Affairs of Naples and of the Pope--The Emperor Paul of
Russia--Northern confederacy against England--Battle of
Copenhagen--Nelson's Victory--Death of Paul--Expedition to Egypt
under Sir Ralph Abercrombie--Battle of Alexandria--Conquest of
Egypt--The Flotilla of Boulogne--Negotiations with England--Peace
of Amiens.
England alone remained steadfast in her hostility; and, as we shall
presently see, the Chief Consul was even able to secure for himself the
alliance against her of some of the principal powers in Europe; but
before we proceed to the eventful year of 1801, there are some incidents
of a minor order which must be briefly mentioned.
It has been already said that the half-crazy Emperor of Russia had taken
up a violent personal admiration for Buonaparte, and, under the
influence of that feeling, virtually abandoned Austria before the
campaign of Marengo. Napoleon took every means to flatter the Autocrat
and secure him in his interests. Paul had been pleased to appoint
himself Grand Master of the ruined Order of the Knights of St. John. It
was his not idle ambition to obtain, in this character, possession of
the Island of Malta; and Buonaparte represented the refusal of the
English government to give up that stronghold as a personal insult to
Paul. Some 10,000 Russian prisoners of war were not only sent back in
safety, but new clothed and equipped at the expense of France; and the
Autocrat was led to contrast this favourably with some alleged neglect
of these troops on the part of Austria, when arranging the treaty of
Luneville. Lastly, the Queen of Naples, sister to the German Emperor,
being satisfied that, after the battle of Marengo, nothing could save
her husband's Italian dominions from falling back into the hands of
France (out of which they had been rescued, during Napoleon's Egyptian
campaign, by the English, under Lord Nelson), took up the resolution of
travelling in person to St. Petersburg in the heart of the winter, and
soliciting the intercession of Paul. The Czar, egregiously flattered
with being invoked in this fashion, did not hesitate to apply in the
Queen's behalf to Buonaparte; and the Chief Consul, well calculating the
gain and the loss, consented to spare Naples for the present, thereby
completing the blind attachment of that weak-minded despot.
At the same time when Nelson delivered Naples from the French, a party
of English seamen, under Commodore Trowbridge, had landed at the mouth
of the Tiber, marched to Rome, and restored the Pope. The French army,
after the great victory which gave them back Lombardy and Piedmont,
doubted not that the re-establishment of "the Roman Republic" would be
one of its next consequences. But Buonaparte, who had in the interim
re-opened the churches of France, was now disposed to consider the
affairs of the Pope with very different eyes. In a word, he had already
resolved to make use of the Holy Father in the consolidation of his own
power as a monarch; and, as the first step to this object, the
government of the Pope was now suffered to continue--not a little to the
astonishment of the French soldiery, and to the confusion, it may be
added, and regret, of various powers of Europe.
The First Consul, meanwhile, proceeded to turn the friendship of the
Russian Emperor to solid account. It has never, in truth, been difficult
to excite angry and jealous feelings, among the minor maritime powers,
with regard to the naval sovereignty of England. The claim of the right
of searching neutral ships, and her doctrine on the subject of
blockades, had indeed been recognised in many treaties by Russia, and by
every maritime government in Europe. Nevertheless, the old grudge
remained; and Buonaparte now artfully employed every engine of diplomacy
to awaken a spirit of hostility against England, first, in the
well-prepared mind of the Czar, and then in the cabinets of Prussia,
Denmark, and Sweden. The result was, in effect, a coalition of these
powers against the mistress of the seas; and, at the opening of the
nineteenth century, England had to contemplate the necessity of
encountering single-handed the colossal military force of France, and
the combined fleets of Europe. To deepen the shadows of her prospects at
that great crisis of her history, the people suffered severely under a
scarcity of food, in consequence of bad harvests; and the efforts which
England made, under such an accumulation of adverse circumstances, must
ever be treasured among the proudest of her national recollections.
In January, 1801, the first imperial parliament of Great Britain and
Ireland assembled; and, shortly afterwards, in consequence of a
difference of opinion, touching the Roman Catholic Question, between
George III. and Mr. Pitt, that great minister resigned his office, and a
new cabinet was formed, with Mr. Addington (afterwards Viscount
Sidmouth) at its head. These changes were a new source of embarrassment;
yet the prosecution of the war was urged with undiminished vigour.
Early in March, Admiral Sir Hyde Parker and Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson
conducted a fleet into the Baltic, with the view of attacking the
northern powers in their own harbours, ere they could effect their
meditated junction with the fleets of France and Holland. The English
passed the Sound on the 13th of March, and reconnoitred the road of
Copenhagen, where the Crown-Prince, Regent of Denmark, had made
formidable preparations to receive them. It was on the 2nd of April that
Nelson, who had volunteered to lead the assault, having at length
obtained a favourable wind, advanced with twelve ships of the line,
besides frigates and fire-ships, upon the Danish armament, which
consisted of six sail of the line, eleven floating batteries, and an
enormous array of small craft, all chained to each other and to the
ground, and protected by the Crown-batteries, mounting eighty-eight
guns, and the fortifications of the isle of Amack. The battle lasted for
four hours, and ended in a signal victory. Some few schooners and
bomb-vessels fled early, and escaped: the whole Danish fleet besides
were sunk, burnt, or taken. The Prince Regent, to save the capital from
destruction, was compelled to enter into a negotiation, which ended in
the abandonment of the French alliance by Denmark. Lord Nelson then
reconnoitred Stockholm; but, being unwilling to inflict unnecessary
suffering, did not injure the city, on discovering that the Swedish
fleet had already put to sea. Meantime, news arrived that Paul had been
assassinated in his palace at St. Petersburg; and that the policy which
he had adopted, to the displeasure of the Russian nobility, was likely
to find no favour with his successor. The moving spirit of the northern
confederacy was, in effect, no more, and a brief negotiation ended in
its total disrupture.[41]
In the same month of March the British arms were crowned with a more
pleasing triumph in a more distant region. From the time when Buonaparte
landed in Egypt, the occupation of that country by a French army, and
its possible consequences to our empire in the East, had formed a
subject of anxious solicitude in the cabinet of St. James's; and the
means for attacking the army which Napoleon had entrusted to Kleber,
had, at length, been combined and set in motion, in opposition to the
sentiments both of the King and Mr. Pitt, by the bold spirit of Lord
Melville, then at the head of the Indian Board of Control. The fleet of
Lord Keith, carrying Sir Ralph Abercrombie and his army, were already in
possession of Malta; another army of 7000, composed partly of English
troops and partly of sepoys, had been dispatched from India, and
approached Egypt by the way of the Red Sea; and, lastly, the Ottoman
Porte was prepared to co-operate with General Abercrombie, whenever he
should effect a landing in the neighbourhood of Alexandria. That event
occurred on the 13th of March, the British troops disembarking in the
face of the French, who were very strongly posted; and, at length,
driving them from the shore. On the 21st a general engagement took place
in front of Alexandria; and Sir Ralph Abercrombie fell, mortally
wounded, in the moment of victory. General Hutchinson (afterwards Earl
of Donoughmore), on whom the command devolved, pursued the advantage.
Kleber, who by his excellent administration had earned the title of the
_Just Sultan_, had been assassinated by an obscure fanatic on the same
day when Dessaix died gloriously at Marengo; and Menou, who succeeded to
the command of the French army in Egypt, was found wholly incapable of
conducting either the civil or the military business of the colony to
advantage. He shut himself up in Alexandria with the relics of the army
defeated on the 21st. The English, forthwith, let the sea into the lake
Mareotis: the capital was thus made an island, and all communication
with the country cut off. Hutchinson was now joined by the Turkish
Capitan-pasha and 6000 men; and intelligence reached him that the Indian
reinforcement, under General Baird, had landed at Cossire. Rosetta was
soon captured; and, after various skirmishes, Cairo was invested. On the
28th of June General Belliard and a garrison of 13,000 surrendered, on
condition that they should be transported in safety to France: and
Menou, perceiving that defence was hopeless and famine at hand,
followed, ere long, the same example. Thus, in one brief campaign, was
Egypt entirely rescued from the arms of France. But even that great
advantage was a trifle, when compared with the stimulus afforded to
national confidence at home, by this timely re-assertion of the
character of the English army. At sea we had never feared an enemy; but
the victories of Abercrombie destroyed a fatal prejudice which had, of
recent days, gained ground,--that the military of Great Britain were
unfit to cope with those of revolutionary France. Nor should it be
forgotten, that if Abercrombie had the glory of first leading English
soldiers to victory over the self-styled _Invincibles_ of Buonaparte, he
owed the means of his success to the admirable exertions of the Duke of
York, in reforming the discipline of the service as commander-in-chief.
On learning the fate of Egypt, Buonaparte exclaimed, "Well, there
remains only the descent on Britain;" and, in the course of a few weeks,
not less than 100,000 troops were assembled on the coasts of France. An
immense flotilla of flat-bottomed boats was prepared to carry them
across the Channel, whenever, by any favourable accident, it should be
clear of the English fleets; and both the soldiery and the seamen of the
invading armament were trained and practised incessantly, in every
exercise and manoeuvre likely to be of avail when that long-looked-for
day should arrive. These preparations were met, as might have been
expected, on the part of the English government and nation. Nelson was
placed in command of the Channel fleet; and the regular army was
reinforced on shore by a multitude of new and enthusiastic volunteers;
men of all parties and ranks joining heart and hand in the great and
sacred cause. Lord Nelson, more than once, reconnoitred the flotilla
assembled at Boulogne, and, at length, attempted the daring movement of
cutting out the vessels, in the teeth of all the batteries. The boats
being chained to the shore, crowded with soldiery, and placed
immediately under the fortifications, the attempt was unsuccessful; but
the gallantry with which it was conducted struck new terror into the
hearts of the French marine, and, Nelson continuing to watch the Channel
with unsleeping vigilance, the hopes of the First Consul, ere long,
sunk.
The successes of the English in the Baltic and in Egypt were well
calculated to dispose Napoleon for negotiation: and the retirement of
Mr. Pitt, who was considered throughout Europe as the author and very
soul of the anti-revolutionary war, was not without its influence. On
the other hand, Napoleon's mighty successes against the German emperor
had been followed up this same year by the march of a French and Spanish
army into Portugal, in consequence of which that last ally of England
had been compelled to submit to the general fate of the continent. On
both sides there existed the strongest motives for accommodation; and,
in effect, after a tedious negotiation, the preliminaries of peace were
signed, on the 10th of October, at Amiens. By this treaty England
surrendered all the conquests which she had made during the war, except
Ceylon and Trinidad. France, on the other hand, restored what she had
taken from Portugal, and guaranteed the independence of the Ionian
Islands. Malta was to be restored to the Knights of St. John, and
declared a free port: neither England nor France was to have any
representatives in the order; and the garrison was to consist of the
troops of a neutral power. This article was that which cost the greatest
difficulty--and Malta was destined to form the pretext, at least, for
the re-opening of the war at no distant date.
Meantime, except by a small party, who thought that England should never
make peace unless the Bourbon family were restored to the throne of
France, this news was received with universal satisfaction throughout
Great Britain. "It was," as Mr. Sheridan summed up the matter, "a peace
which all men were glad of, and of which no man could be proud." The
definitive treaty was signed on the 25th of March, 1802: and nothing
could surpass the demonstrations of joy on this occasion, both in London
and in Paris--or the enthusiastic display of good-will with which the
populace of either capital welcomed the plenipotentiaries.
[Footnote 41: For the details of the battle of Copenhagen see Southey's
_Life of Nelson_. That conflict has been celebrated, in a noble lyric,
by Campbell--
"Of Nelson and the North
Sing the glorious day's renown,
When to the battle fierce came forth
All the might of Denmark's crown," &c.
]