Introduction to the History of the Peace, from 1800 to 1815

Introduction

TO THE HISTORY OF THE PEACE. FROM 1800 TO 1815. BY HARRIET MARTINEAU. LONDON: CHARLES KNIGHT, 90, FLEET STREET. 1851. CONTENTS.

Book I

1790 — 1800. Page Balancing System i Russia ii Austria iii Prussia iv England ib. France v Minor European Powers vi French Revolution ib. Napoleon Bonaparte ib. Made FirstConsul vii Proposal of Peace ib. His Successes ix Condition of England xi Mr. Pitt ib. Sedition ib. Financial Difficulty xii Mutiny ib. Irish Rebellion ib. The Royal Family xiii Landowners xiv Tradesmen ib. Farmers ib. Aesricultural Improvement ib. Cotton Manufacture ib. Operatives xv Woollen Manufacture ib. Silk ib. Hardware xvi Condition of Middle Class ib. Of Industrial Classes ib. Military Liabilities xvii Severity of the Law ib. Health xviii Ireland xix j The Union „. xx Temper of the Times .' xxii 1801 Mr. Pitt xxiv The Catholic Question in the Cabinet xxvii Pagb Proposed Change of Ministry xxviii Illness of the King xxx The Northern Confederacy xxxii English Fleet in the Baltic xxxiii Battle of Copenhagen ib.

Armistice xxxv Pacific Convention xxxvi Expedition to Egypt xxxvii Battle of Abookeer xxxviii Death of Abercromby ib. French Evacuation of Egypt ib. Mr. Pitt's Resignation xxxix Mr. Addington ib. Peace Negotiations xl Preliminaries signed ib. Terms of the Treaty of Amiens ... xliii Definitive Treaty signed ib. 1801— a The Irish Union xliv Discontents of various Parties xlv Opinions of the Government xlvii French Tampering ib. The Eminetts xlix Plot ib. Outbreak Ii Lord Kilwarden ib. Results Iii Coercion liii Catholics stirred up ib. Currency Troubles ib. Dukt of Bedford Viceroy liv 1801—4. Precariousness of the Peace Iv Bantry Bay Mutiny ib. Foreign Travel „ lvi Dissolution of Parliament lvii Weakness of the Premier lviii French Requisitions lix Peltier Ix French Aggressions ib. King's Message lx: CONTENTS Page Negotiation with Mr. Pitt lxii Stock Exchange Hoax lxiv War declared ib.

Holland ib. Preparations for War lxv The Prince of Wales Ixvii The English in France lxviii First Naval Captures ib. Loss of Hanover lxix British Policy lxx The Duke of Kent lxxi Position of the Heir Apparent ... ib. Colonel Despard's Plot lxxiii Execution of Governor Wall ib. Prorogation of Parliament lxxiv State of Parties ib. The Grenville Letter lxxvi Royal Anxieties lxxvii Meeting of Parliament lxxviii Force of theCountry lxxix The King's Illness lxx* New Co-operation lxxxi Last Days of the Addington Ministry ib. Debate on the Defence of the Country lxxxii New Administration lxxxiv Position of Mr. Pitt lxxxv Loss of West India Ships ib. Incidents in France ib. Solemn Ceremonials in London ... lxxxvii 1804—6. Napoleon Emperor Ixxxix Mr. Pitt as War Minister xe Additional Force Bill ib.

National Condition xci Continental Alliances xcii The Catamaran Expedition ib. Relations with Spain xciii Seizure of Treasure Ships xciv Reconciliation of Pitt and Addington xcv Declaration of War with Spain xcvii Naval Administration xcix Lord Melville ib. Motion of Censure c Lord Melville's Defence ciii His Impeachment civ Resignation of Lord Sidmoutb ib. Pack Catholic Question civ Prospects of the War cv General Mack's Surrender cviii The French at Vienna cix Nelson in the Mediterranean ... ex Roving the Seas cxi Battle of Trafalgar cxii Death of Nelson cxiii His Character ib. Accession of Prussia to the League exvi Battle of A usterlitz cxvii Austrian Treaty cxviii Mr. Pitt's Illness ib. His Death exx 1801 — 6. Arthur Wellesley in India cxxii Subsidiary System cxxiv The Mahrattas exxv Five Chiefs ib.

Their Empire cxxvii The Mahratta War ib. Plan of the Campaign cxxix General Wellesley in the Deckan exxx Battle of Assaye ib. Battle of Argaum cxxxi Colonel Murray in Guzerat cxxxii General Lake in Hindustan ib. Battle of Delhi cxxxiii Restoration of the Mogul Sovereign ib. Battle of Laswarree ib. Lieutenant-Colonel Harcourt in Cuttack cxxxiv Results of the Campaign cxxxv Salt Monopoly ib. Treaties cxxxvi Wellesley Administration in India cxxxviii Lord Cornwallis Governor- General ib. His Death cxl 1806—7. Meeting of Parliament cxli The King's Dislike of Mr. Fox ib. Alarming State of Affairs exlii All the Talents cxliv The Catholic Question ib. Lord Grenville CONTENTS. V Page Aspect of public affairs cxci Education cxciii Popular maintenance cxeiv Emigration cxcv Bequests of the Grenville Ministry ib.

Buenos Ayres expedition ib. Dardanelles expedition cxc vii Egyptian expedition cc Napoleon and Prussia ccii His Berlin decree ib. Battle of Eylau cciii Apathy of England cciv Professions of Russia ccvi Conference at Tilsit ib. Treaty of Tilsit ccvii Secret articles ccviii England and Denmark ccix Seizure of the Danish fleet ccx Bombardment of Copenhagen ... ccxi Russian declaration of War ccxiv King of Sweden ccxv Swedish alliance lost..- ccxvi France and Portugal ib. Opening of the Peninsular War ccxvii Court of Spain and Napoleon ... ib. Invasion of Portugal ccxviii Departure of the Royal Family for Brazil ccxix Napoleon and the Spanish Bourbons ccxxi Invasion of Spain ccxxii Tumult at Madrid ccxxiii The Court enticed to Bayonne... ccxxiv Spanish appeal to England ccxxv Renunciation of Empire by the Bourbons ccxxvi Landing of British in Spain ccxxvii Successes of Sir A. Wellesley ... ccxxviii Convention of Cintra ccxxix Aspect of European affairs ccxxx Meeting at Erfurtb ib.

Battle of Wagram ccxxxi Andrew Hofer ib. False hopes of Spain ib. Sir John Moore's Campaign ... ccxxxii His Retreat ccxxxiii Battle of Corunna ccxxxvi Death of Sir John Moore ib. Gloomy aspect of the War ccxxxvii Page Charles James Fox cxlviii Other Ministers cli Opposition Rancour clii First Difficulties ib. Military Administration cliii Financial cliv Negotiation for Peace ib. Reprobation of tbe Slave Trade clvii Wilberforce clviii Colonial Slave Trade Prohibition clix Acquittal of Lord Melville clxi Mr. Fox's Illness clxii Death of Lord Thurlow ib. Death of Mr. Fox ib. Slate of the War clxiii Battle of Maida clxiv The Cape regained clxv Buenos Ayres ib. Humiliation of Prussia clxvi Dissolution of Parties clxviii Dissolution of Parliament ib. Strength of the Cabinet clxix No Christmas recess clxx Lord Howick ib.

Mr. Canning ib. Mr. Perceval ib. Sir Samuel Romilly clxxi Francis Horner ib. Others ib. Force of the Country clxxiii Financial Scheme ib. Abolition of the Slave Trade ... clxxv The Catholics clxxviii Irish Act of 1 793 ib. Proposed relaxations clxxx Cabals clxxxi The King's retractation clxxxiii The Measure dropped clxxxiv The Ministry dismissed clxxxv Portland Administration ib. Offices in leversion clxxxvi " No Popery " cry ib. Dissolution of Parliament ib. " Tbe short Administration " ... clxxxvii

Book II

1807—9. The Portland Administration ... clxxxviii Mr. Perceval clxxxix vi CONTENTS. Page The Ministry unchanged cclxxxiv The King's health cclxxxvi The Court clxxxvii New Negotiations ib. Lords Castlereagh and Sidmouth in the Cabinet cclxxxviii Virtual close of the Reign ib. Mr. Perceval's death cclxxxix Provision for his Family ccxcii 1810—14. State of the Nation ccxciii Commercial Pressure ib. ccxciv -Wages ccxcv -Machinery ccxcvii -Frame Breaking ccxcviiii Acts ccxcix of Luddism ccc Lord Sidmouth, Home Secretary ccci Punishment of the Luddites cccii 1809—14. Peninsular War ccciv Sir A. Wellesley ib. Difficulties ib. Campaign of 1809 cccv Expulsion of the French from Portugal ib. Difficulties cccvi Talavera ib. Wellesley becomes Wellington... cccvii Gloomy close of the Year cccviii Campaign of 1810 cccx Loss of Cities ib.

Wellington's defensive Policy ... cccxi Lines of Torres Vedras ib. Busaco ib. Retreat of the French cccxii Grant for the relief of the Portuguese cccxiii Napoleon's present Supremacy.. ib. Reaction approaching cccxi v The Guerillas ib. Difficulties of the French cccxv Of the British cccxvi Campaign of 1811 cccxvii Albuera ib. Siege of Badajoz relinquished ... ib. Page The Walcheren expedition ccxxxviii Naval successes ccxlii Lord Collingwood ib. His death ccxliii Troubles with America ib. Orders in Council ib. Charges against the Duke of York ccxlv His resignation ccxlviii Inquiry into Abuses ccxlix Quarrel between Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning ccl Their duel ccli Changes in the Cabinet ib. Mr. Perceval, Prime Minister... ccliii The Jubilee ccliv Napoleon's divorce ib. His new Marriage ib.

Gloom at Home and Abroad ... cclv Celebration of the 50th year of the Reign ib. 1810—12. O. P. Question cclvii Opening of the Session cclix Mr. Peel ib. Adversity cclxi Commercial Crash ib. Efforts at reforms ib. Bullion Committee cclxii Penal Law reform eclxvi Condition of the Clergy cclxvii Dissenters' Licenses Bill cclxviii Privilege question cclxix Parliamentary censure of Burdett cclxxii Sir F. Burdett committed to the Tower celxxiii His release cclxxv Weakness of the Government ... cclxxvi Death of Windham cclxxvii Death of the Princess Amelia ... cclxxix Insanity of the King ib. Meeting of Parliament ib. Repeated adjournments cclxxx Proposition of a Regency cclxxxi The Princes' protest ib. Restrictions on the Regent cclxxxiii Negotiations with Lords Grenville and Grey ib. CONTENTS VII Pagb Campaign of 1812 cccxvii Ciudad Rodrigo ib.

Badajoz cccxviii Salamanca cccxxi Occupation of Madrid ib. Failure at Burgos cccxxii Evacuation of Madrid ib. Retreat ib. Northern Wars of Napoleon cccxxiii Burning of Moscow cccxxiv Napoleon's Retreat ib. National Hope cccxxv Wellington Commander-in-Chief of Armies in Spain cccxxvi Campaign of 1813 cccxxvii French retire Northwards ib. Vittoria cccxxix French evacuate Madrid cccxxx Failure at St. Sebastian ib. St. Sebastian taken cccxxxi Wellington enters France cccxxxiii Pamplona taken cccxxxiii The Allies in France ib. Napoleon's Treaty with Ferdinand cccxxxv Its rejection in Spain cccxxxvi Intrigues in Catalonia ib. Campaign of 1814 cccxxxvii Ferdinand at Home ib. Catalonia evacuated by the French ib. Bayonne invested cccxxxviii Bordeaux entered ib. Toulouse cccxxxix Soult's retreat ib.

News of Napoleon's Abdication ib. Return of the Army cccxi Of Wellington ib. 1812—15. Relations with the United States cccxli Difficulty about a' Government in England cccxliii Repeal of the Orders in Council ib. Declaration of War cccxliv First Blow struck cccxlv Employment of Indians ib. British Successes on Land cccxlviii Losses at Sea ib. Extensive Blockade cccxlix Russian Intervention ib. Page Proposals of Peace eccxlix Capture of Washington ccclii Commission at Ghent cccliv Mississippi Expedition ccclv Battle of New Orleans ib. Retreat of the British ccclvi Capture of Fort Mobile ib. Treaty of Ghent ccclvii 1812—14. The Regent and his Family ccclviii The Princess Charlotte ccclix The Prince of Orange ib. Her flight to her Mother ccclx Prince Leopold of Saxe Cobourg ib. Marriage ccelxi Irish Affairs ib.

The Press ccclxii Mr. Perry ib. Mr. Cobbett ib. Mr. Scott ccclxiii The Hunts ib. Printers' Name Bill ib. Creation of Vice-Chancellorship ccclxiv Attainder ccclxv High Treason Sentence ccclxvi East India Company's Charter... ib. Church Establishment in India ceclxvii , Education ccclxviii Bible Societies ccclxix Joanna Southcote ccclxx New plan of Finance ceclxxi Stock Exchange Fraud ccclxxii Extraordinary Weather ib. Burning of the Custom House... ccclxxiii 1813—15. Napoleon 's renewed Efforts ccclxx v New compact of Allies ib. The Allies defeated ccclxxvi Armistice ib. Conference ib. Austrian declaration of War ib. Battle of Dresden ccclxxvi Succeeding Battles ib. Sufferings of the French ccclxxviii Napoleon's vacillation ccclxxix Remonstrance of his Marshals... ib. Retreat ib. CONTENTS, VIII Pace First Battle of Leipsic ccclxxx Second Battle ib.

Hanau ccclxxxi Napoleon at Paris ccclxxxii Independence of Holland proclaimed ib. The Allies cross the Rhine ib. Congress of Chatillon ib. Partial success of Napoleon ccclxxxiii Treaty of Chaumont ib. Bourbon manifestations ccclxxxiv Capitulation of Paris ib. Entry of the Allies ccclxxxv Provisional Government ib. Abdication of Napoleon ccclxxxvi Attempted Suicide ccclxxxvii Desertion of the Empress ib. Departure for Elba ib. Death of Josephine ccclxxxviii Return of the Bourbons ib. Treaty of Paris ccclxxxix London Gaiety ib. Wellington's Return ib. Popular Misgivings cccxc Distrust Abroad cccxci Napoleon's Return ib. Arrival in Paris cccxcii Treaty of Vienna ib. Constitutional Monarchy at Paris cccxciii Napoleon proceeds to Belgium... ib. The British at Brussels ib. Quatre Bras and Ligny cccxciv Page Waterloo cccxciv Napoleon's return to Paris cccxcvi Is carried to St. Helena ib.

Capitulation of Paris cccxcvii The news in England ib. Second Treaty of Paris ib. Wellington's Farewell ib. 1801—15. Steam Navigation cccxcviii Death of Boulton cccxcix Chain Cables ib. Steam Carriages ib. Count Rumford ib. Plymouth Breakwater cccc Chelsea Hospital ib. Haileybury College ib. Tea ib. Joint Stock Bread Company ... cccci National Isolation ib. Foreign Literature ccccii The Literary Fund ib. Music ib. /The Edinburgh Review cccciii , The Quarterly Review cccciv ib. Science ib. Necrology. Men of Science ... ib. Artists ccccvi Authors ib. Travellers ccccix 1800, Balancing System.

INTRODUCTION.

TO THE HISTORY OF THE PEACE.

BOOK I. CHAPTER

I. BEFORE the Nineteenth century opened, the inhabitants of Europe had entered upon a new period in the history of mankind ; a period which must be a conspicuous one to students of History through all future ages. — During the greater part of the eighteenth century, the potentates of Europe, and the higher order of their subjects with whom they associated, had been satisfied that the height of political civilization had been reached, by such an adjust ment of the Balance of Power as had never before been attained. The system appeared to be brought very near perfection. The solar system hardly seemed safer. The smaller states of Europe lived and moved among the larger as freely and securely as the lesser planets in their orbits, protected from absorption by the larger, by the balancing principle which kept all in their places.

It is true, there was a failure here and there, such as one does not see in the systems of the sky. There was the partition of Poland, for one. The plea for the partition was, that Poland could not be sustained as a separate power, on account of her miserable distractions ; and that she must have been absorbed by some one State, destroying the universal balance, if she had not been portioned out among several. There were complaints in certain quarters too about the reductions of Austrian power, and the aggrandizement of Prussia : but, upon the whole, it was evident to the world at large that Europe presented the most advanced political condition ever wit nessed, in the spectacle of its Balance of Power. It was not merely that the physical forces of States were kept under a salutary VOL. I. B _ Overthrow.

Bussia, restraint. This would have been a good thing, if it had been the only one : but it was a gross kind of advantage, not above the aim of any age. It was a much higher good that international relations became more extended and refined : international morality was professed, and to a certain degree fostered : wild tempers and immediate objects were subdued and postponed to ulterior con siderations : the weakest States became subjects of common pro tection, and the most out-lying countries of general observation : the way was opened for commercial connexions, and for mutual intercourses of every ameliorating kind : and the States of Europe really appeared as securely settled in an advanced political civiliza tion as any nomade tribes who have entered upon the cultivation of land, and built themselves a town, and actually experienced that the blessings of social organization and impartial law are well worth the individual concessions by which they are purchased.

As such a community might be roused in the night by a volcanic eruption which should overthrow their city and scorch up their fields, so were the powers of Europe struck aghast by the explosion of the French Revolution. They had overlooked something ; and their oversight cost them nothing short of the wreck of their system : just as the new settlers had omitted to look into the quality of the ground on which they were establishing themselves, and had no conception of the forces that might be acting under their feet. The something that the Monarchs and Statesmen of Europe left out of their calculations was that which will make the then incoming period conspicuous for ever in the history of the world, and which made the best wisdom of courts and cabinets a painstaking and conscientious foolishness.

The something that was overlooked was, that it would no longer answer to regard States only as units: that the time had come for multitudinous Peoples to be considered too. A new unit had been introduced into the association by those never-sleeping ushers, the centuries. Russia had desired to become a European power — a member of the confederation of European sovereigns. She need not have done so. She would have been very safe, for any length of time— invulnerable in her mantle of snows— unapproachable through her Lifeguards — the whole circle of storms. She might have wrought her despotic will for ever in the wide world of her own territories, if she had kept her face to the East. But it so happened that she turned westwards; and that first glance westwards may hereafter prove to have been the most tremendous event in human history.

The transference of the seat of Russian empire from Moscow to the coast of the Baltic is a striking picture to us : but if it should be found hereafter that through Russia will have come that War of Opinion in Europe, by which Oriental Despotism is finally to measure its force against the Western principle of Self-government by Representation, the 1800, Austria minutest proceedings of Peter and Catherine in Russia will become as interesting as any incidents in the lives of Greek or Roman heroes. Generations yet unborn will watch with eager eyes the pulling down of Finnish huts in the marshes, to make way for palaces of stone ; and the last waving of the bulrushes and reeds, where trim gardens were henceforth to be ; and the first dimple in the surface of stagnant lakes, when the canals were ready to drain them away j and the placing of block upon block, as the granite embankments rose along the Neva, raising it from a waste of fetid waters into a metropolitan river.

This river may turn out to be our modern Rubicon : and the stroke of Peter's hammer on the ship-side at Saardam may send a louder echo through future generations than to the ear of our own time. This great empire, seeking admission among the European states, at first alarmed them ; and the audacious and aspiring cast of mind of Peter and Catherine justified such apprehension for the time. But it soon appeared that their efficiency beyond their own territory bore no proportion to their ambition, and that they were not likely to prove themselves potentates except within their own boundary. The sovereigns of Russia would have said, and often did say, that they were considering their people during the whole of their reigns. It is true that they encouraged industry and commerce, and insti tuted prodigious works of improvement.

But this was not the con sideration of the Peoples of Europe which the progress of time was rendering necessary, and for want of which the whole system broke up. It was for the glory of the State and country, in consideration of the unit and not of the aggregate, that the great works of Peter and Catherine were done. They were done at the expense of justice and kindness to individuals. They were done with ignorant and fatal precipitation. They were clone in an impatient and boastful spirit : and the people felt no gratitude where they were aware of no benefit. In as far as they shared the vanity of their sovereign, they boasted and exulted in the sovereign's glory : but there was nothing done or doing for the Russian people which could render them of any use in the day of European convulsion.

The same may be said in regard to the great and venerable empire of Austria. There was nothing on which the Emperor Joseph prided himself so much as on his reforms. Yet, they were so done — with so much self-will and personal regards — that they exasperated those whom he professed to benefit. One of his reforms lost him the Belgian provinces of the empire ; and another alienated the affections of Hungary. Thus, while Austria in her reduced state was looked upon as an unexceptionable unit in the Balancing System, there was nothing in the condition of her people which could for a moment retard, or in any degree modify, the explosion which overthrew the arrangement. Austria has been mentioned as in a reduced condition. She was b Prussia England. reduced, not only by actual loss of dependencies, but, yet more, in regard to continental influence.

There could have been no balance in Europe if Austria had retained, with all her vast territories, an undisputed supremacy of influence. Prussia was aggrandized, up to the point of rivalship. The partition of Poland, in 1772, seems to have been acquiesced in more easily than it might have been, by other powers, on account of the strength it gave to Prussia. Prussia had indeed become a notable unit in the European system : but we have the Great Frederick's own report of the state of his country and people a dozen years before the outbreak of the French Revolution. " The nobility was exhausted," he says, in the History he wrote of his own time, " the Commons ruined, numbers of villages were burnt, and towns impoverished. Civil order was lost in a total anarchy : in a word, the desolation was universal."

He lent money to the towns, settled destitute people in the wastes, drained marshes, patronised manufactures, and, best of all, emancipated the peasants from hereditary servitude. Yet, his people were not happy; nor did they love him. His military system was so severe that his soldiers hanged themselves in their misery ; and the whole country groaned under the burden of a standing army of 200,000 men. The appearance of activity and an improved financial condition throughout the north of Germany deceived observers who regarded States only as units : but it is now well known that under all the arrangements, and amidst all the enterprises of Frederick of Prussia there was no genuine civil liberty — nothing that could keep the weight of the people on the same side of the balance with the kings.

As for the two leading States of Europe, France and England, their destiny in the moment of convulsion had been fixed long before — as all destiny is — and with more clearness than is common in political affairs. The English revolution of a century before had secured a better condition for the British nation, in regard to civil liberty, than was enjoyed by any other people in Europe ; and the transient oppressions exercised or attempted by panic-stricken or one sided statesmen under the alarm of convulsion were of small account in comparison with the securities for constitutional freedom in the long run. No discontent of the British people certainly contributed to the European explosion which destroyed the Balance of Power. The insular position of England rendered her circumstances so far different from those of other States as that she could never be suspected of aims of continental conquest.

The imputations cast on her by her great rival were of arrogance in overhearing other people's will and affairs ; insatiable rapacity about annexing islands and distant coasts to her dominions ; and a shopkeeping ambition to monopolize the commerce, and command the industry, of the world. This was another way of saying that her function was to be mistress of the seas ; as her great rival was, beyond question, V 1800. FSANCE. Standing Armies. the most formidable warlike power on the continental battle-field of ambition. As for France, she was, before the breaking out of the Revolution, very strong ; and she was spoken of as stronger than she was. Her population was above 25,000,000 : but it was unhappy. Her authority and dominion over her neighbours were very imposing : but there was discontent beneath : and, when the conquests of the Revolution were made, and France claimed to be the ruling power from the Texel to the Adriatic, she was in fact weakened by her new conquests, which were no more really French than they had been before.

Her great standing armies, by which she had been distinguished since Louis XIV. augmented them to a prodigious extent, were a cause of weakness in one direction while they were an element of vast strength in another. The institution of standing armies was a feature of an advanced social condition at the outset. It showed that the time had come for that division of industry under which the large majority of the inhabitants of a country pursued the business of their lives, con tributing from the fruits of their labour to maintain a set of men to do the necessary fighting. The excitement and the honor of war were incalculably lessened by this arrangement, and the interests of peace were, in the first instance, remarkably promoted, by the tranquillity in which the greater part of the population and their employments were left.

But then, this institution of standing armies became so oppressive as to be a main cause of revolutionary action in France and other countries. When Louis XIV. increased his forces, so as to exhibit to Europe the new spectacle of a standing army, at all times adequate to all contingencies, his neighbours began to muster armies which might keep his in check ; and thus the practice of expanding the military element went on through Europe, till Prussia, under the Great Frederick, had a peace establishment of 200,000 men, and France, under the last Bourbons, of 500,000 men. The resident inhabitants felt this force to be at once a severe burden in point of cost, and an irksome restraint : and they revolted against this, among other grievances. Thus, the machinery which was considered a means and proof of strength, and which was said to be provided for the maintenance of the Balancing System — for the repression of overgrown power in one direction, and the support of oppressed weakness in another — proved so heavy as to become in itself destructive of that which it assumed to preserve.

While France was confident at home, and dreaded abroad, on account of her military preponderance, she was on the point of being put to her last shifts to preserve her place in Europe at all. It may be noted, in contemplating the position of the two great rival States, that England was more likely to find favour in the eyes of other continental powers than France, since her kind of supremacy involved little danger to her neighbours. France, with VI 1800, Minor Euro. peanPowers French Re. volution. Napoleon Bonaparte, her vast military resources, was a dangerous neighbour. The naval power of England might vex and harass the States, and cripple their commercial resources; but it could not keep them always in peril of their lives. In the midst, therefore, of a general dislike of her " arrogance," England was more trusted and less feared than France, among the company of European States.

As for the smaller powers — Holland was gained over from the French to the English alliance, by the honest and skilful management of Lord Maimesbury, just before the breaking out of the French Revolution. It was of little consequence what Spain did. Spain was too essentially feeble to affect much the destinies of other States : but her natural and political tendencies were to alliance with France. Portugal was feeble too : and she and Spain were always prone to quarrel ; and Portugal was our ally. — Turkey was rescued from absorption by Russia just before the death of Catherine; and it could hardly now be called a power at all. — Italy, also, was soon proved to be at the disposal of the greater potentates, having small inherent force. — Sweden and Norway were not likely to give any trouble spontaneously; nor did they seem in the way to require any especial protection.

The Balancing System was not founded on treaties, or any sort of express compact. It was a product of Time — a necessary stage of civilization, as we have said : and the natural force by which States united to keep the strongest in check, and uphold the weakest, appears indeed to have manifested itself, in its own season, as the counteracting and compensating forces of nature do, whether men call for them or not. In such cases, there is usually something involved which men overlook; and in this case of the Balancing System, there were elements of which kings and statesmen were wholly unaware. They were counting and placing their units, supposing all safe : not seeing that these units were aggregates, with a self-moving power. Kings were no longer what they had been. They must have Ministers who were not their own tools, but who bore some relation to the people at large.

In England, this had so long been a settled matter that nobody thought of questioning it. In France, the Bourbons never could clearly see it. They never saw that if it once became a matter of contest whether a European monarch and his tools should rule with or without a regard to the interests and needs of the people, the matter could end no otherwise than in the defeat of the despot. So the Bourbons were driven forth from France, as the Stuarts had been from England : and all the world waited with intense anxiety to see what would become of France in regard to the Balancing System. The matter was made clear, after some years of struggle, by a Corsican youth, who was an engineer, without prospect and without fortune, when the French revolution broke out. By his military talents, and his genius for command, he had risen, before the 1800. opening of our century, to such a point of eminence, that on his "*- — —' life seemed to hang the destinies of the world.

In 1796 he crossed the Alps, leading the armies of France to the conquest of Italy, whence he compelled the Pope and the other Italian sovereigns to v send the treasures of art to Paris. He there defeated five Austrian armies ; and showed his quality at home by wresting from the French Directory, and concentrating in himself, the entire control of the army. In 1798, he conquered Egypt, threatened India, and, in 1799, overran Syria, where, however, he was repulsed at Acre by the British under Sir Sidney Smith, and driven back upon Egypt. Returning to Paris, he carried all before him ; and the year closed on his appointment as First Consul for life. He was made first invested with supreme executive authority. The first mention of his name in the published journal of the great British diplomatist, Lord Maimesbury, occurs in November, 1796.