, of course, on victory. Knesebeck, 
 the Prussian, testified to the belief of the Russians in 
 their invincibility, and to Alexander's annoyance when 
 he told him that 300,000 men were insufficient for a war 
 with France. One has to remember that the Russian 
 population at this time, according to a proclamation 
 by the Czar, was only thirty millions. 1 Napoleon's 
 confidence of victory, as revealed in his conversation with 
 Balachof, amounted almost to pity for his enemy. He 
 believed in a short and sharp campaign, like that of 1807. 
 It was for this reason that before leaving Paris he had 
 rejected the ideas of a two years' campaign ; for short 
 wars and quick peaces were what he loved, says Maret ; 
 at Smolensko there was no question between advancing 
 and pausing, but only between marching on Moscow or 
 St. Petersburg. 2 In this sense Jomini's remark may be 
 true, that Napoleon, whom he spoke of as " at once the 
 most decided and the most undecided of men," had 
 hardly fixed his plans for the campaign at its beginning. 
 Moscow was but a milestone on the road to India, and the 
 plunder of Moscow would both pay for the war and enrich 
 the soldiers. The festivities that May at the French 
 Court at Dresden, graced by the treacherous royalties 
 of Prussia and Austria and by many smaller German 
 princes, seemed a fitting prelude to a war which promised 
 so sure a return in spoil and pleasure. The general 
 expectation in England as elsewhere was that Russia 
 would be defeated. For against France, with Austrian 
 and Prussian auxiliaries, what other result was probable ? 
 
 But of course a Franco-Russian war would be to our 
 advantage, as inevitably diverting French forces from 
 Spain, and it was for this reason presumably that during 
 181 1 attempts had been taken to dissolve the Franco- 
 Russian alliance. Such attempts were, of course, of an 
 indirect nature with a Power with which we were still 
 nominally at war. Since September, 181 1, Liston, our 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1812, II., 431. 2 Ernouf, 418.
 
 2Q2 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 ambassador at the Porte, and the Corsican Pozzo di 
 Borgo, so alarmed the Russian Court with the alleged 
 hostile intentions of France that after the despatch of 
 each courier the Due de Bassano had to send disclaimers 
 of such intentions. Edward Thornton, the diplomatist, 
 was sent in the summer of 1811 on a secret mission to 
 Sweden, 1 during which he held secret conferences with 
 certain Russian officers at Reval. 2 We remained at war 
 with Russia till July 18th, 1812, when we made a fresh 
 treaty of friendship and alliance with her,3 but our diplo- 
 macy hoped for a Franco-Russian war. Lord Castlereagh, 
 on July 1st, 1812, disclaimed all idea of having instigated 
 Russia to war with France : our language to her had 
 always been that of caution, not of excitement ; " it 
 was always signified to her, that, if she were to determine 
 on war, she must look only to her own resources, not to 
 this country."4 Canning rightly interpreted this to mean 
 that we had held out to her every possible encouragment 
 short of direct military and financial support. 5 
 
 It would seem from this that Castlereagh's policy had 
 been to encourage Russia to a war she was unlikely to win, 
 in order to relieve us of our difficulties in Spain. Would 
 it not have been better in April of this year at least to 
 have tried to make a peace out of Napoleon's offer ? For 
 a peace was easily within our grasp which would have 
 satisfied our wishes about Spain, and saved Europe from 
 the appalling miseries of the Russian campaign. Francis 
 Jackson had but a poor opinion of his chief at the Foreign 
 Office : " as to Lord Castlereagh," he wrote on July 20th, 
 1812, " I expect no good, either public or private, from any- 
 thing he will do. Circumstances, I trust, will be in favour 
 of the country, for I have long known that he is utterly 
 incapable of conducting its affairs either with honour or 
 advantage." 6 A severe but mistaken commentary ! 
 
 1 Ernouf, 321. * Jackson's Diaries, I., 318. 
 
 3 Pari. Deb., XXIV., 174. 4 ib., XXIII., 1147. 
 
 s ib., XXIV., 66. 6 Bath Archives, I., 402.
 
 RUSSIA INVADED 293 
 
 Were it possible to cure human nature of its ineradic- 
 able belief in the omnipotence of military force, the 
 French invasion of Russia should have provided the 
 remedy. For, deducting the 300,000 men serving in 
 Spain, Napoleon had at his disposal for war some 900,000 
 men, 1 though Gourgaud puts the official figures of those 
 that crossed the Niemen at 155,400 French and 175,000 
 allied forces, 2 not 445,220 in all, as Segur puts them. 
 Such an army seemed as invincible as the Athenian fleet 
 which in the Peloponnesian war, 415 years before Christ, 
 sailed so gaily and confidently to the conquest of Syracuse, 
 most of its host to perish miserably in the Syracusan mines. 
 Napoleon had a fixed idea that his last war was before 
 him, and that after a certain victory he would get such 
 a mastery of the Continent as would enable him to enforce 
 peace on the world. 3 In his frequent arguments with 
 Caulaincourt or the Arch-Chancellor Cambacer&s, who in 
 vain urged counsels of peace, he disclaimed all desire of 
 conquest for conquest's sake ; everything was subordinate 
 to his desire to force the English to a peace by a victory 
 which should compel them to accept the principle of the 
 freedom of the seas. 4 In any case he achieved a wonderful 
 feat in bringing so many nationalities to serve under one 
 flag : Austrians, Prussians, Poles, Spaniards, Italians, 
 Danes, Dutch and Swiss. Many indeed of Oudinot's 
 Swiss regiment had come to the ranks in chains, nor were 
 the total numbers any index of national sympathy with 
 the cause they were forced to espouse ; but there had 
 been no such triumph over the principle of nationality 
 since the time when for sixteen years Hannibal had 
 commanded in Italy a polyglot army of Libyans, Iberians, 
 Ligurians, Celts, Phoenicians, Italians and Greeks : 5 both 
 cases showing how superficial is the tie of race and 
 
 1 Vandal, III., 337. 
 
 2 Napoleon et la Guerre en Russie, 90. 
 
 3 Mollien, III., 66, 7. 4 Vandal, III., 339-41. 
 5 Polybius, XI., 19.
 
 294 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 language that is used to bind men together in antagonistic 
 and fighting nationalities. 
 
 The latter half of 1812 probably concentrated into a few 
 months more of human suffering than any similar period in 
 history. The campaign was nothing but fire and famine 
 and carnage on a colossal scale. It is said that the example 
 of Wellington in Portugal caused Gen. Pfuhl, the German 
 strategist in the Russian service, to advocate a retrogres- 
 sive strategy against Napoleon as the best ; and that 
 Alexander became a convert to his views. 1 But was it a 
 purely voluntary strategy ! In any case the tactics of a re- 
 treating defensive were identically the same tactics that 
 the Scythian ancestors of the Russians had adopted in 
 ancient times against the Persian invasion under Darius. 2 
 
 At the call of patriotism they burnt their homes in 
 town or village for hundreds of miles, leaving a desert to 
 supply food to their invaders, and finding in the starving 
 of their foe a quicker dissolvent of their numbers than 
 battle. Not that there were not battles enough ; as at 
 Smolensko, taken by the French on August 17th, or at 
 the terrific field of Borodino on September 7th, for which, 
 as at Eylau, both sides sang as. good Christians their pious 
 Te Deums. Those who had seen Borodino, wrote the 
 Russian Doctorof, had seen the infernal regions. The 
 Russian peace party wished to stop the war ; and there 
 was great anger against the Grand Duke Constantine and 
 Count Romanzov for their pacifist pleadings. But 
 Alexander was more under the influence of Sir Robert 
 Wilson than under that of his brother Constantine or of 
 his mother or wife. Wilson directed his wavering will, 
 writing on September 3rd, " I have been playing a bold 
 and high part on this stage ; I have been the organ of 
 the Russian army and nation ; and I hope one of the best 
 friends a sovereign ever had in a foreigner." The Czar 
 pledged himself to Wilson to continue the war even if he 
 lost Moscow and St. Petersburg, whilst he could find one 
 
 1 Vandal, III., 165-7. 2 Herodotus, IV., 120-125.
 
 RUSSIA INVADED 295 
 
 other man to stand by him. 1 Yet Wilson was a man of 
 whom his fellow-diplomatist, Francis Jackson, wrote on 
 April 13th, 1812, that " it would be madness to entrust 
 to him any political business of importance," 2 and that he 
 was " too harum-scarum for a diplomatist. "3 His business 
 was to keep the Czar up to the war-mark. 
 
 Had Alexander only been guided after Borodino by 
 Constantine as he was after Friedland, instead of by Wilson, 
 Moscow conceivably might have been plucked from the 
 burning in those fateful days after the French entry 
 on September 17th, when the ashes of Moscow, given by 
 Rostopchin and the Russian nobles to the flames, were 
 carried by the wind to a distance of thirty-five miles. 
 The loss of Moscow cost Russia £50,000,000, and indirectly 
 relegated to the dim future that emancipation of the serfs 
 for which Alexander had told Savary in 1807 that, had 
 Russian civilisation been more advanced, he would have 
 risked his life.4 The fire of Moscow put an effective stopper 
 on all such dreams. On September 20th Napoleon wrote 
 to the Czar that for a letter from him before or even after 
 Borodino he would have stayed his march and not entered 
 Moscow,5 but Alexander was now deaf to the voices of 
 his still not inconsiderable peace party. He said that 
 rather than sign a shameful peace he would let his beard 
 grow down to his waist and go and dig potatoes in 
 Siberia. But there need have been no question of a 
 shameful peace ; for Napoleon was far too clear-sighted 
 not to see that peace for the safety of his army had 
 become a necessity. 
 
 The encouraging news from Spain had great influence 
 in protracting the Franco-Russian war. Wellington had 
 won his great victory at Salamanca on July 22nd, at a 
 cost to our Spanish allies of only 8, but to ourselves and 
 the Portuguese of over 5,000. On August nth King 
 Joseph had to leave his capital ; the next day the people 
 
 1 Diary, I., 156, 7. 2 Bath Archives, I., 348. 3 ib„ I., 222. 
 
 4 Tatitscheff, 266. 5 Corresp. XXIV., No. iq, 213.
 
 296 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 of Madrid received the British troops " with enthusiastic 
 joy," whilst the capture of the Retiro on August 13th 
 put at our disposal the immense military resources in 
 that great arsenal. Spain had become more and more 
 of a hornet's nest to the French, and, though Napoleon, 
 before starting northwards, had put all his generals under 
 Joseph's supreme command, with Jourdan for his major- 
 general, Joseph could never get himself obeyed. He 
 complained that Salamanca was lost because Marshal 
 Marmont (the Due de Raguse) disobeyed his instructions 
 not to fight before the arrival of 14,000 reinforcements 
 under himself. 1 And the capture by the English of 
 Seville on August 27th, following that of Madrid, had had 
 the great military effect of causing the French after two 
 and a half years to raise the siege of Cadiz from the land 
 side, and to evacuate the southern province of Andalusia. 
 All this gave great encouragement in Russia, where it 
 was not known, nor could be foreseen, that Wellington, 
 on the expectation of a fresh force from France under 
 Massena, had to vacate Madrid on September 1st ; and, 
 after two defeated attempts to take the town of Burgos, 
 had to make a very disastrous retreat to winter quarters 
 at Ciudad Rodrigo. Wellington said that the want of 
 discipline shown by his army on this occasion surpassed 
 that of any army on which he had ever served, or of which 
 he had ever read, and that on the retreats from Madrid 
 and Burgos the complete loss of control by his officers 
 over their men resulted in outrages of the worst descrip- 
 tion. Between their conquerors and their deliverers 
 the unfortunate natives were between the upper and the 
 lower millstone. The month that intervened between 
 leaving Burgos and reaching Ciudad Rodrigo on 
 November 18th diminished Wellington's army by 
 7,000 men. 
 
 Napoleon continued from Moscow to make overtures 
 of peace. He would have bought it at the cost of giving 
 
 1 Du Casse, Les Freres Rois, 53, 56.
 
 RUSSIA INVADED 297 
 
 the Czar a free hand in Turkey, and Constantinople into 
 the bargain ; but the Czar, strangely attributing the fire 
 to Napoleon, would return no answer. Thiers acquits 
 Alexander of all knowledge of the intended burning, 1 
 but a pamphlet by Meyendorf, an eminent Russian 
 diplomat, in 1838, asserts that it was deliberately planned 
 in the Winter Palace beforehand. 2 
 
 Then began on October 22nd that famous retreat of 
 the French and their allies, of which the misery has been 
 too often told to need repetition. Sir Robert Wilson 
 declared that the Russian peasants were so infuriated 
 with the French that they would often buy the French 
 prisoners of the Cossacks in order to have the pleasure 
 of putting them to death ; sometimes they would bury 
 them alive, as they buried fifty at Selino ; sometimes 
 they burned them alive, as they burnt fifty at Wiasme.3 
 The repetition of the number fifty is suspicious, and there 
 is comfort in Francis Jackson's comment on Wilson's 
 stories that they were " not to be received as pure 
 gospel. "4 Wilson also reports on the other side a dreadful 
 massacre of the French at Moscow after the return of the 
 Russians, " the greater part convalescent sick and 
 wounded ; but the Russians had great wrongs to avenge. "5 
 
 Wilson's part in the pursuit was to see that it did not 
 slacken, and to prevent all attempts at a negotiation. 
 When on October 10th, Napoleon wished to negotiate 
 with the Russian Commander Kutusov, Wilson wrote : 
 " I have rendered most important service and prevented 
 a successful negotiation for the retreat of the enemy." 6 
 He attributed the slowness of Kutusov's pursuit to 
 sympathy with the enemy, and wrote, " I can scarcely 
 behave with common decency in his presence. His feeble- 
 ness outrages me to such a degree that I have declared, 
 if he remains Commander-in-Chief, that I must retire 
 
 1 XIX., 364-6. 2 Ernouf, 431. 3 Diary, I., 174, 200, 209, 214. 
 
 4 Bath Archives, I., 447, December 22nd, 1812. 
 
 5 Diary, I., 207. 6 ib., I., 186.
 
 298 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 from this army." On November 5th the misconduct of 
 the Marshal made him " quite wild." Wilson thought 
 that there were times when he himself could easily have 
 finished the pursuit by the capture of the French army. 
 Possibly ; but it is curious to find him in a position 
 that enabled him to demand the dismissal of a Russian 
 general, whose appointment in August to the chief com- 
 mand had met with universal approval. 
 
 The end of that disastrous adventure is well-known ; 
 the consternation caused by the unexpected return of 
 Napoleon to Paris on December 18th. A Russian procla- 
 mation spoke of 140,000 prisoners as having been made 
 from the grand Army, and of not more than 30,000 
 as likely to reach their homes again out of the invading 
 army of 300, 000. l Whatever the real numbers, the 
 military disaster was overwhelming, and it needed all the 
 composure and confidence, real or assumed, of Napoleon 
 to save the Empire from immediate subjection by its 
 enemies. But it would be an error to think that the 
 Russian campaign had been forced by Napoleon on a 
 reluctant nation. It is true that at the beginning of the 
 year large numbers had been opposed to another war, 
 but even they were soon so carried away by the general 
 intoxication of glory that, apart from the special 
 recruiting for the war, never had there been a greater 
 number of volunteers for it, and that from the richest 
 and oldest families in France. 2 
 
 The American War 
 
 As if the State had not enough on its hands with the 
 war in Europe, it drifted in June of this year into war 
 with America. The quarrel had begun with the Orders 
 in Council, of which James Stephen, M.P., a leading 
 Tory Evangelical of the day, was the parent by his 
 pamphlet on " The War in Disguise; " Whitbread often 
 spoke of them as Stephens' " darling offspring." 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1813, II., 389. 2 Mollien, Memoires, III., 131.
 
 RUSSIA INVADED 299 
 
 For five years the Whigs had inveighed against these 
 Orders, not altogether without effect. An Order in 
 Council of April, 1809, had so far modified the Orders 
 of November nth, 1807, as to limit their application to 
 France and countries associated with her. But both 
 France and America remained unappeased. The French 
 contention, that enemy goods under a neutral flag should 
 be immune from capture ; that neutral goods under an 
 enemy flag should not be seizable ; that only arms and 
 warlike stores should be contraband (not ship-timber and 
 naval articles) ; and that only ports actually invested 
 should be treated as blockaded, though since accepted by 
 most nations as the law of war, was then regarded on 
 our side as " extravagant demands." France was only 
 willing to revoke the Berlin and Milan decrees on the 
 acceptance of these principles. 
 
 Our Government, however, on April 21st, 1812, 
 undertook to revoke its Orders as soon as the French 
 decrees were authentically and unconditionally with- 
 drawn. 1 
 
 But, as regards America, the French decrees had been 
 withdrawn by a decree of April 28th, 1811, from Novenber 
 1st, 1811 ; in consideration of the American decree of 
 March 2nd, 1811, by which Congress closed American 
 ports against British ships and commerce^ and it seems 
 marvellous that our Government appears to have been 
 ignorant of such a fact till the decree was shown to Lord 
 Castlereagh on May 20th, 1812, a year later. On the 
 strength of it the Prince Regent's Declaration of June 23rd, 
 18 12, revoked from August 1st, 18 12, the Orders for 
 American ships and cargoes, conditionally on the admis- 
 sion of British armed vessels and merchantmen into 
 American harbours on the same terms as those of France.3 
 The revocation was an immense triumph for the Whig 
 Opposition, and more especially for Brougham, who had 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1812, II., 338-42. a Ann. Reg., 1812, 423. 
 
 3 Pari. Deb., XXII., 853.
 
 3 oo THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 earned great popularity among the English commercial 
 classes for his pertinacious attacks on these ill-advised 
 Orders, which had led to widespread distress in our large 
 towns and to riots on an alarming scale. Yet the Tory 
 Government had stuck recklessly to these Orders as the 
 sheet-anchor of the State, though of the witnesses from 
 thirty large towns only one gave his opinion that they 
 were uninjurious to commerce. 
 
 On June 23rd, 1812, Brougham spoke handsomely of 
 the conciliatory disposition towards America shown by 
 the Government's revocation of the Orders. He thanked 
 the Government for their " frank and manly conduct " ; 
 prophesied the revival " of our expiring trades and 
 manufactures " from their revocation, and hoped that 
 America would receive it in an equally conciliatory 
 spirit. 1 But by one of those unfortunate coincidences 
 which have so often told against peace, America had 
 declared war against us before they heard of this con- 
 cession to their wishes. This was on June 18th, 1812. 
 It was said that President Madison wished to distinguish 
 his term of office by the annexation of Canada, and 
 undoubtedly the profits from privateering tempted to u war 
 in certain of the States. But it is difficult to believe that 
 even these temptations can have led America lightly into 
 war, with a navy of not more than four frigates, and with 
 a coast-line of 1,500 miles exposed to the ships of the 
 greatest naval power in the world. An earlier revocation 
 of the Orders might have prevented the war party in 
 America from becoming dangerous ; yet to delay a 
 settlement had been our deliberate policy. Francis 
 Jackson, our ambassador to the States in 1810, advised 
 Lord Wellesley at the Foreign Office to procrastinate 
 negotiations, and Lord Malmesbury told George Jackson 
 that he believed Lord Wellesley had followed this strange 
 advice. 2 Nor was a wish for war altogether absent on 
 
 1 Pari. Deb., XXIII., 716. 
 * Bath Archives, I., 109, 147.
 
 RUSSIA INVADED 301 
 
 our side ; for in February, 18 11, the mercantile classes at 
 Hull are described as " all very desirous of a war with 
 America." 1 
 
 The American case for war was given in a long message 
 to Congress. The foremost complaint was the seizure 
 of American sailors on American vessels to serve on British 
 warships ; a maritime right that was an intolerable 
 wrong. Nor was the objection unreasonable which 
 protested against American commerce being liable to 
 plunder as part of a retaliatory policy against France. 
 The French Government having intimated that on the 
 repeal of the British Order of May, 1806, it would with- 
 draw its decrees, the message complained that the British 
 refusal to rescind the blockade or declare it annulled 
 prevented such a reciprocal withdrawal of measures 
 against neutrals as would have re-established maritime 
 harmony. And it was infinitely to be deplored that that 
 course was not taken. 
 
 The new war had not lasted long before efforts were 
 made for peace. On September 30th, 1812, Admiral 
 Warren addressed a conciliatory proposal for an armistice 
 to Monroe, Secretary of State. But the answer of the 
 latter showed that the impressment of American seamen 
 was still the chief obstacle. The injustice of thus forcing 
 American citizens into a foreign service was bitterly felt. 
 It was obvious that if the States prohibited the employ- 
 ment of British seamen, there could be no longer any 
 pretext for searching American vessels for them ; but, 
 although this proposal was made, it was received with 
 suspicion, nor did any pacification result.* 
 
 The attack on Canada resulted in failure, but two 
 fine frigates, the Guerriere and the Macedonian, were 
 captured by the enemy, and Canning said that their loss 
 produced " a sensation in the country scarcely to be 
 equalled by the most violent convulsion of nature. "3 
 
 1 ib., I., 221. 2 Ann> Reg<> l8l2> IL 
 
 3 Pari. Deb., XXIV., 643.
 
 302 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Our newly elected Parliament met on November 24th, 
 18 12, and six days later Whitbread, the indefatigable 
 pacifist, moved an amendment to the Address, to the 
 effect that at a time " when the glory of the British arms 
 transcended the glory of all former periods in the situation 
 of the contest between Russia and France," direct negotia- 
 tions for a general peace should be opened with all the 
 belligerents. 1 It was of course negatived, on the common 
 platitude that such a course would be a sueing for peace 
 and therefore debasing to the nation. 2 B-ut there could 
 have been no better moment for ending the war than when 
 Napoleon was returning from the Russian campaign 
 with his vast army reduced to 42,000 ; and when, with 
 regard to the Peninsular war, the truth probably lay 
 halfway between Lord Wellesley's argument that the 
 campaign had failed from lack of reinforcements, 3 and 
 Lord Liverpool's comment on it as " the most glorious 
 we had had. "4 
 
 * Pari. Deb., XXIV., 102. * ib., XXIV., 122. 
 
 3 Pari. Deb., XXV., 24-65. * »&.. XXV., 87.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 1813. The Falling Empire 
 
 So certain did it seem, at the beginning of 1813, that 
 France was crushed, despite the fact of Austria and 
 Prussia being still nominally her allies, that the Comte 
 de Lille on February 1st issued a proclamation as 
 Louis XVIII. from his English asylum at Hartwell, near 
 Aylesbury. What fears, he asked, could deter France 
 from recognising in the re-establishment of his lawful 
 authority her only pledge of union, peace and happiness ? 
 What doubt could there be of his paternal intentions ? 
 All who took the oath of fidelity to him should be left 
 undisturbed in their posts ; the Code, " polluted by the 
 name of Napoleon," should remain in force, except where 
 it ran counter to the doctrines of religion. The Senate 
 should remain ; there should be no disturbance of the 
 land settlement ; the army should continue to enjoy 
 its existing pay ; and the conscription, so destructive 
 to the hope of families, should be abolished. 1 
 
 The dethroned King of Sweden, Gustavus IV., was 
 the only monarch of his time who stood out for Louis' 
 restoration as the main aim of the war, or as an attainable 
 end. But he was a man of whom Napoleon justly said 
 that his head was " pres de bonnet" 2 ; in other words, that 
 he was a semi-lunatic. Yet the English press had puffed 
 Gustavus to an absurd degree, till a certain Thomson, 
 travelling to Sweden to form his own judgment, found 
 himself reluctantly forced to yield to universal Swedish 
 evidence that the opinion of the British newspapers was 
 baseless. It did not indeed prove the King's insanity 
 
 I Ann. Reg., 1813, II., 390. 2 Tatitschefl, 240. 
 
 303 20
 
 304 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 that he believed Napoleon to be the Beast of the 
 Revelation : that being so common a delusion of weak 
 minds ; but Gustavus actually regulated his conduct 
 on the belief, and was so sure that he himself was the 
 prophesied conqueror, seated on a white horse, who was 
 to destroy the Beast, that with his own hand he painted 
 himself on a white horse trampling on the Beast. When 
 besieged by the French in Stralsund, he for some 
 time expected the visible appearance of a delivering 
 angel, who was to be four German miles in height ; nor 
 did he consult for his own safety by a retreat to the island 
 of Rugen till the French batteries were about to open. 
 Such was this hero of the British press, who for some 
 time was our steadfast ally ! * 
 
 In the numerous petitions for peace from several 
 English towns presented by Members to Parliament, 
 with the usual apologetic dissent from such an idea, this 
 proclamation of the Comte de Lille as Louis XVIII. 
 met with some severe criticism, significant of the feeling 
 of the time. Lord Holland on April 2nd expressed the 
 belief that no Englishman would be disposed to spend 
 sixpence for a restoration ; and he wished that the 
 Government, by a declaration of its real war aims, would 
 dissociate itself from any connivance with such a policy. 2 
 Whitbread on the same day advocated the strongest 
 resistance, if it appeared that the Government lent its 
 countenance to " a project so desperate and chimerical."3 
 Castlereagh replied that Ministers were no party what- 
 ever to the Proclamation ; but Stephen's remark, that 
 " from his soul and with all his heart he highly approved 
 of it," doubtless expressed the general feeling of the coun- 
 try ; as was further shown by the republication of the Pro- 
 clamation in the English Ministerial press in November .4 
 The restoration of the Bourbon line in France was always 
 the underlying hope of the English ruling classes ; for who 
 
 * Ann. Reg., II., 454. * Pari. Deb., XXVI., 517. 
 
 3 ib. t XXVI., 534. 4 Pari. Deb., XXVIL, 153.
 
 THE FALLING EMPIRE 305 
 
 could foresee that such restoration would bring upon 
 France that White Terror of revenge which only in the 
 degree of quantity was to fall short of the worst atrocities 
 of the early Revolution ? 
 
 Considering the important part Lord Cathcart played 
 in the diplomacy of 1813, it is curious to read George 
 Jackson's comment on his appointment to St. Peters- 
 burg. " What a moment," he writes on January 1st, 
 1813, " to have Lord Cathcart to direct Alexander. I 
 trust that Bonaparte may not even yet cajole him, or 
 most of John Bull's high hopes and speculations will be 
 baulked." 1 There was little faith in Alexander's tenacity, 
 and it was a craze of the day that soldiers, though by their 
 education more inclined to promote war than peace, 
 made the best diplomatists. When Sir Charles Stewart, 
 the third Lord Londonderry, another of the gallantest 
 of soldiers, was sent on a similar ambassadorial mission 
 to Berlin, Mrs. Jackson thus wrote to her son George on 
 March 25th : "I am quite tired of generals being sent 
 out as negotiators ; and there never came any good of 
 it yet." 2 A most intelligent lady, Mrs. Jackson ! 
 
 But she proved wrong in this instance. Sir Charles 
 took to Prussia a promise of the one thing needful at 
 that moment : money. Frederick William III. had felt 
 some compunction about the wisdom, or even the morality, 
 of violating his treaty of the previous year with France. 
 When the Due de Bassano, on his return from Russia, 
 visited the King in Berlin, he described him on Christmas 
 Day, 1812, as firm to the alliance and ready to do every- 
 thing to justify Napoleon's confidence. His Chancellor 
 Hardenberg expressed himself in the same sense, 3 probably 
 with less sincerity. And it is probable that the King 
 would have stuck to the French alliance, had Napoleon 
 acceded to his request for money in return for 50 or 60,000 
 men, or relieved him of some of the crushing war contri- 
 bution of £3,700,000, levied on Prussia for the late Russian 
 
 1 Diaries, II., 2. 3 ib„ II., 31. 3 Ernouf, 483.
 
 306 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 campaign. But Napoleon had ceased to believe the 
 King sincere ; with the result that the King threw himself 
 into the arms of Russia ; Sir Robert Wilson says that 
 he would have been dethroned otherwise; 1 and thus the 
 treaty of Kalisch, ratified on March ist, committed both 
 countries to joint efforts against France, and to an 
 endeavour to bring Austria and England into the same 
 boat. England lost no time in complying. Immense 
 stores were sent to arm and clothe a nation so restored 
 to her good graces ; but it was money that Prussia 
 needed for her salvation. Sir Charles, reaching Dresden 
 towards the end of April, agreed to subsidise Prussia and 
 Russia with a million each, with two millions to Sweden, 
 and with £500,000 for the expense of the Russian fleet, 
 in return for a Russian army of 200,000 men and a Prussian 
 one of 100,000 men in the field. Despite the Piussian 
 enthusiasm for the war of Liberation, it is open to doubt 
 whether, but for British gold, Prussia would have main- 
 tained her existence in this second war with Napoleon. 
 And so of Russia ; for Sir Robert Wilson wrote of Prussia's 
 signing of the Kalisch treaty as most fortunate, since 
 the Russians then were " quite expended," and had no 
 more then 60,000 effectives under arms. 2 
 
 But England's love for Prussia was not altogether 
 disinterested. Next to fighting for our maritime right 
 to search neutral ships for enemy property (a right sur- 
 rendered in 1856), Hanover was our strongest motive 
 for prolonging the war and refusing all overtures of 
 peace. Lord Grey on June 18th, 1813, expressed the 
 opinion that it would have been better for this country 
 had Hanover been at the bottom of the sea, 3 nor is it 
 likely that he was singular in this opinion. And now the 
 Prussian subsidy afforded a good opportunity for getting 
 something for Hanover out of Prussia. Hildesheim and 
 Minden and Raumberg were demanded, but Hardenberg 
 
 * Diary, II., 79. a Diary, I., 291. 
 
 3 Pari. Deb., XXVI., 739.
 
 THE FALLING EMPIRE 307 
 
 on May 1st told Sir Charles that, though Hildesheim might 
 be ceded, he would not cede the other portions, even 
 were the liberality of England trebled. 1 George Jackson 
 disapproved altogether : " for us to put in a pitiful, 
 fiddling stipulation about Hildesheim, etc., for Hanover 
 is what I must ever consider as disgraceful and impolitic." 2 
 Austria less readily took the Russian bait. Though 
 Austria and Russia had made common cause in 1805, 
 the Russian assumption of military superiority had given 
 such offence to the Austrians that the soldiers in the 
 two armies hated one another more than either really 
 hated the French. 3 The two Powers had no real friend- 
 ship, but after the French disaster of 1812, the common 
 motive of dividing the Duchy of Warsaw drew them 
 together, and an armistice with Russia in December, 
 1812, at Pultusk, was the beginning of Austria's defection 
 from France. England offered Austria a subsidy of ten 
 millions to put her armies on a war footing, if she would 
 join the new League, but Metternich preferred at present 
 to hold his hand, and even sent Wessenberg to England, 
 overtly to propose Austrian mediation to end the war, 
 but covertly to take measures for Austria's accession 
 to it.4 
 
 The Anglo-Swedish Treaty 
 
 A very remarkable treaty was signed at Stockholm 
 between England and Sweden on March 3rd, 1813, sup- 
 porting a treaty made between Russia and Sweden 
 on March 24th, 1812. This latter was one of the most 
 flagrant treaties of partition ever made. Russia, at that 
 time dreading the French war, had every reason to make 
 Sweden her friend, in order to obtain from her military 
 aid, and to release Russian troops from Finland, which 
 she had annexed in 1810. So, although both Russia and 
 Sweden were then at peace with Denmark, Russia agreed 
 
 1 Jackson's Diaries, II., 86. 2 ib. t II., 63. 
 
 3 Letters of Alexander and Czartoriski, 39. 
 
 4 Alison IX., 152, 3.
 
 3 o8 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 to compensate Sweden for the loss of Finland by giving 
 to her Norway, which from time immemorial had belonged 
 to Denmark! Sweden, then under the rule of Napoleon's 
 old Marshal, Bernadotte, who by a strange freak of fortune 
 had become Crown Prince of Sweden, protested against 
 the possibility of Sweden's assisting with 30,000 men a 
 Russian force of 20,000 in an attack on the German coast, 
 whilst Norway remained a possible enemy behind her, and 
 therefore Alexander guaranteed to Sweden the peaceable 
 possession of Norway after its acquisition either by 
 negotiation or by joint military action ! Negotiation 
 was preferable ; and if Denmark would consent to the 
 cession " for ever " of Norway to Sweden, compen- 
 sation was to be offered her somewhere in Germany ; 
 otherwise she was to be treated as an enemy. 
 And on August 30th, 1812, Russia agreed to increase 
 her force to 35,000 for the primary object of the conquest 
 of Norway. 1 
 
 Thus did the pious Alexander, with his deep concern 
 for the liberation of Europe and the rights of small 
 nations, propose to benefit Sweden at the expense of 
 Denmark, whatever Denmark's wishes in the matter 
 might be. 
 
 With this iniquitous scheme the two robber Powers 
 endeavoured to get England to fall in, sending her the 
 treaty in July, 1812. The Russians were then flying 
 before the French, and Castlereagh's answer was that the 
 Government, unable to see anything " that merited 
 reproach in the conduct of the Governments of Russia and 
 Sweden," agreed to accede to the treaty, with a view to 
 enable Sweden to divert some portion of the French 
 forces from their advance into Russia, and for this 
 purpose, partially effected, gave a subsidy. 
 
 In 1813 the situation had changed. In February the 
 French army was a wreck, and the Swedes, who the year 
 before had hesitated to attack the rear of a French army 
 * Pari. Deb., XXVI., 677.
 
 THE FALLING EMPIRE 309 
 
 of 350,000 men would take the risk for a fair equivalent. 
 So Russia pleaded : and what Sweden would like would 
 be the island of Guadeloupe, and a handsome subsidy. 
 
 Hence the Anglo-Swedish treaty ; without the consent 
 or knowledge of Parliament Guadaloupe was ceded to 
 the King of Sweden, " and to his successors to the Crown ;" 
 a subsidy of a million, payable monthly, was to be paid 
 to Sweden ; and in return 30,000 Swedes were to act 
 with Russian troops under Bernadotte on the Continent 
 against France. By Article 2 we acceded to the Russian 
 and Swedish Convention of the previous year about 
 Norway : " His Majesty will not only not oppose any 
 obstacle to the annexation and union in perpetuity of 
 the kingdom of Norway, but also will assist the views of 
 His Majesty the King of Sweden to that effect, either by 
 his good offices, or by employing, if it should be necessary, 
 his naval co-operation in concert with the Swedish or 
 Russian forces. It is nevertheless to be understood that 
 recourse shall not be had to force for effecting the union 
 of Norway to Sweden unless His Majesty the King of 
 Denmark shall have previously refused to join the alliance 
 of the North, etc." With the unctuous hypocrisy so 
 common in our Georgian diplomacy the King of Sweden 
 was made to stipulate that the annexation of Norway 
 should " take place with every possible regard and 
 consideration for the happiness and possible liberty 
 of the people of Norway." 1 
 
 Alison rides lightly over this last article by speaking 
 of it as severely condemned by French writers, 2 calmly 
 ignoring the fact that it was quite as severely condemned 
 by some of the chief statesmen of England. Even 
 Canning admitted to having read the treaty at first with 
 " shame, regret and indignation."3 How, he asked, 
 could we at a peace treaty speak of restoring the ancient 
 States of Europe, if pledged to the dismemberment of one 
 of the most ancient ? Lord Grey called the treaty one 
 1 Pari. Deb., XXVI., 365, 6. 2 IX., 358. 3 »&., XXVI., 775.
 
 3 io THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 " of robbery and spoliation." The Government, said 
 Lord Holland, had shocked and disgusted every man in 
 the kingdom, " and that without securing one visible 
 advantage to their country. ' ' J Lord Buckingham thought 
 it " the most disgraceful treaty that had ever stained 
 the annals of any country." Ponsonby on the same day, 
 June 18th, moved an Address for the disengagement of 
 the country from a treaty of " unprincipled robbery," 
 for which his minority reached 113 ; and yet Alison, 
 purporting to write history, so deliberately miswrites it, 
 as to represent the only condemnation of it as coming 
 from France. Even loyalty to a Tory War Government 
 should have certain limitations. 
 
 Of course, as we had been at war with Denmark since 
 our seizure of her fleet in 1807, all the so-called laws of 
 war justified us in an attack on Norway ; but to par- 
 tition Denmark and give part of it to Sweden, not then 
 at war with Denmark ; to tell her that, unless she gave 
 it up voluntarily, it should be taken by force, was to go 
 as far in disregard of the law of nations as ever Napoleon 
 or Alexander had gone. What made it worse was, that 
 Denmark had initiated peace negotiations with us before 
 the 3rd of March, on which date the treaty of partition 
 was signed. In substance indeed it had been concluded 
 earlier. But Denmark, after closing her ports against 
 French privateers and giving every facility to our com- 
 merce, had followed up these friendly actions by direct 
 peace proposals on February 25th, the answer to which 
 reached Stockholm on March 4th, the day after the 
 Swedish treaty was signed. Lord Castlereagh considered 
 her proposals " intolerably insulting," including as they 
 did the restitution of her fleet and compensation for its 
 seizure ; he found it " difficult to listen to them with 
 temper," 2 forgetting that his colleague, Lord Sidmouth, 
 now at the Home Office, had strenuously supported 
 those very proposals as the only course consonant with 
 * ib., XXVI., 733. » Pari. Deb., XXVI., 772, 3.
 
 THE FALLING EMPIRE 311 
 
 justice. But, to justify the Swedish treaty, it was neces- 
 sary to put the worst construction possible on the conduct 
 of Denmark. Castlereagh steadily refused to let Parlia- 
 ment see the correspondence with Denmark, declaring 
 that she asked for the return of her conquered colonies 
 " without our receiving an equivalent," as if her consent 
 to join the Allies was no equivalent for the restoration 
 of her fleet and her colonies. She had a right to ask her 
 price, nor was the price an unfair one. 
 
 As Lord Castlereagh's policy thus threw Denmark 
 into the arms of France, it can only be said of it that it 
 was, if possible, worse than its morality. But a further 
 step was taken for the coercion of Denmark's neutrality. 
 At the end of May, 1813, Sweden, England and Russia 
 opened fresh negotiations with Denmark ; if Denmark 
 would supply the Allies with 25,000 men, Sweden would 
 accept of the diocese of Drontheim and its adjoining 
 territory instead of Norway, and England would restore 
 all Danish colonies except Heligoland. 1 But as Sweden 
 had as little right to claim Drontheim as to claim Norway, 
 and England offered no compensation for the fleet, 
 nothing came of the negotiation, and Denmark remained 
 loyal to the French alliance. For which she had to pay, 
 of course, when the Allies triumphed in 1814. Denmark 
 was compelled to join the Coalition, and, in return for the 
 Duchy of Pomerania and the island of Rugen, to surrender 
 Norway to Sweden ; an uncomfortable union between 
 the two countries which lasted till 1905, when Norway 
 successfully released herself from the bondage to which 
 the Allies had subjected her. 
 
 Austria Joins The Allies 
 
 It is almost impossible to unravel the skeins of 
 
 Metternich's diplomacy during the months before Austria 
 
 joined the Coalition on August nth, 1813. Diplomacy 
 
 and duplicity never came nearer to being synonymous 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., II., 418.
 
 312 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 terms. Napoleon relied too much on the reluctance of 
 his Imperial father-in-law to enter the lists against him ; his 
 marriage having been partly founded on the idea of basing 
 a political alliance upon a matrimonial one, although, 
 if European history has shown one thing more clearly 
 than another, it is the inefficacy of royal intermarriages 
 to safeguard international peace. By prodigious efforts 
 Napoleon had re-created an army of some 300,000 men, 
 as enthusiastic as ever for the illusions of war ; and, 
 with a fine scorn for popular superstition, he left Paris 
 for the front on April 13th. 1 But many thought that a 
 new campaign might still have been averted by some 
 conciliatory concessions on his part. Prince Schwartzen- 
 berg expressed himself in this sense to Mollien, the French 
 Treasurer, about Austria, whose desire for war might 
 have been assuaged by the restoration of her Illyrian 
 provinces. 2 But Napoleon argued that his foes were 
 insatiable ; that if he ceded a town, they would demand 
 kingdoms, and that the only way to force them to peace 
 was by ceding nothing and by inspiring them with the 
 fear of his military superiority. 3 Nevertheless, when 
 the defection of Prussia was known at Paris, he sent 
 Count Narbonne to Vienna with the offer of Silesia, of 
 which Austria had been robbed by Frederick the Great, 
 for a promise of 100,000 men.4 
 
 But by that time the wind in Austria was blowing in 
 a strongly pro-Prussian direction. Still the treaty of 
 1812 bound Austria to her guarantee of the integrity of 
 the French dominions. Did she intend to adhere to it, 
 Narbonne asked on April 21st, receiving for answer 
 from Metternich that the stipulations of the treaty were 
 inapplicable to present circumstances : a clear indication 
 of the coming defection. 
 
 It was best to wait on military events, and on May 2nd 
 there was a most significant military event. The battle 
 
 * Mollien, III., 228. 2 Mollien, III., 288-91. 
 
 3 tb., III., 181. 4 Ernouf, 516, 7.
 
 THE FALLING EMPIRE 313 
 
 of Lutzen, though indecisive, was a proof that the new 
 French army was not to be despised. The French 
 accordingly crossed the Elbe on May 6th and 7th, and the 
 next day Napoleon entered Dresden, which the Russians 
 had occupied on March 4th, after the French retirement 
 the day before. 
 
 Metternich had tried to draw the old King of Saxony 
 into the scheme for a partition of the Duchy of Warsaw, 
 but after Lutzen that sagacious monarch thought it wiser 
 to return to the capital he had deserted at the end of 
 February and to the allegiance he had thought of deserting. 
 He was welcomed with great honour. 
 
 The Due de Bassano wrote to Napoleon on May 8th, 
 after the news of Lutzen, urging him to peace : the French, 
 he said, were grown tired of the necessity of always win- 
 ning battles ; peace was their only wish, and peace the 
 pressing need of France ; and, whatever sacrifices were 
 necessary, peace would be glorious. 1 And Napoleon, 
 true to his principle of a quick victory followed by a prompt 
 peace, listened gladly to proposals of a Peace Congress 
 brought from Vienna by Count Bubna. He wished all 
 the Belligerent Powers to be represented, even the insur- 
 gents of Spain (as he regarded them) ; he wrote specially 
 to the Austrian Emperor about the Congress, 2 and had it 
 officially recommended in the Moniteur of May 24th: 
 if England, by refusing to attend, should prevent the 
 settlement of a world-peace, at least a peace for the 
 Continent might be arranged at Prague. 3 But the con- 
 cessions asked of him were no trifles : Austria was to 
 recover her Illyrian provinces, and increase her territory 
 on the side of Bavaria and the Duchy of Warsaw : the 
 Rhine Confederation was to be abolished, and the Prussian 
 monarchy restored. Napoleon proposed as the basis of 
 an armistice that the Allies should retire behind the Oder, 
 and himself behind the Elbe, and a Congress be arranged 
 to meet at Prague. This was on May 18th, the day before 
 * Ernouf, 533, 4. * Correspondence, 20019. 3 Ernouf, 539.
 
 314 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 he left Dresden for Silesia, and with this proposal Bubna 
 returned to Vienna. The moment for attaching Austria 
 to his side by some concessions had passed. 
 
 But Napoleon, as fertile in diplomatic as he was in 
 military resources, made another bid for peace, sending 
 a proposal through Caulaincourt to Alexander : to extend 
 the Rhine Confederation to the Oder, and to compensate 
 Prussia for the territory thus lost by the cession to her 
 of the whole of the Grand Duchy, with Warsaw for her 
 capital, thus putting her in her position before Jena by 
 the addition of four or five millions of people, and placing 
 such a barrier between France and Russia as might calm 
 Russian fears of French aggression. 1 Considering that 
 after Lutzen the Allies were so discomfited that even 
 an optimist like Sir Robert Wilson thought that there 
 was nothing left for them but to retire behind the Oder, 2 
 this was a good offer, though of doubtful satisfaction to 
 Saxon and Polish feelings ; but the Czar would only receive 
 Caulaincourt in the presence of the Ministers of England, 
 Austria, Prussia and Sweden, who successfully guarded 
 his wavering soul from the wicked enticements of his 
 ancient tempter. 
 
 Then for a few days fighting interrupted negotiation. 
 By the great battles of Bautzen on May 20th, and of 
 Wurzchen on May 21st, with their appalling toll of life on 
 both sides, the Allies were forced to retire ; after which 
 the belligerents resumed their peace talk. Such a trial of 
 arms induced the Allies to reply favourably to the French 
 offer of an armistice : it was to last for six weeks, from 
 June 4th to July 28th ; but which side may be accused 
 the more justly of trying to " amuse " the other ? The 
 six weeks might enable the Allies to redouble their forces, 
 perhaps also to attach Austria to their fortunes ; whilst 
 Napoleon could strengthen his position in Dresden and 
 fortify the whole line of the Elbe. But the armistice 
 ruined his chances of victory. 
 
 i Alison, IX., 229, 30. ■ Diary, I., 250.
 
 THE FALLING EMPIRE 315 
 
 The argument of Thiers 1 that Napoleon signed the 
 armistice in order to gain two months for preparation is 
 based on a very strange paraphrase of a letter from 
 Napoleon to the Due de Bassano, of June 3rd, as exposed 
 by Ernouf. 2 The real letter ran as follows : 
 
 ' We are at disagreement over the armistice. The 
 Russians want to settle themselves at Breslau, whilst I 
 want Breslau to remain neutral. I should wish the 
 armistice to last till the 20th of July, they would wish it 
 to terminate on the 5th ; the difference is reduced to that. 
 Will they sign ? It is a problem. Communicate this 
 negotiation to M. de Bubna (the Austrian ambassador). 
 Inform him of the uncertainty and of the difference 
 between us : that after my consent to evacuate Breslau 
 for the love of peace, the Russians wish to occupy it ; 
 that . . . it is doubtful whether we grant it ; that 
 in any case it is desirable for you and M. de Bubna to go 
 to Dresden, because if hostilities had to begin again, I 
 should change my line of operations. I desire you then 
 to depart this evening ; you will march all night with 
 an escort which Gen. Marchand will give you, and you 
 will continue so escorted to Dresden. That's your place ; 
 there it is you will treat with M. de Bubna : there it 
 is you will be useful to me as centre of correspondence. 
 If the armistice is concluded, I will go myself to 
 Dresden. "3 
 
 Thiers gave the same letter from Napoleon to the 
 Due de Bassano as follows : " Do not explain yourself 
 with M. de Bubna, bring him with you to Dresden, and 
 put off the moment when we shall be obliged to accept 
 or refuse the Austrian propositions. I am about to 
 conclude the armistice, and then the time I have need of 
 will be gained. If, however, they persist in requiring 
 for the settlement of this armistice conditions which do 
 not suit me, I will furnish you with topics for prolonging 
 the discussions with M. de Bubna and for securing me 
 
 1 XVI., 5, 7. 8, * 542, 3. 3 Correspondence, 20073.
 
 316 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 the few days I should need for driving the Allies from 
 the territory of Austria." 1 
 
 Napoleon's real feelings about peace at this critical 
 time may best be gathered from the letter he wrote on 
 June 18th to the Arch- Chancellor Cambaceres: "The 
 Minister of Police (Savary) seems to desire to incline me 
 to peace. This can have no result, and it wounds me, 
 because it gives rise to the supposition that I am not 
 peacefully inclined. I desire peace, but not a peace which 
 would force me to take up arms again within three months, 
 and would dishonour me. . . . Make him aware of the 
 impropriety of his behaviour. I am no blusterer, I do not 
 make a trade of war, and no one is more pacific than I 
 am. But my decision on this subject will be ruled solely 
 by my sense of what a solemn matter this peace is, by my 
 desire that it may last, and by the general situation of my 
 Empire." On June 30th he complains again of the pacific 
 talk in Paris; "a somewhat warlike tone should be 
 assumed. People in Paris are very much mistaken if 
 they think peace depends upon me. The enemy's pre- 
 tensions are excessive." 
 
 The confidence of the Allies in their ultimate superior- 
 ity, despite their recent reverses in the field, is revealed 
 in the preamble to the Anglo-Russian treaty of Reichen- 
 bach on June 15th : " At a period when Providence has 
 manifestly favoured their arms, their Majesties," etc. 2 
 The Czar promised 160,000 men for an English subsidy, 
 payable monthly, of £1,333,334, and for half a million 
 for the maintenance of the Russian fleet. An Anglo- 
 Prussian treaty, signed at Reichenbach on June 14th, 
 pledged England to pay Prussia £666,666 for 80,000 men, 
 exclusive of those in the garrisons. But secret treaties 
 also pledged England to help to restore Prussia to its 
 ancient dimensions before 1806, in return for additions 
 to Hanover in Lower Saxony and Westphalia. 
 
 But, large as the Allied forces were, unless Austria 
 
 1 XV. 600, 1. 3 Ann., Reg. II., 354.
 
 THE FALLING EMPIRE 317 
 
 joined the Allies, the chances of war must favour France. 
 Which wooer therefore would win that fickle Power, 
 with its army of 100,000, was the question of the hour. 
 Austrian mediation was offered on June nth, a few days 
 before the subsidiary treaties at Reichenbach proved how 
 little the contracting Powers desired or expected a pacific 
 result from the armistice. Before Metternich had his 
 famous interview with Napoleon at Dresden on June 28th, 
 he had at Reichenbach pledged Austria to join the Coali- 
 tion, if before the end of the armistice France had not 
 accepted the Austrian terms: which were, the division 
 of the Duchy of Warsaw between Austria, Russia and 
 Prussia, the restoration of Illyria to Austria, the inde- 
 pendence of the Hanseatic towns, the dissolution of the 
 Rhine Confederation, the restoration of Hanover to 
 England, and the restriction of the French frontiers to 
 the Rhine and the Alps.* Napoleon charged Metternich 
 at their interview with cloaking enmity under the mask 
 of mediation ; with wishing to dismember France under 
 the pretence of moderation ; with asking him to capitulate 
 to enemies he had conquered. 2 But the concluding words 
 of Napoleon's speech : " How much has England given 
 you to make war on me ? " Metternich always main- 
 tained were fictitious.3 
 
 From the conflicting evidence of the interview between 
 Napoleon and Metternich it seems to emerge that 
 Napoleon exhibited considerable temper : a fault often 
 laid to his charge, though Alexander's words to Czar- 
 toryski in December, 1809, need to be remembered, that 
 " all his fits of passion were only meant to intimidate, 
 and were often the fruit of calculation. "4 A Convention 
 in any case was agreed to on June 30th, which released 
 Austria from her alliance with France ; her mediation was 
 accepted, and a Congress at Prague was fixed to open on 
 July 5th, subsequently altered to July 12th, and to 
 
 1 Ernouf, 554, 5. a Alison, IX., 363-7. 3 Ernouf, 563. 
 
 4 Czartoryski's Memoirs, II., 200.
 
 318 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 terminate on July 20th. At Metternich's instance, not 
 Napoleon's, the armistice was extended to August 
 10th ; Metternich's object in this extension being to 
 gain more time for the bringing to the front Hun- 
 garian and other forces from the more distant parts of 
 Austria 1 ; he was playing Napoleon as an angler plays a 
 salmon. 
 
 On July 12th at Trachenberg the Allies laid down 
 their plan of campaign, including the military movements 
 of Austria, the mediating Power, if mediation failed. 
 Nor was it meant not to fail. The Allies' peace terms 
 went to the total undoing of most of what French arms and 
 policy had effected since the wars in Europe had begun ; 
 Austria aspired to the recovery of her old Italian rule ; 
 Russia wished to embrace Poland again ; Prussia had an 
 annexing eye on Saxony ; it was aggrandisement all 
 round, cloaked under the pretence of moderation and 
 zeal for the independence of Europe. Napoleon's offers 
 of lower terms were shattered against demands for a 
 total surrender, which, if yielded, would, as he said, have 
 cost him his head. A secret article at Reichenbach 
 promised Austria £500,000 of English money and the same 
 in necessaries of war, if she would join in the war, and on 
 July 27th Francis II, affixed his signature to this article ; 
 but in return she was to bring 200,000 men into the field, 
 and to receive back the territory she had lost. It was a 
 tempting bribe for a country always pressed for money, 
 and Napoleon's great mistake lay in his not attaching 
 his father-in-law to his side by the same golden links 
 that bound Francis to his enemies. Victory was the 
 prize of the highest bidder. 
 
 The Congress at Prague, by reason of delays for which 
 each side blamed the other, did not meet till July 28th, 
 and long before that time news had come from Spain 
 which greatly hardened the Allies in their demands and 
 decided Austria to throw in her weight on what seemed 
 
 1 Alison, IX., 389. a Alison, IX., 390.
 
 THE FALLING EMPIRE 319 
 
 the winning side. Napoleon heard of Wellington's 
 decisive victory at Vittoria on the evening, not the morn- 
 ing (as Alison says) of June 30th 1 ; the Allies on July 
 3rd ; there was no longer fear of any fresh French forces 
 from Spain. The enormous quantity of artillery and 
 ammunition and treasure captured from the French 
 gave a distinctive feature to this battle, the French only 
 saving one howitzer on their entry into Pampeluna. 2 
 King Joseph himself barely escaped capture, but the 
 leading fact was that his army of 70,000 no longer occupied 
 Spain. Napoleon wished his brother Joseph made aware 
 that he blamed him for everything that happened in Spain 
 for the last five years ; Joseph had shown neither military 
 talent nor skill in government. Naturally the event had 
 sent everybody in England "wild with joy," as Francis 
 Jackson wrote to his brother George. It brought the 
 Peninsular war virtually to an end in what Lord Castlereagh 
 called "a blaze of glory" ; nor did many reflect that it 
 restored to power the most reactionary and tyrannical 
 clergy in Europe, " who had hitherto been the chief, and 
 latterly the sole supporters of the war. "3 If there was an 
 institution in Europe more detestable than another, it was 
 the Inquisition in Spain; yet when the Cortes abolished 
 it and ordered the decree for its abolition to be read in the 
 churches, the clergy refused to obey and a quarrel ensued 
 between the Regency and the Papal Nuncio, who had en- 
 couraged resistance to a measure tardily aimed at religious 
 persecution.4 It was for the benefit of such a clergy that 
 we liberated Spain. 
 
 But the Spanish victory destroyed all chance of a 
 compromised peace in Europe. It stiffened Metternich 
 in his determination on war ; so that when General 
 Nugent remarked to him that he feared Caulaincourt's 
 arrival for the Prague Conference meant peace, Metternich 
 told him that it would make no difference, as his proposals 
 
 1 Ernouf, 567. 2 Ann. Reg., II., 174. 
 
 3 Alison, IX., 748. 4 Ann. Reg., 153-5. 
 
 21
 
 320 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 were such as would not be accepted, and, if they were 
 accepted, they would be raised. 1 
 
 It is remarkable (and Castlereagh quoted it as a proof 
 of the British Government's desire for peace) that even 
 after Vittoiia they intimated to Russia in August their 
 readiness to accept Austrian mediation. They had 
 refused to accept it when offered by Austria in April, 
 but the difference was that in April Austria offered simple 
 mediation as an ally of France, whereas in August she 
 offered it as an armed mediator. This meant that Austria, 
 insufficiently prepared for war in April, had become so 
 by August. But Castlereagh had another reason for his 
 changed attitude in August, namely, that in the interval 
 France had " relaxed her pretensions with respect to 
 Spain, leaving that as a question for discussion instead 
 of asserting an indisputable claim." 2 That should have 
 removed a great stumbling-block to peace, had there been 
 any real will to it on the part of the Government : a fact 
 studiously ignored by the conventional historians of the 
 time. 
 
 Before starting to Prague to join Narbonne at the 
 Congress, Caulaincourt, fearful of the German defection, 
 which soon came about, urged Napoleon, instead of hoping 
 for an agreement with Russia, to come to one with Austria. 
 The Due de Bassano's evidence is that Napoleon would 
 have made great sacrifices to please Russia, and that he 
 wished sincerely, not only for a peace for France, but for 
 one that should be lasting for Europe. 3 
 
 But promptitude was necessary, and the renewal of 
 war was due to the loss of a few hours. For on July 31st 
 Bassano received a despatch from Prague to the effect 
 that Metternich declared Austria to be still disengaged 
 to either side till August 10th, when the armistice would 
 end, and would not promise her neutrality after that date. 
 Metternich' s statement in his Memoirs, that he had used 
 
 1 Rose, Napoleon, II., 326. 3 Ernouf, 579-83. 
 
 a Pari. Deb., XXVII., 142, November 17th, 1813.
 
 THE FALLING EMPIRE 321 
 
 this threat of war to Napoleon at Dresden and later at 
 Prague, conflicts with Bassano's evidence of the later 
 date, which allowed a much shorter time for a pacific 
 settlement. 1 On August 5th, Napoleon, yielding to his 
 Minister's advice, approached Metternich through Caulain- 
 court. Metternich's answer was delayed to August 8th, 
 when he laid down Austria's terms with perfect clearness. 
 They were the extreme terms of the second article of the 
 Allies' secret treaty of Reichenbach ; and an answer to 
 this ultimatum was required by August 10th. Caulain- 
 court urged their prompt acceptance by Napoleon, for 
 otherwise on August nth Austria would join the Allies. 
 Had Napoleon's answer been sent on August 9th, instead 
 of on the evening of August 10th, it was Metternich's 
 real or feigned opinion that his offer of a partial surrender 
 and partition of the Duchy of Warsaw, with some com- 
 pensation to Saxony, also of a restoration of a large 
 part of the Illyrian provinces, and of the making of 
 Dantzig a free port, would have led to a peace. But by 
 the time the answer arrived Austria had joined the 
 Allies. Peace was thus only missed by a few hours. 
 
 Austria declared war on August 12th, justifying it, as 
 usual, on disbelief in the sincerity of the French desire 
 for peace, and on the nobility of her own aims. 2 But 
 the French reply of August 18th was more convincing : 
 did it indicate Austria's desire for peace to dictate the 
 acceptance of her terms in a shorter time than would be 
 needed for the capitulation of a beseiged town ? Was it 
 reasonable to expect to adjust the interests of six large 
 and other Powers within sixteen days ? Even Alison 
 admits that the French had the better of this argument. 
 The long Austrian manifesto drawn up by Gentz, 
 Metternich's Secretary, put the Austrian case with great 
 ability and was doubtless very plausible to the average 
 Austrian reader.3 It insisted on the unwillingness of 
 Napoleon " to make to the repose of the world even one 
 
 1 ib., 462, 3. 3 Alison, IX., 414. 3 Ann. Reg., II., 422-33.
 
 322 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 single nominal sacrifice:" 1 which was certainly not true 
 before the armistice ended. It also told the world that 
 in April Napoleon had suggested to Austria the annexation 
 of Prussia as a punishment for her defection and the 
 protraction of the war. 
 
 But negotiations must have survived for some days 
 the termination of the armistice, for it appears that on 
 Metternich's insistence on August nth on Trieste being 
 included in the cession of Illyria, Napoleon on the 12th 
 yielded all that was in dispute, agreed to the concessions 
 required, and authorised Caulaincourt to sign a peace on 
 such terms ; that Metternich submitted these proposals 
 to the Austrian Emperor on August 14th ; that on the 
 15th an answer was deferred till the arrival of the Czar ; 
 and that the Czar, arriving on the 16th, immediately 
 rejected the proposals, and urged Francis to risk a war. 2 
 
 In that case the responsibility for the renewal of the 
 strife rests more with Alexander than with Napoleon. It 
 often takes many years for history to overtake and correct 
 the false impressions of contemporary actors. That 
 Napoleon did his best at this time to secure peace for the 
 world, and that he was defeated by Metternich and Alex- 
 ander, seems to be confirmed by the fact that Metternich's 
 greatest regret in his later life was that he had not 
 made peace with Napoleon in 18 13.3 
 
 By the time the armistice ended abortively the 
 accession of Austria had brought up the Allied numbers 
 to some 600,000 men against Napoleon's 350,000.4 A 
 concentric attack on Dresden promised a speedy victory, 
 but for the last time Napoleon's star befriended him, and 
 a two day's battle sent the Allied forces flying, and made 
 prisoners of 14,000 Austrians (August 27th and 28th). 
 The defeats of the French Marshals, however, deprived 
 this victory of its fruits, of which the chief one hoped for 
 had been the capture of Berlin ; and they spoiled the 
 plan of campaign. The defeats of Oudinot at Gross 
 
 1 ib., II., 428. 2 Ernouf, 597. 3 Ernouf, 601. 4 Mollien, III., 315.
 
 THE FALLING EMPIRE 323 
 
 Beeren (August 23rd) ; of Macdonald at the Katzbach 
 in Silesia (August 26-29th) ; of Vandamme at Kulm in 
 Saxony (August 29th) ; and of Ney at Dennewitz 
 (September 6th), not only involved the French in immense 
 losses, but were followed through September by 
 ineffective operations of which the balance of advantage 
 was strongly against them. But despite these successes 
 Sir Robert Wilson's evidence is that on September 1st 
 the Allies would still have been glad to close with any 
 fresh overtures from Napoleon. 1 
 
 At the end of September Napoleon wrote to his father- 
 in-law with a view to peace negotiations, and Sir Robert, 
 pressing on Lord Aberdeen " the necessity of meeting 
 the amicable proposal with an amicable spirit," thought 
 that peace was not far ofif.2 George Jackson, writing on 
 September 30th, notices the general enthusiasm at the 
 news of the Austrian Emperor's unfavourable answer for 
 renewed negotiations. 3 But there was also a more 
 pacific current running; for when fresh overtures 
 came from Napoleon on October 5th, Jackson testifies 
 to " a strong wish to accept Bonaparte's terms and to 
 open a negotiation." Even though news of the fall of St, 
 Sebastien had come from Spain, the general desire was 
 for peace and for giving Napoleon a chance of coming to 
 terms that were not too mortifying.4 
 
 Meantime after some indecision Napoleon reverted, 
 against the advice of his marshals, to an attack on 
 Berlin, but on October 8th an event occurred which made 
 it impossible for him still further to resist their counsel 
 that the wiser course would be a retreat to the Rhine. 
 That was the defection of Bavaria to the Allies. The 
 defection was far from being whole-hearted, but the 
 French alliance had not been all gain. Bavaria, in her 
 Proclamation of defection lamented the loss in the Russian 
 campaign of her whole army, reinforced in October by 
 
 1 Diary, II., 109. 3 Diaries, III., 290. 
 
 2 ib -> IL » 149, 50. * ib., II., 293, 306.
 
 324 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 8,000 men. 1 The defection was " joyous news," of course, 
 to the Allies, and Sir Robert Wilson thought it decisive 
 of the independence of Europe. 2 It was the restriction 
 of their commerce by the Continental system that alienated 
 the Germans from France ; otherwise Sir Robert thought 
 that Napoleon " might have ruled over very willing 
 subj ects in Germany. "3 But in the previous May Napoleon 
 had spoken of peace with Russia as an easy matter, inas- 
 much as he had given up all idea of keeping up the 
 Continental System.4 Yet it does not seem that this 
 was ever made clear in the peace discussions. 
 
 The failure to negotiate brought matters to an issue 
 in the battles round Leipzig (October i6-i9th). The 
 French losses were put as high as 60,000 ; but Sir Robert 
 Wilson, to whom Schwartzenberg chiefly attributed the 
 Allied successes on the i6th,5 declared that, so far from 
 10,000 representing the Allied loss the Austrian casualties 
 were as high as 30,000, the Russian and Prussian io.ooo. 6 
 But before the fight was over Napoleon on October 17th 
 tried to effect an armistice through the Austrian General 
 Marfeldt, taken prisoner : he would evacuate Germany 
 and retire behind the Rhine ; he would give up Hanover 
 and the Hanse towns if England would give up the 
 captured colonies, though he feared England would never 
 make peace, except for such a limitation of the French 
 navy as he could never agree to ; he asked nothing "but 
 to repose in the shadow of peace, and to dream of 
 the happiness of France as he had dreamt of her glory."7 
 Such an appeal to a man like Francis II., described at a 
 ball in Frankfurt in November as " sneaking about, as 
 he always does, as if he were ashamed of himself," 8 was 
 of course useless ; but on October 20th Sir Robert Wilson, 
 ardent as he was in and for the war, said that he had no 
 hesitation in giving his vote for peace on the terms offered 
 
 * Ann. Reg., II., 439. 2 Diary, II., 157. 3 ib., II., 187. 
 
 4 Jackson's Diaries, II., 95, 6. 5 Diary, II., 235. 6 ib., II., 196. 
 
 7 Fain, 1813, 416. Wilson's Diary, II., 172. 8 Jackson, II., 353.
 
 THE FALLING EMPIRE 325 
 
 by Napoleon. 1 But, as usual, the pro-war party pre- 
 vailed, though as yet there was no idea of invading France 
 nor of restoring Louis XVIII. 
 
 The carnage round Leipzig will always remain among 
 the chief examples of the devilry of war. George Jackson, 
 visiting the field of battle on October 21st, tells how it 
 made his blood run cold " to glance only, as we passed 
 along, on the upturned faces of the dead, . . . yet 
 there was a strange fascination in it that attracted rather 
 than repelled." 2 Habit soon came to his aid against his 
 humanity; but as for the lives destroyed and tortured 
 after October 17th, it was not on Napoleon alone that 
 responsibility rests. The battle of Leipzig carried the 
 world another milestone in that progressive worsening of 
 war which has now reached such lengths that even the 
 strongest militarists are appalled by the spectre they have 
 evoked. The first trial on land of Congreve's rocket so 
 frightened the French as to cause a solid square of their 
 infantry to surrender in a few minutes to Captain Bogue's 
 rocket-brigade ; and in 1814 it was successfully used at 
 the battle of the Adour. The shell which has immortalised 
 the name of Henry Shrapnel was, according to Alison, 
 first used in the bombardment of St. Sebastien ; but on 
 June 16th, 1809, Wellington wrote to Shrapnel from 
 Abrantes that his shell had contributed greatly to the 
 victory at Vimiera on August 21st, 1808 ; and its admir- 
 able but dreadful effects were attested at Torres Vedras. 
 In the ranks of the benefactors or the enemies of their 
 kind Congreve and Shrapnel fill a foremost place. The 
 victims of their inventions must have run into millions. 
 
 Robert Fulton, the American engineer, whilst entitled 
 to the blessings of mankind as the inventor of the steam- 
 ship, has deserved less well of his kind as the designer of 
 the submarine torpedo, which in its later developments 
 threatens to revolutionise naval warfare. Lord Stanhope 
 on May 14th, 1813, expressed great apprehension from 
 
 * Diary, II., 179. 8 II., 3*3, 4-
 
 326 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 the use of Fulton's device in the American war. Napoleon, 
 when Fulton explained it to him, expressed disapproval 
 and refused to adopt such a mode of warfare ; but Pitt 
 and Lord Melville promised him £40,000 for the first 
 French ship destroyed by it, and, though it failed at 
 Boulogne, " he got £10,000 for his experiments, and put 
 £15,000 in his pocket, and then went to America." 1 Lord 
 Grey, when at the Admiralty, only consented to the con- 
 tract because convinced of its inutility ; he had given 
 Fulton every facility to try his "submarine invention" 
 under Sir Samuel Hood, but owing to one night being too 
 dark and another too rough, it had never succeeded ; yet 
 he confessed that he had so great a dislike to such a mode 
 of warfare " that he had passed many uneasy nights at the 
 idea of the plan being practicable." 2 In the annals of the 
 world's statesmen is there any other modern instance of the 
 smallest desire to restrict the miseries of war by exercising 
 any check on its destructive development ? When the 
 poisonous gas, called Kakodyl, was advocated in 1844 for 
 use in war, Prof. Scoffern wrote : " We should hail 
 with satisfaction any discovery that could make war more 
 terrible, conscientiously believing that the application 
 of such wholesale weapons of slaughter would be the 
 surest means of establishing universal peace. "3 And when 
 Lord Dundonald invented a gas which he thought could 
 destroy any fleet or fortress in the world, Lord Panmure, 
 Minister of War, wrote on July 20th, 1855, to Gen. 
 Simpson to suggest a trial of it on the Malakoff, and on 
 August 7th, 1855, Lord Palmerston wrote to Lord Pan- 
 mure to advocate its being tried in the Crimea. 2 Not 
 that way lies the hope of universal peace, if the world's 
 history counts for anything. 
 
 After Leipzig there was nothing for the French but a 
 disastrous retreat and a re-crossing of the Rhine in the 
 early days of November. On the 5th Alexander with 
 
 1 Pari. Deb., XXVI., 190. a ib., XXVI., 194- 
 
 3 Mechanics' Magazine for August 18th, 1844.
 
 THE FALLING EMPIRE 327 
 
 great pomp entered Frankfurt, which Napoleon had left 
 on the 1st, and the presence of other Allied monarchs, 
 ministers and ambassadors gave to that ancient city an 
 air of gaiety which a brief repose and the success of the 
 campaign rendered very agreeable to the jaded warriors. 
 Their stay in Frankfurt was also enlivened by news of 
 the simultaneous successes of Wellington in Spain. Soult 
 had taken the chief command on July 13th (again that 
 unlucky number) ; King Joseph had persuaded his 
 brother to recall Soult early in the year, nor without 
 reason. For Soult, who always professed great friend- 
 ship for Joseph, in order to shield himself from the latter's 
 charges of disobediences to his orders, sent to Napoleon 
 charges of treason against Joseph, which by the chance of 
 a wrecked vessel fell into Joseph's hands and revealed the 
 treachery of the Marshal. 3 But by July the best chance 
 for French interests in Spain was to send Soult, who came 
 within an ace of winning the battles in the Pyrenees and 
 of relieving Pampeluna from the British blockade, which 
 compelled its capitulation on October 31st. The town of 
 St. Sebastien had been taken by storm on August 31st, 
 after great feats of bravery, and its fortress had surren- 
 dered on September 18th. The storming had been of 
 peculiar horror. Sir George Bowles wrote about it to 
 Lord Malmesbury : " After gaining possession of the town, 
 and driving the garrison into the castle, the usual horrors 
 commenced, and every species of enormity was committed, 
 and Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz were imitated and 
 surpassed, and Herod completely out-Heroded." When 
 he entered the burning city next day, he was struck by 
 " the horrible number of dead, dying and wounded 
 wretches of every age, sex and nation beyond descrip- 
 tion." 1 And this he described as the most civilised town 
 in the Peninsula. Nine-tenths of it were burnt, and such 
 was the ensuing bitterness against Wellington, who in 
 
 1 Panmure Papers, I., 349. « Du Casse, 57, 8. 
 
 3 Malmesbury's Letters, 383.
 
 328 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 vain had tried to save it and its citizens, that he advised 
 the Cabinet to be prepared for a possible war with the 
 country he was liberating ! But the fall of the garrison 
 effected the liberation, and the French invasion of Spain 
 now passed into a British-Spanish invasion of France. 
 
 Whilst the Allies were at Frankfurt the peace 
 negotiations, begun at Leipzig, were resumed. The 
 Allies were not indisposed to peace — on their own terms. 
 In answer to propositions from Napoleon through Count 
 Mervelot, they sent the Count St. Aignan, French 
 ambassador at Weimar, whom they had taken prisoner 
 on their advance, with their proposals. He reached 
 Paris on November 15th. Only a general peace as 
 distinct from a Continental one, would be admitted — 
 which meant that England must be included. France 
 must be restricted to her " natural " frontiers, within 
 the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees ; all claims of 
 sovereignty over Germany must cease ; Spain must be 
 independent under her own ancient dynasty ; Holland 
 must be independent, and Piedmont ; though about these 
 last two there might be negotiation. For a peace on 
 these bases England would make the greatest sacrifices 
 and recognise such liberty of trade and navigation as 
 France had a right to claim. But there was to be no 
 suspension of military operations. They suggested the 
 neutralisation of a town on the right bank of the Rhine 
 for a Congress. 1 
 
 The Due de Bassano sent Napoleon's answer to 
 Metternich on November 16th. He asked that Mannheim 
 should be the place of meeting, and added that " a peace 
 based on the independence of all nations, both from the 
 Continental and from the maritime point of view, had 
 been the constant object of the desires and of the policy 
 of the emperor." 1 
 
 Vague as these words were, they were not more so 
 than those of the Allies about the English sacrifices ; 
 
 1 Fain, 1814, 55.
 
 THE FALLING EMPIRE 329 
 
 but they could hardly have meant less than the acceptance 
 of the principle of the independence of Germany, Spain 
 Holland and Italy. Metternich, however, unnecessarily, 
 as Wilson thought, pressed for a clearer acceptance of 
 the proposed basis, and ten days were lost over this 
 dispute. 1 
 
 Alison lays all the blame of this delay on Napoleon's 
 wish to gain time for defensive preparations, 2 but the later 
 researches of Baron Ernouf have dispelled this view, 
 which indeed conflicts with the understanding that 
 negotiations were not to interrupt military operations 3 
 The Due de Bassano urged the immediate acceptance of 
 the Allied proposals, extreme as they were ; but at the 
 end of November a political intrigue at Paris raised so 
 fierce a storm against that Minister on the false charge 
 of thwarting Napoleon's wish for peace that his life was 
 threatened, and Napoleon was forced to bend to the storm 
 by making Caulaincourt Foreign Minister in his place.4 
 
 On December 2nd Caulaincourt replied to Metternich's 
 letter of November 25th, which complained of the vague- 
 ness of the previous answer, by interpreting the words as 
 meaning " the recognition of the absolute independence 
 of all nations, so that none could claim over any other 
 suzerainty or supremacy under any form, on land or sea." 
 Though involving great sacrifices on the part of France, 
 these would not be regretted if England made similar 
 sacrifices for a general peace. 5 This explanation, which 
 seemed clear enough, Metternich, whose wish for an end 
 of the war was prompted by his jealousy of Russia, accepted 
 with great satisfaction. 
 
 But the despatch arrived too late ; for on December 1st 
 the Allies had determined to continue the war, as 
 expressed in a manifesto of Metternich's composition on 
 December 7th. Metternich declared that it was the 
 most difficult piece of work he had ever undertaken. 6 
 
 1 Diary, II., 236. 3 IX., 956. 3 607 4 Ernouf, 610. 
 
 5 Fain, 181 4, 62. 6 Fournier, Congress von Chatillon, 25.
 
 330 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Alison thought it the most wonderful model of modera- 
 tion the world had ever seen, though to Sir Charles Stewart 
 it seemed far too tame and in many respects highly 
 objectionable. 1 
 
 It began with that common formula of an invading 
 enemy, that their hostility was not to the people of France, 
 but to the preponderance of France as extended by 
 Napoleon beyond her proper limits. The first use they 
 made of victory was to offer peace to France, which they 
 wished to be happy, " because a great people could only 
 be tranquil in proportion as it was happy" ; but they 
 wished themsleves also to be happy, nor would they lay 
 down their arms till a just balance of power secured a 
 real peace to Europe. 2 The manifesto had exactly the 
 effect which Metternich desired. Its moderation appealed 
 strongly to the French peace party, and the result was 
 shown in the pacifist attitude of the Legislative Body, 
 whose committee in their report on the documents relating 
 to the peace negotiations expressed itself so vehemently 
 against the miseries of the conscription and of the war 
 that Napoleon took the risk of dissolving it rather than 
 act upon principles he thought fatal to France. From 
 this time to the end his attitude, as expressed in his own 
 words on January 4th, 1814, was : " If fortune betrays 
 me, my course is clear ; I make no point of the throne. 
 I will humiliate neither the nation nor myself by sub- 
 scribing to shameful conditions. "3 
 
 The note of moderation in the British pronouncement 
 was as conspicuous as in Metternich's manifesto. " No 
 disposition," ran the Prince Regent's speech to the Lords 
 on the opening of Parliament on November 4th, " to 
 require from France sacrifices of any description incon- 
 sistent with her honour or just pretensions as a nation 
 will ever be on my part, or in that of His Majesty's Allies, 
 an obstacle to peace." And Canning's remark deserves 
 
 1 Diaries, II., 381. 2 Ann. Reg., 1813, II., 442. 
 
 3 Correspondence, XXVII., 10, No. 21062.
 
 THE FALLING EMPIRE 331 
 
 to be recalled : "We must not expect from our enemy 
 that to which we should not ourselves submit, that he 
 should sacrifice to us his own honour and interest, to him 
 equally dear " as our own were to us. What was the 
 explanation of this changed note ? Partly that jealousy 
 of Russia which was to mark the rest of the century, 
 Austria especially manifesting her indisposition to exchange 
 the preponderance of France for that of Russia ; partly, 
 one may suspect, a wish to make things easy for Louis 
 XVIII. as successor to Napoleon, though as yet no 
 such a wish was openly awowed. In any case counsels 
 of moderation beat in vain against the Czar's determina- 
 tion to carry the war across the Rhine into French territory 
 and to the bitter end. 
 
 The Frankfurt terms, or rather demands, were of 
 course justified by the military situation of the Allies, 
 but to call them moderate was absurd. They became 
 less moderate just before crossing the Rhine : it was no 
 longer a demand for " the natural frontier" of France, 
 but for the frontiers of 1792, which meant the loss of the 
 Rhine provinces, Luxemburg, Antwerp and Belgium. 
 Napoleon told Caulaincourt that he disbelieved in the 
 sincerity of the Allies' wish for peace, and declared his 
 resolution to sign no conditions so humiliating to himself 
 and to France. 1 He would agree to the " natural limits" 
 conditions, but not to the more restricted ones. France, 
 he said, by Bernardiere, without the Rhine departments, 
 without Belgium, without Ostend, without Antwerp, 
 would be nothing ; a peace on such a basis could only be 
 possible by the restoration of the Bourbons ; for neither 
 empire nor republic could subscribe to such a peace. 
 He would give up Venice, Magdeburg, Hamburg, but the 
 natural limits of France without restriction or diminution 
 was the sine qua non of any peace he would make. That 
 was his attitude on January 19th, 1814. 2 
 
 1 Correspondence, XXVII., 10, No. 21602. January 4 th, 1814. 
 * Fain, 1814, 75-80.
 
 332 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 History would have been different, possibly better, 
 had peace been made at Frankfurt by timely concessions. 
 Everything was going badly for the French Empire. The 
 reaction to monarchy showed itself in the bloodless 
 revolution in Holland in November, 1813, which brought 
 back the Prince of Orange, no longer as a Statdholder of 
 a Republic, but as a Sovereign promising constitutional 
 liberties. In the same month Bernadotte occupied 
 Hanover ; ultimately to be made happy as a Kingdom, 
 no longer as a mere Electorate, under the Duke of 
 Cambridge. But monarchy stood for the restoration of 
 all the old barbarities, as shown by the fact that torture 
 in criminal cases, abolished by the French, was revived 
 by the new Government of Hanover. There were two 
 cases of torture in 1817 in the town of Hanover, and 
 three cases in 1818 in other parts. A poor wretch, who 
 had stolen a cow, was tortured to make him confess in 
 March, 18 18 ; nor was it till December of that year that 
 the practice was abolished. 1 The Elector of Hesse had 
 not taken the place of Jerome Bonaparte for many weeks 
 before all the reforms of the last seven years were swept 
 away ; the Code Napoleon abolished ; the feudal privi- 
 leges of the nobles restored together with the feudal 
 servitudes of the poor. This was the real meaning of the 
 monarchical victory. The Austrians, when they crossed 
 the Alps, called on the Italians to join in delivering Europe 
 from a tyranny that had been less galling than that 
 which came back with the invading Hapsburgs. The 
 Danes, forced to their knees, were obliged to submit to 
 Bernadotte's occupation of Holstein as a pledge for the 
 cession of Norway to Sweden. 
 
 The Swiss people (the Helvetic Confederacy) with 
 little or no complaint to make of their relations with 
 France, desired nothing better than to keep out of the war 
 by the privilege of neutrality. On November 20th they 
 proclaimed their neutrality at Zurich in a special Diet, 
 
 1 T. Hodgskin's Travels in North Germany, II., 51.
 
 THE FALLING EMPIRE 333 
 
 and took military measures to safeguard their frontiers. 
 But the Allies, purposing to use Switzerland as one of 
 their doors into France, were not to be deterred by so 
 trivial an obstacle as the neutrality of a smaller Power. 
 It is to the credit of Alexander, always the difficult member 
 of the League, that on an appeal by the Diet at Zurich for 
 protection he in December carried his opposition to the 
 violation of Swiss neutrality so far as to say that he would 
 regard such violation as a declaration of war against 
 Russia. 1 But military necessity ended by prevailing 
 over morality, though the survival of some moral scruples 
 is proved by the long sophistical proclamation issued 
 by Prince Schwartzenberg on December 21st, to the 
 effect that Swiss neutrality was not a true nor legitimate 
 neutrality and that therefore no regard would be paid 
 to it. 2 The next day Switzerland was invaded in great 
 force ; but at least one voice in England raised an impotent 
 protest against the flagrant wrong, Sir James Mackintosh 
 declaring in Parliament, that, if mere military advantage 
 were to supersede Switzerland's right to her neutrality; 
 if she were not to be counted as neutral simply because 
 she happened to cover a large frontier of France; there 
 was an end of all public security and of the rights of all 
 nations. 3 But the invasion was easily effected ; the well- 
 disposed Swiss showing ample joy, and the pro-French 
 Swiss hardly daring to speak, as Metternich wrote on 
 December 23rd, 1813. There was only one spirit in 
 Switzerland, he wrote on January 14th, 1814, and that 
 was anti-French.4 The French Empire was virtually 
 doomed. 
 
 1 Fournier, 38, 9. Castlereagh Correspondence, IX., 103. 
 « Schoell, Recueil, II., 8-17. 3 Pari. Deb., XXVII., 314. 
 
 4 Fournier, 247, 250.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 1 8 14. Diplomacy and War 
 
 Time and experience had mellowed the war ardour of 
 Sir Robert Wilson, who on November 14th, 1807, in his 
 anti-Napoleonic wrath, would have hanged " the first 
 pusillanimous knave that whispered peace." 1 He had 
 taken a gloomy view of the Allies' prospects in 1813, not 
 foreseeing the many defections that were to falsify his 
 pessimism, and he thought the decision to invade France 
 " for the dethronement of Bonaparte unwise, unjust and 
 indecent." 2 
 
 He had come also to be more charitable towards 
 Napoleon, whose splendid system of education in Italy 
 fully compensated, he thought, for the heavy contribu- 
 tions exacted from that kingdom. " Contributions and 
 conscriptions might vex the present race, but knowledge 
 was in progress and liberty kept company. With all hi9 
 faults and crimes and misrule Bonaparte did more for 
 the advamtage of mankind than can ever be effected by 
 the repeal of his acts and the abolition of his establish- 
 ments. The settlement of the Kingdom of Italy alone 
 entitles him to the highest consideration as the regenerator 
 of a people."3 
 
 A most remarkable admission, coming from such an 
 enemy as Wilson ; and small reason indeed was there for 
 Italian gratitude to the Allies for undoing Napoleon's 
 work for the unification of Italy, and handing her back 
 to the rule of the Hapsburgs and Bourbons. 
 
 * Life, II., 385. 
 
 » Diary, II., 326. February 20th, 1814. 3 ib., II., 363. 
 
 334
 
 DIPLOMACY AND WAR 335 
 
 But Wilson had ceased to have his former influence 
 with Alexander, who at one time could not part from him 
 without abundant kissings. Wilson had so come round 
 to pacifist views that in September, 18 13, the chief of 
 Blucher's staff, Gneisenau, insisted on a change, and 
 Lord Burghersh was sent to supplant Wilson at Schwart- 
 zenberg's headquarters. Alexander had become resolute 
 on the invasion of France, whatever Wilson might think, 
 or whatever Francis II. might apprehend. 
 
 But after the crossing of the Rhine at the end of 1813 
 by the vast hordes leagued against France, it was for many 
 weeks doubtful whether Wilson's belief in the unwisdom 
 of the invasion would not be justified by results. For 
 Napoleon was no less successful in dividing the councils 
 of his enemies than in dividing their armies, and a breach 
 between Austria and Russia was only very narrowly 
 averted. But Wilson had not reckoned with the defections 
 that were possible. The worst of these was the defection 
 of Murat, King of Naples, in January, 1814 ; an event 
 of first-rate military consequence. That Napoleon's 
 brother-in-law, the comrade of so many campaigns and 
 victories, should succumb to the blandishments of Austria, 
 to act in military concert with her in return for a doubtful 
 guarantee of the maintenance of the kingdom of Naples in 
 his family, was an episode which had still power to shock 
 the blunted moral sense of Europe. His rule in Naples 
 had been of a reforming and beneficent character ; l and, 
 had Napoleon consented to proclaim the independence 
 of Italy by adding to Murat' s kingdom all the States 
 south of the Po, history might have taken a different 
 course. Murat entreated Napoleon to explain himself ; 
 otherwise he would be forced to join the Allies. He 
 prayed him to make peace, and to make it on any 
 terms. This was on December 25th, 1813, but on 
 January nth, 18 14, he made his peace with the Allies, and 
 on January 19th entered Rome with 20,000 men. Murat's 
 
 * Pari. Deb., XXIX ., 54.
 
 336 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 defection, wrote George Jackson to his mother, was " a 
 most base and inglorious act," but Wilson found some 
 extenuation for it in Napoleon's having signed a decree 
 uniting Naples with the Kingdom of Italy. 2 Europe had 
 not said its last word to Murat, who after the return from 
 Elba reverted to his old allegiance, and for his pains was 
 shot by the Allies like a dog on October 13th, 1815 — a sad 
 end, at the early age of forty-four, of a man whose fine figure 
 and finer costume, whose black whiskers and blue eyes 
 had so long been among the most conspicuous splendours 
 of the Imperial armies. 
 
 The Allies did not cross the Rhine without a singular 
 exhibition by the Czar of his superiority to military 
 vindictiveness. He had shown this also after 1812, 
 when on Napoleon's crossing the Niemen into Russia 
 the Polish Diet met at Warsaw and proclaimed the 
 restoration of ancient Poland, and when, after Poles had 
 joined in the plunder of Moscow, he had written to Prince 
 Czartoryski on January 13th, 1813, " Vengeance is a 
 sentiment unknown to me, and my greatest pleasure is 
 to return good for evil." He had accordingly ordered 
 his generals to treat the Poles as friends and brothers. 3 
 
 The same spirit was more conspicuously shown in the 
 proclamation to his troops before the crossing of the 
 Rhine. The proclamation is remarkable as the only 
 modern instance of the imprint of Christianity on that 
 most inveterate of the world's bad customs which in two 
 thousand years it has done so little to ameliorate and 
 nothing to eradicate : " When our enemies," part of it ran, 
 " invaded our empire, they did us much evil, but they 
 received for it a terrible punishment ; the Divine wrath 
 struck them. We have no wish to act as they did ; 
 inhumanity cannot be pleasing to the Supreme Being. 
 We forget the barbarous acts of our enemies. We stretch 
 out our hand, not to avenge ourselves, but as a sign of 
 
 1 Diaries, II., 394. 3 Diary, II., 347. 
 
 3 Czartoryski's Memoirs, II., 232.
 
 DIPLOMACY AND WAR 337 
 
 reconciliation and friendship. The glory of Russians 
 consists in conquering their enemies, and in doing good 
 to the conquered and to persons unarmed (aux hommes 
 pacifiques). This last practice is taught us by the religion 
 which all hearts revere, which preaches to us by the mouth 
 of God Himself, ' Love your enemies and do good to your 
 adversaries.' Soldiers ! I am convinced that as I lead 
 you with mildness in the enemy's country, your gener- 
 osity as much as your arms will ensure you victory, and 
 that by your bravery against those in arms, as also by 
 your Christian affection for those who are defenceless, 
 you will soon reach the end of your difficult expedition 
 and acquire the reputation of a brave and virtuous people." 
 The date of this remarkable document is January 6th, 
 18 14, from Friburg. Alison's translation 1 is so free as 
 to differ in several respects from the original as given in 
 Schoell's Rccueil. 2 
 
 Davilensky was Alexander's aide-de-camp, but his 
 narrative supports the belief that his master enforced the 
 spirit of his proclamation during the campaign. He 
 prevented the pillage of Soissons after it was taken by 
 storm on February 2nd ; he gave directions for sparing 
 the city of Troyes.3 Doubtless he did his best ; but 
 that the invasion was a saintly crusade is the shallowest 
 of fictions, and it was especially the Russians who were 
 charged with cruelties whose only excuse was the glutting 
 of their revenge. Napoleon testified to these atrocities 
 with obvious conviction from the very beginning of the 
 campaign. On February 2nd he speaks of them as seen 
 by his own eyes (ce tableau que je viens de voir par mes 
 yeux). Conscious of their value as war propaganda, he 
 strove to turn them to military use, writing to Joseph on 
 February 21st, "The enemy have committed nameless 
 horrors at Montereau, at Bray, and at Nogent ; that 
 ought to be known at Paris. "4 To the same on February 
 
 1 IX., 1006. 2 IE., 28. 3 77, 128. 
 
 4 Correspond ance, XXVIT., 213, No. 21327.
 
 338 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 24th : " The enemy has committed so many horrors that 
 all France will be indignant at them. Here on the spot 
 the most moderate only speak of them with fury." 1 To 
 Savary on February 21st, he gave an appalling report of 
 what was done, declaring that the crimes described made 
 his hair stand on end. 2 He urged him, as Minister of 
 Police, to see that letters descriptive of these things, 
 " whole letters with the name of the writer and of his 
 addressee," should be published broadcast over France. 
 And Napoleon's evidence is corroborated by that of Sir 
 Robert Wilson, who stated his belief that " pillage, 
 burning, and all sorts of military atrocities had never 
 been exceeded. "3 And that something of Bliicher's 
 spirit tainted the clemency of Alexander himself is 
 shown by his answer to Marshall Marmont's request 
 for a suspension of the combat at the final battle for Paris, 
 that unless Paris surrendered before evening " you will 
 not know where your capital stood. "4 Yet, when Paris 
 fell and the fierce passions of his countrymen wished 
 to burn the city in revenge for Moscow, it was to 
 Alexander's influence and entreaties that the escape of 
 the capital was ascribed. 5 
 
 The campaign that followed the crossing of the Rhine 
 and ended with the fall of Paris at the close of March is 
 among the most instructive in military history for students 
 of the military art. But to posterity only the results, 
 not the details, are of interest. For more than a year 
 negotiations for peace had played a sort of accompani- 
 ment to military operations, and the negotiations at 
 Frankfurt were resumed with hardly a break at Chatillon 
 on February 4th, where Caulaincourt (the Due de Vicence), 
 the French Foreign Minister, had to contend alone as 
 ambassador against the three English Ministers, Lord 
 Aberdeen, Lord Cathcart and Sir Charles Stewart, aided 
 by Lord Castlereagh, and against the respective Ministers 
 
 1 ib., 239, No. 21360. 2 ib., No. 21329. 3 Diary, II., 337. 
 4 Davilensky, 363. 5 Ann. Reg., 1814, 21.
 
 DIPLOMACY AND WAR 339 
 
 of Austria, Russia, and Prussia ; namely, Stadion, Rasa- 
 moufski and Humboldt. 
 
 These few weeks at Chatillon present perhaps the most 
 curious picture of diplomatic human nature ever pre- 
 sented to the world. The proceedings have come before 
 us in the minutest detail as described in letters that first 
 emerged from manuscript form in Fournier's account of 
 the Congress 1 ; containing the letters of Count Stadion to 
 Metternich ; of Metternich to Hudelist, and to Stadion ; of 
 Count Munster to the Prince Regent of England ; also 
 the Diary of Count Hardenberg, and above all Floret's 
 Journal of the Congress. 
 
 " Our life here is a kind of hell," wrote Stadion, 
 " dining as we do every day with persons who have a 
 right to detest us." 2 Poor Caulaincourt cut a sorry 
 figure in such company ; one against six, for nothing was 
 further from the truth than that the six, standing for 
 Europe, were only one person ; but, if Caulaincourt 
 looked unhappy, Aberdeen's dejection was so much worse 
 that Stadion joked about his imminent funeral, so 
 scandalised was the diplomatic innocence of his lordship 
 by all he saw.3 On February 27th Lord Aberdeen declined 
 as a man of honour to sign a he that his guests at dinner 
 wished him to sign.4 In the company of the highest 
 representatives of European diplomacy he found himself 
 in a sort of thieves' kitchen ; nor could Stadion conceal 
 his contempt for the " good " Lord Aberdeen, who showed 
 pity for Caulaincourt, pity for France, some even for 
 Napoleon, and accused his colleagues of being tyrants. 5 
 Stadion found much amusement in the daily quarrels 
 that arose between the English ministers over details 
 after the conferences : " It is sometimes Stewart, some- 
 times Lord Cathcart that takes the side of unreason, 
 but then they get heated in a very comical manner, and 
 Lord Aberdeen, with his letting things go and his disgust 
 
 1 Der Kongress von ChatilloD, 1900. 3 Fournier, 315. 
 
 3 ib., 318, February 10th. 4 »'£>., 385. 5 ib„ 323.
 
 340 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 for all our policy, plays his part very well." 1 Sport 
 occasionally lightened their labours, as on February 17th, 
 when Caulaincourt took Aberdeen and the Russian 
 diplomat in pursuit of game, and their failure to see a 
 creature to kill partook of the general ineffectiveness 
 of their proceedings. 
 
 The extent to which this famous Congress was domi- 
 nated by English control is shown by the fact that the 
 first protocol of February 5th laid down as a preliminary 
 basis the acceptance of the British demand that there 
 should be no discussion of the Maritime Code, and that as 
 Great Britain demanded no maritime concessions from 
 other nations so she would agree to none except as settled 
 by special treaties. 2 It was a political axiom that the 
 doctrine of Free Ships Free Goods, as contended for by 
 Napoleon, and ultimately accepted by us in 1856, would 
 ruin the Empire. Yet Lord Aberdeen, our ambassador to 
 Austria at the Frankfurt Conferences, though instructed 
 not to raise any discussion of the Maritime Code, 
 deliberately encouraged the idea that England would 
 suffer some canvassing of her maritime claims, and thereby 
 greatly displeased both the Government and his two 
 colleagues. 3 The concession of the principle that the 
 neutral flag protected the cargo (bar contraband) would 
 have gone far to stop the war, and without more detriment 
 to the Empire than accrued to it after 1856. 
 
 Seldom was there less union of hearts than amongst 
 these diplomatic celebrities who towards the end of 
 January, 1814, claimed to represent united Europe. 
 Schwartzenberg, the commander-in-chief, Francis Joseph, 
 and his ministers Metternich and Stadion ; Frederick 
 William III. of Prussia, and his ministers Hardenberg and 
 Gen. Knesebeck ; even Castlereagh, all desired an imme- 
 diate peace without further invasion of France ; but 
 Alexander of Russia would hear of nothing but an advance 
 on Paris and the dethronement of Napoleon. With his 
 1 ib., 349. • Fain, 1814, 251. 3 Jackson's Diaries, II., 360, 387.
 
 DIPLOMACY AND WAR 341 
 
 eye always on the recovery of the Duchy of Warsaw as 
 part of Poland, he hoped, by substituting Bernadotte for 
 Napoleon at Paris, to have a grateful supporter for his 
 policy of aggrandisement in the East instead of a rival ; 
 and it was to thwart a policy so dangerous for Austria 
 that Metternich wished for as speedy a peace as possible. 
 When it came to Alexander's threatening at the end of 
 January to proceed with his troops alone to Paris, Metter- 
 nich was driven to threaten Austria's secession from the 
 Coalition, unless the Czar would consent to the opening 
 of peace negotiations at Chatillon. 1 
 
 When they did open on February 4th, it was after 
 Napoleon's defeat at La Rotherie on February 1st had 
 compelled his retreat to Troyes. On February 5th, 
 Napoleon, fearful for the safety of Paris, so far yielded to 
 the advice of the Due de Bassano, after a long struggle, 
 as to send Caulaincourt carte blanche instructions to effect 
 any settlement that would save Paris and avert a final 
 battle. Even Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine, 
 Italy, Piedmont, Genoa, might be yielded. 2 For the 
 Allies' terms had risen with their rising fortunes. Even 
 in November, 1813, the successful insurrection in Holland 
 had caused them to brush aside their original terms, 
 which would have left France her " natural frontiers " 
 of the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees ; now they 
 wanted the pre- Revolution frontier of 1792, which implied 
 the loss of the Rhine Provinces, of Alsace-Lorraine, of 
 Belgium and Antwerp. In a protocol of February 7th 
 it was represented that for these concessions by France 
 there would be large colonial concessions by England, as 
 the sacrifice which her good nature prompted her to make 
 to the interests of her allies, who so far from intending 
 any sacrifices themselves looked to enormous territorial 
 gains. 
 
 Metternich in a letter of February 21st said of 
 Napoleon's instructions at this time that they expressed 
 1 Fournier, 66. * Ernouf, 623.
 
 342 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 his willingness to " accept all the conditions which had 
 been proposed to him provided an end could be made. 1 " 
 Caulaincourt has been blamed for not at once consenting 
 to sign a peace ; but his enemies clearly intimated their 
 intention to continue the war, and his request for a clearer 
 definition of the terms of the protocol and for information 
 as to whose benefit France was to make her concessions 
 served as a pretext for postponing his answer till further 
 instructions came from Napoleon. 
 
 Nor was Caulaincourt's hesitation surprising, urgent 
 though he was with Napoleon to yield to the logic of 
 necessity, both for the sake of France and for that of his 
 dynasty. For the protocol involved the surrender of 
 everything that had been won in twenty years, and when 
 the terms reached Napoleon at Nogent on February 8th, 
 his reception of them can easily be imagined. The terms, 
 so far from being moderate, as they professed to be, were 
 to the last degree humiliating, amounting in fact to an 
 unconditional surrender ; and, though he would surrender 
 all the conquests won by himself since the Consulship, 
 to surrender the conquests made by the Republic before 
 that time he regarded as a breach of his Constitutional 
 oath to preserve intact the integrity of the State. 2 
 What answer then was he to send to Caulaincourt ? 
 A very stormy interview of seven hours between himself 
 and the Due de Bassano and Berthier (the Prince de 
 Neuchatel), ended at last in his consenting to accept the 
 Allies' terms. He was to sign a despatch to that effect 
 next morning, the 9th, at seven. But by 5 a.m. informa- 
 tion having reached him which promised an easy victory 
 over Bliicher, he was no longer willing to send the 
 despatch, preferring to risk another throw with fortune, 
 and being disposed, like all men of the militarist type of 
 mind, to take his wishes and hopes for solid certainties. 
 
 On February 9th Caulaincourt in a private letter to 
 Metternich expressed his readiness to accept the Allied 
 J Fournier, 258. * Fain, 1814, no.
 
 DIPLOMACY AND WAR 343 
 
 terms on condition of an immediate armistice, and his 
 wish to leave the decision to the Austrian Emperor. But 
 as there was nothing which the Czar and his spokesman, 
 Rasamoufski, wished for less than peace, on February 9th 
 the Czar demanded a suspension of the conferences, which 
 accordingly were suspended till February 17th, with no 
 other result than needless delay and a vain remonstrance 
 from Caulaincourt. 
 
 Metternich's whole aim was to effect a peace and to 
 effect it with Napoleon, in order to thwart those designs 
 of Alexander against Poland, and incidentally against 
 Austria, which he foresaw as the probable result of an 
 alliance between Alexander and a Bourbon French king ; 
 and he was indignant with the Czar for having successfully 
 averted a peace that had been so nearly won. " But 
 for the pranks of the Emperor Alexander," he wrote, 
 " we should have signed the peace on the nth or the 
 12th." 1 " If he had not prevented us, at the best of all 
 possible moments, after the battle of Brienne (La Rotherie) 
 from making peace within twenty-four hours, all would 
 now be at an end, and we should be on our way home." 2 
 " We have paid dearly for not having concluded peace 
 at the moment when Napoleon begged for peace under 
 our most exorbitant conditions as a mercy. "3 Clearly 
 the marplot of peace at this earlier date was Alexander, 
 but Metternich was responsible for demanding of 
 Caulaincourt terms of impossible acceptance. 
 
 But at the moment no terms seemed impossible to 
 extort. The French army was in so bad a state that 
 on February 8th Napoleon wrote of it as dying of hunger : 
 " twelve men have died of hunger. The Cavalry and the 
 Guard are dying of hunger."4 Yet with his 70,000 men 
 Napoleon still hoped to defeat in detail Bliicher's Silesian 
 army of 45,000, and then Schwartzenberg's of 120,000 men. 
 The first feat he so far achieved by his signal victories 
 
 * Fournier, 259. 3 ib., 261., February 25th. 3 ib., 263, March 12th. 
 4 Correspond aace de Napoleon, XXVII., 135.
 
 344 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 over the Russians at Champaubert on February ioth, 
 and at Montmirail on February nth, that he wrote to 
 his brother Joseph of the Silesian army as no longer 
 existing. 1 The victory at Vauchamps on February 14th 
 added to his confidence of ultimate success. 
 
 These successes nearly brought united Europe to an open 
 schism. On February 14th Hardenberg wrote to Frederick 
 William that the Austrians talked of nothing less than 
 of making a separate peace with France " rather than let 
 themselves be dragged to Paris at the trail of the Emperor 
 of Russia, without knowing what he will do there, and sub- 
 scribe blindly to his ideas as the sole manager of Europe." 
 The exasperation caused by the sort of dictatorship 
 claimed by Russia he described as extreme. 2 So on the same 
 day wrote Count Munster to the Prince Regent ; Prince 
 Metternich declared hotly that " Austria, unable to submit 
 to such a dictatorship on the part of Russia, would be 
 obliged to act according to her own interests," and even 
 spoke of a separate peace. 3 And the King of Prussia, whom 
 for his invariable pessimism Hardenberg called Cassandra, 
 was a great drag on his brother of Russia. Castlereagh 
 needed all his diplomatic skill during these critical weeks 
 to keep Austria and Russia from an open breach. 
 
 It came at last to a determination on the part of Eng- 
 land, Austria, and Prussia to use pressure upon Alexander 
 for an immediate peace. Castlereagh visited him, but 
 with no result ; for the Czar on February ioth had been 
 fortified in his opposition to peace by a despatch from his 
 ambassador in London declaring the Prince Regent's 
 strongest disapproval of Metternich's policy, or of any 
 peace with Napoleon. In vain Castlereagh contended 
 that the Prince Regent's private opinion could not weigh 
 against his Government's instructions. 4 Only renewed 
 threats by Metternich of isolating Russia brought the 
 Czar back into line with his allies, and to his consent to 
 a renewal of the Chatillon conferences. 
 
 1 ib. t XXVII., 150. » Fournier, 289. 3 ib., 299, 4 Fournier, 128, 9.
 
 DIPLOMACY AND WAR 345 
 
 These were renewed on February 17th, the day on 
 which Napoleon won a victory at Nangis. He had become 
 more sanguine than ever ; writing to Caulaincourt the 
 same day that he had cut off Schwartzenberg's army 
 and hoped to destroy it before it re-crossed the Rhine ; 
 that he had destroyed several armies with hardly a blow ; 
 that in a military career of twenty years he had never 
 been in a position of greater advantage. Therefore, 
 though he wished for peace and Caulaincourt must do all 
 he could to obtain it, such peace must be one based on 
 the proposals made at Frankfurt, not on more humiliating 
 conditions ; nor was Caulaincourt to sign anything 
 without his order. The carte blanche instructions of 
 February 5th were no longer applicable. 1 
 
 On the evening of the same day he gladly seized the 
 opportunity of a proposal for an armistice from Schwart- 
 zenberg to write directly to his Imperial father-in-law a 
 letter expressive of his strong desire for peace, but also 
 of his hope that his more favourable military position 
 would entitle him to more favourable terms than those 
 that had been proposed at Chatillon. 2 
 
 Hitherto those terms had been vague and general ; 
 but on the 17th a protocol of the Allies defined them in 
 more specific detail. A preliminary draft treaty laid 
 down the sacrifices France was to make and the com- 
 pensations she was to receive from England for the same. 
 Practically it undid the history of twenty years, and was 
 couched in the dictatorial tone of an ultimatum, though 
 a discussion at a later date was granted. Napoleon was 
 to renounce all acquisitions made by France since 1792, 
 and all political influence outside those boundaries ; to 
 recognise the reconstruction of Switzerland, Germany, 
 Italy, Holland and Spain in the sense desired by the 
 Allies ; to surrender all fortresses in Germany and 
 Italy, especially Mayence, Hamburg, Antwerp, Bergen- 
 
 1 Correspond, de Napoleon, XXVII., 185. 
 * Fain, 1814, 129.
 
 346 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 op-Zoom, Mantua, Venice and places on the Oder and 
 Elbe ; and as a deposit, till the ratification of peace, the 
 French fortresses of Huninguen, Besancon and Belfort. 
 In return she was to receive back from England all her 
 conquered colonies with a few exceptions. 1 
 
 Caulaincourt betrayed much agitation on hearing these 
 terms read, and with difficulty controlled himself at 
 the demand for the surrender of the fortresses. Lord 
 Aberdeen, says Floret, strongly condemned this demand 
 as too offensive ; and Floret shared his opinion : "for 
 to suppose that Napoleon could subscribe to a proposal 
 so humiliating to himself and to France, he would need 
 to be at the last extremity." 2 This was of course the 
 view that Napoleon took. 
 
 When he received these terms, he wrote to Caulaincourt 
 on February 19th, that there was not a Frenchman whose 
 blood they would not cause to boil with indignation ; 
 that he would a hundred times prefer the loss of Paris 
 to the dishonour and extinction of France ; that he was 
 so moved by the infamous terms as to feel himself dis- 
 honoured by their mere proposal ; that he would prefer 
 the return of the Bourbons with reasonable conditions to 
 the infamous proposals sent to him. 3 In the same sense 
 he wrote to the Emperor Francis on February 21st, 
 exhorting him to peace, declaring that he would never 
 yield Antwerp and Belgium, and that there was not a 
 Frenchman who would not prefer death to the acceptance 
 of the " frightful conditions proposed at the Congress." 
 He continued to insist on the Frankfurt conditions as 
 affording the only possible peace.4 
 
 It is a great reflection on Metternich's policy at this 
 juncture that he wrecked all chance of the peace he still 
 desired with Napoleon by insisting on terms that made 
 it impossible. His quarrel with Alexander still subsisted ; 
 
 1 Fain, 1814, 277-83. 2 Fournier, 381. 
 
 3 Correspond ance, XXVII., 205, No. 21315. 
 
 4 ib„ XXVII., 224-6, No. 21344.
 
 DIPLOMACY AND WAR 347 
 
 for on February 28th Count Munster wrote to the Prince 
 Regent that the jealousy between the Austrians and 
 Russians was becoming alarming. 1 And this within a 
 few weeks of the taking of Paris ! 
 
 On the same day, February 28th, the Allies declared 
 that, whilst prepared to consider any modification of their 
 project that did not affect its substance, they would 
 consider an answer delayed beyond March 10th as a refusal 
 that must close all further parley. It was during this 
 interval that Lord Castlereagh and the Czar succeeded 
 in stiffening their allies against any weakening in their 
 dealings with France ; and on March 9th by their treaty 
 at Chaumont the Allies resolved to abide by the Chatillon 
 conditions ; each of the four promising 150,000 men to 
 their common object, and for twenty years, if necessary. 
 But Great Britain was of course to pay, not only for her 
 own contingent, but to pay an annual subsidy of five 
 millions between the three Continental despotisms. Her 
 generosity reached the sublime, which so often touches 
 the ridiculous ; for although the annual cost of a Conti- 
 nental conscript was only £10 15s. (that being the price 
 she paid per man for the German legion of 10,000 men to 
 serve the Czar by the treaty of Peterswaldau on July 6th, 
 1813) she was now graciously allowed, if preferring to 
 furnish her contingent in foreign troops, to do so at the rate 
 of £20 for every foot soldier and £30 for every horseman. 2 
 
 The sands were running out. Caulaincourt, who had 
 displeased Napoleon by his reiterated pleas for peace and 
 his warnings about the Bourbons, wrote him a vigorous 
 letter of remonstrance on March 5th : if he ceaselessly 
 repeated the word peace, it was because he thought it 
 indispensable and urgent, in order not to lose everything. 
 Sacrifices must be made, and made in time. If a counter- 
 project was not submitted, all was over. Neither the power 
 of France, nor the glory of the Emperor depended on retain- 
 ing Antwerp nor other point on the newer French frontier. 3 
 
 * Fournier, 303. * Pari. Deb., XXVII., 623. 3 Fain, 289-94.
 
 348 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 At the Conference of March ioth, Caulaincourt read 
 a paper to the Allies, which, while justly critical of the 
 balance of power, the ostensible object of the dismember- 
 ment of the French empire, and of the value of the colonial 
 concessions made by England, was irrelevant to the actual 
 dispute. Clearly whatever colonies were given back by 
 us could weigh but little against the proposed restitutions 
 by France, seeing that our naval superiority in 1812 was 
 240 ships of the line and 200 frigates against 104 French 
 ships of the line and 50 frigates. 1 And on January 3rd, 
 1814, Napoleon, in a letter to the Due Decres, his Minister 
 of Marine, summed up all his naval force in all his harbours 
 as no more than 37 armed vessels. 2 In any future war 
 therefore all the colonies restored to France would for 
 many years have been immediately recoverable ; so that 
 our generosity in this respect was of less account than was 
 apparent on the surface. 
 
 Meantime the potentates at Chaumont, in spite of 
 their recent treaty, were still far from being a happy 
 family. On March 13th Metternich wrote to Count 
 Stadion : " You have no idea of what they make us 
 suffer here at Headquarters. I can do no more, and the 
 Emperor Francis is already sick. They are crazy and fit 
 for a lunatic asylum." 3 But it was these crazy men who 
 claimed to settle the destinies of Europe, nor so long as 
 such men govern the world, will any peace in Europe 
 be enduring. 
 
 On March 15th Caulaincourt, in a state of great 
 agitation, according to two witnesses, and with trembling 
 lips, according to Humboldt, amid a deep and ominous 
 silence, read to the Conference the counter-project sent 
 by the Due de Bassano. With regard to Germany, 
 Switzerland, Spain and Holland, the French proposals 
 agreed almost verbally with the proposals of the Allies, 
 thus removing one great cause of war. But adherence 
 
 * Alison, IX., 89, 90. 2 Correspond ance, XXVIT., 7, No. 21059. 
 3 Fouraier, 345.
 
 DIPLOMACY AND WAR 349 
 
 to the Frankfurt terms was involved in the renunciation 
 of all French possessions (except Elba) beyond the Alps 
 and beyond the Rhine. This meant that Prussia was to 
 be disappointed of the Rhine provinces ; that England 
 was still to see Belgium and Antwerp under French 
 control ; that Austria was to be satisfied with the 
 recovery of her Illyrian provinces and with the limitation 
 of her Italian possessions to the line of the Adige. 1 
 
 These and the other proposals of the 27 articles 
 admitted of course of discussion and alteration, either by 
 omission or addition, and the French Minister begged for 
 their consideration in a conciliatory spirit ; but they 
 provoked the Allies to a high state of indignation, the 
 English trio being for their immediate rejection, but 
 giving way to Count Stadion, who thought it more decent 
 to defer an answer till further instructions were received 
 next day from their respective Courts. Caulaincourt 
 showed not unnatural vexation at a reception of his 
 proposals that seemed to indicate a predetermined 
 intention to listen to no offers of compromise. 
 
 The counter-project having thus failed, on March 17th 
 the Due de Bassano intimated in a letter Napoleon's 
 readiness to throw Antwerp also into the sacrifices of 
 France, provided England gave up all the conquered 
 colonies, not excluding even Mauritius. 2 And at his 
 instance Napoleon himself also wrote to Caulaincourt, 
 authorising him to include Belgium and Antwerp among 
 the concessions he was prepared to make for peace, 
 subject to the immediate evacuation of France by her 
 invaders. 3 Thus even at the eleventh hour a peace seemed 
 possible, had only those despatches arrived in time. 
 
 But probably no counter-project would at that time 
 have satisfied the Allies, in whose favour fortune's wheel 
 had so decisively turned by the capitulation of Soissons 
 on March 6th. On the 18th they made a declaration 
 coolly saying that the counter-project they had invited 
 
 1 Fain, 1814, 315 323. a Fain, 1814, 327, 8. 3 Ernouf, 632, 3.
 
 350 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 was inadmissible, inasmuch as it was opposed to the 
 principles they deemed necessary for the world's social 
 reconstruction, and that the negotiations were terminated 
 by the action of the French Government. They made 
 the common disclaimer of all views of ambition or 
 conquest, and eulogised the unselfish sacrifice by England 
 of her colonies to France. 
 
 At the closing Conference of March 19th, Caulaincourt 
 made a vigorous reply, which traversed their arguments 
 with intellectual, if not with political success. 1 So the 
 decision was transferred to the sword. For Caulaincourt 
 did not receive Napoleon's second carte blanche instruc- 
 tions to add Antwerp and Belgium to the other concessions 
 till the morning of March 21st, mysterious delays having 
 hindered the messenger, when the Congress had broken 
 up and Caulaincourt was some distance from Chatillon. 
 It is possible that, had these despatches from Bassano 
 and Napoleon, sent off on the morning of March 17th, 
 arrived in normal time instead of on March 21st, the 
 decision of the Allies on March 23rd to march on Paris 
 might have been averted and peace made with the 
 conquered Emperor on the terms of every concession 
 short of the abdication of his dynasty. On chances so 
 slight hang the destinies of the world. 
 
 So little power has the British Parliament or nation 
 over transactions which more nearly touch their interests 
 than any other that we find Whitbread and Lord Grey 
 complaining a year after these negotiations at Chatillon 
 had failed that the terms of the treaty there proposed 
 were " altogether unknown." 2 As late as April 6th, 
 1815, Lord Castlereagh steadily refused to lay the papers 
 on the table of the House. 3 
 
 The result is well known which made the April of that 
 year one of the most thrilling in the history of Europe. 
 The battle for Paris on March 30th, with the inevitable 
 capitulation, and the entry of the victorious monarchs 
 
 * Fain, 337-4^. 3 Pari. Deb., XXX., 573. 3 ib., XXX., 351, 2, 441.
 
 DIPLOMACY AND WAR 351 
 
 on the last day of March, afforded a striking illustration 
 of the mutability of human affairs. In the capital of a 
 country that had been the first to proclaim the rights of 
 the peoples as higher than those of monarchs, here was 
 the whole population of Paris " so drunk with joy," as 
 George Jackson put it, that in the passage of their 
 conquerors along the boulevards French men and French 
 women pressed to kiss the sabres, and even the very 
 boots, of their Majesties of Russia and Prussia. They 
 longed to throw themselves at the feet of the master 
 whose predecessor their own fathers had executed more 
 than twenty years before. 
 
 The dethronement of Napoleon by the Senate on 
 April 2nd ; the defection of Marshal Marmont with his 
 12,000 men from Napoleon to the Allies on April 5th ; the 
 finally successful efforts to obtain Napoleon's unconditional 
 abdication, followed by the treaty of Fontainebleau on 
 April nth, which after no ungenerous provision for himself 
 and his family consigned him to the island of Elba ; still 
 more the measures taken for the restoration of Louis XVIII. 
 were events that naturally caused unbounded delight in 
 England. All at once was joy and jollity, in the happiest 
 April of our history, and for three successive nights, 
 April nth, 12th and 13th, London illuminated itself with 
 special brilliance. It was on one of these nights, the 12th, 
 that Napoleon at Fontainebleau sought to release himself 
 from a life which his fall from power and the desertion 
 of so many of his faithless Marshals had deprived of 
 value. It is to the honour of Alexander that in the 
 discussion on the fallen Emperor's future, when Metter- 
 nich and Castlereagh were opposed to Elba for his residence 
 as too near to France, he is reported to have said : 
 " Napoleon is unfortunate to-day ; I become his friend 
 again, and all is forgotten," and insisted on Elba with the 
 title of Emperor. 1 But someone was responsible for the 
 ambuscade which on the night of April 18th, attempted 
 
 1 Sorel, L'Europe, VIII., 332-4. 
 
 23
 
 352 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 the Emperor's life. 1 On April 20th, when Louis XVIII. 
 came from Hartwell to the metropolis on his way to 
 Dover and France, the reception he met with testified to 
 the strange but ardent wish of this country for the restora- 
 tion of a line of monarchs that had waged as many as 
 four wars with us in the first eighty years of the eighteenth 
 century. The Prince Regent, driving to Stanmore to 
 greet him, had his postillions dressed in white jackets 
 with white hats and cockades, and received the king at 
 the door of the Abercorn Arms. The beauty of the day 
 contributed to the splendour of the welcome to London ; 
 it was said that " wherever the eye ranged, it fell on 
 attitudes and countenances of loveliness and joy," and 
 when Grillon's Hotel in Albemarle Street was reached, 
 the Prince conducted the monarch into a room where 
 golden embroideries of fleurs de lis on hangings of crimson 
 velvet gave what solace they could to the fatigue of the 
 ponderous monarch. 
 
 With these great contrasts of fortune passed the 
 month of April, and the joy of England was complete 
 that summer when the Monarchs of Russia and Prussia 
 and Metternich deigned to visit our land of freedom. 
 
 The Treaty of Paris : May 30TH, 1814. 
 
 Our definitive treaty of peace with France was signed 
 at Paris on May 30th, 1814. 2 Unlike all the treaties of 
 peace made in the eighteenth century, which were assailed 
 with every strong epithet evolved by the British language 
 in the course of ages, this peace gave general, if not 
 universal satisfaction, owing perhaps less to its abstract 
 perfections than to the lassitude caused by the war. A 
 tacit convention clothed it with those attributes of honour 
 and solidity that had been denied to all its predecessors. 
 
 The ancient frontiers of 1792 were given back to 
 France, with the addition of Avignon and its district, 
 some portions of the Netherlands, and the German fortress 
 1 ib„ VIIL, 335. * Pari. Deb., XXVIII., i74- x 97-
 
 DIPLOMACY AND WAR 353 
 
 of Landau. But the notable feature of the peace was 
 the adoption of the principle so well laid down by Lord 
 Grenville, that the security and permanence of the peace 
 would be proportioned to our adoption of the principle 
 of restoration instead of that of partition. 1 We gave up, 
 therefore all the colonies we had won in twenty years, 
 except Tobago and St. Lucia in the West Indies, 
 Mauritius and its dependencies, a portion of St. Domingo, 
 and of course Malta. We also restored the right of fishing 
 off Newfoundland and the islands off the St. Lawrence : 
 a right that had been so fiercely disputed in so many 
 wars. The agreement that Antwerp should become a 
 commercial port removed one of the great sores that had 
 kept alive our hostility to Napoleon. 
 
 These were the main points of the peace as they 
 affected this country, and at any other time it would have 
 been denounced as a most lame and impotent conclusion. 
 Lord Liverpool's defence of such extensive concessions 
 was remarkable for its novelty. To preserve our authority 
 in Europe, he said, it behoved us not to proceed on a 
 principle of colonial monopoly, which would rather 
 diminish than increase our power ; nor would it be to 
 our interest to shut France out completely from her 
 colonial and commercial advantages ; "it was exactly 
 in proportion as she was colonial and commercial that we 
 had a power over her by attacking her colonies and 
 wounding her commerce." 2 Thus lightly he threw to 
 the winds the great principle of both the Pitts that the 
 ruin of French commerce should be our first object in 
 war, and told the French that the more colonies they had 
 the larger was the target they offered us to attack : a 
 truth that very much diminished the grace of concession. 
 Lord Castlereagh put the matter on higher ground : that 
 the more we encouraged France to be a commercial and 
 pacific nation the less formidable she would be as a 
 
 « ib., XXVIII., 368. 
 
 a ib., XXVIIL, 371, June 28th, 1814.
 
 354 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 military and conquering power. 1 But why not, by thinking 
 of that before, have saved ourselves and the world many 
 years of bloodshed ? Since it was commerce and colonies 
 that Napoleon wanted for France after Austerlitz, why 
 had we been fighting for five years to prevent her from 
 having them ? And what sacrifices did Austria or Prussia 
 or Russia make to the common peace ? Nothing at all. 
 On the contrary they made vast accessions to their 
 dominions ; and the subjection of millions to their crowns 
 they called the liberation of Europe. 
 
 The Fate of Norway 
 
 As the treaty of Chaumont professed the zeal of 
 the Allied Powers for the protection of " the rights 
 and liberties of all nations," the scant regard paid by 
 them to those of small nations cast an enduring stain 
 on the diplomacy of the statesmen in whose hands the 
 chance of war had placed the resettlement of Europe. 
 If Portugal or Holland had no cause for complaint, it was 
 far otherwise in the case of Genoa, of Denmark and 
 Norway, and of Saxony. 
 
 Lord Grey said that in the cases of Saxony and Genoa 
 " all the maxims of right on which the security of nations 
 rested had been more grossly violated than in any 
 transactions of modern times," 2 but the treatment of 
 Norway was even worse. The treaty at Kiel (January 14th, 
 1814) between England and Denmark, and a treaty of the 
 same day between Sweden and Denmark, subjected the 
 beaten Power to the will of the stronger. Denmark was 
 compelled to cede Norway to Sweden, under promise of 
 England's using her good offices with the other Allies to 
 procure her a fair indemnity for the same. All Denmark's 
 captured colonies, except Heligoland, were to be restored 
 to her, and she was to be paid at the rate of £400,000 a 
 year for the services of 10,000 men in the army of the 
 Crown Prince of Sweden (Bernadotte).3 
 
 * ib„ XXVIII., 462. 2 Pari. Deb., XXX., 702, April 20th, 1815. 
 3 Pari. Deb., XXX., 218.
 
 DIPLOMACY AND WAR 355 
 
 But what of the wishes of Norway ? These were 
 shown in a most unmistakable form. Norway immedi- 
 ately asserted her independence ; the Crown Prince of 
 Denmark, Christian Frederick, taking the oath to the 
 country as Prince Regent of Norway. When the Danish 
 flag was taken down at Christiania, a funeral dirge was 
 played, and the Norwegian colours hoisted. In April 
 Prince Christian was proclaimed king, but when a 
 Norwegian envoy was sent to London to appeal for 
 England's support of a people rightly struggling to be 
 free, Lord Liverpool advised him to return whence he 
 came, and all the practical answer the Norwegians got 
 was a declaration of the blockade of their ports to starve 
 them into subjection to the liberating Powers. Fine but 
 futile speeches were made in the Lords by Grey and 
 Grenville,i and in the Commons by Whitbread and 
 Ponsonby,2 against the iniquity of forcing Norway to a 
 choice between starvation and subjugation by a country 
 that had always been her " unrelenting, unforgiving and 
 unremitting enemy," and, although Lord Castlereagh had 
 admitted that our treaty with Sweden for the annexation 
 of Norway had carried with it no guarantee of its peaceable 
 possession, a majority of 81 in the Lords and of 158 in 
 the Commons decided that the navy of Great Britain 
 was rightly used in suppressing the independence of a 
 nation that had as much right to it as either Spain or 
 Portugal. It was contended that we were bound by the 
 Swedish treaty; but, assuming that much contested 
 point, what could be thought of Castlereagh's diplomacy 
 which had involved us in a treaty that resulted in so 
 ridiculous a commentary on our professed zeal for the 
 independence of all nationalities ? So strong was the 
 general indignation that Sir Robert Wilson not only 
 thanked God for the speeches of Lords Grey and Grenville, 
 but added that, had he but £100 in the world, he would 
 gladly give fifty of them to aid their efforts. 3 But 
 
 1 Pari. Deb., XXVII., 768-808. * ib., XXVII., 834-64. 3 Diary, II., 37 8.
 
 356 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 eloquence and argument were wasted on the Liverpool 
 Government. It came to war at last. Bernadotte had 
 to march against Norway to break her opposition to the 
 Allied will. It ended after a couple of weeks of war with 
 the capitulation of Friederickstein on August 13th, 
 followed by a convention of complete submission, and in 
 October things were so arranged that a majority of 
 74 to 5 in the Norwegian Diet carried the annexation, 
 and Charles XIII. of Sweden was elected as King of 
 Norway on November 4th : in its origin and in its results 
 as bad a piece of history as was ever played by diplomacy. 
 
 The Fate of Genoa 
 
 The transfer of Genoa to the Kingdom of Sardinia 
 was another instance of the disregard shown by the 
 Congress and by Lord Castlereagh for the wishes of the 
 people concerned. The instructions to Lord William 
 Bentinck on December 28th, 1813, by Lord Bathurst had 
 been perfectly clear : he was, if possible, to take possession 
 of Genoa in the name of, and for, the King of Sardinia, 
 provided it was with " the entire concurrence of the 
 inhabitants." These instructions had not, however, 
 reached Lord William before February 2nd, 1814, by 
 which time he had become committed to obey commands 
 of the Austrian general, in accordance with which, after 
 landing at Leghorn, he proceeded to attack the French 
 garrison of Genoa, which surrendered after two days. 
 Not, however, before, on landing, he had issued a procla- 
 mation offering England's assistance to Italians who 
 should rise against Napoleon. This had been followed in 
 Genoa itself by a proclamation on April 26th, in answer to 
 two addresses by the Genoese praying for the restoration 
 of their ancient Government, and for the re-establishment 
 of the old constitution as it was before 1797, subject to a 
 temporary provisional Government to last till January 1st, 
 1815. He issued the proclamation because " the Genoese 
 universally desired the restoration of their ancient
 
 DIPLOMACY AND WAR 357 
 
 Republic ; they dreaded above all other arrangements 
 their annexation to Piedmont, to the inhabitants of which 
 there always had existed a particular aversion." 1 As the 
 Genoese envoy Pareto told Lord Castlereagh, the fruit 
 of two centuries of quarrels had established between 
 Genoa and Piedmont " an invincible antipathy," and the 
 mere rumour of the annexation had turned a day of 
 festival into one of mourning. 
 
 It may be, as Lord Castlereagh said, that Lord William 
 had mistaken or exceeded his instructions, or that Genoa, 
 as a conquered State, had no claims on our regard, or that 
 the military security of Italy as a whole demanded the 
 sacrifice of Genoa to the wider interests of the Peninsula, 
 but it still remained that Sir William had promised on 
 behalf of this country to restore the ancient republic, 
 and that a promise so given demanded its observance. 
 Although the House of Commons decided otherwise on 
 April 27th, 18 15, by 171 to 60, posterity, which weighs 
 opinions and not majorities, cannot ignore the fact that 
 in the minority which set the nation's word and the 
 cause of human freedom above the will of the monarchs 
 at Vienna, were men such as Lord Grey, Lord Lansdowne, 
 Lord Grenville, Sir James Mackintosh, Ponsonby, and 
 Whitbread. " The great object of the sovereigns of 
 Europe," said Lord Castlereagh, on March 20th, 1815, 
 " was the re-establishment and the re-organisation of 
 those two great monarchies which, to all practical 
 purposes had been destroyed during the war — Austria 
 and Prussia ; " their need of flanks for their security 
 necessitated the creation of a barrier between Austria 
 and France, 2 and for this reason Genoa must be annexed 
 to Sardinia, as she duly was at the end of 1814, despite 
 her own wishes and regardless of Lord William's promise. 
 
 The Fate of Saxony 
 As Genoa was sacrificed to the necessary provision of 
 a security for the flank of Austria, so was Saxony to that 
 
 * Pari. Deb., XXX., 391. a Pari. Deb., XXX., 289.
 
 358 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 of a similar security for the flank of Prussia. As 
 Castlereagh put it, " the object was to give Prussia 
 additional force, and increased population was that 
 force." 1 Castlereagh in 1814, when he helped to consign 
 an unwilling population to Prussian domination, little 
 dreamt of 1914. 
 
 Though he held that the right of conquest fully 
 justified the incorporation of the whole of Saxony with 
 Prussia, he had been among the opponents of more than 
 a partial annexation. 2 Thus it came to pass that the 
 British Government, in its support of " legitimacy," 
 treated a legitimate sovereign of ancient family, than 
 whom none had for so long a term of years governed 
 his subjects more wisely, on avowedly penal principles. 
 But it was as vain for Lord Wellesley to raise such 
 a protest3 as it was for King Frederick Augustus 
 himself on November 4th, 1814.4 By the final 
 settlement at Vienna on June 9th, 1815, Castlereagh's 
 policy of increasing Prussian force by additional popula- 
 tion was entirely successful ; for more than half of Saxony 
 went to Prussia's share of the spoil : 7,720 square miles 
 out of 13,510; 864,404 out of 2,047,148 of her inhabitants. 
 Prussia thus not only regained all that she had lost by 
 the treaty of Tilsit, but gained so much more as to give 
 her an overwhelming weight in the chimerical scheme of 
 the balance of power in Europe. 
 
 The Reaction in Rome 
 
 With the success of the long nursed plot for the 
 restoration of Louis XVIII., the monarchical reaction 
 swept over Europe like a flood. All the old tyrannies, 
 clerical and aristocratic, came back in triumph, and 
 the progress of reform was checked. 
 
 Before the end of 1813 Napoleon, at the Due de 
 Bassano's advice, had admitted the necessity of restoring 
 
 * Pari. Deb., XXX., 290. * ib., XXX. , 289, 90, March 20th, 1815. 
 3 ib., XXX., 648. 4 Ann. Reg., 1814, II., 457.
 
 DIPLOMACY AND WAR 359 
 
 Pope Pius VII. to Rome, and Ferdinand VII. to Madrid. 
 The Pope at least would keep the Austrians out of Rome 
 and on January 23rd, 18 14, he left Fontainebleau for that 
 city. He returned as " God's Vicar on Earth," and 
 quickly resumed his temporal power. On May 15th the 
 abolition of the Code Napoleon was proclaimed ; and in 
 August the Order of the Jesuits, suppressed in 1773 by 
 Clement XIV., was re-established with all its old privileges. 
 Other religious orders were revived ; all meetings of secret 
 societies, especially of the Freemasons, were religiously 
 forbidden, and every encouragement was given to 
 informers. Such was the measure of liberty the Allies 
 had brought to the Papal States. 
 
 The Reaction in Spain 
 
 But it was worse in Spain, blessed by the return of 
 Ferdinand VII., who on January 6th, 1814, reached Madrid. 
 He soon declared his royal intention not to swear to the 
 Constitution that had been settled by the Cortes in 18 10 ; 
 he would suffer no such restraints on his unlimited 
 sovereignty, nor did his dissolution of the Cortes meet 
 with the least resistance. " Perish the Constitution " 
 was the cry of the country, and wholesale arrests of 
 liberal speakers or writers afforded the happiest auguries 
 for the returning despotism. The clerical world rejoiced 
 in the restored convents, and still more in the resumption 
 on July 21 by the Holy Office of the Inquisition of its 
 abolished jurisdiction over men's souls and bodies. 
 It is a fact in history one would gladly forget that the 
 maintenance of the Inquisition was the advice which 
 the Duke of Wellington had pressed on the Spaniards 
 as of primary importance, to prevent the clerical party 
 from joining the French 1 ; but not even the plea of 
 military necessity can justify before posterity the 
 sympathy shown by the Duke and his brother Lord 
 Wellesley 2 with an institution of greater cruelty than 
 
 * Napier. V., 15. 2 ib., V., 18.
 
 360 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 any other ever designed by the brain of men. The 
 Supreme Council and all other tribunals of the Inquisition 
 were again set in motion as they existed before 1808, 
 and in short by the harmony set up between Church 
 and State such a tyranny laid its grip on Spain as would 
 have hardly discredited the dark ages. And this was 
 what the Allies, and especially Castlereagh, called the 
 liberation of Spain. Neither during nor after the war 
 did Spain show us any appreciable gratitude for our 
 interference, which, if it released her from the rule of 
 the French, gave her back to the oppressions of the 
 priests. 
 
 The End of the American War 
 
 It was to be deplored that, the war with France 
 having ended, the war with America, which had sprung 
 out of it, was suffered to continue. To each country 
 the justice of the war seemed to be its own exclusive 
 property. To our claim, based on the ground that our 
 enemy had declared it, the answer was that war had 
 existed in fact, though not in name, long before its 
 declaration ; and President Madison assured Congress 
 on March 4, 1813, that the war was " stamped with 
 that justice which invited the smiles of heaven on the 
 means of conducting it to a successful issue." 1 On the 
 other hand there was a large peace party in America 
 which was blind to these " smiles of heaven," and 
 which differed widely from their President to a degree 
 that at one time threatened the Union. 
 
 But early in 1813 came an offer from our Russian 
 ally to mediate between us, an offer which was peremp- 
 torily declined by us " on the ground that England was 
 the best and only competent judge of her own rights," 
 as Castlereagh said. 2 Lord Wellesley was amongst 
 those who deprecated the refusal, and, though it was 
 decided on both sides to try direct negotiations for 
 peace, his view was that the contest was deliberately 
 
 1 Ann. Reg., 1813, II., 394. 2 Pari. Deb., XXX., 531.
 
 DIPLOMACY AND WAR 361 
 
 prolonged from the hope that the release of our forces 
 from Spain might enable us not to bring the war with 
 America to a close " without some measure of revenge, 
 without some punishment for her indiscretion." 1 So 
 in June 9,000 men were sent from Bordeaux ; three 
 brigades of infantry sent to Canada and one as an 
 expeditionary force against the coasts of America, to 
 retaliate for outrages commited by her on the frontiers. 
 
 These outrages had been committed in the course of 
 1813. In May the small town of York, the capital of 
 Upper Canada, the House of Assembly, and the House 
 of the Governor, had been burnt to the ground, " among 
 other public and private buildings." On October 6th, 
 the whole of the buildings of the Moravian missionaries 
 had been burnt ; and on December 10th and 13th the 
 village of Newark, of 150 houses, had been reduced to 
 ashes and their wretched inhabitants turned adrift in 
 the middle of a Canadian winter. 2 
 
 Reprisals for these barbarities were duly carried 
 out at the end of December, 1813, when the town of 
 Buffalo and the village of Blackrock were delivered 
 over to a similar fate. " The town itself, and the whole 
 of the public stores, containing considerable quantities 
 of clothing, spirits and flour were then set on fire and 
 totally consumed ; as was also the village of Black- 
 rock." So wrote General Riall with great satisfaction on 
 January 1st, 1814, from Fort Erie. 3 
 
 Whitbread argued fairly that no atrocity of the enemy 
 justified our commission of similar crimes, unless we 
 should be justified in scalping all the Indian prisoners 
 we might capture ; and that in any case Buffalo and 
 Blackrock were a sufficient set-off for York and Newark. 
 But far from it ; for on August 3rd, 18 14, Sir George 
 Prevost, Governor-General of British North America, 
 wrote to Sir Alexander Cochrane, our naval commander, 
 
 1 ib„ XXX., 590, April 13th, 1815. * Pari. Deb., XXIX., 58, 9 
 3 Ann. Reg., II., 147.
 
 362 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 inviting him to co-operate with himself in measures of 
 retaliation for the outrages | of the previous year. 1 
 Goulburn, who stated this [fact, and who! somewhat 
 ardently defended the Ministerial policy of vindictive 
 punishment, was actually at the time one of the Peace 
 Commissioners with the Americans at Ghent, though 
 nothing could be conceived better calculated to prevent 
 peace than this campaign of reprisals. Its worst illus- 
 tration was the raid on Washington under the command 
 of General Ross, whose force reached the capital at 
 8 p.m. on the night of August 24th. The General thus 
 described what followed : " Judging it of consequence 
 to complete the destruction of the public buildings with 
 the least possible delay, so that the army might retire 
 without loss of time, the following buildings were set 
 on fire and consumed : The Capitol, including the 
 Senate-house and House of Representation, the Arsenal, 
 the Dock-yard, Treasury, War Office, the President's 
 Palace, Rope-walk, and the great bridge across the 
 Potomac." The object of the expedition having been 
 thus accomplished within twenty-four hours, General 
 Ross withdrew his force of 1,500 men on the following 
 night. 2 Admiral Cockburn's version of the affair was 
 as follows : " It was dark before we reached the city ; 
 and on the general, myself, and some officers advancing 
 a short way past the first houses of the town, without 
 being accompanied by the troops, the enemy opened 
 upon us a heavy fire of musketry from the capitol and 
 other houses : these were therefore almost immediately 
 stormed by our people, taken possession of, and set on 
 fire, after which the town submitted without further 
 resistance."3 This destruction of non-military buildings 
 was strongly denounced in the British Parliament, 
 especially by Sir James Mackintosh on April 11, 1815.4 
 But the Ministerial defence wavered between Lord 
 
 * Pari. Deb., XXIX., 60. November 8th 1814. 
 
 2 Ann. Reg., II., 219. 3 ib., II., 228, August 27th, 1814. 
 
 4 Pari. Deb., XXX., 526, 7.
 
 DIPLOMACY AND WAR 363 
 
 Liverpool's plea, that it was in retaliation for the burn- 
 ing by the Americans of public buildings in York, 1 and 
 Lord Bathurst's plea, that it was in consequence of 
 General Ross' horse having been killed by a shot aimed 
 from a private house at its rider. 2 It would have been 
 better to stand on one plea or the other, instead of upon 
 both. The General strove to save the lives and 
 properties of the inhabitants of the offending houses, 
 though forfeited by the customs of war ; but much 
 burning continued the next day, and President Madison 
 in a proclamation of September 1st not unjustly 
 denounced the wanton destruction as opposed to the 
 principles of civilised warfare. 3 
 
 A few days later General Ross lost his life (September 
 12th) in an unsuccessful expedition against Baltimore, 
 of which the chief military effect was the removal by 
 the citizens " of the whole of their property to places 
 of more security inland."4 They owed it to the vigour 
 of their defence that the dreaded fate of Washington 
 was not also their own. 
 
 All through the year the war increased in mutual 
 ferocity and continued indecisiveness. We extended our 
 blockade from the ports south of New York to those 
 north of it to our boundary in New Brunswick, and on 
 June 29th President Madison protested by proclamation 
 against the illegality of a paper blockade of 2,000 miles 
 of coast-line. We took and burnt Fort Oswego on Lake 
 Ontario in May, and on July 3rd the Americans took 
 Fort Erie ; our failure to recapture it on August 12th 
 costing us 962 casualties. Respect for the immunity 
 of private property was more loudly professed than 
 practised ; as when the town of Alexandria, capitulating 
 to Captain Gordon on August 29th, had to deliver 
 not only its ships and stores, but " merchandise of every 
 description," as an alternative to the destruction of 
 
 1 Pari. Deb., XXIX., 24. 2 ib., XXX., 606. 
 
 3^Ann. Reg., H.,4 49. 4 Ann. Reg., 232.
 
 364 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 the town. 1 Sir George Prevost's failure against Platts- 
 burg on Lake Champlain in September was most 
 disastrous, though a large number of Peninsular veterans 
 stiffened his forces of 14,000 or 15,000 men. 2 But the final 
 episode of this wretched war was the worst of all : 
 the expedition against New Orleans, the great cotton 
 emporium of the Southern States, denounced in Parlia- 
 ment as undertaken for plunder and nothing else.3 The 
 operations lingered into the New year, and ended with 
 the death of the brave Sir Edward Pakenham, at the 
 head of his troops, and by a slaughter of which the extent 
 can be measured by the admission of over 2,000 
 casualties. But by that time peace had been signed 
 at Ghent on December 24th, 1814. 
 
 Seldom had a peace been more difficult to make, nor 
 one in some respects less satisfactory when made. For it 
 actually left unsettled the main points which had been 
 the object of the war. The American Government, on 
 opening negotiations on January 28th, 1814, had insisted 
 mainly on a precise and just definition of blockade 
 and on the cessation of " the degrading practice " of 
 our claim to search American vessels for British deserters. 
 " Our flag must protect the crew, or the United States 
 cannot consider themselves an independent nation."4 
 There were other questions concerning the pacification 
 of the Indian tribes involved in the war and about 
 boundaries, but it was on our maritime rights that the 
 chief difficulties hinged. Lord Bathurst said in regard 
 to the impressment of seamen that we neither possessed 
 nor claimed rights which we were not ready to grant to 
 other nations,5 and so said Lord Liverpool, 6 but, what- 
 ever the precedents of so galling a right, its advantage 
 to us was at no time worth the continuance of the war ; 
 nor was a defence of it true which implied that, if at 
 peace ourselves, we should have dreamt of suffering 
 
 * Ann. Reg., 1814, 186. 2 ib., 190. 3 Pari. Deb., XXX., 522. 
 4 Pari. Deb., XXIX,, 369. 5 ib., XXX., 604. « ib., XXX., 649.
 
 DIPLOMACY AND WAR 365 
 
 such powers as Denmark or the United States, if belliger- 
 ents, to search our vessels for possible deserters. The 
 25th of June was the first day on which the Conference 
 began at Ghent, but it was not till August 7th that the 
 American commissioners received instructions not to 
 press the impressment question, " and then the negotia- 
 tion proceeded." 1 Only by shelving the questions of 
 our maritime claims was peace possible, and the final 
 treaty contained not a word about the original causes 
 of the war. They were left to the next war to decide, 
 and the fact greatly deducts from Alison's verdict that 
 the terms of peace were " highly honourable to Great 
 Britain." With the exception of certain islands in 
 Passamaquoddy Bay, to be settled by subsequent 
 arbitration, each side restored its respective conquests, 
 and boundary disputes were left over for future settle- 
 ment or dispute. A treaty so indecisive 2 as to leave to 
 posterity to bear the brunt of the failure of contemporary 
 diplomacy was a poor result of the years of bitter 
 warfare. We had captured during the war 1,900 of the 
 enemy's merchant vessels, and brought 20,000 of their 
 seamen into British prisons3 ; on the other hand shoals 
 of American privateers, despite the blockade, had 
 captured thousands of our ships of commerce.4 If to 
 these evils be added the immense loss of life, it is 
 impossible to avoid the conclusion that the diplomacy of 
 Lord Castlereagh and Lord Liverpool, which was 
 responsible for the protraction of the war, fully deserved 
 the severe condemnation it received from Lord Wellesley 
 and Lord Grenville. It was a war as destitute of glory 
 in its conduct as of profit from its conclusion. 
 
 * ib., XXX., 650. 2 ib., XXX., 210-7. 3 *b., XXIX., 12. 4 ib., XXIX., 45
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Pacification ? 
 
 Whilst reaction under the guise of restoration was 
 thus in full swing over Europe, the Congress of Vienna 
 in the autumn of 1814 found it no easy task to bring 
 into harmony the principles of settlement agreed upon 
 between the Powers at Paris at the end of May. Their 
 rival cupidities had still as keen an edge. Even the pre- 
 liminary discussions nearly wrecked the Congress before 
 it began ; for whilst Nesselrode wanted the whole of 
 the Duchy of Warsaw for Russia, Hardenberg wished 
 for some of it for Prussia. 1 Austria of course desired all 
 she could get of Italy ; but it was the rivalries between 
 Russia for Poland and of Prussia for Saxony which chiefly 
 endangered the new-born pacification of Europe. There 
 were times when the Czar attacked Metternich and 
 Hardenberg " with bitter fury," even in the presence of 
 the Austrian Emperor and the Prussian King, and when he 
 indulged in " ungovernable displays of temper " towards 
 them and Talleyrand, though always courteous to Castle- 
 reagh. 2 But even Lord Castlereagh had begun to be almost 
 as afraid of the menacing power of Russia as he had lately 
 been of Napoleon's. He steadily refused, on February 9th, 
 1816, to answer Brougham's inquiry as to the nature 
 of the secret treaty made in January, 1815, between 
 England, Austria and France ; by which each of these 
 three Powers agreed to bring, if necessary, 150,000 men 
 into the field for their common defence against their 
 recent Russian and Prussian allies. 3 Thus the new 
 balance of Power, so boasted of as the result and justi- 
 fication of the late war, was already tottering, and all 
 the feastings and dancings of that gay winter in Vienna 
 could hardly keep the smouldering fires of diplomacy 
 from bursting into fresh flame. 
 
 1 Sorel, L'Europe, VIII., 379. 3 Webster's Congress of Vienna, 103, 4. 
 3 Czartoryski's Memoirs, II., 285. 
 
 366
 
 PACIFICATION 367 
 
 The consternation produced therefore in the Congress 
 by the news of Napoleon's landing in France on March 1st, 
 1815, amounted almost to a panic ; as shown by the de- 
 claration of March 13th that Napoleon " had placed him- 
 self without the pale of civil and social relations, and that 
 as an enemy and disturber of the tranquillity of the 
 world he had rendered himself liable to public vengeance." 
 It was not easy to interpret this language as other 
 than a direct incitement to assassination, as it was 
 interpreted both by Whitbread and by Lord Grey,* 
 and it needed a direct disclaimer of this meaning by 
 Lord Liverpool on April 27th to satisfy the public mind 
 to the contrary. The words, he said, only meant, 
 " hostility against the parties such as that maintained 
 by one belligerent against another, "* or as Wellesley 
 Pole put it " that Bonaparte had forfeited all his 
 political rights,"3 but it might have seemed to lie within 
 the power of diplomacy to use language that was not 
 open to the interpretation that, as Lord Grey put it, 
 " the secret dagger as well as the public sword should 
 be unsheathed against Napoleon. "4 
 
 This declaration, pledging the League to defend 
 the Treaty of Paris of May 30th, 1814, was followed up 
 on March 25th by a new treaty, described by Lord 
 Wellesley as " the most incomprehensible production ever 
 submitted to the judgment of man. "5 But, whatever 
 else was obscure in it, this at least was clear, that it 
 revived the stipulation of the treaty of Chaumont 
 against Napoleon, and was thus virtually a determination 
 on war. Yet, although this treaty, as signed, reached 
 London on April 5th, the Liverpool Government two 
 days later, when asking Parliament to vote for its 
 support of the Prince Regent's message for an augmenta- 
 tion of the army and navy with a view to concerted 
 action with the Allies, concealed the fact of its existence ; 
 
 * Pari. Deb., XXX., 338, 888. 2 tf. f X XX M 884. 
 
 3 ib., XXX., 994- * ib., XXXI., 344. 5 ib., XXX., 880. 
 
 24
 
 368 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 representing the vote as only a precautionary measure 
 of defence and not as committing the country to war. 
 Lord Castlereagh's language was most deceptive : "we 
 should see whether the Continental nations thought 
 their security would be better provided for by war 
 or by precautionary preparations ; we should not give 
 them a fictitious wish for war, nor overstrain the argu- 
 ment in favour of it, etc." 1 Sir Francis Burdett, sus- 
 pecting that more than preparation for war was meant, 
 refused to vote for the Address, but others like Lord 
 Grey, Lord Darnley, Sir John Newport and Ponsonby 
 voted for the Address as only committing them to pre- 
 cautionary preparation; and when the Times of April 21st 
 published a garbled edition of the concealed treaty, 2 
 which revealed the fact that it was actually signed 
 when Castlereagh had represented that the question 
 of peace or war was still an open one, their resentment 
 was forcibly expressed. Lord Wellesley went so far 
 as to charge the Government with an act of bad faith 
 to Parliament.3 and, if the plea were valid, that it was 
 unusual for treaties before ratification to be submitted 
 to Parliament, the fact that it had been signed sufficed 
 to stamp its concealment with something like sharp 
 practice on the credulity of Parliament.4 
 
 The treaty of Fontainebleau of April nth, 1814,5 
 having failed to confine Napoleon to the island of Elba, 
 the Government incurred hardly less abuse than 
 Napoleon himself for its share in the matter. The 
 probability of his escape had long been a subject of 
 common talk, and had been a topic in almost every 
 newspaper for months. 6 Castlereagh's defence was that 
 the treaty had been better than a protracted war ; 
 it was " one of policy and not of generosity."7 With 
 such elements of generosity as it contained Castlereagh 
 indeed had had nothing to do. Arriving at Paris from 
 
 * ib., XXX., 434. * ib., XXX., 771. 3 ib., XXX, 877. 
 4 ib., XXX., 961. 5 Pari. Deb., XXX., 382. 
 
 6 Pari. Deb., XXX., 746. 7 ib., XXX., 424.
 
 PACIFICATION 369 
 
 Vienna on April 10th, 1814, he found it virtually con- 
 cluded. There were twenty-one articles in the treaty, 
 and Castlereagh only acceded to those two of them 
 which gave Napoleon the sovereignty and residence of 
 Elba, and the Duchies of Parma, Placentia and Guastalla 
 to Marie Louise and her male heirs. Castlereagh was 
 opposed to Elba as too near to France and Italy, and 
 he rejected Napoleon's repeated petition for an asylum 
 in England ;* but Alexander was insistent, and all 
 Castlereagh could do was to limit Napoleon's possession 
 of Elba to a life interest. It was at his instance too 
 that the Imperial titles and rank of Napoleon and Marie 
 Louise were restricted to their lives ; and he kept himself 
 clear of all the other stipulations of the treaty which 
 provided liberal allowances for Napoleon and members 
 of his family, as well as of the guarantee by which the 
 other Powers bound themselves to the execution of the 
 terms of the treaty. 
 
 Consequently, there was no obligatory treaty between 
 England and Napoleon ; and though Napoleon, by the 
 first article of the treaty, had abdicated the French 
 Throne, the breach of that article was one that might 
 concern our Allies but had no reference to ourselves. 
 
 We had agreed that Napoleon should enjoy Elba as 
 a residence, not as a prison ; and if, as a sovereign, 
 he chose to leave his residence, he was within his rights, 
 so far as we were concerned. 
 
 If the treaty of Fontainebleau erred on the side 
 of generosity or of laxity of provision, the defence of 
 it seemed sound, that it was the best of which the 
 circumstances admitted. For there had been no 
 unconditional surrender. Napoleon still had an army 
 of 30,000 ; Soult in the south of France had 50,000 ; the 
 Viceroy of Italy had also a large force, and the attitude 
 of the garrisons in France, Holland and on the Rhine 
 was still uncertain. Moreover, to secure the defection 
 
 * ib., XXX., 378.
 
 370 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 of Marshal Marmont and others it had been necessary 
 to guarantee the life and safety of Napoleon, and his 
 removal from France. It was Alexander's proposal 
 that " the destroyer of the human race " should be 
 allowed to choose his own residence, and he had chosen 
 Elba, possibly for the reason that ultimately revealed 
 itself. 1 
 
 But the landing at Golfe Juan on March ist, 1815, 
 had the merit of dispelling the discord of the Allies. 
 It threw them together again, and turned against their 
 old enemy the swords they were on the point of turning 
 against one another. For some time the Powers had 
 been uneasy about him, and but for Alexander's sense 
 of honour would have removed him to a safer distance ; 
 it may be doubted whether Napoleon's breach of the 
 Fontainebleau treaty did more than anticipate their 
 own. If Napoleon justified his return on the broad 
 ground of an appeal to the French nation to choose 
 between himself and Louis XVIII., he also had charges 
 of disregard of the treaty as against himself. His 
 pension had not been paid by Louis XVIII., and the 
 poor argument, that as an annual payment it was not 
 due till the end of the complete year, did not prevent 
 Castlereagh on his return through Paris from justly insisting 
 on the necessity of its payment. 2 In his proclamation 
 of March 8th, 1815, Napoleon complained of the 
 agreement not having been kept which promised the 
 Duchies of Parma, Placentia and Guastalla to his 
 wife and son. 3 
 
 But technically he had broken the treaty with the 
 three monarchs in whose guarantee we had not joined. 
 " The British Government," said Castlereagh, " had not 
 even gone to the extent of guaranteeing the stipulations 
 in the treaty of Fontainebleau respecting the territorial 
 arrangements " ; that treaty had ceased to exist after 
 
 * Ann. Reg., 1814, 24, 3 Pari. Deb., XXX., 726. 
 
 3 ib., XXX., 568, XXXI., 340.
 
 PACIFICATION 37 i 
 
 the withdrawal from Elba.* The treaty of Paris of 
 May 30th, 1814, was one between the Allies, including 
 England, and Louis XVIII. ; and as Napoleon was no 
 party to it, he could not be said to violate it ; he simply 
 disregarded it. But, as that treaty granted to France 
 easier terms because it was made with Louis and not 
 with Napoleon, the Allies were free to claim that the 
 new situation resulting from the glorious adventure 
 which drove Louis from Paris, without a blow struck 
 in his defence, renewed the state of belligerency which had 
 preceded the treaty. And thus the war was alive again. 
 But not before Napoleon had made an effort to 
 prevent it. On April 4th Caulaincourt sent Castlereagh 
 a peace overture : France had not received for her 
 sacrifices the price of her devotion to Louis, and had 
 therefore " by a universal and spontaneous impulse " 
 declared as her deliverer the only man from whom she 
 could expect the guarantee of her liberties and inde- 
 pendence ; the Bourbon family had left France without 
 a drop of blood having been shed in its defence ; the 
 restoration of the Emperor was the most brilliant of his 
 triumphs, but he had no other wish than to repay the 
 affections of the French people, not by the trophies of 
 vain ambition, but by all the benefits of an honourable 
 repose ; his disposition to respect the rights of other 
 nations inspired the hope that those of France would 
 also be respected ; and if other Sovereigns would, like 
 himself, place their honour in the maintenance of peace, 
 the tranquillity of the world would be assured. 2 A 
 second letter of the same date addressed the same 
 sentiments directly to the Prince Regent. And similar 
 letters were sent, one from Napoleon to the Emperor 
 Francis, and one from Caulaincourt to Metternich, both 
 expressive of a desire for peace and of a promise to observe 
 the Treaty of Paris of May 30th, 1814. 
 
 1 Pari. Deb., XXX., 725, April 20th, 1815. 
 * Pari. Deb., XXXI., 309.
 
 372 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Castlereagh replied to Caulaincourt on April 8th in 
 his stiffest style : "I am to acquaint your Excellency 
 that the Prince Regent has declined receiving the letter 
 addressed to him ; and has at the same time given me 
 his orders to transmit the letters, addressed by your 
 Excellency to me, to Vienna, for the information and con- 
 sideration of the Allied Sovereigns and plenipotentiaries 
 there assembled." There should be no peace with Napoleon 
 if Castlereagh could prevent it. And when all these letters 
 came before the Congress at Vienna on May 3rd, it was 
 decided to take no notice of the French offer. 1 They 
 took the view expressed by Lord Bathurst in the Lords 
 on May 23rd that the peace offer was " one of the most 
 insulting papers ever known in the annals of diplomacy." 2 
 
 But the letters of April 4th bore no such insult on 
 their surface ; they read as bona fide overtures of peace 
 dictated by the obvious motives that the changed 
 military situation required. The Treaty of Paris had 
 completely shorn Napoleon, had he preferred a policy 
 of aggression, of the German and Italian allies which 
 had been the great props of his power. And the French 
 army had been reduced to a peace establishment. It 
 was easy to make a case for the justice of renewing 
 the war ; the mere asseveration of a war's justice has 
 at all times sufficed for a proof of it ; but, as Sir James 
 Mackintosh said, justice was sometimes " the smallest 
 part of the morality of a war," and its policy was the 
 greatest part of its morality.3 Viewed from the light 
 of the subsequent history of Europe, the wisdom of 
 Lord Castlereagh's action in peremptorily snubbing 
 Napoleon's peace offer, and in preferring war to negotia- 
 tion, is not so clear to posterity as it was to his con- 
 temporaries. That Whitbread's motion of April 28th 
 against a renewal of the war was defeated by 273 votes 
 to 72 left this question quite undecided. 
 
 « Pari. Deb., XXXI., 31X. 2 ib., XXXL, 367. 
 
 3 Pari. Deb., XXX., 739.
 
 PACIFICATION 373 
 
 Castlereagh based his philippic of April 28th, 1815, 
 against Napoleon mainly on certain instructions in 
 cipher sent by him to Caulaincourt at Chatillon on March 
 19th, 1814, the day the Conference closed. They had 
 been signed by the Due de Bassano and were ordered 
 to be burnt when read. Caulaincourt was to accede to 
 the Allies' terms, but to contrive to keep some points 
 unsettled with a view to breaking the treaty if convenient, 
 and designed to keep in his control Antwerp, the key 
 of France ; Mayence, the key of Germany ; and 
 Alexandria, the key of Italy. 1 To make a treaty with 
 a premeditated design to break it Castlereagh denounced 
 as passing the ordinary bounds of human wickedness. 
 On May 22nd he quoted this letter to the House ; vouched 
 for its derivation from the " most authentic official 
 sources " ; and expressed contempt for the enemy's 
 denial of its genuineness. It ran : " The Emperor 
 desires that you should make no positive engagement 
 upon everything which may relate to delivering up 
 the fortresses of Antwerp, Mayence and Alexandria, if 
 you should be obliged to consent to their cession ; 
 his intention being, even though he should have ratified 
 the treaty, to be guided by the military situation of 
 affairs : wait till the last moment. The bad faith of 
 the Allies in respect to the capitulations of Dresden, 
 Dantzig and Gorcum, authorises us to be on our guard. 
 Refer therefore these questions to a military arrange- 
 ment, as was done at Presburg, Vienna and Tilsit. The 
 Emperor desires that you should never lose sight of 
 his intention not to deliver up those three keys of France, 
 if military events, on which he wishes always to rely, 
 should permit him not to do so, even if he should have 
 signed the cession of all these provinces. In a word 
 his Majesty wishes to be able after the treaty to take ad- 
 vantage of existing circumstances to the last moment. He 
 advises you to burn this letter as soon as you have read it." 2 
 
 * Pari. Deb., XXX., 978, 9. 2 ib., XXXI., 405. Schoell's Receuil, V., 121.
 
 374 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 This letter, dated March 19th, with other documents 
 relating to it, Castlereagh declared to be " genuine 
 beyond the reach of controversy." 1 Nevertheless its 
 authenticity has been much disputed. Fournier con- 
 tends for its genuineness 1 against Houssaye 2 who 
 thought it spurious. Ernouf quotes against it the 
 Due de Bassano's explanations in numbers 134 and 
 145 of the Moniteur of 18 15 ; the compromising phrases 
 in italics were alleged to have been inserted in the 
 despatch as dictated by Napoleon ; and the Due de 
 Bassano disclaimed it most strongly.3 As it had the 
 effect of diverting Metternich from his endeavours, even 
 after the close of the Chatillon negotiations, to make 
 peace with Napoleon, the motive for the alleged falsifica- 
 tion was not wanting ; but at the same time the plea of 
 forgery affords a facile defence against incriminating 
 documents. 
 
 It was the same with three out of the six letters 
 quoted by Castlereagh on May 2nd, 1815, to justify our 
 release from our engagement with Murat, King of 
 Naples. All six letters had come in answer to a request 
 from Castlereagh to Talleyrand to search the public 
 offices of Paris for documents bearing on the conduct 
 of Murat. How two of these letters, written by Napoleon 
 to Murat at Naples, should have come to be found at 
 Paris was never asked. But they served Talleyrand's 
 purpose of releasing England from her engagement 
 with Murat, a purpose previously revealed by him in 
 his famous letter to Castlereagh of December 15th, 
 1814, wherein he advocated the recognition by the 
 Vienna Congress of Ferdinand IV. King of Sicily, as the 
 legitimate king of Naples ; although at the time Austria 
 had guaranteed the kingdom of Naples to Murat, and 
 England had given her assent. It was of this Talley- 
 rand letter that Lord Grey used some strong language : 
 " in the worst transaction of the worst period of the 
 
 x 232. 8 18 14, 287. 3 Ernouf, 655.
 
 PACIFICATION 375 
 
 worst government that ever existed — in the vilest 
 deceit, the most infamous perfidy, the foulest crime 
 that ever occurred — in the blackest record of fraud 
 and imposture that is to be met with in the annals of the 
 world, nothing can be more flagrant and heinous, nothing 
 more hateful for its treachery, nothing more contemptible 
 for its baseness." 1 If this language was fairly applic- 
 able to Talleyrand's letter (nor did Castlereagh urge 
 a word in defence of it, 2 ) documents purporting to have 
 been found by Talleyrand at Paris and tending to 
 produce on Castlereagh the desired effect were of very 
 suspicious authority. Even Castlereagh thought one of 
 them curious. And well he might ; for chance led to 
 the discovery of the draft copies of the originals sent 
 to Castlereagh from the Comte de Blacas,3 in the hand- 
 writing of an abbe F , who had changed the dates 
 
 of letters written in 1812 to 1814 and so falsified certain 
 expressions as to make the letters applicable to the 
 later date.4 It was presumably these falsified or forged 
 letters, sent by the unsuspicious Castlereagh on March 
 12th to the Duke of Wellington at Vienna, which, 
 supplementing the rumours about Murat's treachery, 
 convinced the Powers there assembled " of the absolute 
 necessity of attacking him forthwith " : which accord- 
 ingly was done by the Austrian declaration of war against 
 Naples on April 12th. It was said that on hearing 
 of Napoleon's landing Murat played a double part : 
 assuring the Austrian ambassador of his determined 
 fidelity to the Allies, and at the same time sending his 
 aide-de-camp, the Count of Beaufromont, to France 
 to assure Napoleon of his support. 6 And the consequent 
 breach made it easy, as Talleyrand wished, to restore 
 Naples to the Bourbon Ferdinand IV. ; though it 
 remains doubtful whether the breach would have 
 
 i Pari. Deb., XXXI., 17. 2 ib., XXXI., 44. 3 ib., XXXL, 146-53. 
 4 Ernouf, 653. 
 
 J ib., XXXL, 131. Wellington to Castlereagh, March 25th. 
 6 ib., XXXL, 145.
 
 376 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 occurred but for the conviction of Murat's treachery 
 to the Allies produced by the timely discovery of those 
 suspicious letters at Paris. The Duke of Wellington did 
 not share in this conviction. 
 
 Hostilities did not begin immediately ; not before 
 May 22nd, when, in answer to Lord Grey's question 
 whether the country was at war or not, Lord Liverpool 
 replied that the Prince Regent's Message of that day, 
 calling on Parliament to support measures taken with 
 the Allies to defend the violated treaties and to avert 
 the revival of the Napoleonic system, 1 was a war message. 
 But even then there was no unanimity in either House 
 for resuming the war. No mean minority favoured 
 negotiations ; in the Lords on May 23rd a minority 
 of 44 to 156, in the Commons on May 25th a minority 
 of 92 to 331 ; and that within a month of Waterloo. 
 Noteworthy amongst the minority was Lord Wellesley 
 who, differing in this from his ducal brother, rather than 
 renew the war would have tried the experiment of 
 recognising Napoleon as a constitutional king of France. 
 It might have been the wiser policy ; but the great and 
 decisive victory of Waterloo on June 18th, followed 
 within a fortnight on July 3rd by the second capitulation 
 of Paris, put the pacifist minority out of court altogether. 
 Still, as Waterloo could not be foreseen as a certainty, 
 it was not unreasonable to vote against a fresh war, 
 which was as likely to last for years as for weeks ; and 
 Lord Castlereagh's invective against Napoleon's moral 
 character was quite irrelevant to the question whether, 
 if the French nation preferred Napoleon to the " old and 
 gouty " Louis, as Lord Milton described him, 2 they 
 should not have him. For in spite of all denials the real 
 object of the war was, as Ponsonby said, to dethrone 
 Napoleon and replace the Bourbon, and in Grey's belief 
 the Bourbon family was " absolutely repulsive to all 
 France."3 The restoration of Louis gave no certain 
 * Pari. Deb. XXXI., 295. * Pari. Deb., XXXII., 708. 3 ib.. XXXI., 357-
 
 PACIFICATION 377 
 
 security for peace, and in the altered relations between 
 France and the rest of Europe that had been set up by 
 the Treaty of Paris of May 30th, 18 14, Grey's argument, 
 that securities might be obtained from Napoleon which 
 would amply guarantee the continued peace of Europe 
 was probably sound. It can never be proved that this 
 would not have been the wiser course, and the later 
 history of Europe suggests that it would have been. 
 
 Nor need it have interfered with that re-settlement 
 of Europe by which the General Treaty of Vienna of 
 June 9th, 1815, formulated the Allied war aims of the pre- 
 ceding year. This was the longest treaty till then recorded 
 in history, 1 but its effect admits of short summarisation. 
 
 The three great monarchies of Europe achieved all 
 or most of their real objects in the war. The liberation 
 of Europe meant in practice the subjection of large 
 populations to these monarchies. Thus the Duchy of 
 Warsaw, with the exception of portions reserved to 
 Prussia and Austria, was taken from Saxony and trans- 
 ferred to the will of the Czar under the title of the King 
 of Poland. 
 
 More than half of Saxony also fell to the share of 
 Prussia, which with Castlereagh's aid thus took its 
 place finally among the great Powers of Europe. 
 
 Austria's share of the conquests was on a level with 
 
 those of her neighbours. Whatever she had been forced 
 
 to give up in 1797, 1801, 1805, 1807 and 1809 she 
 
 recovered ; thus becoming again the mistress of the Adriatic 
 
 and of Northern Italy. 
 
 All these three Powers guaranteed the perpetual 
 neutrality of Cracow as a free city with democratic 
 institutions : a guarantee which went for the value 
 of the parchment it was written on when in 1848 it suited 
 Austria to annex it to her empire. 
 
 England was confirmed in her possession of Hanover, 
 on which, since October 12th, 1814, the consenting 
 
 1 Pari. Deb., XXXII., 71-113.
 
 378 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 Powers had granted the dignity of a Kingdom. The 
 Prince Regent of Great Britain and Hanover ceased 
 to be a mere Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, and 
 became King of Hanover. He exchanged certain portions 
 of Hanover for portions of Prussia, including Hildesheim, 
 and each Power agreed to the making of three military 
 roads through their respective dominions to facilitate 
 their future wars with their neighbours. 
 
 One great feature of the treaty was that several 
 Serene Highnesses were transformed from Dukes 
 into Grand Dukes, and lands with their thousands of 
 souls on them were transferred from one Government 
 to another with no more regard to the wishes of those 
 souls than would have been paid to the souls of rabbits. 
 Thus the Grand Duke of Hesse gained control of 140,000 
 souls from Prussia in return for the cession to Prussia 
 of the Duchy of Westphalia, lately governed (and pro- 
 bably as well) by Jerome Bonaparte. There was no 
 affectation in those days for the self-determination of 
 peoples. 
 
 Not without much difficulty was the peace settled 
 on lines of moderation. The usual debate between the 
 party of revenge and the party of reconciliation was long 
 and keen. On the one hand it was contended that only 
 by crushing France almost out of existence by dismember- 
 ment could France be prevented from again disturbing 
 the world's peace ; on this side were Prussia, the Prince 
 Regent, and the British public generally. On the other 
 side it was argued that only a peace of generosity could be 
 relied on as durable by the removal of a wish for revenge 
 on the part of France ; and on this side were the Czar, 
 and Castlereagh and Wellington. Either side could appeal 
 to reason as guided by the nature of things or by past 
 history. Finally the party of moderation prevailed. 
 Castlereagh began to fear lest Prussian militarism might 
 prove as bad as the militarism of France : " there is a 
 temper in the Prussian army," he wrote, " little less
 
 PACIFICATION 379 
 
 alarming to the peace of Europe . . . than what 
 prevails in the army of France." 
 
 Still France had to be " punished " for her renewed 
 resistance to the Allies, though with all possible tender- 
 ness for the restored Louis. " Gros Papa," as the French 
 called him, was to be propped up on his throne by 
 150,000 foreign soldiers occupying France for five years, 
 and paid for by French money. So the Treaty of 
 November 15th, 1815, whilst renewing the Treaty of Paris, 
 carried its principles further. The boundaries of France 
 were no longer to be those of 1792, as in the first treaty, 
 but the more restricted boundaries of 1790. Both Prus- 
 sia and Austria gained slices of her territory, and, whilst 
 what had been allowed her of Savoy was transferred to 
 the King of Sardinia, what had been left to her in Belgium 
 was given to the King of the Netherlands. Lord Grenville 
 condemned the new treaty because the dismemberment of 
 France stopped short of crippling her for all future time, 
 but between that view and the view of those who would 
 have left the treaty of Paris untouched the Government 
 preferred the middle course, Lord Liverpool's wise defence 
 being that by too great a dismemberment " a feeling of 
 hatred would have been excited, never to be conquered." 1 
 It was strangely assumed that, though dismemberment on 
 a large scale, and such as Prussia pressed for, would be 
 too humiliating to be borne, France would take no offence 
 at having to pay an indemnity of 35 million pounds, and 
 to pay y\ millions for the maintenance of the army of 
 occupation as a constant reminder of her defeat, to say 
 nothing of 12 millions more of private claims. But what 
 a bagatelle compared with the scale of indemnities a 
 century later ! 
 
 But it was for security rather than for punishment 
 that this fine was levied on France. The war in its long 
 course had changed its purpose. Beginning as a contest 
 for Malta it had become a war for the suppression of French 
 
 1 Pari. Deb., XXXII., 647, February 19th, 1816.
 
 3 8o THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 militarism. Castlereagh saw the danger of the spread of 
 that infection into other lands than France. A military 
 despotism, " interweaving itself by degrees into all the 
 States of Europe," was the danger he had the sagacity to 
 foresee, and he justified the fine imposed on France by 
 the tendency of the loss of her pecuniary resources to 
 diminish the military spirit which those resources had 
 helped to sustain. 1 And as the dissolution and extinction 
 of the French army was " the main object " of the Allied 
 policy, Louis was told that, unless he dissolved the French 
 army, the Allies would do so for him. 2 Castlereagh agreed 
 with his pacifist opponents in this, that the world's peace 
 could only be secured by the abatement of the military 
 spirit which had overspread Europe, and by armies 
 becoming again " universally the creatures of the State, 
 instead of States being, as seen in some instances, the 
 creatures of the armies. "3 But, if the treaty of Vienna 
 is to be judged by its success in diminishing European 
 militarism, it must stand out as the greatest failure in 
 the history of diplomacy. For militarism since then has 
 advanced hand over hand, till mankind seems destined 
 to lose all that ever made life worth living on this earth. 
 The swollen empires of the world, so far from being a 
 defence to the lives and properties of their citizens, now 
 expose both to greater danger and loss than they incurred 
 under the anarchies of the feudal system. And so it seems 
 likely to remain whilst the world divides itself into 
 antagonistic groups on the assumption that the welfare 
 of one nationality cannot subsist with the welfare of 
 another. 
 
 The French failed to show us the gratitude expected 
 of them for giving them back to their Bourbon King. 
 We had made enormous sacrifices for French Legitimacy, 
 for the old principles of passive obedience and the divine 
 right of kings. Yet they failed to elicit any French love for 
 
 * Pari. Deb., XXXII., 698. 3 ib., XXXII., 690, r. 
 
 3 ib., XXXII., 702.
 
 PACIFICATION 381 
 
 us as a nation. For in December, 1815, Sir James Riddell 
 could write from Paris to Sir George Jackson, that it was 
 " terribly painful to know how vain had been all our 
 sacrifices, and those who should feel the greatest obliga- 
 tions act towards us with the blackest ingratitude. . . . 
 The English are as much detested here as if they had 
 been the cause of all the ills of Europe, and the Duke of 
 Wellington as if he had laid waste their towns and 
 encouraged his troops to commit any species of vexation 
 and pillage." 1 
 
 Vanity of vanities, all is vanity," was long ago 
 the Preacher's summing-up of all things human ; 
 that the vanity of vanities is war might have been his 
 further and more particular generalisation had he lived 
 in our later ages. Especially was such vanity predicable 
 of the war that ended in 1815 with the overthrow of 
 Napoleon. Or can it be said that the war was redeemed 
 from vanity by the correspondence of its results with its 
 original aims ? The primary and most constant of those 
 aims was the restoration of monarchy and the repression 
 of republicanism ; the statesmen of that time being as 
 much concerned to make the world safe for monarchy 
 as a century later they were to make it safe for democracy. 
 The object was achieved ; but was the restoration of 
 Louis XVIII. to France, of Ferdinand VII. to Spain, or 
 of the Prince of Orange to Holland, worth the bloodshed 
 the task had involved ? Were the countries concerned 
 so much the happier for their enforced re-subjection to 
 such men as in any way to compensate for the sufferings 
 of the war ? To answer this in the affirmative would 
 need much sophistry. Or did the eventual peace justify 
 the protraction of the war beyond the frequent oppor- 
 tunities of stopping it sooner ? The peace, when it came, 
 could claim no greater degree of durability than might 
 have attached to any peace made in response to Napoleon's 
 almost annual overtures for a negotiation. The renewal 
 
 1 Jackson's Diaries, II., 513.
 
 382 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 of war was only just averted in 1830, and though the 
 peace of 1815 lasted till the Crimean war in 1854, it lacked 
 all the elements of an assured stability. 
 
 And from the exclusively English point of view, what 
 was the resultant gain ? The commerce of the world, 
 it has been answered. 1 But our commerce had been on 
 the up-grade ever since the end of the American war ; 
 our exports having nearly doubled during the decade of 
 peace between 1782 and 1792 ; nor is there any reason 
 to think that our commerce would not have continued 
 to increase at the same rate had there been no war at all. 
 Even on the doubtful assumption that a monopoly of 
 the world's commerce benefits a nation more than its 
 distribution between several nations, the great superiority 
 of our mercantile marine was bound to insure us the lion's 
 share in the commerce of the world as time went on, 
 had peace instead of war prevailed for the best part of 
 two decades. Nor, if it could be proved that the war 
 had increased the volume of our trade, would it follow 
 that such a result repaid for all the evils of the long years 
 of war ? Only the most materialistic view of history 
 could for a moment support such a conclusion. At the 
 best it could only count as some mitigation of the appalling 
 mass of misery caused by the war. The outstanding 
 result of the war remains its futility and its vanity. 
 
 One solid fact, however, remained : Napoleon had passed 
 from the world's stage, and the world hoped for and enj oyed 
 some repose from war. In the attempt above made to 
 hold the scales evenly between Napoleon and his Allied 
 enemies it has been difficult to do justice to Napoleon 
 without risking the charge of doing less than justice to our 
 own part in his overthrow. The endeavour has been not 
 to tilt the scales too much in his favour ; but with the 
 study of the war has come the conviction that large 
 deductions must be made from the conventional doctrine, 
 that Napoleon was a mere monster of militarism and that 
 
 1 Kipling and Fletcher's History, 218.
 
 PACIFICATION 383 
 
 to him alone must be attributed the sufferings that Europe 
 experienced whilst he was in power. That he found 
 delight in the glamour and glory and the triumphs of 
 war is admitted by Bourrienne ; but he neither loved 
 nor waged war for its own sake, as an end in itself. He 
 was too ready to deem it the only road to peace : a point 
 of view from which every militarist may claim, and always 
 does claim, to be at heart a pacifist. It was from his 
 side alone that overtures and advances were made for 
 terminating the contest, and it is easier to assert than to 
 prove that such overtures were justly repulsed as insincere 
 and deceptive. The assumption that the Empire, if 
 left undisturbed after the return from Elba, meant the 
 renewal of war in Europe remains an assumption, besides 
 running counter to probability in the changed circum- 
 stances of France and her enemies. But contemporaries 
 could hardly have been expected to accept this chance 
 with complacency, and the relief felt at the time by the 
 final overthrow of a ruler whose career had coincided with 
 a period of incessant political restlessness cannot fail to 
 be justly felt still by the descendants of those to whom 
 the name of Napoleon was a constant terror. Neverthe- 
 less the lapse of time enables a more charitable estimate 
 to be formed of our great enemy's character and career 
 than was possible a hundred years ago, and the greater 
 friendship that recent comradeship in a common peril 
 has since cemented between his nation and our own 
 dispenses an English writer of the present day from that 
 mere indulgence in uncritical abuse which was the tribute 
 exacted of truth by patriotic exaggeration in days when 
 danger from France loomed as large before men's eyes as 
 a century later it did from Germany. If the judgment 
 here presented, and based on a rigid adherence to the 
 best contemporary evidence ; a judgment which, instead 
 of throwing the whole responsibility for so prolonged a 
 war on a single man or a single nation, makes it divisible 
 in varying degrees between all the belligerents, should 
 
 25
 
 384 THE WAR FOR MONARCHY 
 
 contribute ever so slightly to confirm that closer fraternity 
 
 between two nations which comes of a better mutual 
 
 understanding of their past differences, a pacifist will not 
 
 have striven wholly in vain to trace the steps by which 
 
 what we now call Militarism — or the subordination of 
 
 all other State ends to the main purpose of war — became 
 
 established on the earth, till in its ever tightening grip 
 
 human life is menaced with an ever increasing loss of value. 
 
 For to what purpose fight in one century to make the world 
 
 safe for Monarchy and in the next to make it safe for 
 
 Democracy, if under either form of Government any liberty 
 
 worthy of the name ceases to be a possession of humanity, 
 
 and the thoughts, the conscience, the movements, and the 
 
 activities of the individual are to fall under the grinding 
 
 tyranny of a merciless militarist State, in itself standing 
 
 for the mere majority of a mob ? The drift in that 
 
 direction was clearly given by the long wars with the 
 
 French Republic and Empire, and in such a direction, 
 
 by an apparent unalterable chain of causation, the drift 
 
 seems bound to continue, unless or until by some hitherto 
 
 indiscernible agency such an abatement of the military 
 
 spirit in Europe as Castlereagh vainly hoped for saves our 
 
 still unstable civilisation from a process of self-destruction 
 
 or retrogression. But no one can assert the impossibility of 
 
 such a change of thought among nations from militarism 
 
 to pacifism as that which changed the code of personal 
 
 honour when the judgments of law courts came to be 
 
 substituted for the chances of duels ; the ordeal of reason 
 
 for the ordeal of battle. It is always legitimate to lean 
 
 to the sunnier side of expectation, and to remember that 
 
 on the side of hope there are no set limits to time.
 
 Index 
 
 Aberdeen, Lord, 332, 338 seq. 
 
 Abrantes, 324. 
 
 Acts : Alien, 1793, 16, 128 ; Pitt and 
 Grenville, 1795, 47 ; Additional 
 Forces Act, 150. 
 
 Adair, R., 290. 
 
 Addington, 170; policy, 152; on 
 Denmark's peace proposals, 310. 
 
 Addington Ministry, 109 seq., 128, 129, 
 138 : approves mediation, 143 ; 
 attacks on, 145, 150. 
 
 Admiralty, Droits of, 157. 
 
 Adour, battle of the, 324. 
 
 Aland Islands, ceded to Russia, 216, 
 232. 
 
 Albania, 215. 
 
 Albuera, Soult's losses at, 271. 
 
 Alcobaca, convent of, 247. 
 
 Alexander I. of Russia, policy, III, 
 154, 174, 182, 189, 190 ; connection 
 with Paul's death, 113 seq. ; and 
 Prussia, 194 seq. ; and Copenhagen 
 affair, 208, 212 ; declares war on 
 Sweden, 216 ; impatience with 
 French alliance, 263 ; letters to 
 Czartoryski, 264 ; at Wilna, 286 ; 
 his attitude on Sweden and Denmark, 
 308 ; enters Frankfurt, 326. 
 
 Alexandria ; the key of Italy, 373. 
 
 Alien Act (December, 1793), 16, 128. 
 
 Alison, history, character of, 5 seq. ; on 
 causes of war, 20, 58, 59, 112, 191, 
 202, 210; on 1803 war, 145 ; on 
 Anglo-Swedish Treaty, 310 seq. 
 
 Almeida, capture of, 262. 
 
 America, embroilment with, 25, 112, 
 210, 262 ; relations with France, 32 ; 
 buys Louisiana, 147 ; 1812 war, 
 298 seq. 
 
 Amiens, Peace of, 117 seq. 
 
 Andalusia, success of Joseph in, 225 ; 
 provinces of, pacified, 255 ; southern 
 province evacuated, 296. 
 
 Andreossi, General, 131, 133, 139, 238 ; 
 leaves London, 143. 
 
 Antwerp, 15, 25, 345 seq. ; 353, 373 ; 
 prosperity of, 250 seq. 
 
 Aragon, 256. 
 
 Aranjuez, riot at, 218. 
 
 Areola, French victory at, 53. 
 
 Arnald and secret service money, 130. 
 
 Aspern, battle at, 239. 
 
 Assassination of plenipotentiaries, 80 ; 
 of Kleber, 97 ; of Paul I., in, 113 ; 
 plots against Napoleon, 152 seq., 275. 
 
 Atrocities, 22, 331 ; prisoners, 36 seq. ; 
 Vendee, 41 ; Switzerland, 74 ; 
 Ireland, 76 ; Belgium, 78 ; Warsaw, 
 81 seq. ; Naples, 84; Jaffa, 134 seq. ; 
 St. Domingo, 147 ; Germany, 149 ; 
 Bavaria, 145 ; Calabria, 178 ; 
 French, 224, 247 ; Spanish, 247 ; 
 under Suchet at Lerida, 261 ; at 
 Tarragona, 272 ; at Badojoz, 278 ; 
 by Russian peasants, 297 ; at St. 
 Sebactien, 327 ; at Montereau, Bray, 
 and Nogent, 337 ; Sir R. Wilson on, 
 338. 
 
 Auckland, Lord, 30, 51, 228 
 
 Augereau, peasants ordered to be 
 hanged by, 247. 
 
 Austerlitz, 167, 171, 354. 
 
 Austria, 34, 42, 53, 80, 108 ; jealousy 
 of Prussia, 25, 33, 49 ; collapse, 1797, 
 62, 63 ; friction with Russia, 82 seq. ; 
 rejects peace offer, 95 ; peace over- 
 tures, 99 ; war preparations, 155 ; 
 joins 3rd Coalition, 164 ; defeated, 
 168 ; offers mediation, 209 ; a buffer 
 state, 215; declares war (1809) 
 238 seq. 
 
 Avignon, 352. 
 
 Badajoz, 220, 270, 327 ; atrocities at, 
 
 278. 
 Baden, 53, 154, 169, 179, 
 Bagot, Charles, 2t8, 
 
 385 
 
 25a
 
 386 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Balachof, interview with Napoleon. 
 288. 
 
 Baltic, campaign in, 217. 
 
 Bank of England stops payment, 63. 
 
 Bankes, 247. 
 
 Barcelona, taken by the French, 218. 
 
 Barras, 70. 
 
 Barrere, speeches, on war, 16, 36. 
 
 Barros, Gen., his treatment of French 
 prisoners, 247. 
 
 Bartenstein Convention, 190. 
 
 Barthelemy, ambassador to Switzer- 
 land, 41, 51, 66 ; banished, 69. 
 
 Basle, Peace of (1795) 42. 216. 
 
 Bassano, Due de, 66, 69, 305 ; attitude 
 towards peace, 14, 18; on opening 
 the Scheldt, 17 ; comes to Eng- 
 land, 19, on Napoleon's views, 
 291 ; urges peace on Napoleon, 
 313 ; on Napoleon's wish for peace, 
 319 ; urges acceptance of Allied 
 proposals, 328. 
 
 Bastia, surrender of, 32. 
 
 Bathurst, Lord, 356, 372 ; on non- 
 military destruction, 363 ; on the 
 impressment of seamen, 364. 
 
 Bautzen, battle of, 314. 
 
 Bavaria, 99, 169, 179 ; Austrian 
 invasion, 165 ; defection of, 323. 
 
 Baylen, 222. 
 
 " Beast," The, 304. 
 
 Beauchamp, Lord, on speedy end of 
 war, 23. 
 
 Beaufroment, Count of, 375. 
 
 Beauharnais, Eugene, 163. 
 
 Bedford, Duke of, 31. 
 
 Belgium, see Netherlands, Austrian ; 
 revolts, 78 ; ceded to France, 108. 
 
 Bennigsen, 115, 183, 188, 190, 202, 212, 
 288. 
 
 Bentinck, Lord William, 273, 356. 
 
 Beresford, 271, seq. 
 
 Berlin Decrees, 184 seq., 210. 
 
 Bernadotte, 308 seq. ; occupies Han- 
 over, 331 ; occupies Holstein, 332 ; 
 marches against Norway, 356. 
 
 Berthier, 255, 342. 
 
 Bignon, 154, 191, 284. 
 
 Blacas, Comte de, 375. 
 
 Blockade of France, 24, 210; of 
 Europe, 184 seq. ; British, 259 ; 
 and America, 301, 363. See also 
 Economic weapon. 
 
 Blucher, 335, 338, 34?. 
 
 Bonaparte, Jerome, 331, 378 ; governor 
 of Silesia, 187 ; King of Westphalia, 
 193- 
 
 Bonaparte, Joseph, 120, 127 ; King 
 
 of the Two Sicilies, 177 ; becomes 
 
 King of Spain, 219; retires to 
 
 Burgos, 224 ; enters Seville, 254 ; 
 
 leaves his capital, 295 ; at Pam- 
 
 peluna, 318. 
 Bonaparte, Louis, made King of 
 
 Holland, 178, 258 ; his abdication, 
 
 261. 
 Bonaparte, Lucien, taken prisoner, 
 
 256. 
 Borodino, battle of, 294 seq. 
 Boulogne, camp at, 116. 
 Bourrienne, Napoleon's secretary, 
 
 quoted, 135, 102, 148, 383, et passim. 
 Bray, atrocities at, 337. 
 Brissot, 29, 30. 
 Brougham, Baron, on Droits of 
 
 Admiralty, 158 ; on attitude towards 
 
 America, 300 ; and the secret treaty 
 
 of 1815, 336. 
 Brumaire Revolution, 91. 
 Brunswick, Duke of, his manifesto 
 
 (1792) 9 ; death, 182. 
 Bubna, Count, 313 seq. 
 Buckingham, Lord, on Anglo-Swedish 
 
 Treaty, 310. 
 Buenos Ayres, expedition, 175, 209. 
 Burdett, Sir Francis, 368. 
 Burghersh, Lord, 335. 
 Burke, 10, 17, 23, 30, 37, 57, 64. 
 Burrard, Sir. H. 223. 
 Busaco, British victory at, 262. 
 
 Cadiz, 100, 157, 271, 296. 
 
 Cadore, Due de, see Champagny. 
 
 Cadoudal plot, 152. 
 
 Calvo, canon of Madrid, 220. 
 
 Cambaceres, Arch-Chancellor, 293. 
 
 Camperdown, battle of, 72. 
 
 Campo Formio, Treaty, 62, 95, 108, 
 169. 
 
 Canning, George, 109, 137, 191, 209, 
 224, 226, seq., 330 ; for peace, 66 ; 
 on Russia, 79 ; on war aims, 122 ; 
 and Denmark, 196 seq. ; his char- 
 acter, 204 ; on Napoleon's " perfidy," 
 217; on blockade of the Tagus, 217 ; 
 publishes his defence, 227 ; in dis- 
 agreement with Castlereagh, 245 ; 
 succeeded by Lord Wellesley, 245 ; 
 on loss of ships, 301 ; on Anglo- 
 Swedish Treaty, 309. 
 
 Canning, Stratford, 289 seq. 
 
 Cape of Good Hope, 54, 56, 123, 131. 
 
 Carnot, his plans, 32 ; policy, 66 ; 
 banished, 69.
 
 INDEX 
 
 387 
 
 Castlereagh, Lord, 191 ; in disagree- 
 ment with Canning, 245 ; responsi- 
 bility as regards Antwerp, 252 ; 
 succeeded by Lord Wellesley, 279 ; 
 disclaims responsibility for Franco- 
 Russian War, 292 ; on Russia, 
 Sweden and Denmark (181 2) 308 ; 
 on Denmark's peace proposals, 310 
 seq. ; on the end of the Peninsular 
 War, 318 ; on our attitude towards 
 France, 353 ; on Sweden, 355 ; on 
 Genoa, 356 seq. ; diplomacy of, 365 ; 
 his fear of Russia, 366 ; on the 
 Treaty of Fontainebleau, 368 ; on 
 peace overtures, 371 seq. ; letters, 
 375 ; and forged letters, 375. 
 
 Cathcart, Lord, 305, 338. 
 
 Catholic Emancipation, 109, 136. 
 
 Caulaincourt, 215 ; 235 ; 314 ; 339 ; 
 successor to Savary in Russia, 213; 
 Napoleon's letter to, 214, 219 seq. ; 
 on Alexander's loyalty, 267 seq. ; 
 and Napoleon, 289 ; at the Prague 
 Conference, 319. 
 
 Ceylon, 123. 
 
 Champagny, 226, 238, 240, 261 ; forged 
 document attributed to, 269. 
 
 Champaubert, battle of, 344. 
 
 Charles IV., Napoleon's Treaty with 
 (1807), 217; abdicates, 218. 
 
 Charles, Archduke, in Tyrol, 62, 80 ; 
 superseded, 95. 
 
 Charles XIII., made king, 232. 
 
 Chatham, Lord, 251. 
 
 Chatillon, 373 ; Congress of, 339 seq. 
 
 Chauvelin, Marquis de, ambassador in 
 London, 12 seq. ; his anxiety for 
 peace, 18 ; leaves England, 19. 
 
 Chesapeake affair, 211 
 
 Chouans, 41, 91. 
 
 Christian Frederick of Denmark, 355. 
 
 Cintra, Convention of, 223. 
 
 Ciudad Rodrigo, 262, 271, 296, 327. 
 
 Clarence, Duke of (William IV"!), 1 59. 
 
 Clement XIV., 359. 
 
 Clerfait, 36, 49. 
 
 Clergy, conduct in face of v-ar, 22. 
 
 Coalition, first against France, 1793, 
 23 ; successes, 25 ; dissensions, 25 
 seq. ; objects, 27 ; collapse, 34, 
 61 seq. 
 
 Coalition, second, 1798, 78 seq. ; 81 
 seq. ; collapse, 102. 
 
 Coalition, third, aims, 161 ; and 
 neutrals, 165 ; fourth, 190 seq. 
 
 Cobbett, 118, 119, 127. 
 
 Cobenzl, Count, 77 ; resigns, 164. 
 
 Coburg, 26, 36. 
 
 Cochrane, Sir Alexander, 361. 
 
 Congreve's rocket, 324. 
 
 Condorcet, 30 ; attitude to war, 1793, 
 
 14 ; his " Advice to the Dutch," iG. 
 Confederation of the Rhine, 179 seq. 
 Conscription, voted by Parliament, 
 
 148 ; see also Universal Service. 
 Constantine, Grand Duke, his pacifist 
 
 pleadings, 294. 
 Constantinople, 215; importance of, 
 
 225. 
 Copenhagen, 111, 218: bombarded, 
 
 197 seq. 
 Cordova, sack of, 224. 
 Cornwallis, Lord, 120. 
 Corsica annexed, 1794, 32. 
 Corunna, 223 seq. 
 
 Cracow, perpetual neutrality of, 377. 
 Czartoryski, Prince, 165, 174, 264 seq., 
 
 3*7. 336 ; in Paul I's. murder, 115 ; 
 
 on Austerlitz, 168. 
 
 Dalrymple, Sir H., 223. 
 
 Dampierre, Gen., letters to W. A. Miles, 
 
 13. 14. 
 Dantzig, 190, 193, 266, 267, 373. 
 Dardanelles, 196. 
 Darnley, Lord, 368. 
 Davilensky, 337. 
 Declaration, Prince Regent's (1812), 
 
 299. 
 Delacroix, 55, 65. 
 
 d'Enghien, Due, murder, 115, 153. 
 Denmark, 24, 104, 106, no, 179; 
 
 attacked by British, 196 seq. 
 
 Alexander's attitude to, 308 ; peace 
 
 proposals of, 310; and the Treaty 
 
 of Kiel, 354. 
 Dennewitz, battle of, 322. 
 D'Entraigne, papers seized, 69. 
 Directory established in France, 49, 
 
 61, 69 seq. 
 Dowles, Sir George, 327. 
 Drake, ambassador to Bavaria, 153. 
 Dropmore Papers, 124. 
 Dumouriez, 17, 18, 35. 
 Dundas, Henry, 14, 109 ; at the 
 
 Admiralty, 151; frauds, 170; on 
 
 Fulton's device, 325. 
 Dundonald, Lord, inventor of a poison 
 
 gas, 326. 
 
 Ebersberg, battle of, 239. 
 Eckmuhl, battle of, 239. 
 Economic motive, 30, 67 seq. 97-8, 106, 
 *5 8 > I 75"6, 206.
 
 388 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Economic weapon, 24, 54, 105, no, 
 143, 180, 184 seq., 210, 259, 301, 
 
 363- 
 Egypt, 131, 141, 209, 215, 235 ; French 
 
 in, 77 seq., 95 ; English campaign, 
 
 116. 
 Elba, 336, 351, 368 seq., 383. 
 Emigres, 15, 45, 90, 118, 130. 
 Empire, The, see also Austria, 53, 80 ; 
 
 its end, 179. 
 England, 9, 21, 47, 63, 79, 102, 105, 
 
 136, 148, 170, 175, et pass. 
 Erfurt, conference at, 225 ; renewed 
 
 alliance at, 254. 
 Ernouf, Baron, 287 seq. ; 328,374; on 
 
 letters from Napoleon to the Due de 
 
 Bassano, 315. 
 Erskine, quoted, 94, 253 ; on Orders in 
 
 Council, 186. 
 Espinos, Spanish defeat at, 229. 
 Essling, battle at, 239. 
 Evora, massacre at, 224. 
 Eylau, 188, 260, 294. 
 
 F , Abbe, letters of, 375. 
 
 Ferdinand IV., King of Sicily, recog- 
 nised by the Vienna Congress, 374. 
 
 Ferdinand, Prince of the Asturias, 
 succeeds Charles IV., 218 ; relations 
 with Napoleon, 359. 
 
 Ferrol, 100. 
 
 Figureas, 247 ; taken by Suchet, 272. 
 
 Finance, 33, 36, 63, 103. 
 
 Finland, 216, 225, 231, seq., 308. 
 
 Fitzwilliam, Lord, on aim of war, 90. 
 
 Flushing, siege and capitulation of, 
 251. 
 
 Fontainebleau, 359; treaty of, 351, 
 368. 
 
 Fouche, 201, 261. 
 
 Fournier, 374 ; his account of the 
 Congress of Chatillon, 339. 
 
 Fox, Charles James, 21, 26, 31, 40, 
 42 seq., 47, 52, 57, 72, 123, 144, 184 ; 
 on Suwarow, 81 ; proposes mediat- 
 ion, 1803, 143 ; Foreign Minister, 
 171 seq.; death, 174; on Prussia, 
 180. 
 
 France, 23, 32, 35, 45, 54, 63, 69, 91, 
 116, 148, 189 et pass. 
 
 Francis Joseph II., 318 ; last Emperor, 
 179 ; offers to mediate, 189. 
 
 Frederick William II., perfidy of, 33 
 seq. 
 
 Frederick William III., 181, 305. 
 
 Freemasons, 359. 
 
 Friederickstein, capitulation of, 356. 
 
 Friedland, battle of, 190, 295. 
 Friedricshavn, peace of, 216. 
 Fructidor, 18th, revolution, 69. 
 Fulton, Robert, American engineer, 
 325- 
 
 Galicia, junta of, 223. 
 
 Gas, Kakodyl, a poison, 325 ; Lord 
 Panmure on a poison, 326 ; Lord 
 Dundonald, inventor of a poison, 
 326 ; Lord Palmerston, on trial of, 
 326. 
 
 Genoa, 24, 85 ; its fate, 356 seq. 
 
 Gentz, Austrian manifesto drawn up 
 by, 321. 
 
 George III., 196 ; his attitude to 
 French war, n seq., 49, 64; to 
 Emigre's, 46, 52, 58 ; and Peace of 
 Amiens, 119, 124; and Hanover, 
 146 ; and Napoleon, 160. 
 
 Germany, ally against France, 1793, 
 23 ; 1796 campaign, 53 ; occupied, 
 182. 
 
 Gerona, siege of, 247. 
 
 Ghent, 362 ; Peace of (1814) 364 ; 
 Conference at, 365. 
 
 Godoy, proclamation of (1806), 216. 
 
 Gorcum, capitulation, 373. 
 
 Gourgaud, on invasion of Russia, 293. 
 
 Gower, Lord, Leveson, his recall 
 (1792), 13, 16; 165, 199, 208. 
 
 Grafton, Duke of, opposed to war 1793, 
 21. 
 
 Grave, capitulation of, 39. 
 
 Grenada, fall of, 254. 
 
 Grenville, Lord, 47 seq., 51 seq., 64, 93, 
 112, 159, 228, 357; on Declaration 
 of Pilnitz, 95 ; letters on neutrality, 
 10 ; letters on Brunswick's cam- 
 paign, 10; on Prussia, 34; 
 Bourbon plot, 45 seq. ; leads war 
 party, 67 seq. ; resigns, 109 ; on war 
 aims, 122 ; succeeds Pitt, 171 ; on 
 blockade policy, 185, 186 ; 228, 357 ; 
 on Portugal, 253, 274 ; and the 
 Treaty of Paris, 353 ; in Norway, 
 
 355- 
 
 Grenville, Thomas, 36. 
 
 Grey, Lord, 48, 64, 186, 231, 250, 253, 
 2 75» 357 '> on Amiens Peace, 121 ; 
 on Hanover, 306 ; on Anglo- 
 Swedish treaty, 309 ; on Fulton's 
 device, 325 ; on Saxony and G°noa, 
 354 ; on Norway, 355 ; on 
 Napoleon's landing in France, 367 ; 
 on Talleyrand, 374. 
 
 Gross Beeren, battle of, 322.
 
 INDEX 
 
 389 
 
 Guastalla, 369 seq. 
 
 Guildford, Lord, on aims of the war, 29. 
 
 Gustavus IV., of Sweden, supports war, 
 231 seq. ; Napoleon's opinion of, 
 303 ; besieged at Stralsund, 304. 
 
 Hamburg, 331, 345. 
 
 Hamilton, Lord, on the advantage of 
 war to Great Britain, 213. 
 
 Hanover, 155, 166; occupied by- 
 French, 146 ; annexed to Prussia, 
 180. ; incorporated in Westphalia, 
 261 ; motive for prolonging war, 
 306 ; G. Jackson on, 307 ; assigned 
 to England, 377. 
 
 Hardenberg, Count, 34, 156, 270, 305, 
 seq., 340, 366 ; his diary, 339 ; on 
 separate peace with France, 344. 
 
 Haugwitz, Count, his policy, 155. 
 
 Hawkesbury, Lord, see Liverpool, Lord. 
 
 Heligoland, 308, 311, 354. 
 
 Heliopolis, victory at, 96. 
 
 Hesse, Grand Duke of, 378. 
 
 Hesse Cassel, ally against France, 1793, 
 23. 42. 
 
 Hildesheim, 306, seq., 378. 
 
 Hofer, 241. 
 
 Hohenlinden, victory at, 102. 
 
 Holland, Lord, 304 ; on Anglo-Swedish 
 Treaty, 310. 
 
 Holland, 23, 33, 37 seq., 54, 63, 88, 
 117, 148 etpass. 
 
 Holstein, occupied by Eernadotte, 320. 
 
 Howick, Lord, 191, 250. 
 
 Illyria, restoration of, to Austria, 316. 
 
 India, 77, 214. 
 
 Indies, East, 26, 54, 123, 273. 
 
 Indies, West, 26, 54, 76, 77, 123, 147, 
 
 243, 273, 309, 353. 
 Inquisition, abolished, 229, 243, 318 ; 
 
 restored, 257 ; Wellington and, 359'. 
 Invasion of England, 63, 116, 147, 150. 
 Inventions used in war, 34 seq., 324, 
 
 326. 
 Ireland, 108 ; French invasion, 58 ; 
 
 1798 Rebellion, 76. 
 Italy, 1796 campaign, 53, 61 ; 1799 
 
 campaign, 81 seq. ; condition under 
 
 Napoleon, 163. 
 
 Jackson, Franci?, 196 seq., 203, 231, 
 
 278, 292, 295 seq., 318. 
 Jackson, George, 198, 203, 246, 278, 
 
 282, 300, 305, 307, 318, 322, 324, 336, 
 
 35i. 38r. 
 
 Jackson, Mrs., on Generals as negotia- 
 tors, 305. 
 
 Jena, battle of, 182, 216. 
 
 Jenkinson, Charles, see Liverpool, 
 Lord. 
 
 Jesuits, Order of, re-established, 359. 
 
 Joyneville, " Life of Alexander,' 1 205. 
 
 Kakodyl, poison gas, 325. 
 
 Kalisch, Treaty of, 360. 
 
 Katzbach, battle of, 322. 
 
 Kiel, Treaty of, 354. 
 
 Kleber, General, negotiations with 
 
 Turkey, 95 ; death, 97. 
 Kolli, Baron, 257. 
 Korsakoff, Russian general, 86 seq. 
 Koschelef, Senator, 237. 
 Kulm, battle of, 322. 
 Kurakin, Prince, 237, 285 seq. ; 
 
 harangued by Napoleon, 268. 
 Kutusov, Russian Commander, 297. 
 
 Labouchere, 259 seq. 
 
 Lafayette, 12. 
 
 Language, licentious, cause of war, 16. 
 
 Lansdowne, 1st Marquis of, n, 29, 
 3°, 33. 34. 4°» 357 .' opposed to war, 
 1793, 21 ; on treatment of neutrals, 
 24; on Holland, 37 ; on Nile victory, 
 78, ; on freedom of the press, 128. 
 
 Lauderdale, 8th Earl of, 21, 31, 173 seq. 
 
 Lauriston, French ambassador, 284 seq. 
 
 Law Courts, war spirit in, 31. 
 
 League of Nations, 179. 
 
 Le Brun, French Foreign Minister, 
 11 seq., 29 ; for war, January, 1793, 
 14. 
 
 Legitimacy, British Government's 
 support of, 358. 
 
 Leipzig taken, 242 ; battles round, 
 323 ; carnage round, 324. 
 
 Lerida, atrocities at, 261. 
 
 Letourneur, 69. 
 
 Liege, principality of, 17, 40. 
 
 Lille, Comte de, proclamation by, 303 
 seq. 
 
 Liverpool, Lord, 14, 17, 112, 118, 128, 
 228, 231, 250, seq. ; on Smigris 131 ; 
 on Napoleon, 133 ; and Cadoudal 
 plot, 153 ; on Great Britain's policy, 
 254 ; thanks Beresford, 271 ; on the 
 Peninsular War, 302 ; and the 
 Treaty of Paris, 353 ; and Prince 
 Christian, 355 ; on non-military de- 
 struction, 363 ; on the impressment 
 of seamen, 364 ; diplomacy of, 365.
 
 390 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Lobanow-Rostowski, Prince, on Paul 
 
 I.'s murder, 113. 
 London, peace petition, 43. 
 Looting, 61, 82, 165, 206. 
 Louis XVI., writes to George III., 13 ; 
 
 effect of his execution, 21. 
 Louis XVII., death, 42. 
 Louis XVIII. , restoration plot, 44 seq. 
 
 seq ; Cadoudal plot, 153. 
 Luneville Treaty, 108, 131, 169. 
 Lutzen, battle of, 313. 
 Luxemburg, 330 ; annexed, 44. 
 
 Macartney, Lord, 52. 
 
 Macedonia, 215. 
 
 Mackintosh, Sir James, 332, 357, 362, 
 
 372. 
 
 Madison, President, 300, 360 ; on non- 
 military destruction, 363. 
 
 Magnano, battle of, 81. 
 
 Maida, battle of, 178. 
 
 Malaga, fall of, 254. 
 
 Malmesbury, Lord, 33, 46, 51, 109, 
 133, 137, 203, 300 ; peace negotiator, 
 54 seq., 65 seq. ; wants war, 143 ; 
 on Pitt, 170. 
 
 Malta, 78, 101, 105, 120, 131, 379. 
 
 Mansfield, Lord, 29, 43. 
 
 Mantua, fall of, 61. 
 
 Marengo, battle of, 98. 
 
 Maret, see Bassano, Due de. 
 
 Marie Louise, 369 ; Napoleon's mar- 
 riage with, 258. 
 
 Marmont, Marshall, 296, 338 ; defection 
 
 of . 35 1 . 37°- 
 Massena, in Italy, 08; 178, 247; 
 
 invades Portugal, 262, 270 ; leaves 
 
 Portugal, 270 296. 
 Marsh, Herbert, " History of Politic," 
 
 15- 
 
 Massacres, the September, 1792, 9. 
 
 Melville, Lord, see Dundas, Henry. 
 
 Merry, English agent, 109. 
 
 Metternich, Count, 238, 265, 270, 279, 
 307, 320, 340, 348 ; his diplomacy, 
 311 seq. ; and Napoleon, 316 seq. ; 
 his determination on war, 319 ; 
 Napoleon's answer to, 328. 
 
 Meyendorf, pamphlet by, 297. 
 
 Milan Decree, 185. 
 
 Miles, William Augustus, 226 ; on 
 Pitt's attitude in 1791, 10 seq. ; 
 on the imigris, 15 ; on peace pro- 
 posals, 41 ; on Windham, 46. 
 
 Milton, Lord, 376. 
 
 Minden, 306. 
 
 Minto, Lord, on Suwarow, 87. 
 
 Mirabeau, 12. 
 
 Moira, Lord, 253. 
 
 Moldavia, military operations in 183, 
 
 212, 264. 
 Mollien, French Treasurer, 284, 312 
 Montalivet, French Minister of Interior, 
 
 240. 
 Montereau, atrocities at, 337. 
 Montmirail, battle of, 344. 
 Moore, Sir J., 228 ; writes to Frere, 
 
 230 ; sent to Sweden, 231. 
 Moreau, 53, 74, 82, 99, 101 ; exiled, 153. 
 
 153. 
 Morfill quoted, 113. 
 Moscow, French entry into, 295 ; 
 
 massacre at, 297, 
 Munstcr, Count, 339 ; 344. 
 Murat, 218, 242, 282 ; defection of, 
 
 335 sec l- » engagement with, 374 ; 
 
 his double part, 375 seq. 
 
 Nangis, battle of, 345. 
 
 Napier, on Canning, 204. 
 
 Naples, 23, 79, 83, 123, 171, 177. 
 
 Napoleon, 27, 53, 61 seq., 103, 211 ; 
 his plans, 77 ; shoots prisoners, 84 ; 
 first Consul, 91 ; peace proposal, 93 ; 
 policy in Italy, 99 ; and Russia, 107 ; 
 closes Continent against England, 
 no seq. ; and invasion of England, 
 116; and Portugal, 117; and the 
 press, 127; and Royalists, 130; 
 " Acts of the Republic," 138 seq.; 
 his moderation, 140 seq. ; interns 
 English in France, 144 ; sells 
 Louisiana, 147 ; Emperor, 155 ; 
 offers peace, 160 ; Spanish con- 
 vention, 162 ; crowned, 163 ; for 
 peace, 172, 188 seq. ; aims, 176, 
 193. 194 ; in Warsaw, 183 ; Berlin 
 Decrees, 184 seq. ; and Denmark, 
 200 ?eq. ; his letter to Alexander 
 (February 2nd, 1808), 213 ; cam- 
 paign in Spain, 229 ; in favour of 
 conciliating Austria, 238 ; on 
 moderation to, 243 ; marriage with 
 Marie Louise ; his reprisals, 263 ; 
 his orders for wine, 266 ; his views 
 on war, 266 seq. ; harangues Kura- 
 kin, 268 ; attempts at peace, 281 
 seq. ; his plans for Russian war, 285 ; 
 occupation of Pomerania, 285; 
 interview with Balachof, 288 ; and 
 Caulaincourt, 289 ; return to Paris, 
 298 ; enters Dresden, 313 ; proposes 
 peace, 314 ; his letter to the Due de 
 Bassano, 315 ; and Metternich,
 
 INDEX 
 
 39 * 
 
 316 seq. ; his desire for peace, 320 
 seq. ; his peace overtures, 322 ; 
 Fulton's device, 325 ; answer to 
 Metternich, 328 ; defeated at La 
 Rotherie, 341 ; dethronement of, 
 351 ; lands in France, 367. 
 
 Narbonne, Count, 286 seq., 312. 
 
 Neerwinden, French defeat at, 25. 
 
 Nelson, 78, 112; at Naples, 84; on 
 night of search, 106 ; Trafalgar, 
 162-3. 
 
 Nesselrode, Count, 236, 366. 
 
 Netherlands, Austrian independence of, 
 17, 36 seq. ; annexed by France, 42, 
 56, 59 seq., 62 ; see Belgium. 
 
 Neutrality, Convention of Armed, 105, 
 seq., 208. 
 
 Neutrals maltreated by Coalition, 24 ; 
 hostile to England, 104, 112, 165, 
 184 seq., 210. 
 
 Newport, Sir John, 368. 
 
 Ney, his treatment of Spanish prisoners, 
 247. 
 
 Nile, battle of the, 78. 
 
 Noel, Abbe, French envoy, 13 seq. 
 
 Nogent, atrocities at, 337 ; Napoleon 
 at, 342. 
 
 Norway, fate of, 354 seq. 
 
 Notables, Assembly of Spanish, 219. 
 
 Ocana, battle at, 249, 254, 256. 
 Orders in Council, 143, 184 seq., 210. 
 Otrante, Due d', see Fouche. 
 Otto, Napoleon's agent in England, 
 109, 118, 128. 
 
 Palmerston, Lord, on trial of poison 
 
 gas, 326. 
 Panin, Russian Vice-Chancellor, 113 
 
 seq. 
 Panmure, Lord, on poison gas, 326. 
 Papal States, withdrawn from 
 
 Coalition, 61 ; conquered by French, 
 
 75 ; liberated, 85, 123. 
 Pareto, Genoese envoy, 357. 
 Paris, Treaty of (1814; 352 seq., 371. 
 Paul I. of Russia, revives Armed 
 
 Neutrality, 105; murdered, in ; 
 
 schemes, 112. 
 Peace debates, 29 seq., 49, 71, 95, 123, 
 
 144, 157, et pass. 
 Peltier, emigre journalist, 127 seq., 
 
 275- 
 Perceval, Spencer, 245 ; on the press 
 
 2 75- 
 Perry, John, prosecuted, 128. 
 
 Peterswaldau, Treaty of, 347. 
 Pichegru, 39, 45, 69, 89 ; death, 153. 
 Pilnitz, Declaration cf, 9. 
 Piracy, 158, 198. 
 
 Pitt, 26, 48 seq., 54, 63 seq., 69, 161 ; 
 his desire for neutrality, 10 ; W. A. 
 Miles on his attitude, 11 ; on con- 
 tinuing the war, 28 ; rejects peace 
 proposals, 41, 43 ; on peace princi- 
 ples, 46 ; on Russia, 79 ; on con- 
 dition of England, 102 seq. ; and 
 Baltic powers, 106 ; resigns, 109 ; 
 on war aims, 12 1-2 ; and Catholic 
 question, 109, 136 ; war speech, 144 ; 
 Prime Minister, 150 ; and Fox, 151 ; 
 and a new Coalition, 152 ; and 
 Cadoudal plot, 153 ; death, 170; 
 Canning a disciple of, 226 ; on 
 Fulton's device, 325. 
 Pius VI. withdraws from Coalition, 61 ; 
 
 expelled from Rome, 75. 
 Pius VII., 242, 359. 
 Plots, 20, 22 ; English against France, 
 44 seq., 89 ; against Napoleon, 130, 
 152. 
 Poland, 193 ; partition, 26, 33, 35 ; 
 revolt, 81 ; French there, 183 ; 
 Alexander's plans concerning, 264. 
 Pomerania, Napoleon and, 285 ; 
 
 Denmark and, 311. 
 Poniatowski, Prince, 268. 
 Ponsonby, 233, 235, 253, 355, 357, 368, 
 376 ; on Anglo-Swedish Treaty, 310. 
 Portland, Duke of, 30 ; Cabinet of the, 
 
 244. 
 Portugal, ally against France, 1793, 
 23 ; Treaty with France, 67 ; war 
 with Spain, 117 ; invaded by French, 
 210 ; partition of, 217 ; convention 
 of mutual alliance with, 217 ; Lord 
 Grenville on, 253, 274 ; Massena 
 invades, 262 ; sufferings of, 270. 
 Prague, 313 ; Congress of, 317 seq. 
 Presburg, Treaty of, 169, 234 ; military 
 
 arrangements at, 373. 
 Press the, and war, 22, 127, 275 ; and 
 Peace of Amiens, 118; subsidised, 
 130. 
 Prevost, Sir George, 361, 364. 
 Propaganda, war, 21 seq., 71, 149, 
 
 275. 
 Prussia, 23. 33 seq., 104, 165, 182, 
 
 192 et passim. 
 Puisaye, Count, Chouan leader, 46. 
 
 Quiberon, 44 seq.
 
 392 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Ratisbon Diet, 42, 53, 80. 
 Reichenbach, Treaties of, 316 ; secret 
 
 article at, 317, 320. 
 Remhard, attitude towards peace, 14. 
 Religious motive, 30, 35, 93. 
 Reprisals policy, 36 seq. 
 Retiro, capture of, 296. 
 Reval, secret conference at, 292. 
 Revolution feared in England, 20, 22. 
 Rio Seco, 222 ; Spanish defeat at, 223 ; 
 
 taken by French, 224. 
 Robespierre, 29, 35, 41. 
 Roman Republic, 75, 85, 123. 
 Romanzov, Count, 214 seq. ; 237, 240 
 
 seq. ; his pacifist pleadings, 294. 
 Rome, conquest of, 75 ; reaction in, 
 
 358. 
 Roques, Jaques, 32. 
 Russia, 23, 82, 104, in, 161, 183, 190, 
 
 208 et pass ; invaded, ch. XI. 
 
 St. Domingo, 243, 353, evacuated by 
 
 British, 77 ; French expelled, 147. 
 Sl. Helens, Lord, at Hague, 38. 
 St. Sebastien, fall of, 322 ; 326 ; 
 
 bombardment of, 324. 
 St. Vincent, Cape, battle, 63. 
 Salamanca, 218, 230, 295. 
 Saragossa, siege of, 222, 247. 
 Sardinia, kingdom of, 23, 27, 54, 356 ; 
 
 Genoa to be annexed to, 357. 
 Savoy, annexation of, 16, 40, 379. 
 Saxony, joins Rhine Confederation, 
 
 182 ; its fate, 357 seq., 377. 
 Scheldt, opening of the, 14 seq. ; 
 
 expedition, 249. 
 Schiemann, " Ermordung Paul's," 113. 
 Schwartzenberg, Prince, 237, 280, 312, 
 
 340 ; on Allied successes, 323 ; his 
 
 sophistical proclamation, 332. 
 Scoffern, Prof, on Kakodyl, 325. 
 Searching ships, right of, 104 seq., 262. 
 Sebastiani in Egypt, 133 seq. ; in 
 
 Turkey, 196. 
 Secret Service Money and the Press, 
 
 130 seq. 
 Sedition acts, 47, 128. 
 Selino, atrocities at, 297. 
 Seringapatam, capture of, 92. 
 Sernow on murder of Paul I., 113 seq. 
 Sheffield, Lord, on the French, 17. 
 Sheridan, R.B., 21, 22, 37, 57, 95; 
 
 on Peace of Amiens, 121. 
 Shrapnel, Henry, 324 seq. 
 Sicily, 23, 173 ; attack on prepared 
 
 242 ; held with difficulty, 261. 
 
 Sidmouth, Lord, see Addington. 
 Sieyes, Abbe, his attitude to war, 14. 
 Silesia, military operations, 187. 
 Smith, Sir Sidney, 84, 95 seq., 217. 
 Smith, Spencer, in Cadoudal plot, 
 
 153- 
 Smolensko, battle of, 294. 
 Socrates, on war, 7, 176. 
 Soissons, pillage of, prevented, 337 ; 
 
 capitulation of, 349. 
 Soult, 212, 246, 255, 270 ; treachery of, 
 
 326. 
 Spain, 23, 36, 63, 66 ; peace treaty, 42, 
 
 156 ; and Portugal, 117 ; navy, 117, 
 
 148, 156 ; helps France, 156, 162 ; 
 
 reaction, 359 seq. ; see chapter VII. 
 
 seq. 
 Spencer, Lord, 36, 109. 
 Stadion, Count, 234, 339 seq. 
 Stair, Lord, 29. 
 Stanhope, Lord, 32 ; Peace Motion, 
 
 29 ; on Fulton's device, 325. 
 Stapleton, Canning's biographer, 202. 
 Stephen, James, 298, 304. 
 Stewart, Sir Charles, 305 seq. ; 329, 
 
 338. 
 Stockach, battle of, 81. 
 Strangford, Lord, quoted, 204. 
 Stuart, General, in Egypt, 131 seq. ; 
 
 in Calabria, 178 ; at Naples, 242, 
 
 249. 
 Subsidy, policy, 33, 36, 63, 79, 99, 
 
 156, 163, 192 et passim. 
 Suhlingen, Convention of, 146. 
 Suwarow, 80, 81 seq., 86 seq. 
 Swabia, 80. 
 
 Sweaborg, fall of, 216. 
 Sweden, 42, 104, 106, no, 154, 156, 
 
 207 ; in third Coalition, 161 ; 
 
 and Bartenstein Convention, 190 ; 
 
 Alexander declares war on, 216 ; 
 
 joins Russia and Denmark, 262. 
 Switzerland, 24, 42, 101, 332 ; French 
 
 invasion, 74, campaign, 82, 85 ; 
 
 French interference, 131. 
 Sybel quoted, 25, 37. 
 Syria, military operations in, 84. 
 
 Tagus blockaded, 217. 
 
 Talavera, French defeated at, 246, 
 
 258 ; its lesson to Wellington, 248. 
 Talleyrand, 12, 66, 120, 139, 140 seq., 
 
 164, 175, 236, 374. 
 Tatistcheff, 194, 285 seq. 
 Tchernicheff, the spy, 237, 267. 
 Temperley, H. V., 191.
 
 INDEX 
 
 393 
 
 Texel operations, 88. 
 
 Thugut, Count, 33, 35, 49, 52, 86. 
 
 Tierney against a Coalition, 79, 89. 
 
 Tilsit, Peace of, 191 seq., 212,214 seq., 
 266. 
 
 Tippoo Sultan, 77 ; death, 92. 
 
 Tolstoi, Count, 266. 
 
 Torres Vedras, 262, 270, 325. 
 
 Tortosa, surrender of, 271. 
 
 Toulon, 26 seq. 
 
 Trafalgar, 162. 
 
 Trinidad, 76. 
 
 Treaties and Conventions : Anglo- 
 French Commercial (1786), 13, 16; 
 Anglo-Dutch (1788), 15 ; First 
 Coalition (1793), 23 ; Anglo-Prussian 
 (1794), 33 ; of Basle (1795). 42, 
 216; Franco-Spanish (1795), 42, 
 156 ; Anglo-Russian (1795), 44, 79 ; 
 Anglo-Imperial (1795), 44 ; of 
 Campo Formio (1797), 62, 95, 108, 
 169 ; Franco-Portuguese (1797), 67 ; 
 of El-Arish (1800), 96 ; Anglo- 
 Austrian (1800), 100 ; Armed 
 Neutrality (1800), 105 seq., no; 
 Baltic- American, 105 ; of Luneville 
 (1801), 108 ; Baltic Convention 
 (1801), 112 ; of Badajoz (1801), 117 ; 
 of Amiens (1802), 1 17 seq. ; Suhlingen 
 Convention (1803), 146 ; Franco- 
 Russian (1801), 154, 173 ; Anglo- 
 Swedish (1804), 156 ; of Potsdam 
 (secret) (1805), 167 ; of Presburg 
 (1806), 169, 234 ; Bartenstein (1807), 
 190 ; of Tilsit (1807), 191 seq., 199, 
 212 ; Franco-Prussian (1807), 193 ; 
 Franco-Russian (secret) (1807), 193 
 seq. ; Franco-Danish (1807), 21c ; 
 with Charles IV. of Spain partitioning 
 Portugal (October 27th, 1807), 217 ; 
 Secret agreement between Napoleon 
 and Alexander, 225 ; with Turkey 
 (1809), 232 ; of Vienna (1809), 240 ; 
 of Bucharest (1812), 289 ; of Kalisch, 
 306 ; Anglo-Swedish (181 3), 307 seq.; 
 of Reichenbach (1813), 316; of 
 Chaumont (1814), 347, 354, 367 ; 
 of Peterswaldau, 347 ; of Fontaine- 
 bleau (1814), 351,368; of Paris 
 ( l8l 4). 352 seq., 367, 371 ; of Kiel 
 (1814), 354. 
 
 Tudela, Spanish defeat at, 229. 
 
 Turgot's doctrines, 56. 
 
 Turkey, 24, 78, 79, 95, 116, 119, 123, 
 J 33» r 53> 196, 212, 214 seq., 290. 
 
 Tuscany, 24, 42, 85, 98, 101, 210. 
 
 Tyrol, rises against Bavaria, 239. 
 
 Universal service reprobated, 30, 148. 
 Ushant, battle, 31. 
 
 Vauchamps, battle of, 344. 
 Vendue insurrection, 41, 44, 72, 91. 
 Venice, end of Republic, 62, 108, 173, 
 
 33i» 346. 
 Victory celebrations, 32, 72, 175. 
 Vienna, Congress of, 366 General 
 
 Treaty of, 377. 
 Vimiera, 223, 325. 
 Vittoria, victory at, 318. 
 
 Wagram, battle of, 239. 
 
 Walter, John, of The Times, prosecuted, 
 128. 
 
 War, English panic, 1793, 22 ; 
 optimism, 22 seq., 44 ; prolonged by 
 success, 29, 78 ; English aims, 90, 
 121 ; Crown, income from it, 157 ; 
 influence on public, 20-3, 47 ; clergy, 
 22; newspapers, 22 seq., 118. 127 seq 
 seq. ; law courts, 31. 
 
 Warsaw, Duchy of, 229, 240, seq., 307, 
 313, 316, 366, 377. 
 
 Warwick, Lord, on farmers, 104. 
 
 Waterloo, victory at, 376. 
 
 Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, 43. 
 
 Wellesley, Lord, 207 ; succeeds Can- 
 ning, 245 ; his trust in Kolli, 257 ; 
 on the Spanish press, 273 ; advised 
 by Francis Jackson, 300 ; on the 
 Peninsular War, 302 ; protests of, 
 358 ; on the Inquisition, 359 ; his 
 minority, 376. 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, lands at Corunna, 
 223 ; lands at Lisbon, 246 ; on his 
 army, 248 ; pursues Mass6na, 270 ; 
 on the Inquisition, 359. 
 
 Westphalia, kingdom of, 229 ; Hanover 
 incorporated in, 261 ; ceded to 
 Prussia, 378. 
 
 Wheat, embargo on, 16 ; price, 48, 102. 
 
 Whitbread, 205, 228, 233, 253, 275, 
 298, 302, 304, 355, 357, 367, 372. 
 
 Whitworth, Sir Charles, and murder of 
 Paul I.. 1 1 3-6; 138 seq.; leaves 
 Paris, 142. 
 
 Wiasme, atrocities, at, 297. 
 
 Wickham, William, agent at Berne, 45, 
 51 seq., 72, 74, 86 seq. 
 
 Wilberforce, 43, 49. 
 
 Wilson, Sir Robert, 273, 355 ; on 
 English proneness to power, 244 ; 
 his influence over Alexander, 294 ;
 
 394 
 
 INDEX 
 
 on Russian peasant atrocities, 297 ; 
 on Frederick William III., 306 ; on 
 position of the Allies, 314 ; on 
 Napoleon's overtures, 322 seq. ; on 
 Bavaria's defection, 323 ; his war 
 ardour, 334 ; on atrocities, 338 ; 
 " British Expedition to Egypt," 
 134 ; on 1807 campaign, 187 seq. 
 
 Windham, on French character, 16 ; 
 
 on peace, 43; 57, 118, 121; 
 
 character, 46 ; on Fox, 109, 144, 191. 
 Wine, Napoleon's orders for, 266. 
 Wurtemburg, 53, 99, 169, 179. 
 Wurzchen, battle of, 314. 
 
 York, Duke of, 37 seq., 88, 109. 
 
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