Bavaria, and from all the Confederation of the Rhine, as well as new
battalions from France, and advanced against the Russians. In the first
place, the French, who had completed the subjugation of the Prussian
states east of the Oder, pushed forward towards Poland, to attack the
Russian general, Benningsen, who advanced to Warsaw, and occupied
it in conjunction with the Prussians. Benningsen, however, finding
the Prussians few and dispirited, fell back beyond the Vistula, and
Murat, at the head of the French vanguard, entered Warsaw on the 28th
of November. He was soon after joined there by Buonaparte, and Warsaw
being put into a state of defence, the French army advanced to the
Vistula and the Bug, in spite of the lateness of the season. Benningsen
again retreated behind the Wkra, where he united his forces with
those of Generals Buxhowden and Kaminskoi. Kaminskoi took the supreme
command. When Napoleon arrived at the Wkra on the 23rd of December, he
formed his army into three divisions, and forced the passages of the
river. Kaminskoi fell back behind the Niemen, and the French pursued
him, committing some injury on him. This trifling advantage Napoleon
converted, in his bulletins to Paris, into the rout and general defeat
of the Russians. It was true that the Russians were destitute of
stores, having applied to Britain for money, and obtained only eighty
thousand pounds. They fought, therefore, under great disadvantages,
against an army furnished with everything. Notwithstanding, Benningsen,
who was by far the most vigorous of their generals--for Kaminskoi was
fast falling into lunacy--posted himself strongly behind Pultusk, his
right led by Barclay de Tolly, and his left by Ostermann. Kaminskoi
ordered Benningsen to retreat, but he refused, and stood his ground.
At first Tolly was driven back by Lannes and Davoust, but Benningsen
converted this disadvantage into a _ruse_, ordering Tolly to continue
his retreat, till the French were drawn on, so that he could bring down
his left wing on them. This he did with such effect that he killed
and wounded nearly eight thousand of them, having, however, himself
five thousand killed and wounded. Lannes and five other generals were
amongst the wounded. The French seized the opportunity of darkness to
retreat with such speed, that the next morning not a trace of them
could be seen near Pultusk. Prince Galitzin fought another division
of the French the same day at Golynim, and with the same success. Had
Benningsen had the chief command, and brought down the whole united
Russian army on Napoleon, the victory must have been most decisive;
as it was, it taught the French that they had different troops to
Prussians or Austrians to contend with. They drew off, and went into
winter quarters at Warsaw and the towns to the eastward. The chief
command of the Russian army was now conferred on Benningsen, and so far
from Buonaparte having, as he boasted, brought the war to a close with
the year, we shall find Benningsen, at the head of ninety thousand men,
soon forcing him into a winter campaign.
On the 13th of September Charles James Fox died at Chiswick House, the
residence of the Duke of Devonshire. He had been for a considerable
time suffering from dropsy, and had got as far as Chiswick, in the hope
of gathering strength enough to reach St. Anne's Hill, near Chertsey,
his own house. But his days were numbered. He was only fifty-eight
years of age. During his illness his colleagues and so-called friends,
with that strange coldness and selfishness which always distinguished
the Whigs, with very few exceptions, never went near him. Those
honourable exceptions were the Duke of Devonshire, who had offered him
his house, the Prince of Wales, his nephew, Lord Holland, his niece,
Miss Fox, and his old friend, General Fitzpatrick. Still, Fox was not
deserted by humbler and less known friends. Lords Grenville and Howick,
his colleagues, rarely went near him, and all the Ministry were too
busy anticipating and preparing for the changes which his decease must
make. When this event took place there was a great shifting about, but
only one new member of the Cabinet was admitted, Lord Holland, and only
one resigned, the Earl Fitzwilliam. Lord Howick took Fox's department,
that of Foreign Affairs; Lord Holland became Privy Seal; Grenville,
First Lord of the Admiralty; and Tierney, President of the Board of
Control. Sidmouth, afterwards so prominent in Tory Cabinets, still sat
in this medley one as President of the Council, and Lord Minto was
gratified by the Governor-Generalship of India. As Parliament was not
sitting at the time of Fox's death, Ministers ordered his interment in
Westminster Abbey, and he was carried thither on the 10th of October,
the twenty-sixth anniversary of his election for Westminster, and laid
almost close to the monument of Chatham, and within a few inches of the
grave of his old rival, Pitt.
Parliament was suddenly dissolved by the All the Talents Ministry,
in the hope of acquiring a better majority, but this hope was not
brilliantly realised. The new Parliament assembled on the 19th of
December, and, as all now saw that war must go on, both Houses prepared
themselves for large votes of supply. According to Windham's statement,
we had 125,631 regulars in the army, of whom 79,158 were employed
in defending our West India Islands, 25,000 in India, and upwards
of 21,000 foreigners in our pay. Besides this, for home defence we
had 94,000 militia and fencibles, and 200,000 volunteers; so that
altogether we had 419,000 men under arms. It was, therefore, contended,
and with reason, that as we had so deeply engaged ourselves in fighting
for our Allies on the Continent, with such a force we might have sent
20,000, with good effect, to unite with Alexander of Russia against
Buonaparte, and not have let him be repulsed for want of both men and
money. This, indeed, was the disgrace of All the Talents, that they
put the country to the expense of an enormous war establishment, and
did no real service with it. The supplies, however, were freely voted.
There were granted, for the navy, £17,400,337; for the regular army,
£11,305,387; for militia, fencibles, volunteers, etc., £4,203,327;
ordnance, £3,321,216. The number of sailors, including 32,000 marines,
was fixed at 130,000.
The manner in which a great deal of these vast sums, so freely
voted, was spent, was, at this very moment, staring the public
most fully in the face, through the military inquiry set on foot
under the administration of Pitt, and continued under the present
Ministry. It appeared that one Davison, being made Treasurer of the
Ordnance by Pitt, had been in the habit of drawing large sums from
the Treasury long before they were wanted, and had generally from
three million to four million pounds of the national funds in his
hands to trade with, of which the country lost the interest! Nor was
this all: there had been an understanding between himself, Delauny,
the Barrackmaster-General, and Greenwood, the army agent. All these
gentlemen helped themselves largely to the public money, and their
accounts were full of misstatements and overcharges. Those of Delauny
were yet only partly gone through, but there was a charge of ninety
thousand pounds already against him for fraudulent entries and
impositions. As for Davison, there was found to be an arrangement
between him and Delauny, by which, as a contractor, he was to receive
of Delauny two-and-a-half per cent. on beds, sheets, blankets, towels,
candles, beer, forage, etc., which he furnished for barrack use.
Besides this, he was to supply the coals as a merchant. Having always
several millions of the country's money in hand, he bought up the
articles, got his profit, and then his commission, without any outlay
of his own. Lord Archibald Hamilton gave notice of a motion for the
prosecution of Davison at common law, but Ministers said they had put
the matter into the proper hands, and that Davison had been summoned to
deliver up all his accounts that they might be examined, and measures
taken to recover any amount due by him to the Treasury. But Lord Henry
Petty talked as though it was not certain that there were sufficient
proofs of his guilt to convict him. The Attorney-General, however, was
ordered to prosecute in the Court of King's Bench, but the decision
did not take place till April, 1809, more than two years afterwards,
and then only the miserable sum of eighteen thousand one hundred and
eighty-three pounds had been recovered, and Davison was condemned to
twenty-one months' imprisonment in Newgate.
But the great glory of this session was not the exposure of Davison
and his fellow thieves, but the stop put to the operations of a much
larger class of rascals. The death of Fox had been a sad blow to
Wilberforce and the abolitionists, who had calculated on his carrying
the prohibition of the slave trade; but Lord Grenville and his Cabinet
seemed to have made up their minds to have the fame of achieving the
grand object of so many years' exertion for the suppression of the
African slave trade. Wilberforce, to his inconceivable joy, discovered
that Spencer Perceval, the leader of the Opposition, and his party
were willing to co-operate for this purpose. The king and royal family
alone remained as adverse to the abolition of slavery as they were to
the emancipation of the Catholics. The abolitionists, however, had so
imbued the country with the sense of the barbarity and iniquity of
the traffic, that royal prejudice could no longer swamp the measure,
nor aristocratic apathy delay it. Lord Grenville brought in a Bill
for the purpose into the Peers on the 2nd of January, 1807: the 12th
was fixed for the second reading. Before this took place, counsel was
heard at the bar of the House against the measure, who repeated all the
terrible prognostics of ruin to the West Indies and to Britain from the
abolition, with which the planters and proprietors of the West Indies,
the merchants and slave captains of Liverpool and Bristol, had so often
endeavoured to alarm the nation. The emptiness of these bugbears had,
however, been now too fully exposed to the people by the lectures,
speeches, and pamphlets of the Abolition Society, and Wilberforce had
all along merely to use the arguments in Parliament with which they
had abundantly furnished him. Lord Grenville now introduced the second
reading by an elaborate speech, in which he condensed and summed up
these arguments. He was warmly supported by the Duke of Gloucester--a
liberal exception to his family--by Lords King, Selkirk, Rosslyn,
Northesk, Holland, Suffolk, Moira, and the Bishops of Durham, London,
and others. The Dukes of Clarence and Sussex as zealously opposed
him, as well as Lords Sidmouth, Eldon, Ellenborough, Hawkesbury,
St. Vincent, and many others. The second reading was carried, after
a debate which continued till five o'clock in the morning, by one
hundred against thirty-six. The third reading was also carried with
equal ease, and the Bill was brought down to the Commons on the 10th
of February. Lord Howick proposed its reading in an eloquent speech,
and it was opposed, with the usual prediction of ruin, by Mr. George
Hibbert, Captain Herbert, and General Gascoyne, who said the nation was
carried away by sentimental cant, the result of an enormous agitation
by the Quakers and Saints. The first reading, however, passed without
a division, and the second on the 24th of February, by two hundred and
eighty-three against sixteen. The House gave three cheers. Seeing the
large majority, and that the Bill was safe, Lord Grenville recommended
Wilberforce to strengthen it by inserting the penalties, which he did;
but they left a great advantage to the slave merchants by allowing them
to clear out their vessels from Great Britain by the 1st of May, and
gave them time to deliver their human cargoes in the West Indies till
the 1st of January, 1808--a liberty which was sure to create a great
sending out of vessels for the last occasion, and a fearful crowding
of them. However, the accursed trade was now doomed, as far as British
merchants could go, though it was soon found that it was not so easy to
suppress it. When it was seen that the Bill must pass, Lords Eldon,
Hawkesbury, and Castlereagh, who had hitherto opposed it, declared
themselves in favour of it. It was carried in both Houses by large
majorities, and received the royal sanction on the 25th of March. So
easily was the Bill passed, at last, that Lord Percy, the day after
it had left the Commons, moved in that House for leave to bring in a
Bill for the gradual emancipation of the slaves; but this being deemed
premature, and calculated to injure the operation of the Bill for the
abolition of the trade, and to create dangerous excitement in the West
Indies, the motion was discouraged, and so was dropped.
The Grenville Ministry was approaching its extinction. It had done a
great work in the abolition of the Slave Trade, but there was another
species of abolition which they were disposed to further which was
not quite so acceptable. They had supported Wilberforce and his party
in their measure for the negroes, but Wilberforce and his friends
were by no means willing to support them in liberating the Catholics
from their disabilities. Grenville and Fox had made no particular
stipulation, on taking office, to prosecute the Catholic claims, but
they were deeply pledged to this by their speeches of many years. It
was, therefore, highly honourable of them, though very impolitic, to
endeavour to do something, at least, to show their sincerity. Though
the king was obstinately opposed to any relaxation of the restraints
on this class of his subjects, yet the Fox and Grenville Ministry
had introduced a milder and more generous treatment of the Catholics
in Ireland. The Duke of Bedford, as Lord-Lieutenant, had discouraged
the rampant spirit of Orangeism, and admitted Catholics to peace and
patronage. He had abandoned the dragooning system, and had managed to
settle some disturbances which broke out in the autumn of 1806, without
even proclaiming martial law. These measures had won the cordial
attachment of the Catholics both in Ireland and England, but, in the
same proportion, had exasperated the Church and War party against them
in both countries. Their adding another three-and-a-half per cent.
to the income and property taxes had still further embittered these
parties, and the antagonism to them was every day becoming stronger.
Yet they resolved, in spite of all this, to make an attempt to do some
justice to the Catholics. They managed to carry an additional grant
to the College of Maynooth, and on the 4th of March, when this grant
was debated, Wilberforce, though wanting the support of Ministers for
his Slave Trade Bill, made a violent speech against all concessions to
the Catholics. He declared the Protestant Church the only true one,
and, therefore, the only one which ought to be supported. "He did not
profess," he said, "to entertain large and liberal views on religious
subjects; he was not, like Buonaparte, an honorary member of all
religions." Undeterred by these tokens of resistance, Lord Howick, the
very next day, moved for leave to bring in a Bill to enable Catholics
to hold commissions in the army and navy on taking a particular oath.
He said that it was a strange anomaly that Catholics in Ireland could
hold such commissions since 1793, and attain to any rank except that of
Commander-in-Chief, of Master-General of the Ordnance, or of General
of the Staff, yet, should these regiments be ordered to this country,
they were, by law, disqualified for service. A clause had already been
added to the Mutiny Bill to remove the anomaly. He proposed to do away
with this extraordinary state of things, and enable his Majesty, at his
pleasure--for it only amounted to that, after all--to open the ranks
of the army and navy to all subjects, without distinction, in Great
Britain as well as Ireland.
[Illustration: CHARING CROSS, LONDON, IN 1795.]
No sooner was this motion made than Spencer Perceval rose to oppose
it. Sidmouth worked upon the king's feelings by sending in his
resignation, and the Duke of Portland had offered to form a Ministry
in accordance with the king's feelings. The Bill was, notwithstanding,
brought in, read a first time, and the second reading fixed for the
12th of March. But now it was found that the king, who had previously
received the Ministerial proposal without any comment, seeing his way
clear with another Ministry, refused even his qualified consent to the
prosecution of the measure. The Ministers postponed the second reading
to the 18th, promising an after-statement of their reasons. But their
reasons were already well known in both Houses of Parliament through
the private communications of the embryo Cabinet. On the 25th of March
there were motions made in both Houses for an adjournment: this was
to allow the new Ministry to be announced in the interval. In the
Lords, Earl Grenville seized the opportunity to make some observations
in defence of the conduct of his Cabinet during its possession of
office. He said they had entered it with the determination to carry
these important measures, if possible: the Sinking Fund, the abolition
of the Slave Trade, and the relief of the Catholics. He was happy
to say that they had carried two of them; and though they had found
the resistance in a certain quarter too strong for them to carry the
third, they conceived that never did the circumstances of the times
point out more clearly the sound policy of granting it. France had
wonderfully extended her power on the Continent; peace between her
and the nations she had subdued would probably lead Buonaparte to
concentrate his warlike efforts on this country. What so wise, then, as
to have Ireland attached to us by benefits? With these views, the king,
he said, had been induced to allow Ministers to make communications
to the Catholics of Ireland through the Lord-Lieutenant, which he had
seemed to approve; yet when these communications as to the intended
concessions had been made, his Majesty had been induced to retract his
assent to them. Ministers had then endeavoured to modify the Bill so
as to meet his Majesty's views; but, not succeeding, they had dropped
the Bill altogether, reserving only, in self-justification, a right to
make a minute on the private proceedings of the Cabinet, expressing
their liberty to bring this subject again to the royal notice, as
circumstances might seem to require; but now his Majesty had called
upon them to enter into a written obligation never again to introduce
the subject to his notice, or to bring forward a measure of that kind.
This, he said, was more than could be expected of any Ministers of any
independence whatever. The point was, of course, of some constitutional
importance, but there was much truth in Sheridan's remark: "I have
often heard of people knocking out their brains against a wall, but
never before knew of anyone building a wall expressly for the purpose."
The king now announced to Ministers his fixed resolve to call in
another Cabinet, though the Whigs had endeavoured to keep office by
dropping the Bill, and on the 25th of March they delivered to the
king their seals of office. Erskine alone retained his for a week,
that he might pronounce his decrees on the Chancery suits which had
been heard by him; and two days before he parted with the Seal, he
took the opportunity to make his son-in-law, Edmund Morris, a Master
in Chancery. This was regarded as a most singular act, Erskine being
no longer _bonâ fide_ Chancellor, but only holding the Seal for a few
days after the resignation of his colleagues, to complete necessary
business. The House adjourned to the 8th of April, and before this
day arrived the new appointments were announced. They were--the Duke
of Portland, First Lord of the Treasury; Lord Hawkesbury, Secretary
of the Home Department; Canning, Secretary for Foreign Affairs;
Lord Castlereagh, Secretary for War and the Colonies; the Earl of
Chatham, Master of the Ordnance; Spencer Perceval, Chancellor and
Under-Treasurer of the Exchequer; Lord Camden, Lord President of the
Council; Lord Bathurst, President of the Board of Trade, with George
Rose as Vice-President; the Earl of Westmoreland, Keeper of the
Privy Seal; Lord Eldon, Lord Chancellor; and the Duke of Richmond,
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. As the Duke of Portland's health was bad,
the real Prime Minister was Mr. Perceval.
Before the re-assembling of Parliament the new Ministers had done all
in their power to arouse a "No Popery!" cry in the country, because
they intended to advise a dissolution of Parliament--although this had
only sat four months--in order to bring in a more anti-Catholic and
anti-Reform body. On the 9th of April, the day following the meeting
of Parliament, Mr. Brand moved a resolution, that it was contrary
to the first duties of the confidential advisers of the Crown to
bind themselves by any pledge to refrain from offering the king such
counsel as might seem necessary to the welfare of the kingdom. The
new Ministers, who had entered office without any such pledge being
demanded, for their sentiments were too well known to the king, yet,
seeing that this resolution was the first of a series intended to end
in a vote of want of confidence in them, at once opposed it, and threw
it out by two hundred and fifty-eight to two hundred and twenty-six.
The Marquis of Stafford made a similar motion in the Lords, and
Sidmouth now spoke and voted against his late colleagues, to whom he
must have been throughout opposed on all points; but the strangest
thing must have been to hear Erskine, whilst supporting the motion,
avowing his great repugnance to the Catholics, as people holding a
gross superstition, the result of the darkness of former ages, and
declaring that he never thought of encouraging them, but rather that
they might feel inconvenience, though suffering no injustice; as if
this were possible; for if they suffer no injustice they could feel
no inconvenience. And this, after assuring the king that he would
never again enjoy peace if he dismissed his Ministers for desiring
to encourage them! The Marquis of Stafford's motion was rejected by a
hundred and seventy-one against ninety.
Parliament was prorogued on the 27th of April, for the avowed purpose
of a dissolution; and in the speech by commission, Ministers stated
that it was necessary the people should be appealed to as soon as
possible, whilst the effect of "the late unfortunate and uncalled-for
agitation was on their minds." Immediate preparations were made for a
most determined contest. Money was spent on both sides most prodigally,
but the new Ministers had the greater command of it--their opponents
said, out of the king's privy purse. But whether that were so or not,
on the system then in vogue, of Ministers in different departments
drawing even millions from the Treasury long before they were
legitimately wanted, they could have no lack of means of corruption;
and this corruption, in bribery and in purchasing of seats, never had
been carried further than on this occasion. It was calculated that it
would cost Wilberforce eighteen thousand pounds to get in again, and
this sum was at once subscribed by his friends. Tierney offered ten
thousand pounds for two seats, and could not get them. Romilly, who
was utterly averse from this corruption, was compelled to give two
thousand pounds for a seat for the borough of Horsham, and then only
obtained it through favour of the Duke of Norfolk. Seats, Romilly says,
might have been expected to be cheap after a Parliament of only four
months' duration, but quite the contrary; never had they reached such
a price before. Five and six thousand pounds was a common sum given,
without any stipulation as to the chance of a short Parliament. The
animus which was excited in the public mind against the Catholics
by the incoming Ministers, for party purposes, was terrible. The
Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge and other religious
associations took the lead in the outcry. The Catholics of England,
alarmed at the violence of the sensation stirred up against them, and
fearing a repetition of the Gordon riots, published an address to their
fellow-countrymen, protesting their entire loyalty to the Crown and
Constitution. Henry Erskine, Lord Erskine's brother, wittily said, that
if Lord George Gordon were but alive, instead of being in Newgate he
would be in the Cabinet. The Ministers found that they had obtained a
powerful majority by these means, and when Parliament met, on the 22nd
of June, they were enabled to reject an amendment to the Address by
a hundred and sixty against sixty-seven in the Lords, and by three
hundred and fifty against a hundred and fifty-five in the Commons.
One of the very first things which the Ministers did was to reverse
the mild system of the late Cabinet in Ireland, and to restore the
old _régime_ of coercion. A Bill was brought into the Commons by Sir
Arthur Wellesley, now again Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant, giving
authority to the latter functionary to proclaim counties in a state of
insurrection, and to prohibit any person from being out of his house
between sunset and sunrise, under severe penalties. Then followed
another Bill, compelling all persons to register what arms they had,
and authorising, on the part of the magistracy, domiciliary visits in
search of arms. Education of the people, both there and in England,
was discouraged. A Bill for establishing a school in every parish in
England, introduced by Whitbread, was allowed to pass the Commons, but
was thrown out in the Lords. Parliament was then prorogued on the 14th
of August.
The foreign expeditions planned by the Grenville Ministry were, this
year, attended by disgraceful results, and the news of their failure
arrived in time to enable the new Ministry to throw additional odium
upon their foes. The news of the seizure of Buenos Ayres by Sir Home
Popham and General Beresford had induced the late Cabinet to overlook
the irregular manner in which their enterprise had been undertaken.
They sent out Admiral Sir C. Stirling to supersede Sir Home Popham, who
was to be brought before a court-martial, but he took out with him a
fresh body of troops, under General Auchmuty. These troops landed at
Monte Video on the 18th of January, and, after a sharp contest against
six thousand Spaniards, and the loss of five hundred and sixty British
killed and wounded, the place was taken on the 2nd of February. Soon
afterwards General Whitelocke arrived with orders to assume supreme
command and to recapture Buenos Ayres, which the inhabitants had
succeeded in recovering. Whitelocke reached Monte Video towards the end
of May, and found the British army, with what he brought, amounting to
nearly twelve thousand men, in fine condition. With such a force Buenos
Ayres would have soon been reduced by a man of tolerable military
ability. But Whitelocke seems to have taken no measures to enable his
troops to carry the place by a sudden and brilliant assault. It was not
till the 3rd of July that he managed to join Major-General Gore, who
had taken possession of a commanding elevation overlooking the city.
The hope of success lay in the rapidity with which the assault was
made: all this was now lost. The rain poured in torrents, and the men
had no shelter, and were half starved. All this time the Spaniards had
been putting the city into a state of defence. Still, on the morning
of the 5th of July the order was issued to storm. The troops advanced
in three columns from different sides of the town, headed severally by
Generals Auchmuty, Lumley, and Craufurd. Whitelocke said that it could
be of no use to delay the advance towards the centre of the town by
attacking the enemy under cover of their houses; it could only occasion
the greater slaughter. The command, therefore, was to dash forward
with unloaded muskets, trusting alone to the bayonet. Much blame was
cast on Whitelocke for this order, but there seems strong reason in
it, considering the wholly uncovered condition of the troops against
a covered enemy, and that the only chance was for each division to
force its way as rapidly as possible to certain buildings where they
could ensconce themselves, and from whence they could direct an attack
of shot and shells on the Spaniards. General Auchmuty, accordingly,
rushed on against every obstacle to the great square--Plaza de Toros,
or Square of Bulls--took thirty-two cannon, a large quantity of
ammunition, and six hundred prisoners. Other regiments of his division
succeeded in getting possession of the church and convent of Santa
Catalina, and of the residencia, a commanding post; Lumley and Craufurd
were not so fortunate. The 88th was compelled to yield; and the 36th,
greatly reduced, and joined by the 5th--which had taken the convent of
Santa Catalina--made their way to Sir Samuel Auchmuty's position in
the Plaza de Toros, dispersing a body of eight hundred Spaniards on
their way and taking two guns. Craufurd's division capitulated at four
o'clock in the afternoon. In the evening Whitelocke resolved to come
to terms. The conditions of the treaty were--that General Whitelocke's
army, with its arms, equipage, and stores, was to be conveyed across
the La Plata to Monte Video; his troops were to be supplied with food;
and that at the end of two months the British were to surrender Monte
Video, and retire from the country. Such was the humiliating result
of the attempt on Buenos Ayres. Nothing could exceed the fury of all
classes at home against Whitelocke on the arrival of the news of this
disgraceful defeat. It was reported that he had made the men take
their flints out of their guns before sending them into the murderous
streets of Buenos Ayres; and had he arrived with his despatches, his
life would not have been safe for an hour. There was a general belief
that the Court was protecting him from punishment; and, in truth, the
delays interposed between him and a court-martial appeared to warrant
this. It was not till the 28th of January, 1808, that he was brought
before such a court at Chelsea Hospital, when he was condemned to be
cashiered, as wholly unfit and unworthy to serve his Majesty in any
military capacity whatever.
[Illustration: THE BRITISH FLEET PASSING THROUGH THE DARDANELLES. (_See
p._ 538.)]
Another expedition, planned by the Grenville Ministry, produced no
favourable result. This was to Constantinople. Buonaparte had sent
thither the artful Sebastiani, and General Andreossi, to destroy
British influence, and to engage the Sultan in war with Russia, so as
to act as a most effectual diversion of the Russian forces, whilst he
himself was occupied with the Czar in the North. The French agents
had completely succeeded in their plans against Russia. The Sultan
assumed an attitude which compelled Alexander to keep a strong army
on the Lower Danube, thus weakening his force against Napoleon, and
distracting his attention. There appeared every probability that
British influence would be equally swamped in Turkey by the French, and
it was determined to send a naval squadron to Constantinople to overawe
the Sultan Selim, and to compel the removal of the French intriguants.
Had this expedition been committed to such a man as Sir Sidney Smith,
there is little doubt but that it would have been entirely successful;
but it was altogether most miserably mismanaged, and therefore
failed. To have been effectual it should have been sudden. There
should have been no previous negotiation about it; the ships should
have appeared off Constantinople, and then and there the ambassador
should have stated his terms and have insisted on them. Instead of
this, our ambassador, Mr. Arbuthnot, commenced his negotiations for
the strengthening of the British alliance in conjunction with Russia,
and for the restriction of the French influence. But, excepting
Britain, Russia had no advocates with the Porte, which had already
declared war. The victories of Buonaparte now in Austria and Prussia
gave the French great _éclat_ with the Turks, and Sebastiani made the
utmost of this advantage. He was zealously supported by Spain and
Holland. In the midst of these negotiations, Admiral Louis appeared
off Constantinople with one ship of the line and one frigate. Had it
been a whole fleet, the effect would have been decisive. As it was,
there was immediately a rumour that a great British fleet was on the
way, and accordingly the Turks were in a hurry to strengthen their
fortifications, and make every arrangement for defence. They were ably
assisted in these measures by Sebastiani, Andreossi, and a number of
French engineer officers. On the 10th of February Sir John Duckworth
appeared off the Dardanelles, and, joining his squadron with that of
Admiral Louis, the British fleet now consisted of eight line-of-battle
ships, two frigates, and two bombs. But on the 14th the _Ajax_, one
of the men-of-war, took fire, and blew up, killing two hundred and
fifty of the people on board. They had then to wait till the 19th for
a breeze that would carry them through the strait. The British ships
passed the batteries under a brisk fire, without replying, and on
the 20th of February Sir John Duckworth came to anchor off Prince's
Islands, opposite to Constantinople, and at about ten miles' distance.
Now was the time to have struck an effectual terror by demanding the
immediate dismissal of the French, and to have begun storming the town
unless the demand was at once complied with. The whole population was
in an astounding panic, expecting every moment the commencement of the
bombardment; and the Sultan sent Ismail Bey to request Sebastiani and
his suite to quit Constantinople without delay. But Sebastiani replied
that there was no cause of alarm from the British, he was perfectly
indifferent to their presence, and that, as he was under the protection
of the Porte, he should not quit Constantinople without an express
order from the Sultan. Had Sir Sidney Smith been in command, Sebastiani
would soon have received this order, for he would have quickened the
Sultan's movements by some shot and shells sent into the Seraglio;
but Duckworth was made of much more phlegmatic stuff. The wind on the
21st was fair, and the whole fleet expected the order to put across
and commence bombarding the city. Instead of that, however, Sir John
sent a fresh message and menace. As this received no answer, and yet
was followed by no prompt action, the Turks at once took heart, went
on fortifying and planting batteries, and continued to amuse Sir John
from day to day with hopes of treating, employing the time only to make
their defences, under the supervision of Sebastiani and the French
engineers, the more perfect. It is almost impossible to imagine a
British admiral so besotted as to continue this course for ten days;
yet this was precisely what Sir John Duckworth did, and that in spite
of the orders of Admiral Collingwood. By this time every possible point
of defence had its batteries, soldiers had poured into Constantinople,
and every male inhabitant was armed, and foaming with fury at the
British. On the morning of the 1st of March Sir John weighed anchor
to return from his ignominious, abortive mission. The wind was fair
for him, but his return was now not so easy a matter. Whilst he had
been wasting his time before Constantinople, Turkish engineers, who
had studied under the French, had been sent down to the Dardanelles
with two hundred well-trained cannoneers. Numbers of troops had been
collected on each side of the strait, and the batteries were supplied
with enormous cannons, capable of carrying granite balls of seven or
eight hundred pounds' weight. Towards nightfall he dropped down towards
the strait, and the next day cast anchor before passing the castles and
batteries, that he might sail through by daylight, when the enemy could
best see him. On the morning of the 3rd he accordingly sailed through
the strait, and was sharply assailed by the cannon of the forts and
batteries, the stone shot doing some of his ships damage, and the loss
of men being twenty-nine killed and a hundred and forty wounded. The
object of the expedition failed, and the only resource was to keep the
Turkish fleet blockaded.
But Sir John Duckworth was to play a leading part in a still more
abortive enterprise. There was a rumour that Buonaparte had promised
the Grand Turk to aid him in recovering the provinces which Russia
had reft from Turkey on the Danube, in the Crimea, and around the
Black Sea, on condition that Egypt was given up to him. To prevent
this, an expedition was fitted out to seize on this country. Between
four and five thousand men were sent from our army in Sicily, under
Major-General Mackenzie Frazer. They embarked on the 5th of May, and
anchored off Alexandria on the 16th. The following morning General
Frazer summoned the town to surrender, but the governor of the Viceroy
Mehemet Ali replied that he would defend the place to the last man.
On that day and the following a thousand soldiers and about sixty
sailors were landed, and, moving forward, carried the advanced works
with trifling loss. Some of the transports which had parted company
on the voyage now arrived, the rest of the troops were landed; and,
having secured the castle of Aboukir, Frazer marched on Alexandria,
taking the forts of Caffarelli and Cretin on the way. On the 22nd Sir
John Duckworth arrived with his squadron; the British army expected to
hear that he had taken Constantinople, and his ill news created a just
gloom amongst both officers and men. The people of Alexandria appeared
friendly; but the place was, or seemed to be, destitute of provisions;
and the transports had been so badly supplied that the men were nearly
starved before they got there. The Alexandrians assured General Frazer
that, in order to obtain provisions, he must take possession of Rosetta
and Rahmanieh. Frazer, therefore, with the concurrence of Sir John
Duckworth, dispatched Major-General Wauchope and Brigadier-General
Mead to Rosetta, with one thousand two hundred men. The troops were
entangled in the streets and shot down. A subsequent effort was made
to besiege Rosetta in form. The troops reached Rosetta on the 9th of
April, and posted themselves on the heights above it. They summoned the
town formally to surrender, and received an answer of defiance. Instead
of proceeding to bombard the town at once, Major-General Stewart waited
for the arrival of a body of Mamelukes. The Mamelukes had been in
deadly civil strife with Mehemet Ali, and had promised to co-operate
with the British; and this was one of the causes which led the British
Government to imagine that they could make themselves masters of Egypt
with so minute a force. But the Mamelukes did not appear. Whilst
waiting for them, Colonel Macleod was sent to occupy the village of El
Hammed, to keep open the way for the expected succour; but Mehemet Ali
had mustered a great force at Cairo, which kept back the Mamelukes;
and, at the same time, he was reinforcing both Rosetta, and Rahmanieh.
Instead of the Mamelukes, therefore, on the morning of the 22nd of
April a fleet of vessels was seen descending the Nile, carrying a
strong Egyptian force. Orders were sent to recall Colonel Macleod from
El Hammed; but too late; his detachment was surrounded and completely
cut off. The besieging force--scattered over a wide area, instead of
being in a compact body--were attacked by overwhelming numbers; and,
having no entrenched camp, were compelled to fight their way back to
Alexandria as well as they could. When Stewart arrived there he had
lost one half of his men. Mehemet Ali, in proportion as he saw the
British force diminished, augmented his own. He collected and posted a
vast army between Cairo and Alexandria, and then the Alexandrians threw
off the mask and joined their countrymen in cutting off the supplies
of the British, and murdering them on every possible occasion at their
outposts. Frazer held out, in the vain hope of aid from the Mamelukes
or from home, till the 22nd of August, when, surrounded by the swarming
hosts of Mehemet Ali, and his supplies all exhausted, he sent out a
flag of truce, offering to retire on condition that all the British
prisoners taken at Rosetta, at El Hammed, and elsewhere, should be
delivered up to him. This was accepted, and on the 23rd of September
the ill-fated remains of this army were re-embarked and returned to
Sicily.
Thus was destroyed in Egypt all the prestige of the battles of
Alexandria and Aboukir Bay. The consequence of these two badly-planned
and worse-executed expeditions was the declaration of war against
Britain by the Porte, the seizure of all British property in the
Turkish dominions, and the formation of a close alliance between Turkey
and France. But the triumph over the British had not relieved the Turks
of the Russians. Admiral Siniavin still blockaded the Dardanelles, and
another Russian squadron, issuing from the Black Sea, blockaded the
mouth of the Bosphorus. The Turks came boldly out of the Dardanelles
and attacked Siniavin on the 22nd of May and on the 22nd of June; but
on both occasions they lost several ships, and were expecting heavier
inflictions from the Russians, when they were suddenly relieved of
their presence by the news of the Treaty of Tilsit, which had been
contracted between Alexander of Russia and Buonaparte. Alexander, by
this, ceased to be the ally, and became the enemy of Britain. It was
necessary, therefore, for Siniavin to make all speed for the Baltic
before war could be declared between the two nations, after which his
return would be hopeless. The Russian admiral, however, before quitting
the Mediterranean, had the pleasure of taking possession of Corfu,
which Buonaparte had made over to Alexander.
One of the events of the early part of this year was the capture of
the Dutch island of Curaçoa, by a squadron under Captain Brisbane;
but by far the most prominent naval transaction of the year was
the seizure of the Danish fleet off Copenhagen--a proceeding which
occasioned severe censures on Britain by Buonaparte and the Continental
nations under his domination. The Opposition at home were equally
violent in the outcry against this act, as in open violation of the
laws of nations, Denmark then being nominally at peace with us. But,
though nominally at peace, Denmark was at heart greatly embittered
against us by our bombardment of its capital in 1801, and it was quite
disposed to fall in with and obey the views of Napoleon, who was now
master of all Germany, at peace with Russia through the Treaty of
Tilsit, and, therefore, able any day to overrun Denmark. Buonaparte
was enforcing his system of the exclusion of Britain from all the
ports of the Continent, and it was inevitable that he would compel
Denmark to comply with this system. But there was another matter.
Denmark had a considerable fleet and admirable seamen, and he might
employ the fleet greatly to our damage, probably in endeavouring to
realise his long-cherished scheme of the invasion of England; at the
least, in interrupting her commerce and capturing her merchantmen. The
British Ministers were privately informed that Buonaparte intended
to make himself master of this fleet, and they knew that there were
private articles in the Treaty of Tilsit between Russia and France,
by which he contemplated great changes in the North, in which Denmark
was believed to be involved. Upon these grounds alone the British
Government was justified, by the clearest expressions of international
law, in taking time by the forelock, and possessing themselves of the
fleet to be turned against them; not to appropriate it, but to hold
it in pledge till peace. Grotius is decisive on this point:--"I may,
without considering whether it is manifest or not, take possession of
that which belongs to another man, if I have reason to apprehend any
evil to myself from his holding it. I cannot make myself master or
proprietor of it, the property having nothing to do with the end which
I propose; but I can keep possession of the thing seized till my safety
be sufficiently provided for." This view would fully have justified
the British Government, had nothing further ever become known. But
subsequent research in the Foreign Office of France has placed these
matters in their true light. The Treaty of Tilsit contains secret
articles by which Alexander was permitted by Napoleon to appropriate
Finland, and Napoleon was authorised by Alexander to enter Denmark,
and take possession of the Danish fleet, to employ against us at sea.
These secret articles were revealed to the British Government. No
man at this time was so indignant as Alexander of Russia at our thus
assailing a power not actually at war. He issued a manifesto against
Britain, denouncing the transaction as one which, for infamy, had no
parallel in history, he himself being in the act of doing the same
thing on a far larger scale, and without that sufficient cause which
Britain could show, and without any intention of making restitution.
We only seized a fleet that was on the point of being used against
us, and which was to be returned at the end of the war; the horrified
Czar invaded Sweden, while at peace, and, without any declaration of
war, usurped a whole country--Finland, larger than Great Britain.
Russia, in fact, had brought Denmark into this destructive dilemma by
its insidious policy; but, having seized Finland, in five years more
it committed a still greater robbery on Denmark than it had done on
Sweden, by contracting with Bernadotte to wrest Norway from Denmark,
and give it to Sweden.
[Illustration: DEPARTURE OF THE BRITISH TROOPS FROM ALEXANDRIA. (_See
p._ 539.)]
For the reasons here stated, early in the summer a powerful fleet
was fitted out with the utmost dispatch and secrecy by the new
Ministry, and sent to the Baltic. The fleet consisted of twenty-five
sail of the line, more than forty frigates, sloops, bomb-vessels,
and gun-brigs, with three hundred and seventy-seven transports to
convey over twenty-seven thousand troops from Stralsund, a great
part of which were Germans in British pay. Admiral Gambier commanded
the fleet, and Lord Cathcart the army, having second in command Sir
Arthur Wellesley. On the 1st of August the British fleet was off the
entrance of Gothenburg, and Admiral Gambier sent Commodore Keats into
the Great Belt to cut off any passage from Holstein for the defence
of Copenhagen. Admiral Gambier himself entered the Sound, passed the
castles without any attack from them, and anchored in Elsinore Roads.
By the 9th of August the whole fleet and the transports were collected
there, and Mr. Jackson, who had been many years British envoy in the
north of Germany, and knew most of the Danish Ministers, was dispatched
to Kiel, in Holstein, where the Crown Prince lay with an army of from
twenty thousand to thirty thousand men, to endeavour to induce him to
enter into an alliance with Great Britain, and to deliver the fleet
to its keeping till the peace, stating the necessity that the British
commanders would otherwise be under of taking possession of it by
force. The Crown Prince, though the British had made it impossible
to cross over and defend the fleet, received the overture with the
utmost indignation. Mr. Jackson returned to Admiral Gambier, and the
Crown Prince sent a messenger to order Copenhagen to be put into a
state of defence. But there was scarcely a gun upon the walls, and the
population only numbered, excluding the sailors, some thirteen thousand
men, inclusive of five thousand five hundred volunteers and militia.
On the 17th several Danish gunboats came out of the harbour, fired at
some of our transports coming from Stralsund, burnt an English vessel,
and attacked the pickets of Lord Cathcart's army. These vessels were
driven back again by bombshells, and that evening Admiral Gambier took
up a nearer station north-east of the Crown battery, the Trekroner.
He then proceeded to surround the whole of the island of Zealand, on
which Copenhagen stands, with our vessels. The division of the army
landed at Wedbeck having now marched up, was joined by other divisions,
and proceeded to entrench themselves in the suburbs of Copenhagen.
They were attacked by the gunboats, but, on the 27th, they had covered
themselves by a good battery, and they then turned their cannon on the
gunboats, and soon compelled them to draw off. On the 29th Sir Arthur
Wellesley marched to Kiöge, against a body of Danish troops that had
strongly fortified themselves there in order to assail the besiegers,
and he quickly routed them. The Danish troops then made several dashing
sorties from Copenhagen, while their gunboats and floating batteries
attacked our advanced vessels, and managed, by a ball from the
Trekroner, to blow up one of our transports. The French had now arrived
at Stralsund, and Keats was sent to blockade that port, to hinder them
from crossing over into Zealand; nothing but the extreme rapidity of
the movements of the British prevented a powerful army of French from
being already in Copenhagen for its defence.
[Illustration: HELIGOLAND.]
On the 1st of September the British commander made a formal demand
for the surrender of the fleet. The Danish General requested time to
communicate this demand to the Crown Prince, but the vicinity of the
French would not permit this, and the next day, the land batteries on
one side, and our bomb-vessels on the other, began to fling shells
into the town. The wooden buildings were soon in flames, but the Danes
replied with their accustomed bravery to our fire, and the conflict
became terrible. The bombardment of the British continued without
cessation all day and all night till the morning of the 3rd. It was
then stopped for an interval, to give an opportunity for a proposal of
surrender; but, none coming, the bombardment was renewed with terrible
fury. In all directions the city was in a blaze; the steeple of the
chief church, which was of wood, was a column of fire, and in this
condition was knocked to pieces by the tempest of shot and shells, its
fragments being scattered, as the means of fresh ignition, far around.
A huge timber-yard taking fire added greatly to the conflagration.
The fire-engines, which the Danes had plied bravely, were all knocked
to pieces, and, to prevent the utter destruction of the city, on the
evening of the 5th the Danish governor issued a flag of truce, and
requested an armistice of twenty-four hours. Lord Cathcart replied
that, in the circumstances, no delay could be permitted, and that
therefore no armistice could take place, except accompanied by the
surrender of the fleet. This was then complied with, and Sir Arthur
Wellesley, Sir Home Popham, and Lieutenant-Colonel George Murray went
on shore to settle the terms of the capitulation. This was completed by
the morning of the 7th, signed, and ratified. The British were to be
put at once in possession of the citadel and all the ships and maritime
stores, and, within six weeks, or as much earlier as possible, they
were to remove these and evacuate the citadel and the isle of Zealand.
All other property was to be respected, and everything done in order
and harmony; prisoners were to be mutually exchanged, and Britons
seized in consequence of the proclamation to be restored. The whole of
these measures were completed within the time specified, and seventeen
ships of the line, eleven frigates, and twenty-five gunboats became the
prize of the British.
On the 21st of October the British fleet sailed from Copenhagen
Roads; at Helsingfors the fleet was saluted by the King of Sweden,
who invited the admirals to breakfast; and, by the end of the month,
was anchored in Yarmouth Roads safely, with all its captives. Fresh
offers of alliance with Denmark were made before leaving, accompanied
with promises of restoration, but were indignantly refused by the
Crown Prince; and no sooner were the British gone, than the Danes
converted their trading-vessels into armed ones, and commenced a raid
amongst the British merchants, now in the Baltic, for the protection
of which some men-of-war ought to have been left. The Crown Prince,
now thrown completely into the arms of the French, made a declaration
of war against Britain, and the British Government issued an order for
reprisals on the ships, colonies, and property of the Danes. They also
seized on the island of Heligoland, a mere desolate rock, but, lying
at the mouth of the Elbe, and only twenty-five miles from the mouths
of the Weser and the Eider, it was of the greatest importance, during
the war, as a safe rendezvous for our men-of-war, and as a depôt for
our merchandise, ready to slip into any of the neighbouring rivers, and
thus, by smugglers, to be circulated all over the Continent, in spite
of Buonaparte's embargo. It served also to remind the people of those
regions, that, though Buonaparte ruled paramount on land, there was a
power on the sea that yet set him and all his endeavours at defiance.
The military transactions of the Continent this year had been of the
most remarkable kind. Buonaparte, after his repulse at Pultusk, had
retired to Warsaw, which he entered on the first day of the year
1807. He calculated on remaining there till the return of spring. But
Benningsen, the Russian general, was determined to interrupt this
pleasant sojourn. He had an army of eighty thousand or ninety thousand
men, with a very bad commissariat, and equally badly defended from
the severity of the winter. The King of Prussia was cooped up in
Königsberg, with an army of a very few thousand men, and his situation
was every day rendered more critical by the approach of the divisions
of Ney and Bernadotte, whom the treacherous surrender of the Prussian
fortresses by their commanders had set at liberty. But Benningsen
hastened to relieve the King of Prussia at Königsberg; his Cossacks
spread themselves over the country with great adroitness, surprising
the French convoys of provisions. More Cossacks were streaming down to
their support out of the wintry wilds of Russia, and the French were
forced from their pleasant quarters in Warsaw, to preserve the means
of their existence. Buonaparte, alarmed at these advances, determined
to turn out and force the Russians eastward, towards the Vistula, as he
had forced the Prussians at Jena with their rear turned to the Rhine.
To take the Russians thus in the rear, he ordered Bernadotte to engage
the attention of Benningsen on the right whilst he made this manœuvre
on the left. But Benningsen, fortunately, learned their stratagem, by
the seizure of the young French officer who was carrying Buonaparte's
dispatches to Bernadotte. Benningsen was therefore enabled to defeat
Buonaparte's object. He concentrated his troops on Preuss-Eylau, where
he determined to risk a battle. But he was not allowed to occupy this
position without several brisk encounters, in which the Russians lost
upwards of three thousand men. The battle of Eylau took place on the
7th of February. It was such a check as Buonaparte had never yet
experienced. He had been beaten at every point; Augereau's division was
nearly destroyed; that of Davoust, nearly twenty thousand in number,
had been repulsed by a much inferior body of Prussians. Fifty thousand
men are said to have been killed and wounded, of whom thirty thousand
were French. Twelve eagles had been captured, and remained trophies in
the hands of the Russians.
Had Benningsen had a good commissariat, the doom of the French was
certain. The army, famishing and in rags, was still eager to push their
advantage the next day, and the French, if compelled to retreat, as
there was every prospect, must have fallen into utter demoralisation,
and the war would have been soon at an end. But Benningsen, sensible
that there was an utter lack of provision for his army, and that his
ammunition was nearly exhausted, hesitated to proceed to a second
action with an army reduced twenty thousand in number, and thus to
risk being cut off from Königsberg, endangering the person of the
King of Prussia; and so the extreme caution, or rather, perhaps, the
necessities of the Russian general, were the rescue of Buonaparte.
Benningsen resolved to retreat upon Königsberg.
The Russians began their retreat, but some of them not till daylight,
and then marched close past Eylau, in the very face of the French,
who were, probably, as much astonished as pleased at the spectacle.
Benningsen could scarcely have known the extent of the French losses,
when he decided to retire. But Buonaparte, notwithstanding that he
claimed the victory, was glad now to offer a suspension of hostilities
to the King of Prussia, with a view to a separate peace, hinting
that he might be induced to waive most of the advantages derived
from the fields of Jena and Auerstädt, and restore the bulk of his
dominions. Frederick William, however great the temptation, refused
to treat independently of his ally, the Czar. On this, Buonaparte, so
far from pursuing the Russians, as he would have done had he been in
a capacity for it, remained eight days inactive at Eylau, and then
retreated on the Vistula, followed and harassed all the way by swarms
of Cossacks. On this Benningsen advanced, and occupied the country
as fast as the French evacuated it. The Emperor Alexander could soon
have raised another host of men, but he was destitute of money and
arms. He therefore applied to Britain for a loan, which the Talents
thought fit to decline. This, at such a crisis, was unwise. It is
certain that it filled Alexander with disgust and resentment, and led
to his negotiations with Buonaparte at Tilsit. Soon after this the
Conservative or Portland Ministry came in, and supplies of muskets and
five hundred thousand pounds were sent, but these were, in fact, thrown
away, for they did not arrive till the Czar had made up his mind to
treat with Napoleon.
On his return to the Vistula, Buonaparte displayed an unusual caution.
He seemed to feel that his advance into Poland had been premature,
whilst Prussia was in possession of Dantzic, whence, as soon as the
thaw set in, he was open to dangerous operations in his rear, from the
arrival of a British army. He therefore determined to have possession
of that post before undertaking further designs. The place was invested
by General Lefebvre, and capitulated at the end of May. Buonaparte all
this time was marching up fresh troops to fill up the ravages made in
his army. The Russians, after a drawn battle near Heilsberg on the 10th
of June, then crossed the Aller, and placed that as a barrier between
them and the French, in order that they might avoid the arrival of a
reinforcement of thirty thousand men who were on the march.
Thus occupying the right bank of the Aller, and the French the left, or
western side, the Russians advanced to Friedland, not many miles from
Eylau. At Friedland was a long wooden bridge crossing the Aller, and
there, on the 13th of June, Buonaparte, by a stratagem, succeeded in
drawing part of the Russians over the bridge by showing only Oudinot's
division, which had been severely handled at the battle of Heilsberg.
The temptation was too great. Benningsen forgot his usual caution, and
allowed a division of his army to cross and attack Oudinot. Oudinot
retired fighting, and thus induced more of the Russians to follow,
till, finding his troops hotly pressed, Benningsen marched his whole
force over, and then Napoleon showed his entire army. Benningsen saw
that he was entrapped, and must fight, under great disadvantages, with
an enfeebled army, and in an open space, where they were surrounded
by a dense host of French, who could cover themselves amid woods and
hills, and pour in a tempest of cannon-balls on the exposed Russians.
It was the anniversary of the battle of Marengo, and Buonaparte
believed the day one of his fortunate ones. Benningsen was obliged
to reduce his number by sending six thousand men to defend and keep
open the bridge of Allerburg, some miles lower down the Aller, and
which kept open his chance of union with L'Estocq and his Prussians.
Notwithstanding all these disadvantages, Benningsen fought desperately.
The battle continued from ten o'clock in the morning till four o'clock
in the afternoon, when Buonaparte brought up his full force in person
for one of those terrible and overwhelming shocks by which he generally
terminated a doubtful contest. There was such a simultaneous roar of
musketry and cavalry as seemed enough to sweep away the Russians like
chaff. The batteries poured down upon them a rain of no less than three
thousand ball and five hundred grape-shot charges; yet the Russians
did not flinch till they had at least twelve thousand killed and
wounded. It was then determined to retreat across the river, and, two
fords having been found, the Czar's Imperial Guard charged the troops
of Ney with the bayonet, and kept them at bay till the army was over.
The transit was marvellous in its success. All their cannon, except
seventeen, were saved, and all their baggage.
As at Eylau, so at Friedland, Napoleon made no attempt to follow
the Russians. But the battle, nevertheless, produced important
consequences. The King of Prussia did not think himself safe at
Königsberg, and he evacuated it; and the unhappy queen prepared,
with her children, to fly to Riga. The Russians retreated to Tilsit,
and there Alexander made up his mind to negotiate with Napoleon. He
was far from being in a condition to despair; Gustavus, the King of
Sweden, was at the head of a considerable army at Stralsund; a British
expedition was daily expected in the Baltic; the spirit of resistance
was reawakening in Prussia; Schill, the gallant partisan leader, was
again on horseback, with a numerous body of men, gathered in various
quarters; and Hesse, Hanover, Brunswick, and other German provinces
were prompt for revolt on the least occasion of encouragement.
Buonaparte felt the peril of crossing the Niemen, and advancing into
the vast deserts of Russia, with these dangerous elements in his rear.
Besides, his presence was necessary in France. He had been absent from
it nearly a year; he had drawn heavily on its resources, and a too
long-continued strain without his personal influence might produce
fatal consequences. To leave his army in the North was to leave it
to certain defeat, and with the danger of having all Germany again
in arms. These circumstances, well weighed by a man of genius and
determination, would have induced him to make a resolute stand, and to
draw his enemy into those wilds where he afterwards ruined himself, or
to wear him out by delay. Alexander, however, had not the necessary
qualities for such a policy of procrastination. He was now depressed by
the sufferings of his army, and indignant against Britain.
Accordingly, Benningsen communicated Alexander's willingness for peace,
on the 21st of June, and the armistice was ratified on the 23rd.
Buonaparte determined then, as on most occasions, to settle the treaty,
not by diplomatists, but personally, with the Czar. A raft was prepared
and anchored in the middle of the Niemen, and on the morning of the
25th of June, 1807, the two Emperors met on that raft, and embraced,
amid the shouts of the two armies arranged on each bank. The two
Emperors retired to a seat placed for them on the raft, and remained in
conversation two hours, during which time their attendants remained at
a distance. The town of Tilsit was declared neutral ground, and became
a scene of festivities, in which the Russian, French, and even Prussian
officers, who had been so long drenching the northern snows with each
other's blood, vied in courtesies towards each other. Amongst them
the two Emperors appeared as sworn brothers, relaxing into gaiety and
airs of gallantry, like two young fashionables. On the 28th the King
of Prussia arrived, and was treated with a marked difference. He was
bluntly informed, that whatever part of his territories were restored
would be solely at the solicitation of the Emperor of Russia.
[Illustration: THE TREATY OF TILSIT. (_See p._ 544.)]
By the terms of the Treaty of Tilsit, Prussian Poland was taken away,
but not to be incorporated with a restored Poland, as Buonaparte
had delusively allowed the Poles to hope. No; a restored Poland was
incompatible with a treaty of peace with Russia, or the continuance
of it with Austria. It was handed over to the Duke of Saxony, now
elevated to the title of the King of Saxony and Duke of the Grand
Duchy of Warsaw--the name which Prussian Poland assumed. The duped
Polish patriots cursed Buonaparte bitterly in secret. Alexander, with
all his assumed sympathy for his fallen cousins of Prussia, came in
for a slice of the spoil, nominally to cover the expenses of the war.
Dantzic, with a certain surrounding district, was recognised as a
free city, under the protection of Prussia and Saxony; but Buonaparte
took care to stipulate for the retention of a garrison there till the
conclusion of a general peace, so as to stop out any British armament
or influence. To oblige the Emperor of Russia, he allowed the Dukes
of Saxe-Coburg, Oldenburg, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, who were the Czar's
relations, to retain possession of their territories; but he returned
to Prussia only about one-half of the provinces which he had seized,
reducing her very much to the limits in which Frederick the Great had
found her before his usurpations. She surrendered her provinces between
the Rhine and the Elbe, which, together with Hesse, Brunswick, and
part of Hanover, were formed into the kingdom of Westphalia and given
to Jerome Buonaparte. She was saddled by a crushing war indemnity,
and had to leave Berlin and the chief fortresses in the hands of the
French until the debt was paid. In the articles of the Treaty which
were made public, Alexander paid a nominal courtesy to his ally, Great
Britain, by offering to mediate between her and France, if the offer
were accepted within a month; but amongst the secret articles of the
Treaty was one binding the Czar to shut his ports against all British
vessels, if this offer were rejected. This was a sacrifice demanded
of Alexander, as Great Britain was Russia's best customer, taking
nearly all her raw or exported produce. In return for this, and for
Alexander's connivance at, or assistance in, Buonaparte's intention of
seizing on Spain and Portugal, for the taking of Malta and Gibraltar,
and the expulsion of the British from the Mediterranean, Alexander was
to invade and annex Finland, the territory of Sweden, and, giving up
his designs on Moldavia and Wallachia, for which he was now waging an
unprovoked war, he was to be allowed to conquer the rest of Turkey,
the ally of Napoleon, and establish himself in the long-coveted
Constantinople. Thus these two august robbers shared kingdoms at their
own sweet will and pleasure. Turkey and Finland they regarded as
properly Russian provinces, and Spain, Portugal, Malta, Gibraltar, and,
eventually, Britain, as provinces of France.