REIGN OF GEORGE III. (_continued_).
Napoleon's Plans of Conquest--Sebastiani's Report--Napoleon's
Complaints against the British Press--Espionage and
Confiscation--He continues his Continental Aggressions--Napoleon's
Interview with Lord Whitworth--Imminence of War--Negotiations for
Pitt's Return to Office--War Declared--Napoleon Arrests British
subjects in France--Seizure of Hanover--Emmett's Rebellion--Naval
Attacks on the French Coast--The Mahratta War--Battle of
Assaye--Successes of General Lake--Battle of Laswaree--Battle
of Argaum--Conclusion of the War--Renewed Illness of George
III.--Increasing Opposition of Pitt--He offers to undertake the
Government--He forms a Tory Ministry--Wilberforce's Abolition
Motion--The Additional Force Bill--Scheme for blowing up the
French Fleet--War with Spain--The Georges Conspiracy--Murder
of the Duke D'Enghien--Napoleon becomes Emperor--His
Letter to the British King--The Condition of Europe--Lord
Mulgrave's Reply to the Letter--Ministerial Changes--Weakness
of the Ministry--Attack on Lord Melville--Whitbread's
Motion--Melville's Defence--His Impeachment voted--Secession of
Lord Sidmouth--The European Coalition--Hastened by Napoleon's
Aggressions--Rashness of Austria--Invasion of Bavaria--Napoleon
marches on the Rhine--Capitulation of the Austrian Army at
Ulm--Occupation of Vienna--Battle of Austerlitz--Treaties of
Schönbrunn and Pressburg--The Baltic Expedition--Expedition to
Naples--Naval Affairs--Nelson's Pursuit of Villeneuve--Calder's
Engagement--Battle of Trafalgar--Death of Nelson--Continuation
of the Mahratta War--Lord Lake's Engagements with Holkar--Siege
of Bhurtpore--Defeat of Meer Khan--The Rajah of Bhurtpore makes
Peace--Treaties with Scindiah and Holkar--Death of Pitt--Payment of
his Debts by the Nation.
The Peace of Amiens, instead of turning the attention of Buonaparte
to internal improvements, seemed to give it opportunity to range, in
imagination, over the whole world with schemes of conquest and of the
suppression of British dominion. There was no spot, however remote,
that he did not examine on the map with reference to plans of conquest.
Louisiana and Guiana, obtained from Spain and Portugal, were viewed
as ports whence conquest should advance to Nova Scotia, Canada, the
Brazils, Mexico, and Peru. Every station in the West India Isles was
calculated as a point for this purpose, and for seizing some day all
the British islands there. The Cape of Good Hope, Madagascar, the isles
of France and Bourbon, the Dutch spice isles, and their settlements
in Java, Sumatra, etc., were regarded as a chain of ports which would
enable Buonaparte to become master of India. He sent out expeditions,
under different officers, to examine every island and region where the
British had a settlement, or where he might plant one, to oppose them.
One of these expeditions sailed in a couple of corvettes, commanded
by Captain Baudin, who was accompanied by a staff of thirty-three
naturalists, geologists, _savants_, etc., the ostensible object being
science and discovery--the real one the ascertaining of the exact
possessions of Britain, and of the best means of becoming master of
them. The head of the scientific staff was M. Péron. On their return
their report was published, and it is singular that in this report
St. Helena, destined to be the prison of Napoleon, is described in
rapturous terms as an earthly paradise.
Another expedition was that of Colonel Sebastiani, a Corsican, who
was despatched to Egypt, Syria, and other countries of the Levant.
Sebastiani reported to Buonaparte that the British were so detested
in Egypt that six thousand men would suffice to re-take it; that
Buonaparte's name was so venerated that it had procured him the utmost
honour everywhere, and especially with Djezzar Pacha, Viceroy of Egypt.
He asserted that General Stuart, the British envoy, had endeavoured to
excite the Turks to assassinate him. He harangued the natives in the
Ionian Isles, and assured them of the protection of Buonaparte, and
besides many calumnies against the British officers, he told Napoleon
that so hateful was the British rule that both Greeks and Venetians in
those islands were ready to rise against them at the first word from
France. On the appearance of this base report, our ambassador at Paris
made a strong remonstrance; but Napoleon only replied by complaining
of the late account of the campaign in Egypt by Sir Robert Wilson, in
which he had detailed the butchery of the Turks and Arnauts at Jaffa,
and Napoleon's command to poison his own wounded on the retreat from
Acre. Through M. Otto, the French envoy in London, Napoleon demanded
that statements injurious to his character made by the British press
should be stopped by Government, that all French emigrants should be
expelled from England, that Georges Cadoudal should be transported to
Canada, and such princes of the House of Bourbon as remained there
should be advised to repair to Warsaw, where the head of their house
now resided. To these peremptory demands the British Government,
through Lord Hawkesbury, replied that his Britannic Majesty did not
possess the absolute power necessary for these acts, and that whilst
the statements charging upon a British Ambassador instigations to
murder were published in the _Moniteur_, the official organ of the
French Government, the statements by the British press were protected
by the freedom of that press guaranteed in Great Britain, which the
king was not disposed to invade, but from which any man, British or
foreign, might claim redress by an action at law. To show the First
Consul how this might be done, the British Government commenced an
action against M. Peltier, a French emigrant, for a libel on Napoleon
in a newspaper published by him in London, called the _Ambigu_. Peltier
was found guilty; but this by no means answered Buonaparte's object.
He wanted the accounts of his darkest actions suppressed by a power
above the law, not thus made more public by the action of the law. As
Sir Walter Scott has observed, he wanted darkness, and the British
Government gave him light.
The audacity of Buonaparte still further excited the indignation of the
British Government. Under the name of consuls, he sent over to England
and Ireland a number of military officers, whose real business was to
act as privileged spies, to prepare plans of all the chief ports,
with soundings, and an exact account of the winds with which vessels
could go out or come in with most ease, and also at what draught of
water the harbours might be entered by large vessels. These agents
had been instructed to maintain the utmost secrecy as to their real
objects, but they became known, and Ministers announced that any person
coming in such a character to this country should be ordered instantly
to quit it. Neither was the temper of the nation at all improved by
the irritating proceedings of the French authorities on the coasts of
France. A law had been passed by the Jacobins, in the most rabid time
of the Revolution, condemning any vessel under a hundred tons burden
found within four leagues of the French shores, having on board British
merchandise. It was taken for granted that this decree was virtually
annulled by the Peace of Amiens; but repeated seizures were now made
of British merchant vessels driven by stress of weather on the French
coasts, and the mere fact of having plates, knives, and forks for the
crew, of British make, was used as a plea for confiscation of ships.
It was in vain that remonstrances were made to the First Consul: they
passed without notice. Such a peace it was evident could not last long.
Napoleon was in a mood to brook no control from any quarter; he at this
time showed how completely he would crush any creature who offended him
when he had the power.
The Treaty of Amiens did not for a moment, even in appearance,
interrupt the unlimited plans of aggression which Buonaparte had
formed. Whether these plans tended to alarm Britain or not gave him no
concern whatever. The encroachments on Italy never paused. Before the
signing of the Peace of Amiens, Buonaparte had made himself President
of the Cisalpine Republic; and though he had pledged himself to
Alexander of Russia that he would not interfere further with Piedmont,
because Alexander would not entertain the scheme of co-operating with
France in the march to India, as his father had done, Buonaparte seized
on all Piedmont in September of this year, annexed it to France,
and divided it into six Departments. Charles Emmanuel, the King of
Piedmont, retired to his island of Sardinia, and then abdicated in
favour of his brother Victor Emmanuel. But Victor Emmanuel would not
have been left long king, even of that small territory, had it not
been for the protection of Britain. In October he annexed Parma and
Placentia. He next made an agreement with the King of Naples for Elba,
and took possession of it. Every movement of this restless being showed
his intention to drive Britain out of the Mediterranean, and convert it
into a French lake. But on the mainland he was equally active. There
was no country on the Continent in which Buonaparte did not presume
to dictate, as if he already were universal monarch. In the Diet of
Germany his influence was prominently conspicuous, and he prevailed to
have towns and districts transferred as he pleased. To have all the
territory on the left bank of the Rhine secured to France, Prussia
received valuable compensation at the expense of the German empire for
the cession of the Duchy of Cleves and other provinces transferred to
France. Bavaria and other minor States were benefited in the same way,
because Napoleon already meant to use these States against Austria and
Russia, as he afterwards did. Every endeavour was made, contrary to the
articles of the Peace of Amiens, to shut out the trade of Britain, not
only with France--as he had a right to do--but with Holland, Belgium,
and Germany. It was in vain that Britain remonstrated. Buonaparte,
through his official organ, the _Moniteur_, declared that "England
should have the Treaty of Amiens, the whole Treaty of Amiens, and
nothing but the Treaty of Amiens"; but he interpreted this treaty
to give every advantage to France to the exclusion of Britain. Half
Europe was closed to British trade. It was a condition of the Treaty
of Lunéville that the independence of Switzerland should be respected,
and this was guaranteed by the Batavian, Cisalpine, and Ligurian
Republics, as well as by France and Austria. But Buonaparte had already
absorbed all these republics into France, and Austria he set at
defiance. He had never withdrawn the French troops from Switzerland,
but whilst they remained French emissaries had continued to foment
the feuds between the people and the nobles, between one canton and
another. He now declared this state of things must end, and he assumed
the office of umpire, to settle the affairs of the Swiss for them.
He had no right to assume this office--if needed, it belonged to the
other Powers of Europe as well as France; but he knew that he had the
might--and he used it. At the end of September he sent General Rapp to
issue a manifesto announcing that Napoleon was determined to put an
end to all their differences. This manifesto was immediately followed
by the appearance of General Ney at the head of forty thousand men,
in addition to those already in the country. Thus Switzerland was
invaded, and its constitution trodden out by an armed occupation.
Buonaparte assumed the title of Mediator of the Helvetic League, and
dictated his own terms to the deputies of the French party who were
sent to Paris.
The king's speech at the opening of Parliament, and the martial tone
of the speeches by the members of both Houses, exceedingly exasperated
Napoleon; for though preparing for war he was scarcely ready, and meant
to have carried on the farce of peace a little longer. Talleyrand
demanded of Lord Whitworth the reason of this ebullition of the
British Parliament and of the Press. Lord Whitworth replied, as he had
done regarding the comments on the trial of Peltier, that it was the
direct result of the insulting articles in the _Moniteur_, which was
known to be the organ of the French Government; whereas, in Britain,
the Government had no direct control, either over the speeches in
Parliament or over the press. Talleyrand and Whitworth again discussed
all the vexed questions of the retention of Malta, the conduct of
Colonel Sebastiani in the East, the aggressions of Napoleon in Italy,
Germany, and Switzerland, in violation of the Treaty of Amiens; and
Lord Whitworth declared that all Britain wanted was, that the Treaty
should be faithfully carried out on both sides; that we were ready to
evacuate Malta, and recall our complaints, on that being done. But
this was what Napoleon was resolved never to do, and he therefore
resorted to the most extraordinary insults to the British Ambassador.
He requested Lord Whitworth to call at the Tuileries at nine o'clock
in the evening of the day on which he had had his conference with
Talleyrand. Napoleon had, by an assumption of extreme hauteur and
impetuosity, frightened the Austrian Ambassador at Campo Formio, and
he probably thought of frightening the British one; but Britain had
not been beaten like Austria, and such a proceeding could only enrage
the British people. In this interview, Buonaparte ran over, in a
rapid and excited harangue of two hours' length, scarcely permitting
Lord Whitworth to interpose a word of reply, all the alleged causes
of dissatisfaction with England; at one moment threatening to invade
it, if it cost him his life; at another, proposing that France and
England should unite to rule the Continent, and offering to share
with it all the benefits of such an alliance. Lord Whitworth replied,
as before, that the British Government desired nothing but the _bonâ
fide_ execution of the Treaty of Amiens, and could not for a moment
entertain such schemes of aggression and domination as the First Consul
proposed to her. He began to comment gravely on the aggressions in
Switzerland and Italy, but Buonaparte cut him short angrily, saying
those things were no business of his and that he had no right to
talk of them. There was a fresh interview with Talleyrand, and fresh
notes from him and Andreossi of the same character. A similar though
more violent scene occurred at a levee on the 13th of March, in which
Napoleon passionately accused Britain of driving France into war. A
shrewd observer, Madame de Rémusat, was of opinion that his rage was
simulated.
Everything in Parliament and in Ministerial movements now denoted the
near approach of the renewal of war. On the 8th of March a message was
received by both Houses of Parliament from his Majesty, stating that
great military preparations were going on in Holland and France, and
that his Majesty deemed it highly necessary to take measures for the
security of his dominions. It added that negotiations were going on
with France, the issue of which was uncertain, but it neither stated
what these negotiations were, nor the measures called for. The message
was taken for what it was--a note of war, and both in the Lords and
Commons strong expressions of defiance were used to France. This
seemed to have encouraged Ministers to a plainer expression of their
intentions, for only two days later another message came down, calling
for an increase of the navy. The next day, the 11th, the Commons formed
themselves into a committee, and voted an addition of ten thousand
seamen to the fifty thousand already voted. The militia were embodied.
Sheridan was very zealous for war; Ministers, however, professed to
desire the continuance of peace if possible.
There were rumours of negotiations going on for a return of Pitt to
power; but as Mr. Addington showed no disposition to resign altogether
in favour of Pitt, these came to nothing. Already in the previous
November Canning and Lord Malmesbury, two of Pitt's most zealous
supporters, had set on foot an address to Addington begging him to
resign. But this plan was abruptly stopped by Pitt himself, who felt
that he was to a certain extent the creator of the Ministry. Now
Addington made overtures to Pitt through Dundas, become Lord Melville.
But his propositions were absurd. He stipulated that Greville and
Windham, who had opposed the Peace of Amiens, should be excluded from
the arrangements. He also wished that Pitt's brother, Lord Chatham,
should be the nominal Prime Minister, while he and Pitt should be equal
secretaries. At this, Pitt put a stop to the envoy's conversation.
"Upon my word," he said afterwards, "I had not the curiosity to ask
what I was to be." So England engaged in war, with her greatest
statesman excluded from office.
On the 6th of May Lord Pelham communicated to the Lords, and Mr.
Addington to the Commons, another message from his Majesty, informing
them that he had ordered Lord Whitworth, our Ambassador, to quit Paris
immediately, unless he saw a prospect of closing the negotiations
with the First Consul within a certain date; and that M. Andreossi,
the French Ambassador, had applied for his passport, in order to quit
London when Lord Whitworth should quit Paris. In consequence of the
uncertainty of the result there was an adjournment, and then a second;
but on the 16th of May all suspense was terminated by the announcement
of Ministers that Lord Whitworth had quitted Paris, and M. Andreossi
London. The papers which had passed between this Government and France,
in the late negotiations, were ordered to be produced, and an Order
in Council was issued, directing reprisals to be granted against the
ships, goods, and subjects of the French Republic, and also for an
embargo not only on all French ships in British ports, but on all Dutch
vessels, and vessels of any Power under the military rule of France.
Britain was once more at war. On the 17th of June the king announced,
by message, that, in consequence of the Batavian Republic refusing to
order the French troops to quit Holland--which, indeed, would have
paid no attention to such orders--he had recalled his Ambassador from
the Hague and had issued letters of marque and reprisals against that
Republic. Thus, we were also at war with Holland. At the same time a
demand was made for a grant of sixty thousand pounds, and a pension
of sixteen thousand pounds per annum to the Prince of Orange, the
ex-Stadtholder, on the plea that he was an exile and destitute; and the
grant was voted. Parliament was now daily occupied in passing fresh
measures for the defence of the country. It was voted, on the 20th of
June, that a reserve army of fifty thousand should be raised by ballot,
like the militia; and, indeed, it was no other than the extension of
the militia: for during the war this division was to serve only in
Great Britain, Ireland, and the Channel Islands. On the 18th of July it
was proposed to pass a Bill enabling his Majesty to raise a levy _en
masse_ in case of invasion. Pitt strongly supported it, and proposed
fresh fortifications on the coasts.
[Illustration: NAPOLEON AND HIS SUITE AT BOULOGNE. (_See p._ 490.)]
On the declaration of war, Buonaparte resorted to a proceeding that
had never been practised before, and which excited the most violent
indignation in England. He ordered the detention of British subjects
then in France, as prisoners of war. Talleyrand previously assured some
British travellers, who applied to him for information, that they had
nothing to fear; that their persons would be safe under the protection
of a Government which, unlike that of Britain, observed the laws of
nations, and Buonaparte caused his well-known agent, Louis Goldsmith,
the editor of a French paper, the _Argus_, published in London, to
insert the same assurance in that journal. Thus thrown off their guard,
all the British in France were seized by authority of a proclamation
of the 22nd of May. Numbers of these were families and individuals not
resident in France, but merely hurrying home from Italy, Switzerland,
etc. They numbered some 12,000, and were kept confined till the close
of the wars. The pretext was the capture of two ships before war
was declared, but they were not captured until the Ambassadors had
withdrawn, or until an embargo had been laid by Napoleon on British
shipping.
There was another point, besides the seizure of unsuspecting British
travellers, on which Buonaparte could deeply wound the honour of the
British monarch, and at the same time furnish himself with considerable
materials of war--the seizure of Hanover. George III. held this
hereditary territory distinct from his Crown of Britain, as a State of
the German federation. It was impossible to defend this against France
with the forces kept there, and Napoleon ordered General Mortier to
cross the Dutch frontier, and march into the Electorate with twenty
thousand men. The Duke of Cambridge, who was Viceroy there, and General
Walmoden, at first, put themselves in an attitude of resistance; they
called on the chief Powers of Germany to protest against this invasion
of the German Empire, and to come to their aid, if this remonstrance
was disregarded. The Duke of Cambridge, seeing himself totally deserted
by Germany, thought it best to surrender Hanover to France, by
agreement that the troops should retire behind the Elbe, and not serve
again till exchanged. This was done at the end of May; the different
towns made their submission on the 3rd of June, and on the 5th Mortier
entered Hanover; the Duke of Cambridge had quitted the country; and the
British Cabinet refusing to ratify the Convention previously made with
him, he called on the Hanoverian army to surrender as prisoners of war.
Walmoden would have resisted with anything like equal forces, but as
that was impossible, he made the best terms he could, which were that
his army should give up their arms and disband themselves.
Napoleon also exerted himself to excite a rebellion in Ireland. He was
the more bent on this, because he saw that it was hopeless to make a
direct descent on England itself. He had collected a great fleet in
the harbours of Boulogne, Dieppe, Havre, Dunkirk, Ostend, and other
smaller ports, many of them capable only of receiving the gunboats in
which he proposed to transport his soldiers. He had assembled a very
fine army on the heights above Boulogne, called the Army of England,
and there continually exercised it, under the inspection of Soult,
Ney, Davoust, and Victor--men, the pride of his army; but he saw such
powerful fleets crowding the Channel, blockading his very ports,
cutting out, every now and then, some of his gunboats under the very
batteries, and the war-ships of Britain even standing in and firing
at him and his suite as they made observations from the cliffs, that,
combined with the information that England was almost all one camp,
he abandoned the project, for the present, in despair. But Ireland he
deemed vulnerable, from the treason of her own children. He assembled
all the Irish refugees in Paris, formed the Irish Brigade into the
Irish Legion, and sent over active agents to arouse their countrymen
in Ireland. Amongst these were Quigley and Robert Emmett, who had
been engaged in the Rebellion of 1798. Quigley had been outlawed,
and Emmett had been so deeply implicated in that Rebellion with his
brother Thomas, who was banished, that he had found it necessary to
quit the country. These emissaries soon collected around them, in
Dublin, disaffected associates, amongst them being Dowdall, Redmond,
and Russell. They formed a central committee, and corresponded with
others in different towns, and especially with one Dwyer, who had also
been in the former Rebellion, and had ever since maintained himself
and a knot of desperate followers in the mountains of Wicklow. The
Government received, from time to time, information of the proceedings
of these foolish men--Emmett being a rash youth of only twenty-two or
twenty-three years of age--but they took no precautions; and when,
on the 23rd of July, the eve of the Festival of St. James, these
desperadoes rushed, at evening, into the streets of Dublin, armed with
pikes, old guns, and blunderbusses, the authorities were taken entirely
by surprise. There were from two thousand to three thousand soldiers
in the Castle, but neither police, soldier, nor officer appeared till
the mob had murdered Colonel Brown, who was hastening to the Castle
to arouse the troops, and Lord Kilwarden, the Chief Justice, whom
they dragged from his carriage as it passed, and killed, along with
his nephew, but, at the same time, they allowed the Chief Justice's
daughter, who was with them, to depart. Soon after this--but not before
the insurgents had severely wounded a Mr. Clarke, a manufacturer, who
was riding to alarm the Castle--the soldiers appeared, and the mob fled
at their very sight. The same day Russell had turned out at Belfast,
and Quigley at Kildare, but with as little success. Emmett had escaped
to the Wicklow mountains to join Dwyer; but having assumed the fatal
disguise of French officers, the country people, who hated the French
since their appearance under General Humbert, when they had ridiculed
the Catholic religion, drove him and twelve of his companions back. In
a short time, Emmett, Russell, Redmond, and others were all secured
and executed. Dowdall escaped, with Allen and others, out of Ireland;
Quigley and Stafford, one of his companions, were admitted as king's
evidence, and thus escaped. The project of Napoleon had thus entirely
failed, with the sacrifice of some of his leading agents.
During this year Great Britain held that position which properly
belonged to her, and which showed how unassailable she was whilst
employed in self-defence. Her fleets covering the Channel, and at the
same time plying in the most distant regions for that money which
for years had been wasted on helpless and ungrateful Continental
nations, were calculated to make her invincible on the ocean. So far
from permitting Buonaparte to set foot on her coasts, she continually
insulted his. She entered the ports and roadsteads of Hâvre, St.
Valery, and other places, and brought away ships and gunboats; she
attacked Dieppe, and destroyed its batteries; she bombarded Granville,
and demolished its pier, under the eyes of some of Napoleon's most
distinguished officers. Her fleet amounted to nearly six hundred
vessels of different kinds, and she began rapidly to recapture the
colonies which she had so tamely, and without compensation, surrendered
at the strange Peace of Amiens. St. Lucia was retaken by Commodore
Hood and General Grinfield on the 22nd of June. In one day, the 30th
of June, were retaken Tobago, in the West Indies, and St. Pierre and
Miquelon, on the coast of Newfoundland. Demerara, Essequibo, and
Berbice were soon after reconquered, and Guadeloupe was invested, and
destined to fall into our hands ere long.
But our military achievements in the East Indies were on a scale to
throw even these successes far into the shade. Lord Wellesley, the
Governor-General, was entreated by the Peishwa of Poonah to assist him
against the other Mahratta chiefs, Scindiah and Holkar. The Peishwa had
been driven out of his territory by these chiefs, aided principally by
the military talents of M. Perron, a Frenchman, who had for many years
entered, with several other French officers, on the fall of the Mysore
power, into the service of Scindiah. He had been extremely successful,
and had been rewarded with a wide territory on the Jumna; and when,
in 1793, Shah Allum, the Mogul, had been made prisoner, he had been
consigned to the custody of M. Perron. The Frenchman had now given
his aid to expel the Peishwa, and Lord Wellesley, in sending General
Lake to restore the Peishwa, authorised him to attempt to win over M.
Perron to the British interest by very brilliant offers of property and
distinction, for Perron was deemed avaricious. The temptation, however,
failed, both with Perron and his French officers. He took the field in
support of Scindiah, with seventeen thousand infantry, from fifteen to
twenty thousand Mahratta horse, and a numerous train of artillery.
The conjuncture was most critical, for the incompetent and
short-sighted Addington had, by the Peace of Amiens, restored the
French possessions which had cost us so much to make ourselves masters
of in India; and had Buonaparte conceived the idea of supporting
Perron there with strong reinforcements, the consequences might have
been serious. Fortunately, he seemed too much engrossed with his plans
nearer home, and as fortunately also for us, we had now rising into
prominence in India a military chief, destined not only to dissipate
the hostile combination of the Mahrattas, but also to destroy the
dominion of Buonaparte himself. Major-General Wellesley, the younger
brother of the Governor-General, and afterwards Duke of Wellington, by
a rapid march upon Poonah surprised and drove out the Mahratta chief,
Holkar, and saved the city from a conflagration which Scindiah's troops
endeavoured to effect. Holkar fled to join Scindiah and the Rajah of
Berar, and the Peishwa entered his own capital in the month of May.
General Wellesley, being put into full command of all the troops
serving under the Peishwa and the Nizam of the Deccan, and being also
director of the civil affairs of the British in those provinces, made
arrangements for their security, and then marched after Scindiah and
the Rajah of Berar. After various marchings and counter-marchings, in
consequence of their movements to avoid him, he came up with them near
the village of Assaye, or Assye. General Stevenson, who had repulsed
them from the territory of the Nizam, was also encamped only eight
miles off. On coming in sight of them, Wellesley found them fifty
thousand strong, with a splendid body of Mahratta cavalry, whilst he
had only four regiments of cavalry, three of them being native, and
seven battalions of infantry, five of them Sepoys. He determined,
however, to attack them at once, and, sending word to Stevenson to come
up, he crossed the river at a ford in face of the artillery of the
enemy, and, after a sharp encounter, routed them before Stevenson could
arrive. The Mahrattas had ninety pieces of artillery, with which they
did terrible execution till the cavalry could come to close quarters
with them, and the infantry reach them with their bayonets; then they
fled headlong, leaving behind all their cannon (September 23rd, 1803).
The Mahrattas rallied in the village of Assaye, and it required a
desperate effort to expel them. It was dark before it was accomplished.
General Stevenson had been prevented from crossing the river, and did
not come up till the next day, when Wellesley sent him in pursuit of
the enemy's infantry, which had been abandoned by the cavalry, and was
thus exposed to attack.
In the meantime, General Lake had made a march on Delhi, continuing, as
he went, his correspondence with M. Perron. As General Lake approached
the fortress of Allyghur, the stronghold of Perron, the Frenchman came
out with fifteen thousand men, but again retreated into the fortress.
This was on the 29th of August. Perron made a strong resistance, and
held out till the 4th of September, when the place was stormed by a
party headed by Colonel Monson and Major Macleod. The success was
somewhat clouded by the surprise and surrender of five companies of
General Lake's sepoys, who had been left behind to guard an important
position, but with only one gun. This accident, however, was far more
than counterbalanced by the withdrawal of Perron from the service of
the Mahrattas. He had found so much insubordination amongst his French
officers, and saw so clearly that there was no chance of competing
with the British, that he had at length closed with General Lake's
offers, and, abandoning his command, had obtained a passport for
himself, family, suite, and effects, and retired to Lucknow. This being
accomplished, General Lake continued his march on Delhi, in order
to release Shah Allum, the Mogul, and drew near it on the 11th of
September. He there found that the army previously commanded by Perron,
but now by Louis Bourquien, nineteen thousand strong, had crossed the
Jumna and was posted between him and the city. Bourquien had posted his
army on a rising ground, flanked on both sides by swamps, and defended
in front by strong entrenchments and about seventy pieces of cannon. As
Lake had only four thousand five hundred men, to attack them in that
position appeared madness. The British were briskly assailed before
they could pitch their tents, and General Lake, feigning a retreat,
succeeded in drawing the enemy down from their commanding situation
and out of their entrenchments; he then suddenly wheeled, fired a
destructive volley into the incautious foe, and followed this rapidly
by a charge with the bayonet. The enemy fled, and endeavoured to regain
their guns and entrenchments; but Lake did not leave them time--another
volley and another bayonet charge completely disorganised them, and
they fled for the Jumna and the road by which they had come. The troops
of Scindiah, which had held the Mogul prisoner, evacuated the city,
and on the 16th General Lake made a visit of state to the aged Shah
Allum, who expressed himself as delighted at being delivered from his
oppressors and received under the protection of the British.
[Illustration: THE JUMMA MUSJID, DELHI. (_From a Photograph by Frith &
Co._)]
General Lake had no sooner seen Delhi clear of the enemy than he
marched to Agra, which he reached on the 4th of October, and carried
on the 17th. But Scindiah had availed himself of his absence, and made
a sudden rush on Delhi, with seventeen well-disciplined battalions
of infantry and between four thousand and five thousand cavalry. The
Mahratta troops had been well trained by the French, who hoped, by
their means, to crush the power of the British in India, and had shown
throughout this war wonderfully increased efficiency, yet General Lake
did not hesitate, with his small force, to go in quest of them. He
started on the 27th of October, and after marching in heavy rains and
through dreadful roads--the country having been purposely inundated
by Scindiah's officers cutting down the banks of reservoirs--he came
upon the Mahrattas on the 31st, near the village of Laswaree, their
left flanked by that village, their right by a stream, and their front
protected by seventy-two pieces of cannon. A furious battle took place,
in the course of which Lake's troops were repeatedly repulsed, but
returned to the attack undauntedly, and the successive charges by the
bayonet, and the gallant conduct of the cavalry, at length, in the face
of terrible discharges of grape-shot and canister, drove the Mahrattas
from all their positions. The enemy had fought desperately, and step by
step only had given way, but in the end the rout was complete--cannon,
baggage, and almost everything, being left in the hands of the British
(November 1st, 1803). This division of Scindiah's army was thus
annihilated, and all the territory watered by the Jumna left in the
hands of the British.
[Illustration: THE CHASE AT ARGAUM. (_See p._ 493.)]
This blow induced Scindiah to sue for peace from General Wellesley in
November, and a truce was accordingly entered into with him; but as the
Rajah of Berar still kept the field, Wellesley marched against him,
and encountered him on the plains of Argaum, about one hundred and
twenty miles north of the Purna river. He was surprised to find the
treacherous Scindiah, notwithstanding the truce, also encamped with
him. Wellesley attacked the allies on the 28th of November, though
it was evening when he was ready for action, and there remained only
twenty minutes of daylight. But it proved a brilliant moonlight night,
and he routed the whole army, and his cavalry pursued the fugitives
for several miles, taking many elephants, camels, and much baggage.
He captured all their cannon, thirty-eight pieces, and all their
ammunition. This done, he hastened to reduce the formidable fortress
of Gawilgarh, situated on a lofty rock. On the 15th the outer walls
were carried, and the 94th regiment, led on by Captain Campbell,
scaled the inner one, opened the gate, and the whole place was soon
in possession of the British. This closed the opposition of the Rajah
of Berar. On the 17th of December he came to terms, and surrendered
to Wellesley the important province of Cuttack and the district of
Balasore. Immediately afterwards Scindiah was compelled to treat in
earnest. He consented to surrender all the country between the Jumna
and the Ganges, with numerous forts and other territories, and agreed
to recognise the right of the Peishwa to the domains which the British
had conferred upon him. Both he and the Rajah of Berar stipulated to
send away all Frenchmen or other Europeans and Americans, and not to
employ them again, nor even to employ British subjects, native or
European, without the consent of the British Government.
Sir Arthur Wellesley, brilliantly seconded by General Lake, Stevenson,
and others, had thus worked out the plans of the Governor-General, Lord
Wellesley. With small forces, and those principally native ones, but
admirably disciplined, they had beaten two hundred and fifty thousand
men in four pitched battles and eight sieges. They had taken from them
upwards of one thousand pieces of cannon, besides an enormous amount of
ammunition, baggage, and other spoil. They had made themselves masters
of all the Mahratta territory between the Jumna and the Ganges; of
Delhi, Agra, Calpee, the greater part of the province of Bundelcund,
the whole of Cuttack, and a territory in Gujerat, which secured us
all the ports by which France could have entered, so that we enjoyed
the whole navigation of the coast from the mouth of the Ganges to the
mouth of the Indus. They had added most important acquisitions to the
territories of our allies, the Peishwa and the Nizam of the Deccan, and
to the Company itself a stronger frontier in the latter region; and all
this had been achieved in the short space of four months. The French
influence was completely annihilated, and every part of India placed in
greater strength and security than it had ever known before.
The year 1804 opened by an announcement that his Majesty was suffering
under a return of his old malady. On the 14th of February an official
bulletin was issued at St. James's Palace, informing the public of the
royal indisposition; and the repetition of it from day to day, without
specifying the nature of the illness, left no doubt of its real
character. Still, on the 29th, Addington assured the House that there
was no necessary suspension of the royal functions, and the bulletins
grew more favourable; but it was well known that he was not really in a
condition to transact business till the following September, though at
times, as on the 9th, 10th, and 11th of May, he drove about in public,
in company with the queen and princesses. Probably his advisers thought
that the hearty cheers with which he was received might have a bracing
effect on his mind, which had been cruelly harassed by the separation
of the Prince of Wales from his wife, the king's niece, amid grave
public scandals. Such a circumstance was exactly calculated to throw
the royal mind off the balance; but besides this, the unsatisfactory
state of his Cabinet and of parties in Parliament was such as greatly
to aggravate his anxiety.
The Ministry of Addington was felt to be utterly inadequate to the
difficulties of the times. The country felt that Pitt or Fox must soon
be called to the helm. Addington had shown a desire to strengthen
his administration by bringing into it George Tierney, whom he had
appointed Treasurer of the Navy and a Privy Councillor. Pitt, who
had an intense dislike to Tierney--with whom he had, in 1798, fought
a duel--showed increasing determination, from the introduction of
Tierney to the Cabinet, to oppose the Ministry of Addington with all
his vigour. An opportunity was given him on the 27th of February. The
Hon. Sir Charles Yorke, the Secretary-at-War, had introduced a Bill
for consolidating all the existing laws respecting the volunteers. In
the debate on the second reading of this Bill on this day, a question
was incidentally introduced by Sir Robert Lawley as to the exact
state of the king's health, which, he said, concerned the safety of
the country as much as the affairs of the volunteers. Fox followed
up this idea, and demanded more perfect information on this subject
from Ministers. He declared that the House had no information on this
important subject, and he asked whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer
really had any. He supported the motion for an adjournment which
Sir Robert Lawley had made, in order that the House might be put in
possession of the truth. Fox made it felt that he was looking forward
to the fact of a regency. Addington, on this, declared that there was
no necessity for any serious measures, that he was persuaded that the
king's indisposition would be of short duration. Pitt made some strong
observations on the conduct of Ministers in keeping Parliament in the
dark on this head, though he opposed the adjournment.
On the 15th of March he took a more decided position of hostility to
the Cabinet, by moving for an inquiry into the state of the navy. The
Earl St. Vincent was now First Lord of the Admiralty, and he proved
quite incompetent. Many gunboats had been broken up from motives of
economy, and naval stores sold, for the most part, to the French. Pitt
declared that only twenty-three gunboats had been built since January,
1803, and that the whole management of the navy was inert.
After accepting an offer from the Irish militia serving in England
during the war, and agreeing that ten thousand should be the number,
and that this number should be reinstated in Ireland by a new levy, the
House adjourned on the 29th of March for the Easter recess. But during
the recess Pitt was planning fresh measures of opposition, and in fact
driving out Addington and taking his place. On the re-assembling of the
House on the 23rd of April, Fox moved that it should resolve itself
into a committee of inquiry regarding the measures of defence necessary
for the country. Addington opposed the inquiry as unnecessary, but
Pitt declared that it was never more necessary; that though there
were a hundred and eighty-four thousand troops of the line, and
four hundred thousand volunteers, the measures of Government were
not of that vigorous character which the times demanded. Yorke, the
Secretary-at-War, and Spencer Perceval defended Addington, who asserted
that great exertions had been made to bring up members to vote for Mr.
Pitt's views, and that he did not see how the present Ministry could
remain in office if this measure was carried against them. It was not
carried; but Addington's majority had sunk to only fifty-two, the
numbers being for Fox's motion two hundred and four, against it two
hundred and fifty-six. Wilberforce, who had much respect for Addington,
as he had a great admiration for Pitt, exerted himself to reconcile
the two and to get Pitt into the Cabinet with Addington. He consulted
with Lord Chancellor Eldon on the plan for bringing in Pitt to join
Addington.
But Pitt was already doing his own work and paving his own way. He
wrote to the king on the 25th of April, informing him of the determined
opposition he felt himself called upon to make to Addington's mode
of administration, but assuring him that he would never attempt to
force Fox upon him. This was saying, as plainly as he could speak to
the king, that he was ready to resume the helm himself, and that,
with the opposition that he could exert, the Government of Addington
could not go on. Accordingly, Pitt received a notice that his Majesty
would soon call for him to attend on him. On the 30th of April the
Marquis of Stafford, in the House of Lords, gave notice of a motion
identical with that of Fox in the Commons--namely, for inquiry into the
national defences. Lord Hawkesbury immediately entreated the marquis
to postpone his motion, for reasons which, he assured the House, it
would deem fully satisfactory if he were at liberty to state them. It
was at once understood that negotiations were on foot for a change of
Administration. Lord Grenville, who was a relative of Pitt, but at the
same time pledged to include Fox in any offers to himself of entering
the Ministry, called upon Lord Hawkesbury to be more explicit; but he
declined, and after some discussion the motion was postponed. Pitt,
in fact, had received a message from the king, and on the 2nd of May,
through Lord Chancellor Eldon, presented a letter sketching a plan of a
new Cabinet, in which he included not only Lord Grenville but Fox also.
On the 7th he had, for the first time, an interview with the king,
which lasted three hours, and Pitt then more fully stated his views,
and recommended a mixed Cabinet on the ground that there was every
prospect of a long war, and that it was desirable that they should
have a strong administration. Whether such a coalition would have been
strong is more than doubtful, opposed as the views and tempers of Fox
and Pitt were. But the king would not allow the name of Fox to be in
the list. On the other hand, Lord Grenville refused to become part of
an Administration from which Fox was excluded. He said he could not
accept office in a Cabinet formed on the basis of exclusion, being
convinced that an effective government could only be secured by uniting
in it as large a proportion as possible of the weight, talents, and
character to be found in public men of all descriptions. Pitt was thus
forced to form a Government on a narrow Tory basis. On the 11th of May
the Marquis of Stafford said, in the House of Lords, that he understood
that a certain right honourable gentleman, who had turned his great
abilities to the subject of the national defences, was about to take
the management of public affairs, and that he therefore withdrew his
motion. The next day the public announcement was made that Addington
had resigned, and that Pitt had accepted the Chancellorship of the
Exchequer. Of the Addington Ministry Pitt retained--Lord Chancellor
Eldon; the Duke of Portland, President of the Council; the Earl of
Westmoreland, Lord Privy Seal; his own brother, the Earl of Chatham,
Master-General of the Ordnance; and Lord Castlereagh, President of
the Board of Control. To these he added Dundas, now Lord Melville, as
First Lord of the Admiralty; Lord Harrowby as Secretary of Foreign
Affairs, in place of Lord Hawkesbury; and Lord Camden as Secretary of
the Colonies, in place of Lord Hobart. Lord Mulgrave became Chancellor
of the Duchy of Lancaster, in place of Lord Pelham. George Canning,
now becoming a marked man, was made Treasurer of the Navy, in place
of Tierney, but this gave him no seat in the Cabinet. Huskisson was
Secretary to the Treasury, and Mr. Perceval remained Attorney-General.
The first measure of importance after the appearance of Pitt in the
House of Commons as Prime Minister was the annual motion of Wilberforce
for leave to bring in a Bill for the abolition of the Slave Trade.
Pitt and Fox both supported it, and it was carried by seventy-five
against forty-nine. The second reading was carried by a still larger
majority--one hundred against forty-two--but on going into committee
upon it, it was postponed to the next Session. War and preparations for
war were the all-absorbing business of those times.
On the 5th of June, the day after the king's birthday, Pitt introduced
his plan of military defence. It was to leave the militia what it was,
but to increase the regular army by making it compulsory on parishes
to furnish each a certain number of men to what was called the Army
of Reserve--a body called out for five years, and only to be employed
within the United Kingdom. He desired to break down the distinctions
between this and the regular army by attaching the Reserve to the
Regulars as second battalions, and encouraging volunteering thence
into the Regulars. This was known as the Additional Force Bill, which
was denounced by the Opposition as veiled conscription. In other ways,
notably by the erection of his martello towers, Pitt set himself to
rouse the spirit of the nation, in face of the very real danger of
invasion.
In the autumn of this year the British Admiralty tested a plan to
blow up and destroy the French invasion flotilla in the harbour of
Boulogne. It consisted of a chest, pitched outside and made waterproof,
containing forty barrels of gunpowder, which was to be ignited by
a certain contrivance when it struck smartly against a solid body.
This machine was called a catamaran. The experiment was tried by
Lord Keith on the 2nd of October. There were one hundred and fifty
French gunboats, praams, and floating batteries anchored outside the
pier of Boulogne. Lord Keith anchored opposite to them with three
line-of-battle ships and several frigates, covering a number of
bomb-ships and fire-ships and the catamarans. Four fire-ships were
towed into the neighbourhood of the French flotilla and exploded with
a terrific noise, but did no injury whatever to the flotilla or the
French, beyond wounding some half-dozen men. The catamarans exploded,
for the most part, with the same failure of effect.
Though a declaration of war had been issued both against France and
Holland, there had been none against Spain. But Ministers hearing that
a strong Spanish armament was being equipped in the port of Ferrol, and
that French soldiers were expected to join and sail in it, despatched
Captain Graham Moore, the brother of Sir John Moore, with four frigates
to intercept four Spanish treasure-ships. The proceeding was certainly
high-handed, but Ministers were justified by their knowledge that
Spain paid subsidies to France. The Spaniards were furious in their
indignation; an order was speedily issued to make reprisals on British
ships and property, and on the 12th of December war was formally
proclaimed against us.
[Illustration:
_Reproduced by André & Sleigh, Ld., Bushey, Herts._
NELSON'S CHASE AFTER THE FRENCH FLEET, 1805.
BY THOMAS DAVIDSON.]
At this juncture Napoleon proceeded to set all Europe against him.
A conspiracy had been set on foot against his Government by the
Royalists, notably by one Lajolais, who had formerly fought under
Pichegru, and in 1794 had assisted him in his intrigues with the
Bourbon princes. On arriving in London he had interviews with Pichegru,
Georges Cadoudal, the Chouan chief, the Polignacs, the Count d'Artois,
the Duke of Berry, etc., and assured them that such was the feeling
against Buonaparte in France, that it only needed the appearance of
the Royalist leaders, and their forming a league with Moreau, the
victor of Hohenlinden, whom he truly represented as greatly disgusted
with Buonaparte, to produce a revolution and crush the aspiring First
Consul. The statements of Lajolais were listened to, and a vessel,
under the command of Captain John Wesley Wright, was despatched to
the coast of Brittany, with General Georges Cadoudal, the Marquis de
la Rivière, the brothers Armand and Jules Polignac, and some others,
whom he put safely ashore in the autumn of 1803. Pichegru, Georges
Cadoudal, the Polignacs, de la Rivière, and the rest of the Royalists,
about thirty in number, had made their way to Paris, and were
living there secretly, endeavouring to learn the real state of the
public mind, and Pichegru and Cadoudal had been introduced to Moreau.
Pichegru saw Moreau at least twice, and on one of these occasions he
took with him Georges Cadoudal; but Moreau seemed taken by surprise by
their communications with him, and was so horrified by the language and
proposals of the daring Chouan, that he desired Pichegru not to bring
that irrational savage again into his company. It appeared pretty clear
that there was some mistake somewhere; and that Moreau, however much
dissatisfied with Napoleon, was by no means disposed to enter into any
Royalist conspiracy. Had the delegates found things ripe for such a
revolution, they were to inform the Bourbon princes in London, and they
were to make a strong descent on the coast of Brittany; but they all
felt so satisfied that Lajolais had given them false information, that
they were about to quit the capital, and to return to England, Captain
Wright having been lingering with his frigate on the Breton coast for
that purpose, when Fouchè the Minister of Police, pounced upon them.
He had been keeping a strict watch on all their movements; he had now
established their intercourse with Moreau, and trusted to be able to
make sufficient use of that fact to destroy both them and him. It was
asserted, although there is no proof whatever of the fact, that the
plan included the murder of the First Consul. Further, in order to
bring odium upon England, Buonaparte succeeded, by means of his agents,
in entrapping Messrs. Drake and Spencer Smith, our Ministers at the
courts of Bavaria and Würtemberg, into consenting to the conspiracy.
They knew nothing of the real plot, but being informed that a Royalist
conspiracy was on foot, gave it a certain amount of countenance.
Napoleon thereupon accused them of being accomplices in a diabolical
plot to assassinate him, forced the Courts to which they were
accredited to expel them, and circulated throughout Europe a violent
attack on the British Government. In an exceedingly able and dignified
reply Lord Hawkesbury pointed out that Britain was at war with France,
and had a right, which she intended to use, to take advantage of the
political situation in that country. Napoleon gained little by his
Machiavellian manœuvre.
[Illustration: KIDNAPPING OF THE DUKE D'ENGHIEN. (_See p._ 498.)]
The Georges conspiracy, as it is commonly called, was followed by a
still more startling act of violence. As the Bourbons still continued
to watch for the overthrow of his power, Buonaparte determined to
take a deep revenge on the persons of any of that family whom he
could by any means get into his hands. Could he have inveigled the
Count d'Artois and the Duke of Berry, as he attempted, to leave
London and land in Brittany, he would have seized them and put them
to death without ceremony or mercy. But there was another member of
the family, though the farthest off from succession to the throne,
who was living on the French frontiers, within a tempting reach of
his soldiers in Alsace, and him he determined to kidnap and kill.
This proposed victim of a most lawless and wicked vengeance was
Antoine-Henri de Bourbon, Duke d'Enghien, the son of the Prince of
Condé. The project was so odious, so certain to cover both Napoleon
and France with inextinguishable infamy, that it startled the not very
sensitive mind of Talleyrand, who, it is said, gave the duke secret
warning of his danger, and advised him to remove farther from the
Rhine. In consequence, the duke applied to Sir Charles Stuart to get
him a passport from the Austrian Minister, to enable him to cross the
Austrian territory to rejoin his grandfather, then at Warsaw with Louis
XVIII. Sir Charles Stuart applied to M. de Cobenzl for this purpose,
and had the Austrian Court been quicker in its movements, the duke
would have been safe enough from the myrmidons of Buonaparte; but,
whilst lingering at Ettenheim in Baden for the necessary passport, the
duke had so little suspicion of the prompt and deadly nature of the
usurper's design against him, that he took no means to conceal himself,
or he might still have escaped. But in the middle of the night of
the 14th of March he was aroused by the sound of horses' hoofs, and,
looking out, saw that the château was surrounded by a troop of French
cavalry. Buonaparte had despatched his aide-de-camp, Caulaincourt, to
Strasburg to effect this capture, and he had sent on Colonel Ordenner
to bring the duke away from the heart of a neutral territory. The duke
was summarily tried by a military tribunal and shot (March 21, 1804) at
Vincennes. The news of this most audacious crime soon transpired, and
filled Europe with horror and execration against its perpetrators.
In the midst of these deeply-planned manœuvres Buonaparte proceeded to
make his last move in his great game. He had intimidated the Royalists
by the seizure and fusilading of the Duke d'Enghien; he had deprived
the Republicans of their leader in Moreau, who was exiled; the nation
was passive; all its branching lines of authority were in his hands;
and there remained only to erect a throne and seat himself upon it.
It must not be a regal throne, because that would too much remind
the world of the claims of the Bourbons: it should, therefore, be an
imperial one, and mark a totally new era in France. It was one which
was especially calculated to flatter the French vanity. Accordingly,
on the 30th of April, Curée--a man of no particular note, and perhaps
selected on that account for the occasion, as his proposal might be the
more easily disavowed, if it were resisted--rose in the tribunate, and
proposed that Napoleon Buonaparte should be invested with the title of
Emperor.
No sooner had the tribunate sent up its decision to the Senate, signed
by all except Carnot, than the Senate hastened at once to adopt it, and
to sign the answer to the message of the First Consul, which had been
drawn up by Fouché for the Committee of Ten appointed by the Senate.
In July Napoleon went to Boulogne to review the grand army of England,
on the heights above the town, overlooking the English Channel, and
from which the white cliffs of England were conspicuous. Everything
had been elaborately got up for this occasion, on which the enthusiasm
of the soldiers was to be raised to the highest pitch. The common
people believed that he was going to lead the army at once across the
Channel, and return loaded with the enormous wealth of London, and with
the king, queen, royal family, William Pitt, and the leading members
of the aristocracy as prisoners in his train. Buonaparte had no such
wild idea; but since the Duke d'Enghien's murder the Powers of almost
all Europe had manifested unequivocally their abhorrence of the act,
and of the man who perpetrated it, and he now designed, by the display
of enthusiasm in his army, at once to awe his own people and the
sovereigns of other nations.
From Boulogne, Buonaparte proceeded to Brussels, Ostend, Antwerp, and
so through Belgium, where Josephine met him, to the Rhine. Wherever he
appeared, the authorities of the towns, both then and on his return
through France, presented him with the most adulatory addresses. One
would no longer believe it the same people who had, for ten years,
committed such unexampled horrors to destroy the royalty they were now
again adoring. The Mayor of Arras, Robespierre's own town, put the
climax to all this civic incense by declaring, in his address, that
"God made Napoleon, and then rested!"
Buonaparte now prepared for his coronation. Whilst at Mayence, on the
Rhine--where the German princes flocked to pay abject homage to him
as their protector, no nations, except Great Britain, Russia, and
Sweden, keeping aloof--he despatched one of his aides-de-camp, General
Caffarelli, an Italian, to invite the Pope to go to Paris to crown the
new emperor and empress. Pius VII. had already been compelled to submit
to the terms of the Concordat, which had made such inroads into the
ancient power of the Church; and he knew very well that to refuse this
request would bring down upon him fresh humiliations. Buonaparte, who
affected to imitate Charlemagne as the founder of the French nation,
passing over all the kings of France as unworthy of notice, determined
to inaugurate the Second Empire by a still bolder stretch of authority
than Charlemagne himself. That monarch had condescended to make the
journey to Italy to receive the privilege of coronation from Pope
Leo; but Buonaparte resolved that poor old Pope Pius VII. should come
to him in France. His desire was carried out to the letter, and Pius
arrived at Fontainebleau on the 25th of November. The 2nd of December
having been fixed for the coronation, the Cathedral of Notre Dame was
gorgeously decorated for the occasion, and the ceremony was performed
amidst the utmost pomp and magnificence, Napoleon himself putting the
crown on his head and then placing the Empress's diadem on the head of
the kneeling Josephine. During the whole proceedings the Pope was made
to play a secondary part. He simply "assisted" at the function. The
ceremony was followed by a profuse creation of marshals and nobles.
The year 1805 was opened by Buonaparte addressing a second letter to
George III. Its tenor may be gathered from the concluding paragraph.
"Alas! what a melancholy prospect to cause two nations to fight, merely
for the sake of fighting. The world is sufficiently large for our two
nations to live in it, and reason is sufficiently powerful to discover
means of reconciling everything, when the wish for reconciliation
exists on both sides. I have, however, fulfilled a sacred duty, and one
which is precious to my heart. I trust your Majesty will believe in the
sincerity of my sentiments, and my wish to give you every proof of
it.--NAPOLEON."