\^Wp; *t ■■■'/'! '':' J m m i ^p! mi mm 'W HISTORY OF EUEOPE FKOM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION RESTORATION OF THE BOURBONS ' *IN MD'CCCXV ARCHIBALD ALISON, L.L.D. F.R.S.E. Ncfo IcDttion, tottl) ^oitratts VOL. VII. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCXLIX PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH. v. 7 ' CONTENTS OF VOL. VII. CHAPTER XLI. THE BRITISH FINANCES, AND MR PITTS SYSTEM OP FINANCIAL POLICY. Paga 1 1. Importance of the subject, ..•••• 2. Astonishing financial efforts of England during the war, . . 2 3. Historical details.— Public income before the Commonwealth. Large increase consequent on the Great Rebellion, 4. Permanent addition to them on the accession of William III., . 4 5. Reasons which led to the introduction of the national debt, . . 5 Corresponding increase of the expenditure of France on the accession of Louis Philippe, . . > note > 6 6. Progressive growth of the public debt during the succeeding century, 7 Table illustrating its increase, ..•••• note > 8 7. Alarming financial aspect of the country on Mr Pitt's accession to power in 1784, . . . • • 9 8. Principle on which he proposed to remedy the existing evils, ^ . ib. 9. His strong expressions on the importance of the subject in parliament, 11 10. And his simultaneous adoption of measures for national defence, . 12 11. Establishment of the sinking-fund, and Mr Pitt's speech on introducing it, 13 12. Mr Fox gives this plan his cordial support, . . • .15 13. It is passed by the legislature, and made applicable to all future loans, 16 14. Modification introduced upon the system in 1802, 15. Immense results of the sinking-fund, . . • • .19 Table showing the progressive growth of the sinking-fund, . . note, 20 16. Obloquy to which it became exposed, 20 17. General diffusion of this delusion, ..... 21 18. Which is the more dangerous, as it involves much abstract truth mixed with error, ... • • .22 19. Comparison of the arguments for and against the sinking-fund, . 23 Pitt clearly saw the objection since urged against the system, . note, 24 20. Value of the system in time of peace, .... 24 21. Distinctive merit of Mr Pitt's system for the sinking-fund, . . 26 22. Proof of these principles afforded by the result during the last twenty years, ...••••• y 23. It is clearly the only way of effecting a reduction of the debt, . ib. Durable and far-seeing system which he had established, . . note, 28" 24. Had it been adhered to, the whole debt would have been discharged in 1845, 29 Tables showing the progressive growth of a sinking-fund of fifteen or ten millions, from 1816 to 1836-, note > ib - V0L '™- 428309 Tl CONTENTS OF CHAP. XLI. § Page 25. Causes which have led to the decay of this system, ... 30 26. It was the desire for present popularity in the government, . . 31 Table showing the amount of direct and indirect taxes repealed from 1816 to 1834, ...... .note, 32 27. Great error in not repealing at once all the direct taxes on the peace, 33 28. Imprudent remission of indirect taxes since 1816, ... 34 29. Little good has been derived from this repeal of indirect taxes, . 35 30. Immense burdens under which the nation prospered during the war, . 36 31. Argument on this subject, ...... 37 32. Great immediate as well as ultimate advantages which would have attended keeping up the sinking-fund, .... 38 33. Beneficial result which woidd have arisen from keeping up the price of the funds, ........ «J, 34. Public errors which led to its abandonment, and their distressing effects, 39 35. Lord Castlereagh's error regarding the income-tax, • • . 40 36. The nation was mainly responsible for this change of system, . 41 37. Advantages of the funding system, ..... 42 38. Its dangers, ........ 43 39. Mr Pitt's views on this subject, ..... 44 40. Modification which they received after the first Continental peace in 1797, 45 41. Mr Pitt's speech on the change then introduced, . . . { . 42. He proposes to augment the supplies raised within the year, . . 47 43. Trebling of the assessed taxes, ..... 43 44. In Mr Pitt's view, these heavy burdens were to be temporary only, . H>. 45. Great change of system thus introduced, ... 49 46. First introduction of the income-tax, ..... 50 47. Mr Pitt's speech introducing this impost, and his plan, . . 51 48. Objections urged against it, . . . . . .52 49. It is adopted by parliament, ...... 53 50. Change subsequently induced on the system, .... 54 51. Advantages of the new system, 55 52. Mr Pitt's permanent taxes were all in the indirect form : their advantages, 56 53. Arguments for indirect taxation, .... 57 54. Reply to the objections against it, . . . .58 55. Reasons of the superior lightness of indirect taxation, . . 59 56. Cases in which indirect taxes, by being excessive, become direct burdens on production, ....... 60 57. Important difference between indirect taxes on rural and manufactured produce, ........ 61 58. General character of Mr Pitt's financial measures. Their grandeur and foresight, . . . . . . .62 59. Their errors. Undue extent of the funding system, ... 63 60. Niggardly use of the military forces of England, ... 64 61. This was his great defect, . . . . . .65 62. Injudicious system of borrowing in the three per cents, . . 66 63. Its effects in preventing the reduction of interest on peace, . . 67 64. The temporary diminution of interest was no adequate compensation for these evils, ....... 68 65. In Mr Pitt's view, the sinking-fund was to remedy all these evils, . 70 Table of the whole expenses of every year, in every department, during the war, ........ note, 71 CONTENTS OF CHAP. XLII. § 66. Vast effects of the suspension of cash payments in 1797, 67. Causes which produced the suspension of cash payments in 1797. Its powerful operation in increasing the present resources of the state, 68. It was the mainspring of the financial strength of the nation during the Vll Page 72 ib. 74 Table showing the paper and coin issued, with the exports, imports, and revenue of every year during the war, .... note, 75 69. Great temporary advantages of the funding system, . . .. 75 70. The undue ascendency of popular power led to the undoing of Mr Pitt's durable system for reduction of the debt, 71. And it must ultimately ruin the British empire, 72. The contraction of the currency by the bill of 1819 was the cause of this, 73. Which was itself owing to the ascendency of the moneyed interest pro- duced by the war, ....•• 74. These causes will impel the British race to the New World, . CHAPTER XLII. FROM THE PEACE OF PRESSBURG TO THE^ RENEWAL OF THE CONTINENTAL WAR. JANUARY — OCTOBER 1806. 1. Immense results of the campaign of Austerlitz, 2. The premiership offered to Lord Hawkesbury, and declined, 3. Public opinion on the necessity of a coalition of parties, 4. Mr Fox is sent for, . . 5. State of parties in the country, and their principles, 6. Composition of the cabinet, 7. First measures of the new ministry. The budget, 8. Return of Napoleon to Paris. Financial crisis there, 9. Its ostensible causes, .... 10. Vast speculations of M. Ouvrard, 11. The immediate cause of the explosion was the absorption of gold for the German war, .... 12. Measures of Napoleon in consequence, 13. Real cause of the catastrophe, . 14. Means by which the crisis had hitherto been avoided, 15. The root of the evil was the extravagant expenditure of government, 16. Financial changes in consequence introduced in France, 17. And imposition of the French armies as a burden on foreign states, 18. French budget for 1805, and exposition by the minister of the interior, 19. Exposition of the triumphs of France : silence as to Trafalgar, 20. Erection of the column in the Place Vendome, 21. Advance of the French against Naples, . 22. Successful invasion of Calabria, .... 23. Joseph Buonaparte created King of the two Sicilies, 24. Naples is threatened by Sir Sidney Smith. General Stuart lands in the Bay of St Euphemia, . 25. Reynier resolves to attack him, ... 26. Battle of Maida, ...••• 84 85 86 87 88 89 91 ib. 93 94 96 ib. 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 Yin CONTENTS OF CHAP. XLII. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. Page Great moral effect of this victory, . . . . .110 Its immediate results are less considerable, . . . .111 Surrender of Gaeta, . . . . . . .112 Retreat of the English. Suppression of the insurrection, . . 113 Domestic reforms of Joseph in Naples, ..... 114 Miserable state of Holland since its conquest by France, . . 115 Napoleon's measures to place his brother Louis on the throne of that country, ........ 116 Creation of militaiy fiefs in the kingdom of Italy, . . ib. Napoleon's secret views in these measures, . . . .117 Audience given to the Turkish ambassador, . . . .118 Naval operations : sailing and division of the Brest fleet, . . 119 Defeat of the first squadron at St Domingo, . . . .120 Disasters of Willaumez's squadron, . . . . ib. Capture of Linois, and other naval operations, . . . .122 Reflections on these last naval disasters of France, . . .123 Greatness of the French navy under Louis XVI., . . .124 Napoleon's change of system in regard to the naval war, . . ib. Reflections on the growth of the English maritime power, . . 125 Character of the French navy, ...... 126 Probable future influence of the British navy on the world, . . 127 Reduction of the Cape of Good Hope, ..... 128 Sir Home Popham resolves to attack Buenos Ayres, . . .129 Which falls, . . . . . . . .130 Embarrassment of government on this success, . . . ib. Buenos Ayres is retaken by the South Americans, . . .131 Differences with America in regard to neutral rights, . . . 132 Grounds of conduct of England, as explained by Sir W. Scott, . 134 Violent measures of Congress, . . . . . . 135 The commissioners on both sides adjust the differences, . . ib. Continental affairs. Coldness between France and Prussia, . . 136 Increasing jealousies between the two cabinets. Prussia seizes on Hanover, ....... 138 Measures of retaliation by Great Britain, .... ib. Mr Fox's speech on the subject, ...... 140 Napoleon's opinion of Prussia in this transaction, . . .141 His further measures of aggression on Germany, . . . ib. Universal indignation in the north of Germany, . . . 142 Gentz's pamphlet on the subject, .... note, 143 Formation of the Confederacy of the Rhine, . . . .143 Powers admitted to the confederacy, . . . . .145 The Emperor renounces the crown of Germany, . . .146 Addresses of Napoleon and the Emperor Francis to the German States, ....... note, 148 Great sensation which these events produce at Berlin, . . . 148 Fresh umbrage of Prussia at the treaty of France with Russia. Warlike preparations of Prussia, ...... 150 Renewed causes of discord between France and Russia, . . 151 Differences about Cattaro, which is occupied by the Russians, . . 152 The French in return seize Ragusa : actions in its neighbourhood, . 153 D'Oubril concludes a treaty at Paris between France and Russia, . 154 CONTENTS OF CHAP. XLIII. IX 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 90. Page Which is disavowed by the cabinet of St Petersburg, . . .155 Opening of the negotiations between France and England, . .156 England insists on Russia being a party to the negotiation, . . 157 Basis of uti possidetis fixed, ; . . . • .158 Which France departs from, . . . . . .159 Continuation of the negotiations, and gradual estrangement of the parties, 160 Progress of the negotiation, . . . . . .161 The demands of France become more extravagant, and the negotiation is broken off, ....... 162 Real views of the parties in this negotiation, .... 163 State of affairs at Berlin : Prussia's ultimatum, and preparations for war on both sides, ....... 164 Murder of Palm. Great sensation which it occasioned, . . 166 Proceedings of the military commission by which he was condemned, note, ib. Influence which it had on the rupture of the negotiation, . . 168 Mr Fox's eyes are at last opened to the real nature of the war, . ib. Last instructions of Mr Fox to Lord Lauderdale, . . . note, ib. Death of Mr Fox. His character, . . . . .170 His vices and failings, . . . . . . .171 His extraordinary talents in debate, . . . . .172 His fame is on the decline as a just thinker, .... 173 Reasons of this, . fc . • • • 174 His errors as a political philosopher, . . . . .175 CHAPTER XLIII. CAMPAIGN OF JENA. FALL OF PRUSSIA. 1. Natural disadvantages of Prussia, 2. Political situation and inhabitants of Prussia, . 3. Population and extent of Prussia, 4. Towns and manufacturing industry of Prussia, 5. Rapid agricultural progress of Prussia, . 6. Slow progress of Prussia at first, and rapid subsequent growth 7. Statistical details, ..... 8. State of religion in Prussia, .... 9. Revenue and expenditure of Prussia, 10. Military establishment, ..... 11. The Landwehr and Landsturm, .... 12. Great diffusion of education in Prussia, 13. Manners and court of Berlin, .... 14. Its state policy and diplomacy, .... 1 5. Efforts of Prussia to obtain the aid of Russia and England, 16. And of Austria, . . ■...-. 17. But the cabinet of Vienna resolves to remain neutral, . 18. Spain long obsequious to France under the Prince of the Peace 19. At length indicates hostile dispositions against France, 20. The lesser German powers incline to France, . 21. Preparations of Prussia. Forces on both sides, 22. Her grievous want of foresight and defensive measures, 177 178 179 180 181 182 ib. 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 ib. 192 19.3 194 195 ib. 196 Vlll CONTENTS OF CHAP. XLII. 27. 28. 29. 30. 81. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 61. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. Great moral effect of this victory, Its immediate results are less considerable, Surrender of Gaeta, ..... Retreat of the English. Suppression of the insurrection, Domestic reforms of Joseph in Naples, . Miserable state of Holland since its conquest by France, Napoleon's measures to place his brother Louis on the throne of countiy, ...... Creation of military fiefs in the kingdom of Italy, Napoleon's secret views in these measures, Audience given to the Turkish ambassador, Naval operations : sailing and division of the Brest fleet, Defeat of the first squadron at St Domingo, Disasters of Willaumez's squadron, Capture of Linois, and other naval operations, . Reflections on these last naval disasters of France, Greatness of the French navy under Louis XVI., Napoleon's change of system in regard to the naval war, Reflections on the growth of the English maritime power, Character of the French navy, .... Probable future influence of the British navy on the world, Reduction of the Cape of Good Hope, . Sir Home Popham resolves to attack Buenos Ayres, Which falls, Embarrassment of government on this success, Buenos Ayres is retaken by the South Americans, Differences with America in regard to neutral rights, . Grounds of conduct of England, as explained by Sir W. Scott, Violent measures of Congress, .... The commissioners on both sides adjust the differences, Continental affairs. Coldness between France and Prussia, Increasing jealousies between the two cabinets. Prussia Hanover, . Measures of retaliation by Great Britain, Mr Fox's speech on the subject, Napoleon's opinion of Prussia in this transaction, His further measures of aggression on Germany, Universal indignation in the north of Germany, Gentz's pamphlet on the subject, Formation of the Confederacy of the Rhine, Powers admitted to the confederacy, The Emperor renounces the crown of Germany, Addresses of Napoleon and the Emperor Francis to the Ger States, ...... Great sensation which these events produce at Berlin, . Fresh umbrage of Prussia at the treaty of France with Russia. War preparations of Prussia, .... Renewed causes of discord between France and Russia, Differences about Cattaro, which is occupied by the Russians, The French in return seize Ragusa : actions in its neighbourhood, D'Oubril concludes a treaty at Paris between France and Russia, that Page 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 ib. 117 118 119 120 ib. 122 123 124 ib. 125 126 127 128 129 130 ib. 131 132 134 135 ib. 136 on 138 ib. 140 141 ib. 142 note, 143 143 145 146 man note, 148 148 like 150 151 152 153 154 CONTENTS OF CHAP. XLIII. IX 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. Which is disavowed by the cabinet of St Petersburg, . Opening of the negotiations between France and England, England insists on Russia being a party to the negotiation, Basis of uti possidetis fixed, .... Which France departs from, .... Page 155 156 157 158 159 90. Continuation of the negotiations, and gradual estrangement of the parties, 160 Progress of the negotiation, . . . . . .161 The demands of France become more extravagant, and the negotiation is broken off, ....... 162 Real views of the parties in this negotiation, .... 163 State of affairs at Berlin : Prussia's ultimatum, and preparations for war on both sides, . . . . . . .164 Murder of Palm. Great sensation which it occasioned, . . 166 Proceedings of the military commission by which he was condemned, note, ib. Influence which it had on the rupture of the negotiation, . . 168 Mr Fox's eyes are at last opened to the real nature of the war, . ib. Last instructions of Mr Fox to Lord Lauderdale, . . . note, ib. Death of Mr Fox. His character, ..... 170 His vices and failings, . . . . . . .171 His extraordinary talents in debate, ..... 172 His fame is on the decline as a just thinker, .... 173 Reasons of this, . . * . . . . 174 His errors as a political philosopher, . . . . .175 CHAPTER XLIII. CAMPAIGN OF JENA. FALL OF PRUSSIA. 1. Natural disadvantages of Prussia, 2. Political situation and inhabitants of Prussia, . 3. Population and extent of Prussia, 4. Towns and manufacturing industry of Prussia, 5. Rapid agricultural progress of Prussia, . 6. Slow progress of Prussia at first, and rapid subsequent growth 7. Statistical details, ..... 8. State of religion in Prussia, .... 9. Revenue and expenditure of Prussia, 10. Military establishment, ..... 11. The Landwehr and Landsturm, .... 12. Great diffusion of education in Prussia, 13. Manners and court of Berlin, .... 14. Its state policy aud diplomacy, .... 15. Efforts of Prussia to obtain the aid of Russia and England, 16. And of Austria, ...... 17. But the cabinet of Vienna resolves to remain neutral, . 1 8. Spain long obsequious to France under the Prince of the Peace 19. At length indicates hostile dispositions against France, 20. The lesser German powers incline to France, . 21. Preparations of Prussia. Forces on both sides, 22. Her grievous want of foresight -and defensive measures, 177 178 179 180 181 182 ib. 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 ib. 192 •193 194 195 ib. 196 X CONTENTS OF CHAP. XLIII. 23. Imprudent conduct of the Prussian generals, 24. Proclamation of Napoleon to his soldiers, 25. Manifesto of Prussia, ..... 26. The true character of the war as asserted in it, 27. Reflections on these proclamations, 28. Napoleon's insult to the Queen of Prussia, 29. Preparatory movements of the Prussians, 30. Counter-movement of Napoleon. His system of providing for his troops, 31. The Duke of Brunswick renounces the offensive. Description of the theatre of war, ....... 32. Commencement of hostilities, and defeat of detached bodies of Prussians, 33. Success of the French left against Prince Louis, 34. Death of that Prince, . 35. Discouragement of the Prussians, who are completely turned by the French, ...... 36. Movements on both sides preparatory to a general action, 37. Result of these manoeuvres, .... 38. Concentration of the Prussian forces near Weimar, 39. The Prussian army is again divided. The King marches to Auerstadt 40. Napoleon's dispositions for the battle, .... 41. And vigorous efforts to surmount the Landgrafenberg, 42. Situation of the armies on both sides, on the morning of the 14th, 43. Battle of Jena, ....... 44. Defensive measures of the Prussians, .... 45. Commencement of the battle, ..... 46. The Prussians are defeated, ...... 47. Arrival of Ruchel, who is overwhelmed, 48. Preparatory movements which led to the battle of the King's army, 49. Battle of Auerstadt, ...... 50. Additional forces come up on both sides, 51. Desperate conflict which ensued at the summit, 52. Arrival of other divisions on the field. Progress of the battle, 53. Desperate struggle around the Sonnenberg on the Prussian right, 54. The Prussian reserve advances, and is overthrown, 55. Disastrous retreat of the Prussians during the night from both fields of battle, ...... 56. Meeting of the two discomfited armies in their flight, . 57. Loss on both sides in these actions, 58. Unparalleled disasters of the retreat, 59. Capture of Erfurth with fourteen thousand men, 60. The King of Prussia gives the command to Hohenlohe, and retires to Magdeburg, ..... 61. Measures of Napoleon to follow up the victory, 62. Soult defeats Kalkreuth, .... 63. Prince Eugene of Wurtemberg is defeated by Bernadotte at Halle, 64. Desperate action which ensued on his retreat, . 65. Saxony is overrun by the French, .... 66. Investment of Magdeburg, which is abandoned by Hohenlohe, 67. Who is pursued and assailed, ..... 68. Is utterly defeated at Prentzlow, .... 69. And compelled to surrender. Profound grief of the Prussian troops, 234 235 236 237 ib. 238 239 241 242 ib. CONTENTS OF CHAP. XL1V. XI 70. March and escape of the Duke of Saxo- Weimar, . . . 243 71. Disgraceful surrender of Stettin and Ciistrin, .... 244 72. Eeflections on these events. Depots at Erfurth and Wittenberg formed by Napoleon, ....... 245 73. Blucher's corps is pursued to Liibeck, ..... 246 74. Where he is shut up, ...... 248 75. And is there defeated after a desperate conflict, . . . 249 76. Desperate assault of the town, ...... ib. 77. He retires to Ratkau, and is there made prisoner, . . . 251 78. Fall of Magdeburg, ....... ib. 79. Fall of Hameln and Nienburg on the Weser, .... 253 80. Napoleon detaches Saxony from the coalition, .... ib. 81. Refuses to treat with Prussia, ...... 255 82. Napoleon visits Potsdam and the tomb of Frederick, . . . 256 83. Berlin, Spandau, and Charlottenburg occupied by the French, . 258 84. Affair of Prince Hatzfcld, ...... 259 85. His pardon by Napoleon, ...... 260 86. Napoleon's proclamation and addresses to his soldiers, . . 261 87. Unpardonable severity of Napoleon to the Duke of Brunswick, . 262 88. And to the Queen of Prussia and the Elector of Hesse Cassel, . 263 89. Enormous contributions levied on Prussia and the north of Germany, 265 90. Cruelties exercised towards the conquered districts, . . . 266 91. Military organisation of the country from the Rhine to the Vistula, . 267 92. Negotiations with Prussia, and the first demands of Napoleon acceded to, 268 93. Convention signed by the plenipotentiai'ies, .... 269 94. Which the King of Prussia refuses to ratify, .... 270 95. Famous Berlin decree against English commerce, . . . 271 96. Affairs of Poland. -Napoleon's language to the Polish deputies, . ib. 97. Advance of Jerome into Silesia, of the French army to the Vistula, and of Mortier to Hamburg, ...... 273 98. Levy of a new conscription in France, . . . . . ib. 99. Treaty between France and Saxony, ..... 274 100. Immense residts of the campaign, ..... 275 101. Talents and rashness displayed by Napoleon during the campaign, . 276 102. Reflections on the sudden fall of Prussia, .... 277 103. General despondency which it occasions in Europe, . . . 278 104. Blucher's opinion of the probable resurrection of Germany, . . 279 105. Salutary ultimate result of this suffering to Prussia, . . . 281 CHAPTER XLIV. CAMPAIGN OF EYLAU. DECEMBER 1806 — MARCH 1807. 1. Advance of the French and Russians to the Vistula, 2. Military preparations of Russia, 3. Composition and character of her armies, 4. Imprudent division of their force by the invasion of Moldavia, 5. Embarrassment of Napoleon on the Polish question, . 6. Arguments in favour of the restoration of Poland, 7. Security for the permanence of her alliance with France, 282 283 284 286 287 288 289 Xll CONTENTS OP CHAP. XLIV. § Page 8. Arguments on the other side against interfering on behalf of the Poles, 289 9. Certainty of the restoration of Poland inducing the inveterate hostility of the Northern powers, ...... 291 10. Napoleon adopts a middle course, and rouses only Prussian Poland, . 292 11. Forged proclamations issued in Kosciusko's name, and great excitement in Poland, ....... 293 12. Napoleon's ambiguous bulletin on the subject, . . . 294 13. Napoleon proposes to Austria to exchange Gallicia for Silesia, which is refused, .... .... 295 14. Napoleon's strong declaration in favour of Turkey, . . . 296 15. His proclamation to his soldiers on the anniversary of Austerlitz, . 297 16. Its great effect. Formation of the Temple of Glory at Paris, . . 299 17- Napoleon's plans for its construction, . . . . .300 Napoleon's secret design in this edifice, . . . note, 302 18. Vast efforts of Napoleon to recruit his army, and secure his flanks and rear, 302 19. Enormous contributions levied on all the conquered states, . . 303 20. Positions and force of the French on the Vistula, . . . 304 21. And of the Russians, ....... 306 22. Positions of the troops, and their evacuation of Warsaw ; and Alexander's proclamation to his soldiers, . . . ib. J 23. Application for assistance in men and money to England. Its impolitic refusal, ........ 308 24. The Russians resume the offensive, . . . . ib. 25. Napoleon advances to Warsaw. General enthusiasm there, . . 309 26. And resumes the offensive agaiust the Russians, . . .310 27. Forcing of the passage of the Ukra by the French, . . . 311 28. Kamenskoi loses his presence of mind, and orders the sacrifice of the artillery, . . . . . . . .313 29. Object of Napoleon in these movements, .... 314 30. Description of the field at Pultusk, and of the positions of the two hostile armies, ........ ib. 31. Battle of Pultusk, . . . . . . .315 32. Which turns out to the disadvantage of the French, . . . 317 33. Combat of Golymin, ........ ib. 34. Its doubtful issue, . . . . . . .319 35. Napoleon stops his advance, and puts his army into winter-quarters, . 320 36. The Russians also go into winter-quarters, . . . .321 37. Results of this winter campaign, and impression which it produces in Europe, ib. 38. Positions of the French army in winter-quarters, . . 323 89. Napoleon's measures to provide food and secure his cantonments, . 324 325 ib. 326 327 328 ib. 330 332 He ib. 333 40. Reduction of the fortresses in Silesia, .... 41. Siege and fall of Breslau, ..... 42. Capture of Brieg and Schweidnitz, and total conquest of Silesia, 43. Operations on the left towards Pomerania and Dantzic, 44. Operations of Marmont in Illyria, .... 45. Napoleon's efforts to stimulate the Tuiks to vigorous resistance, 46. Delightful residence of the French at Warsaw, 47. Enthusiastic reception of the French by the Polish women, 48. Kamenskoi goes mad, and Benningsen assumes the command. advances against Bernadotte, .... 49. Rapid advance of Benningsen towards Konigsberg, CONTENTS OF CHAP. XLV. Xlll § Page 50. He surprises Ney's corps, . . . - . . 334 51. Bernadotte, attacked near Mohmngen, escapes with difficulty, . 335 52. Graudentz is relieved, and the French left wing driven back by the Russians, ........ 336 53. Dangerous situation of Napoleon, ..... 337 54. Vigour of Napoleon in assembling his army, .... 338 55. Napoleon marches to the rear of Benningsen, .... 339 56. Who discovers his design and falls back, .... 340 57. The French pursue the Russians, who resolve to give battle, . . 341 58. Combat of Landsberg, ....... 342 59. Combat of Leibstadt and retreat of Lestocq, .... 343 60. Relative forces on both sides, ...... 344 61. Bloody combats round Eylau the day before the battle, . . 345 62. Anxious situation of both armies in their night-bivouac, . . 347 63. Description of the field of battle, and the positions of either army, . ib. 64. Distribution of the French forces, ..... 349 65. Battle of Eylau, Defeat of Augereau, ..... 350 66. Imminent danger of Napoleon, ..... 351 67. Grand charge by the cavalry and Imperial Guard on the Russian centre, 352 68. Great success of Davoust on the French right, .... 354 69. Bagavout is defeated on the Russian left, .... ib. 70. Benningsen throws back his left tojirrest the evil, . . . 355 71. Lestocq at length appears on the Russian right, and restores the battle, 356 72. Schloditten is carried by Ney, and retaken by Benningsen, . . 357 73. Benningsen, contrary to the wishes of his officers, resolves to retreat, 358 74. Results of the battle, and losses on both sides, .... 359 75. Aspect of the field of battle on the following day, . . . 360 76. Inactivity and losses of the French after the battle, . . . 361 77. Napoleon calls in all his reinforcements, and proposes peace, . . 362 78. Which is refused by Prussia, ...... 363 79. Napoleon retreats, and goes into cantonments on the Passarge, . 364 80. The Russians advance, and also go into cantonments. Both pai'ties claim the victory at Eylau, ...... 365 81. Opei'ations of Essen against Savary. Combat of Ostrolenka, . . 366 82. Immense sensation excited by the battle of Eylau in Europe, . . 367 83. Unwise refusal of military succour by England, . . . 369 84. Universal consternation at Paris on the news being received of Eylau, 370 85. Napoleon demands a third conscription since the beginning of the war, ib. 86. Immense activity of Napoleon to repair his losses, . ' . . 372 87. Extreme danger of Napoleon's situation at this juncture, . . 373 88. Ruinous effect of the surrender of the Prussian fortresses, . . 374 89. Observations on the movements of both parties, . . . 375 CHAPTER XLV. DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MEASURES OF MR FOX'S ADMINISTRATION. FEBRUARY 1806 — MARCH 1807. 1 . Important civil changes which originated during the war, . . 377 2. Effects of the accession of the Whigs to power, . . . 378 XIV CONTENTS OF CHAP. XLV. § Page 3. Their plan for a new system for the recruiting of the army, . . 379 4. Great change in the composition of the army. Arguments in support of it by Mr Windham, ...... 380 5. Impracticability of forced conscription, ..... 381 6. Inefficiency of voluntary enlistment, ..... 382 7. Means by which he proposes to render it more efficient, . . 383 8. Advantages of short periods of enlistment , as securing a better class of soldiers, ........ 384 9. Proposed limitation of that period, ..... 385 10. Reply of the former ministers on the subject, .... 386 11. The limited enlistment already partially in operation, . . . 387 12. The circumstances of Great Britain peculiar, and without precedent in those of any foreign state, ..... 388 13. Arguments against the reduction of the volunteer force, . . 389 14. And in favour of raising the additional force required by ballot, . 390 1 5. The bill passes, ........ 391 16. Reflections on the measure, ....... ib, 17. Error of the ministerial plan so far as regards the volunteers, . 393 18. Temporary service now in a great degree abandoned, . . . 394 19. Abolition of the slave trade, ...... 395 20. Arguments against the change by the West India interest, . . ib. 21. Alleged evil effects of abolition of the trade, .... 396 22. The slave trade asserted not to be the cause of the degraded state of Africa, 397 23. Arguments of Mr Wilberforce and others for the abolition, . . 398 24. Their answer to the assertion of the necessity of the trade to maintain the supply of negroes, ...... 399 25. Alleged gradual improvement of the race should the trade be abolished, 400 26. Its demoralising effect on Africa, ..... 401 27. Abolition tends to promote the gradual abrogation of slavery itself, . 402 28. The abolition is carried, ...... 403 29. Deplorable effects of the change hitherto on the negro race, . . 404 30. But they are not chargeable on its authors, but subsequent changes, . 405 Enormous present extent and horrors of the slave trade, . note, ib. Immense increase of produce in the slave colonies of late years. Com- paratively stationary condition of the British islands, . note, 406 Enormous fiscal injustice to which they have been exposed, . note, ib. 31. Ruinous effects of emancipation of negroes, .... 408 Rapid decline of West India produce since emancipation, . note, ib. 32. Which are to be ascribed to the emancipation of the negroes, not to the abolition of the slave trade, . . . . .409 33. Lord Henry Petty's plan of finance, . . . . .411 34. Argument in favour of it. Advantages of the sinking-fund, . . 412 35. Proposed measures for the redemption of the successive loans, . 413 36. And for providing the charges on them, .... 414 37. Advantages of the proposed system, . . . . . ib. 38. Argument against it by Lord Castlereagh and Mr Perceval, . . 416 39. Counter-plan proposed by them, . . . . . ib. 40. The ministerial scheme as threatening to break up the sinking-fund, . 418 41. Budget for 1807, ....... 419 42. Reflections on this subject, ...... ib. 43. Prejudicial effect in the end of these discussions, . . . 421 CONTENTS OF CHAP. XLV. XV § Page 44. Lord Henry Petty's plan was the preferable of the two, . . 421 45. General character of the Whig measures of domestic administration at this period, . . . . • • • 422 46. Foreign transactions. Fresh expedition to South America, and capture of Monte Video, ....... 423 47. A second expedition against Buenos Ayres is resolved on, . . 425 48. Preparations for its defence, ...... 426 49. Failure of the attack, ....... 427 50. Court-martial on General Whitelocke, who is cashiered, . . 428 51. Reflections on this event, ...... ib. 52. Capture of Curacoa, and establishment of the republic of Hayti, . 429 53. State of affairs in Turkey, ...... 430 54. Cause of rupture between Turkey and Russia, .... 431 55. Dismissal of the Waiwodes of Wallachia and Moldavia by Sultaun Selim, ib. 56. Violent remonstrances of Russia and England, which produce a repeal of the measure, ....... 433 57. Meanwhile the Russian armies invade the principalities, . . 434 58. And war is declared, ....... 435 59. Rapid progress of the Russians in the principalities, . . . 436 60. The Russians require the aid of a naval attack by England on Constanti- nople, which is agreed to, ..... ib. 61. Description of the Dardanelles, * . . . . 437 62. Ultimatum of Great Britain, and declaration of war by Turkey, . . 438 63. Sir John Duckworth resolves to pass the Dardanelles, . . 439 64. The Straits are forced after much resistance, .... 440 65. The Divan resolves on submission, as Constantinople was defenceless, 441 66. Intrepid conduct of Sebastiani, ...... ib. 67. The Turks negotiate to gain time, and complete their preparations, . 442 68. Vast energy displayed by the Mussulmans in their defence, . . 443 69. The English renounce the enterprise, ..... 444 70. The British fleet repass the Straits, ..... 445 71. Blockade of the Dardanelles, ...... 446 72. Naval actions off Tenedos, ....... 447 73. Descent by the British on the coasts of Egypt. Macleod defeated at El Hammed, ........ 448 74. Evacuation of Alexandria, ...... ib. 75. Great discontent at these repeated defeats throughout Great Britain, 449 76. Measures for introducing the Catholics into the army and navy brought in by Lord Howick, ...... ib. 77. Arguments in favour of it by Lord Howick, . . . .450 78. Arguments against it by Mr Perceval, ..... 451 79. The alleged tendency of the measure, ..... 452 80. Repugnance of the King to the bill, which is withdrawn, . . 453 81. The King requires a written pledge that no further concessions should be made to the Catholics. Change of ministry, . . . 454 Composition of the new cabinet, .... note, 456 82. Arguments in parliament against the King's conduct, . . . 456 83. And in support of it by Mr Perceval and Mr Canning, . . . 457 84. The sovereign had been left in the dark as to the extent of the measure, 458 85. Defence of his conduct in requiring the pledge from ministers, . 459 86. Dissolution of parliament, and great majority for the new ministers, . 460 XVI CONTENTS OF CHAP. XLVI. § Page 87. Biography of Lord Eldon, ...... 461 88. His rise at the bar to the office of chancellor, . . . 462 89. His character as a lawyer and statesman, . . . .463 90. Character of the Whig ministry, and effects of their fall, . . 464 91. Reflections on then foreign measures, ..... 465 92. And their glaring neglect of the Russian war, .... 467 Repeated and ineffectual applications which Alexander had made for aid from England during the Polish war, . . . note, 468 93. The Dardanelles expedition is an exception to the general inexpedience of their foreign policy, ...... 468 94. These defeats were ultimately beneficial, .... 470 CHAPTER XLVI. CAMPAIGN OF FRIEDLAND, AND PEACE OF TILSIT. 1. Negotiations and treaties between the Allies for the vigorous prosecution of the war, ....... 471 2. Austria strives to mediate between the contending powers. Treaty between Prussia and Russia at Bartenstein, . . .472 3. To which England and Sweden accede, .... 473 4. But too late to prevent the irritation of Russia, . . . ib. 5. Negotiations of Napoleon during the same period. Auxiliary forces obtained under Romana from Spain, .... 475 6. Operations in Pomerania, and views of Napoleon regarding Sweden, . 477 7. Armistice between the Swedes and French, . . . .478 8. Sweden again reverts to the alliance, . . . . .480 9. Formation of an army of reserve on the Elbe, . . . . ib. 10. Negotiations with Turkey and Persia by Napoleon, . . . 481 11. Preparations for aiding them by land, ..... 482 12. Jealousy excited in the Divan by the summoning of Parga, . . 483 13. Measures to organise the military strength of Poland, . . 484 14. Winter-quarters of the French army, ..... 485 15. Winter-quarters of the Russians. Combat of Guttstadt, . . 487 16. Great designs of Napoleon at this time for the interior of his empire, 489 17. And for political improvements, . " . . .491 Napoleon fixes on a design for the Madeleine at Paris, . note, 492 18. Finances of France during this year, ..... 492 Receipts and expenditure of the year, .... note, 494 19. Statutes of the Gi'and Sanhedrim of the Jews at Paris, . . 494 20. Reflections on this event, ...... 496 21. Napoleon's efforts to feed his troops. Sieges in Silesia during the interval of hostilities, ....... ib. 22. Fall of Schweidnitz, ....... 498 23. OfNeisse, ........ ib. 24. AndofGlatz, ........ 499 25. Siege of Dantzic. Description of that fortress, . . . 500 26. State of its fortifications, ...... 501 27. First operations of the besieging force, ..... 502 28. Capture of the Isle of Nehrung, . . . . . ib. CONTENTS OF CHAP. XLVI. 29. Progress of the siege, . 30. Attempt of the Allies to raise the siege, 31. Which proves unsuccessful, . . • • 32. Growing difficulties of the besieged, and fall of the place, 33. Reinforcements which arrived to the Russian army. Its strength and positions, ..•••• 34. Strength and position of the French army, 35. Defensive measures of the Russians, . 36. Designs of the Russians on Ney's corps, 37. Feigned attacks on the bridges of the Passarge, and real attack on Marshal Ney, ..-••• 38. Its success at first, and final failure, . 39. Napoleon concentrates his army, and the Russians fall back, . 40. The Russians, pursued by the French, fall back to Heilsberg, . 41. Different plans of operation which presented themselves to Napoleon 42. Advance upon Heilsberg, . • •• 43. Description of the position and intrenched camp of Heilsberg, 44. Battle of Heilsberg, ....•• 45. Fresh attack by Lannes, which also proves unsuccessful, ' Violent explosion of Lannes, Murat, and Napoleon in consequence, 46. Frightful appearance of the slain after the battle, 47. Napoleon turns their flank, and compels them to evacuate Heilsberg, 48. Movements of the two armies before the battle of Friedland, . 49. Description of the field of Friedland, . 50. Benningsen resolves to attack Lannes' corps. Situation of that corps 51. He crosses the Alle, and attacks the French marshal, . 52. Disposition and arrangement of the Russian army, 53. No decisive successes gained on either side before the arrival of the French corps, . ... 54. Preparatory dispositions and forces of Napoleon, 55. Order of battle taken up by the French, 56. Battle of Friedland. Splendid attack by Ney's corps, . 57. Gallant charge of the Russian Guard, .... 58. Progress of the action on the centre and right of the Russians, 59. Benningsen's measures to secure a retreat, 60. Immense results of the battle, . • 61. The Russians retreat without molestation to Allenburg and Wehlau, 62. Capture of Konigsberg, .... 63. Measures of Napoleon, and retreat of the Russians to the Niemen, 64. The Emperor Alexander proposes an armistice, 65. Reasons which made Napoleon rejoice at this step, 66. Considerations which rendered the Russians also desirous of an accommo- dation, ...♦■•• 67. Conclusion of an armistice, ..... Napoleon's proclamation thereon to his troops, 68. Interview on the raft at Tilsit, .... 69. First words of Napoleon and Alexander, 70. Commencement of the negotiations at Tilsit, . 71. Napoleon's interview with the Queen of Prussia, 72. Napoleon's character of the Queen of Prussia, . 73. Convivialities between the Russian and French officers, XV11 Page 503 505 506 507 509 510 512 513 514 515 516 518 519 520 521 522 524 note, 524 525 526 527 528 529 531 ib. other 532 533 535 536 537 538 540 541 542 544 545 547 548 549 550 note, 551 551 552 553 554 556 ib. XV111 CONTENTS OF CHAP. XLVII. 74. 75. 7(1 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. Napoleon's admiration of the Russian Imperial Guard, . . 558 Treaty of Tilsit. Its leading provisions. Creation of the grand-duchy of Warsaw, and kingdom of Westphalia, .... ib. Treaty with Prussia, . . . . . . .559 Immenses losses of Prussia by this treaty, .... 560 Secret treaty for the partition of Turkey, . . . .562 Secret articles regarding England and all neutral fleets, . . 564 Secret agreement between the Emperors regarding Spain and Italy, . 565 Decisive evidence of these projects of spoliation which exists both on the testimony of the French and Russian Emperors, . note, 566 Measures of Napoleon to secure his anticipated Turkish acquisitions, 567 Convention regarding the payment of the French contribution on Prussia, 569 Noble proclamation by the King of Prussia to his lost provinces, . 570 Enormous losses sustained by the French during the campaign, . 571 Memorable retribution for the partition of Poland on the partitioning powers, ........ 573 And of Russia, . ....... ib. Terrible retribution that was approaching to France, . . . 574 Evil consequences of the treaty of Tilsit in the end to Napoleon, . 575 Useless allies which Napoleon made to himself by this treaty, . 576 Disgraceful perfidy of Napoleon towards the Turks, . . .577 Whom he surrenders to the spoliation of Russia, . . . 578 No defence can be made for it in consequence of the revolution at Con- stantinople, ........ ib. Mutual projects of the Emperors for the spoliation of the other European powers, ........ 579 Napoleon's leading object in the treaty was the humbling of Great Britain, 581 England could not complain of its conditions, .... 582 It was ultimately fortunate for Europe that the war was prolonged, 583 CHAPTER XLVII. GENERAL SKETCH OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN INDIA. 1. Comparison of the Roman empire and British India, . . .584 2. Wonderful circumstances attending the British dominion in India, . 585 3. Its extent, population, revenue, and military strength, . . ib. 4. Dreadful dangers it has surmounted, ..... 587 5. Physical description of the Indian peninsula, .... 588 6. Its vegetable and animal productions, ..... 590 7. Extraordinary diplomatic ability with which India has been governed, 592 8. Immense advantages of the British government to the Indian people, 593 9. Great diminution of crime under the British rule, . . .594 10. Great change effected in the aspect of the country in the central and western provinces, ...... 595 11. Rapid progress of wealth, population, and comfort, over all India, . 596 12. Increased taste for British manufactures over India, . . . 597 13. Vast police force established throughout Bengal, and its admirable effects, 598 14. Principles of Indian taxation, ...... 599 15. Management of land. The Zemindar system, .... 600 CONTENTS OF CHAP. XLVIII. XIX § Page 16. Its practical operation, . . . . - . . 601 17. The Ryotwar system, . . . . . . .602 18. The Village system, ....... 603 19. Admirable effect of the Village system in all ages, . . . 604 20. Effects of this large land revenue on the general system of taxation, . 606 21. Complete system of toleration established in India, . . . 607 22. Vast varieties of religious belief found in India, . . . 608 23. Effect of this religious division in facilitating the government of the country, ........ it. 24. Vast variety of national character in India, .... 610 25. And various military qualities of the inhabitants, . . . 611 26. Difference of character owing to physical causes, . . .612 27. Origin and composition of the sepoy force, .... ib. 28. Causes of the facility with which it has been raised, . . .613 29. Elevated rank and situation of the sepoy troops, . . . 614 30. General character of the Indian army, . . . . .615 31. Touching anecdotes of the fidelity of sepoy troops, . . .617 32. Their fidelity to the English under every trial, . . . 618 33. And admirable courage, . . . . • . .619 34. Which is owing to the fidelity of the English government to its engage- ments, ....... : 620 35. Contrast of the Company's rule to, the devastating Mahommedan sway which preceded it, ...... 621 36. Unbounded devastations of their former wars, .... 622 37. Wonderful nature of this empire, won by so small a force, and amidst so many difficulties at home, . . . . .624 38. Wars in which the empire was involved, during the growth of the Indian power, . ■ . . . . . . 625 39. What were the causes of this success? Conquest was forced upon the British by necessity, not adopted from inclination, . . 626 40. Difference between Rome, and France, and England, in this particular, 627 41. Conquest was forced on the British in the East by necessity, . . 628 CHAPTER XLIII. RISE OF INDIA UNDER CLIVE AND HASTINGS. — 1750-1798. 1. Sketch of the principal Indian powers when the British empire arose, 630 2. The Mahratta confederacy, ...... 631 3. Origin and early history of the East India Company. Capture of Calcutta by Surajee Dowlah, ...... 632 4. Calcutta retaken. Rise and great exploits of Clive, . . . 633 5. Dethronement of Surajee Dowlah by Clive, .... 634 6. Acquisition of territory by the Company, and defeat of the Mogul Emperor, 636 7. Cession of all Bengal and Bahar to the English, . . , ib. 8. Origin and progress of the Madras Presidency, . . . 637 9. Sieges of Madras and Pondicherry by the French and English, . 638 10. Early history of Clive, . ■ . - . . . .639 11. His first introduction into active life, ..... 640 12. His character as a hero and a statesman, . . . .641 XX § 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50, 51, 52 53 CONTENTS OP CHAP. XLVIIT. Rise and character of Hyder Ali, . Hostilities with Hyder are resolved on by the local authorities, but disap proved by the Company, . First campaigns against him, and early disasters, Transactions in the Carnatic, down to the renewal of the war with Hyder in 1780, .... Mr Burke's description of Hyder's irruption, Great successes of Hyder in the Carnatic, The firm conduct of Warren Hastings and Sir Eyre Coote re-establishes affairs, Early history of Hastings, His progross as a statesman, His character and errors, Further disasters stemmed by the energy of Hastings. Death of Hyder, Page 643 644 645 647 648 649 650 651 652 653 ib. War with Tippoo, and invasion of Mysore from Bombay. Its early success, 655 Final disasters of the expedition, ..... 656 British invasion of Mysore, which leads to a peace, . . . 657 Change introduced by Tippoo in the Indian armies, . . . 658 Its ruinous effects on the independence of the native powers, . . 659 Mr Hastings' long-protracted prosecution, .... 660 Proceedings in parliament on the subject, .... 661 Proceedings and charges against Mr Hastings before the Commons, . 662 His trial before the House of Lords, ..... 664 And his acquittal, ....... 665 Ultimate change of public opinion on this subject, . . . ib. Reflections on the cruel injustice of this prosecution, . . . 667 Mr Fox's India Bill. Its premature fate, .... 668 Objections to which the bill was liable, ..... 669 Mr Pitt's India Bill, which becomes law, .... 671 Reflections on this constitution for India, .... 672 Arrangements with the British government for the increase of the British force in India, ....... 673 Fresh war with Tippoo Saib, ...... 674 Lord Cornwallis's first campaign against Tippoo, . . . 675 Vast preparations for the siege of Seringapatam, . . . 677 Preparations for a decisive battle under the walls of Seringapatam, . 678 Commencement of the action, ...... ib. Danger of Cornwallis, and his ultimate success, . . . 679 Concluding operations of the war, . . . . .680 Treaty with Tippoo, ....... 681 Experienced necessity of further conquests in India, . . . 682 Pacific administration and principles of Sir John Shore, . . ib. Its disastrous effects, ....... 683 Intriguing of Tippoo to form a confederacy against the English, . 684 Tippoo's overt acts of hostility, ...... 685 Appendix, ...••• .687 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAPTER XLI. THE BRITISH FINANCES, AND ' MJl H'fl'h SYSTE'vI OF FINANCIAL POLICY. It would be to little purpose that the mighty drama of chap the French revolutionary wars was recorded in history, if the mainspring of all the European efforts, the British 1805 - Finances, were not fully explained. It was in their importance boundless extent that freedom found a never-failing stay ; j^t e sub " in their elastic power that independence obtained a per- manent support. -When surrounded by the wreck of other states, when surviving alone the fall of so many confe- deracies, it was in their inexhaustible resources that Eng- land found the means of resolutely maintaining the contest, and waiting calmly, in her citadel amidst the waves, the return of a right spirit in the neighbouring nations. Vain would have been the prowess of her seamen, vain the valour of her soldiers, if her national finances had given way under the strain. Even the conquerors of Trafalgar and Alexandria must have succumbed in the contest they had so heroically maintained, if they had not found in the resources of government the means of permanently continuing it. Vain would have been the reaction pro- duced by suffering against the French Revolution, vain the charnel-house of Spain and the snows of Russia, if vol. vii. n A HISTORY OF EUR 01' I". (II A I'. XLI. 1805. Astonishing financial efforts of England during the war. Britain liad not been in a situation to take advantage of the crisis. If she had been unable to aliment the war in the Peninsula when its native powers were prostrated in the dust, the sword of Wellington Mould have been drawn in vain ; and the energies of awakened Europe must have been lost in fruitless efforts if the wealth of England had not at last arrayed them in dense and disciplined batta- lions on the banks of the Rhine. How, then, did it happen, that this inconsiderable island, so small a part of the Roman empire, was enabled to expend wealth greater than ever had been amassed by the ancient mistress of the world ; to maintain a contest of unexampled magnitude for twenty years ; to uphold a fleet which" cor.qne: ci t'h.c united navies of Europe, and an army .\vluch earned victory into every corner of the globe ; to : acquire a "colonial empire that encircled the earth, and subdue the vast continent of Ilindostan, at the very time that it struggled in Spain with the land forces of Napoleon, and equipped all the armies of the north, on the Elbe and the Rhine, for the liberation of Germany ? The solution of the phenomenon, unexampled in the history of the world, is without doubt to be in part found in the persevering industry of the British people, and the extent of the commerce which they maintained in every quarter of the globe. But the resources thus afforded would have been inadequate to so vast an expen- diture, and must have been exhausted early in the struggle, if they had not been organised and sustained by an ad- mirable system of finance, which seemed to rise superior to every difficulty with which it had to contend. It is there that the true secret of the prodigy is to be found ; it is there that the noblest monument to Mr Pitt's wisdom has been erected. The national income of England at an early period was very inconsiderable, and totally incommensurate to the im- portant station which she occupied in the scale of nations. In the time of Elizabeth it amounted only to £400,000 XLL 1805. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 3 a-year; and in that of James I. to£450,000, and, even in- chap eluding all the subsidies received from parliament during his reign, only to £4 8 0,000 a-year — sums certainly not equiva- lent to more than £800,000 or £1,000,000 of our money. 1 Historical That enjoyed by Charles I. amounted on an average to h* TJ'ome ' £895,000 annually— a sum perhaps equal to £1,500,000 cf™! in these times. 2 It was the Long Parliament which first } vealth -. o L.arge in- gave the example of a prodigious levy of money from the crease con - ° L ..,.. „ sequent on people of England — affording thus a striking instance of the Great r . r ,ii i • Rebellion. the eternal truth, that no government is so despotic as 2 IIume v that of the popular leaders, when they are relieved from 4i2 ; vi.ii2, all control by the other powers in the state. The 34/. 1 sums raised in England during the Commonwealth — that is, from 3d November 1640, to 5th November 1659 — amounted to the enormous, and, if not proved by authen- tic documents, incredible sum of £83,000,000, — being at the rate of nearly £5,000,000 a-year;'* or more than five times that which had been so much the subject of com- plaint in the times of the 'unhappy monarch who had * " It is seldom," says Hume, " that the people gain anything by revolu- tions in government; because the new settlement, jealous and insecure, must commonly be supported with more expense and severity than the old : but on no occasion was the truth of this maxim more sensibly felt than in England after the overthrow of the royal authority. Complaints against the oppression of ship-money and the tyranny of the Star Chamber had roused the people to arms, and, having gained a complete victory over the Crown, they found them- s „ selves loaded with a multiplicity of taxes formerly unknown, while scarce an 115. appearance of law and liberty remained in any part of the administration." 3 The following are some of the items in this enormous aggregate of £83,000,000 raised from the nation during the Commonwealth, — a striking proof of the despotic character of the executive during that period : — Land-tax, ...... £32,000,000 Excise, ...... 8,000,000 Tonnage and poundage, .... 7,600,000 Sale of Church lands, .... 10,035,000 Sequestration of bishops, deans, and in- ferior clergy, for four years, . . . 3,528,000 Sequestration of private estates in England, . 4,564,000 Fee-farm rents for five years, . . . 2,963,000 Composition with delinquents in Ireland, . . 1,000,000 Sales of estates in Ireland, .... 3,567,000 Other lesser, . . . . . 10,074,000 Total, . . £83,331,000 -Pebrer, 139, 140. XX I. 1642-1688. bist ob v of 1:1: hope. chap, preceded it. The permanent revenue of Cromwell from the three kingdoms was raised to £1,868,000 : or con- siderably more than double that enjoyed by Charles I.* The total public income at the death of Charles II. was £1,800,000, under James II. £2,000,000 ; sums incre- dibly small, when it is recollected that the price of wheat 1 Pebrer J , * 139,143' was not then materially different from what it is at the present moment. 1 1 These inconsiderable taxes, however, were destined to 4. . Permanent be exchanged for others of a very different character, upon themonthe the accession of the house of Orange to the throne. The wmam° f intimate connexion of the princes of that family with m - Continental politics, and the long wars in which in con- sequence the nation was involved, soon led to a more burdensome system of taxation, and the raising of sums annually from the people which in former times would have been deemed incredible. The Prince of Orange brought from the republic of Holland, where it had been already practised and was thoroughly understood, the important secret of governing popular assemblies, and extracting heavy taxes from popular communities. Like the Roman emperors, he did not discard the senate, but he contrived to render it the instrument of his will. He did not, like the Stuarts, engage the throne in a contest with parlia- ment : on the contrary, he did everything by its votes, and concealed the exactions of the crown under the shadow of the authority of the house of Commons. His * Of this sum, there was drawn from England, . . £1,517,274 from Scotland, . . 143,652 from Ireland, . . 207,790 Total, . . £1,S68,716 — Pebrer, 140. t The quarter of wheat, from 1636 to 1701, was on an average 51s. ll|d. from 1700 to 1765, . . 40s. 6d. from 1764 to 1794, . . 44s. 7d. In 1835 the average of the quarter in Great Britain was 39s. 8d., and the average of the five years preceding 1836 was only 48s. The price was much higher during the next five years, but that was the result of uncommonly rainy seasons coming in succession during that whole period. — Smith's Wealth of Nations, i. 358 ; and Com Average, 1835. HISTORY OF EUROTE. whole efforts were directed to gain the majority of the chap. constituencies in the country by corruption, and of votes in parliament by patronage. A vast government expen- i 688 - 1 ? 00 - diture, incurred in a cause at first highly popular, and the profuse contracting of loans on the security of the revenue of future years, afforded the means of doing both. This system proved entirely successful, and it is to its success that the subsequent greatness of the empire is mainly to be ascribed. But for it, the means of raising taxes adequate to the protection, and necessary for the defence, of the em- pire, would never have been discovered ; and England, like Poland, would have fallen a prey to the ambition of the adjoining nations, the resources of which had been drawn forth by the force of despotic power, while no means of developing its own had been discovered. Great as have been the obligations which England owes in many diffe- rent views to the Revolution, it is beyond all question the greatest that it brought in a sovereign instructed in the art of overcoming the ignorant impatience of taxation which is the invariable characteristic of free communities, and thus gave it a government capable of turning to the best account the activity and energy of its inhabitants, at the same time that it had the means given it of maintain- ing their independence. So great was the increase of the public burdens during the reign of William, that the national income, in the R eas L thirteen years that he sat on the throne, was nearly ^ei- doubled: being raised from £2,000,000 a-year toi ucti " ncf , ° J the national £3,895,000. But the addition made to the public debt - revenue was the least important part of the changes effected during this important period. It was then that the National Debt began ; and government was taught the dangerous secret of providing for the necessities, and maintaining the influence of present times, by borrowing money and laying its payment on posterity. Various motives combined to induce the government, immediately after the Revolution, to adopt the system of borrowing on HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, the credit of the state. Notwithstanding the temporary 1_ unanimity with which the Revolution had been brought 1088-1/00. about, various heart-burnings and divisions soon succeeded that event, and the exiled dynasty still numbered a large and resolute body, especially in the rural districts, among their adherents. Extensive patronage and no small share of corruption were necessary to secure the influence of government over a nation thus divided : foreign wars were rightly deemed requisite to maintain the ascendant of the Protestant principles to which the king owed his accession to the throne ; and the Continental connexions of the house of Orange imperiously required the intervention of Great Britain in those desperate struggles by which the very existence of the commonwealth of Holland was endangered. The same cause which led to nearly the duplication of the public burdens of France by Louis Philippe,* after the revolution of 1830, produced a similar increase in the taxes of Great Britain after the change of dynasty in 1688, and originated the dangerous system of borrowing on the security of the assessment of future years. It was justly thought, that the present influence of government could in this way be increased to an extent altogether impracticable if the expenditure of each year were to be limited to the supplies raised within itself ; and that, by the distribution of the debt * The following is a statement of the budgets of France before and after the Correspond- Revolution of July. It is a curious and instructive object of contemplation to ing increase b serV e a similar convulsion leading, in countries so widely different in their diture of pen " character, customs, and institutions, as France and England were at the acces- France on g j ons f ^q dynasties of Orange and Orleans to their respective thrones, to a the accession , , . . . ., of Louis result so precisely similar : — Philippe. 37,800,000 37,600,000 39,400,000 37,500,000 39,000,000 39,200,000 60,400,000 44,000,000 44,800,000 -See Stat, de France, published by government. 1824, 951,000,000, 1825, 946,000,000 1826, 942,000,000 1827, 986,000,000 1828, 939,000,000 1829, 975,000,000 1830, Revol. in July, 981,000,000 1831, Louis Philippe, 1,511,000,000 1832, 1,100,000,000 1833, 1,120,000,000 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 7 among a great number of public creditors, an extensive chap. and influential body might be formed, attached by the _1_ strong tie of individual interest to the fortunes of the 1/84 ruling dynasty ; because they were aware that their claims would be disregarded by the legitimate monarchs if restored to the throne. The expedient, therefore, was fallen upon of contracting a debt transferable by a simple power of attorney, in the smallest shares, from hand to hand ; and capable of being used almost like the highest and most valuable species of bank-notes, in the transac- tions of the nation. To the steady prosecution of this system, and the formation of a secure deposit by its means for the savings of the nation, much of the subse- quent prosperity and grandeur of England is to be ascribed. But, like all other human things, it has its evils as well as its advantages : and in the perilous facility of borrowing, which the magnitude of the national resources and the fidelity with which the public engage- J**™^ ments were fulfilled produced, is to be found the remote JJ^J ^ but certain cause of financial embarrassments, now to all 249. ' appearance irremediable. 1 It is unnecessary to follow the successive steps by which g both the public, revenue and the national debt of Great Progressive Britain were increased after this period. Suffice it to say, £ public that both were largely augmented during the glorious war J h e e b ^3- of the Succession ; that the long and pacific administra- ' m - centur >- tion which followed, effected no sensible reduction in their amount; that the checkered contest of 1739, and the more triumphant campaigns of the Seven Years' war, contributed equally to their increase; and that the disasters of the American struggle were attended by so great an augmentation of the national burdens, that at its termination in 1783, in the opinion both of Mr Hume and Adam Smith, they must inevitably prove fatal in the end to the independence of the nation. At the close of the last contest the public revenue was £12,000,000, and the debt £240,000,000, the interest of which absorbed so large" 8 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, a proportion as £9,319,000 of the annual income of the state; the loans contracted during its disastrous conti- nuance having been no less than one hundred millions. 1 "" It was at this period that Mr Pitt came into office, on the resignation of Mr Fox and the coalition ministry. His ardent and sagacious mind was immediately turned to the consideration of the finances, and the means of 1784. 1 Pebrer, 245. Table illus- trating its increase. * The following table exhibits, in a clear and condensed form, the increase of the public revenue, and progressive growth of the debt, from the Revolution in 1688 to the present times. Debt. Interest. Public Revenue. National Debt at the Revolution, £664,263 £39,865 £2,001,885 Increase during the reign of William, 15,730,439 1,271,087 Debt at the accession of Queen Anne, 1 6,394,702 Increase during the reign of Queen Anne, , Debt at the accession of George I., Decrease during the reign of George I., Debt at the accession of George II., Decrease during the peace, . 37,750,661 54,145,363 2,053,128 52,092,235 5,137,612 Debt at the opening of the war, 1739, 46,954,623 Increase during the war, . . 31,338,689 Debt at the end of the war, 1748, Decrease during the peace, . 78,293,312 3,721,472 Debt at the opening of the war, 1756, 74,571,840 Increase during the war, . . 72,111,004 Debt at the end of the war in 1763, 146,682,844 Decrease during the peace, . . 10,739,793 Debt at the opening of the Ame- rican war, 1776, . . . 135,943,051 Increase during the war, . . 102,541,819 Debt at the peace of 1783, Decrease during the peace, 238,484,870 4,751,261 Debt at the opening of the war, 1793, 233,733,609 Increase during the war, . . 295,105,668 Debt at the peace of Amiens, 1st February 1801, . ' . . 528,839,277 Increase during the second war, . 335,983,164 Debt at the peace of Paris, 1st Feb- ruary 1816, . . . 864,822,441 Decrease since the peace, . . 82,155,207 1,310,952 2,040,416 3,351,368 133,807 3,217,561 253,526 2,954,035 1,096,979 4,061,014 664,277 3,396,737 2,444,104 5,840,841 364,000 5,476,841 3,843,084 9,319,925 143,569 9,176,356 10,252,152 19,428,508 12,796,796 3,895,205 5,691,803 6,762,463 6,874,000 6,923,000 7,127,164 8,523,440 10,265,405 11,962,000 16,658,814 34,113,146 72,210,512 £50,990,000 — Moreau and Pebrer's Tables, 70, 89, 153, 245 ; and Porter's Pari. Tables, i. 1. 32,225,304 3,883,841 Debt on the 5th January 1832, £782,667,234 | £28,341,463 HISTORY OF EUROTE. 9 extricating the nation from the embarrassments, to ordi- chap. • • XLI naiy observers inextricable, in which it had been involved L_ by the improvident expenditure of preceding years. It 1784, was evident, from a retrospect of history, that no sensible Alarming impression had been made on the debt by any efforts of aspect of the preceding times; that though a sinking-fund had long SbPitt'° n existed in name, yet its operations had been very incon- a ^ s r '°" to siderable ; and that all the economy of the long periods 1784. of peace which had intervened since the Revolution, had done little more than discharge a tenth of the burdens contracted in the preceding years of hostility. The inte- rest of the debt absorbed now more than two-thirds of the public revenue. It was impossible to conceal that such a state of things was in the highest degree alarming; not only as affording no reasonable prospect that the existing engagements could ever be liquidated, but as threatening at no distant period to render it impossible for the nation to make those efforts which its honour or independence might require. Little foresight was required to show, that, in the course of events,, wars and changes must arise, which would render it indispensable for the government to assume a menacing attitude, and possibly engage in a long course of hostilities. But how could any adminis- tration venture to assume the one, or the people bear the other, if an immense load of debt hung about their necks, absorbing alike by its interest their present revenues, and paralysing by its magnitude the credit by which their resources might be increased on any unforeseen emer- gency 1 These dangers took strong possession of the mind of Mr Pitt; but instead of sinking in despair under the Principle on difficulties of the subject, he applied the energies of his proposed to understanding with the utmost vigour to overcome them, exiting 1 ' e Nor was it long before he perceived by what means this evlls * great object could with ease and certainty be effected. The public attention at this period had been strongly directed to the prodigious powers of accumulation of 10 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, money at compound interest ; and Dr Price had demon - XLL strated, with mathematical certainty, that any sum, how- 1784. eyer sma n ? increasing at that ratio, would in a given time extinguish any debt, however great.'" Mr Pitt, with the instinctive sagacity of genius, laid hold of this simple law to establish a machine by which the vast debt of England might, without difficulty, be discharged. All former sinking funds had failed in producing great effects, because they were directed to the annual discharge of a certain portion of debt; not the formation, by compound interest, of a fund destined to its future and progressive liquida- tion ; they advanced, therefore, by addition, not multi- plication — in an arithmetical, not a geometrical ratio. Mr Pitt saw the evil, and not merely applied a remedy, but more than a remedy : he not only seized the battery, but turned it against the enemy. The wonderful powers of compound interest, the vast lever of geometrical progres- sion, so long and sorely felt by debtors, were now to be applied to creditors; and, inverting the process hitherto experienced among mankind, the swift growth of the gan- grene was to be turned from the corruption of the sound to the eradication of the diseased part of the system. Another addition, like the discovery of gravitation, the press, and the steam-engine, to the many illustrations which history affords of the lasting truth, that the greatest changes both in the social and material world are governed by the same laws as the smallest; and that it is by the felicitous application of familiar principles to new and important objects, that the greatest and most salutary dis- coveries in human affairs are effected. Mr Pitt's mind was strongly impressed with the incal- culable importance of this subject of the finances, — one before which all wars or subjects of present interest, except- ing only the preservation of the constitution, sank into insig- * A penny laid out at compound interest at the birth of our Saviour, would, in the year 1775, have amounted to a solid mass of gold eighteen hundred times the whole weight of the globe. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 11 nificance. From the time of his accession to office in 1 784, chap. his attention had been constantly riveted upon it, and he repeatedly expressed, in the most energetic language, his 1786, sense of its overwhelming magnitude. " Upon the deli- His strong Deration of this day," said he, in bringing forward his 32T resolutions on the subject on 29th March 1786, " the gfSSLS people of England place all their hopes of a full return of ^t rlia " prosperity, and a revival of that public security which will give vigour and confidence to those commercial exer- tions upon which the flourishing state of the country depends. Yet not only the public and this House, but other nations are intent upon it ; for upon its delibera- tions, by the success or failure of what is now proposed, our rank will be decided among the powers of Europe. To behold this country, when just emerging from a most unfortunate war, which had added such an accumulation to sums before immense, that it was the belief of surround- ing nations, and of many among ourselves, that we must sink under it — to behold this nation, instead of despairing at its alarming condition, looking boldly its situation in the face, and establishing upon a spirited and permanent plan the means of relieving itself from all its encum- brances, must give such an idea of our resources as will astonish the nations around us, and enable us to regain that pre-eminence to which on many accounts we are so justly entitled. The propriety and even necessity of adopting a plan for this purpose is now universally allowed, and it is also admitted that immediate steps ought to be taken on the subject. It is well known how strongly my feelings have been engaged, not only by the duties of my situation, but by the consideration of my own personal reputation, which is deeply committed in the question, to exert every nerve, to arm every vigilance, to concentrate all my efforts towards that great object, by which alone we can have a prospect of transmitting to 1 Pari. Hist, posterity that which we ourselves have felt the want of, — 1313', 1109. an efficient sinking-fund for the national debt. 1 To 12 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, accomplish this is the first wish of my heart ; and it would XLL be my proudest hope to have my name inscribed on a 1786 - pillar to be erected in honour of the man who did his country the essential service of reducing the national debt." It is worthy of especial notice, however, that though Andhis'sim- thus deeply impressed with the paramount importance adoption^ of raising up an effective sinking-fund for the reduction Sr a n S atTonai of the public debt, Mr Pitt was equally resolute not to defence. attempt it by any measure by which the public security might be impaired ; and, on the contrary, he at the very same time strongly advocated and carried a bill for the fortification of Portsmouth and Plymouth, which required several hundred thousand pounds. " He would not be seduced," he said, " by the plausible and popular name of economy — he would not call it only plausible and popular, he would rather say the sacred name of economy — to forego the reality ; and for the sake of adding a few hun- dred thousand pounds at the outset to the sinking-fund, perhaps render for ever abortive the sinking-fund itself. Every saving, consistently with national safety, he would pledge himself to make ; but he would never consent to starve the public service, and to withhold those supplies i Pari. Hist, without which the nation must be endangered." 1 Every xxvi. 1109. measure f thi s great man was directed to great and last- ing national objects. He was content to impose present burdens, to forego present advantages, and incur present unpopularity, for the sake of ultimate public advantage ; the only principle which ever yet led to greatness and honour, either in nations or individuals, as the opposite system, gilded by present popularity or enjoyment, is the certain forerunner of ultimate ruin. In pursuance of these designs, Mr Pitt proposed that a million yearly — composed partly of savings effected in various branches of the public service, to the amount of £900,000, and partly of new taxes, to the amount of £100,000 — should be granted to his Majesty, to be vested HISTOKY OF EUROPE. 13 in commissioners chosen from the highest functionaries in chap. the realm ; that the payments to them should be made quarterly ; and that the whole sums thus drawn should *J* • be by them invested in the purchase of stock, to stand in Estabiish- the name of the commissioners, the dividends on which sinking- were to be periodically applied to the further purchase Mr Pitt's of stock, to stand and have its dividends invested in the Educing same manner. In this way, by setting apart a million '*• annually, and religiously applying its interest to the pur- chase of stock, the success of the plan would be secured ; because the future accumulations would spring, not from any additional burdens imposed on the people, but from the dividends on the stock thus bought tip from individuals, and vested in the public trustees. The powers of com- pound interest were thus brought round from the side of the creditor to that of the debtor — from the fundholders to the nation ; and the national debt was eaten in upon by an accumulating fund, which, increasing in a geome- trical progression, would, to a certainty, at no distant period, effect its total extinction.""" " If this million," said * The following table will exemplify the growth of capital when its interest, at the rate of five per cent, is steadily applied to the increase of the principal. Suppose that £20,000,000 is borrowed; and that, instead of providing by taxes for the interest merely of this large sum, provision is made for £1,200,000 yearly, leaving the surplus of £200,000 to be annually applied to the purchase of a certain portion of the stock, by commissioners, for the reduction of the principal, the dividends on the stock so purchased being annually and progres- sively employed in the same manner. The progressive growth in ten years will stand as follows : — ■ First year's surplus, . . . £200,000 Second, 210,000 Third, 220,500 Fourth, 231,250 Fifth, . . . . . 242,562 Sixth, . . . . . 253,078 Seventh, ..... 265,654 ■ Eighth, ..... 278,286 Ninth, 292,114 Tenth, . . . . . 306,661 £2,500,105 The wonderful rate at which this fund increases must be obvious to every observer, and it is worthy of especial notice, that this rapid advance is gained without imposing one farthing additional upon the country, by the mere force of an annual fund, steadily applied year after year, with all its fruits, to the reduction of the principal debt. 1 7«< ; . 14 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. chap. Mr Pitt, " to be so applied, is to be laid out, with its growing interest, it will amount to a very great sum in a period tliat is not very long in the life of an individual, and but an hour in the existence of a great nation ; and this will diminish the debt of this country so much, as to prevent the exigencies of war from raising it to the enor- mous height it has hitherto done. In the period of twenty- eight years, the sum of a million, annually improved, would amount to four millions per annum. But care must be taken that this sum be not broken in upon. This has hitherto been the bane of this country; for if the original sinking-fund had been properly preserved, it can easily be proved, that our debts at this moment would not have been very burdensome ; but this, as yet, has been found impracticable, because the minister has uniformly, when it suited his conveniency, gotten hold of this sum, which ought to have been regarded as most sacred. To prevent this, I propose that this sum be vested in certain dignified commissioners, to be by them applied quarterly to buy up stock ; by which means no considerable sum will ever be open to spoliation, and the fund will go on without inter- ruption. Long, very long, has the country struggled under its heavy load, without any prospect of being relieved; but it may now look forward to the object upon which the existence of the country depends. A minister could never have the confidence to come down to the House, and propose the repeal of so beneficial a law — of one so directly tending to relieve the people from their burdens. The essence of the plan consists in the fund being invariably applied in diminution of the debt ; it must for ever be kept sacred, and especially so in time of war. 1 Pari. Hist. To suffer the fund at any time, or on any pretence, to be 132'i' ° ' diverted from its proper object, would be to ruin, defeat, and overturn the whole plan." 1 '" * The speech delivered by Mr Pitt on this occasion, which went over the whole details of our financial system, is one of the most luminous of his whole parliamentary career. An intimate friend of his has recorded, " That having passed the morning of this most important day in providing and examining the HISTORY OF EUROPE. 15 Nor was Mr Fox behind his great rival in the same chap. • • • XLI statesmanlike and heroic sentiments; but he pointed out with too prophetic a spirit the clangers to which the 17 ® 6- reserved fund might be exposed, amidst the necessities or Mr f "x weaknesses of future administrations. " No man/' said he, pi^his'cor- " in existence, was, or ever had been, a greater friend to dialsu PP ort - the principle of a sinking-fund than I have been, from the very first moment of my political life. I agree perfectly with the right honourable gentleman in his ideas of the necessity of establishing an effective sinking-fund, for the purpose of applying it to the diminution of the national debt, however widely I may differ from him as to the subordinate parts of the plan. Formerly, the payment of the national debt was effected by a subscription of indi- viduals, to whom the faith of parliament had been pledged to pay off certain specified portions at stated periods. Under that system, when the nation, or when parliament, stood bound to individuals, the pledge was held as sacred as to pay the interest of the national debt at present ; whereas, under the new system, when no individual in- terests were concerned, nothing would prevent a future minister, in any future war, from coining down to the House and proposing the repeal of the sinking-fund, or enabling government to apply the whole money or stock in the hands of the commissioners to the public service. What would prevent the House from agreeing to the pro- position'? or was it at all likely that, under the exigency calculations and resolutions for the evening, he said he would take a walk to arrange in his mind what was to be said in the House in the evening. His walk did not last above a quarter of an hour, and when he came back he said he believed he was prepared. He then dressed, and desired his dinner to be sent up ; but hearing that his sister, and another lady residing with her in the family, were going to dine at the same early hour, he desired that they might dine together. Having passed nearly an hour with those ladies, and several friends who called on their way to the House, talking with his usual liveliness and gaiety, as if he had nothing on his mind, he then went immediately to the House of Commons, and made that elaborate and far-extended speech, as Mr Fox called it, without one omission or error. — See William Pitt — -No. V. ; Black- wood's Magazine, xxxvi. 852 ; a series of papers on the character of this illus- trious man, by Dr Croly, one of the ablest writers of the age, containing by far the best account of his policy and character extant in any language. 16 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, of the moment, they would not immediately agree to it, when so much money could so easily be got at, and when XXVI 1318. 1786, they could so readily save themselves from the odious and unpleasant task of imposing new taxes on themselves and j Pari. Hi?t. their constituents V' 1 Memorable words from both these great men ! when it is recollected how exactly the one predicted the wonderful effects which experience has now proved his system was calculated to have produced, in reducing, in a period of time smaller than the most ardent imagination could have supposed, a debt double the amount of that which he estimated as so great an evil ; and with how much accuracy the other pointed out the vulnerable point in the composition of his scheme, and predicted the cause, springing from the necessities or weakness of future administrations, which would ultimately prove its ruin ! The bill passed both Houses without a dissentient voice ; and on the 26th May, the King gave it the royal assent in person, to mark his strong sense of the public importance of the measure. The sinking-fund thus provided was amply sufficient to itisp^sed have discharged all the existing debt within a moderate lSm^afd" period ; and so well aware was its author of its vast pro- madeT d i S i- ductive powers, that he observed, that when it rose to four cable to aii millions, it should be submitted to parliament whether it future loans. • / 1 should thenceforth be suffered to increase at compound interest. But the events which followed soon not only rendered illusory all danger" of the debt beiug too rapidly reduced, but made an addition to the system unavoidable to meet the new and overwhelming obligations contracted during the war. Some expedient, therefore, was necessary to provide for the liquidation of these vast additional March 30, debts ; and it was in the means taken to do so that the 1792 ' extensive foresight and unshaken constancy of Mr Pitt is to be discerned. He laid it down as a principle, which was never on any pretence whatever to be departed from, that, when any additional loan was contracted, provi- i;i. HISTORY OF EUROPE. sion should be made for its gradual liquidation. "We chap ought," said Mr Pitt, " not to confine our views to the XLI. sinking-fund, compared with the debt now existing. If 1 7 9 ' 2 - 1802 - our system stops there, the country will remain exposed to the possibility of being again involved in those embar- rassments which we have in our own time so severely experienced, and which apparently brought us to the verge of bankruptcy and ruin. To guard against such dangers hereafter, we should enact that, whenever any loan shall take place in future, unless it be raised on annuities, which will terminate in a moderate number of years, there should of course be issued out of the consoli- dated fund,* to the commissioners for the reduction of the national debt, an additional sum sufficient to dis- charge the capital of such loan in the same period as the sinking-fund, after reaching its largest amount, will discharge what will then remain of the present debt. To do this, one hundredth part of the capital borrowed would be sufficient to be raised from the country on such emergencies ; for instance, supposing it were necessary to raise by loan ten millions, £100,000 should be raised in addition to the existing funds appropriated to the redemp- tion of the debt, in order to relieve the country within a given time of this additional burden. In addition to this, I propose that £200,000 a-year additional should, from this time forward, be regularly granted out of the ordinary revenue of the country to the sinking-fund." Mr Fox stated, " That he had ever maintained the necessity of establishing a fund for reducing the national debt, and that as strongly when on the Ministerial as when on the Op- position benches. He had not the power to promote it as » Pari Hist, effectually as Mr Pitt, but he wished it as warmly." 1 In iosa! conformity with the united opinion of these great men, * The consolidated fund was a certain portion of the ordinary taxes, which were amassed together and devoted to certain fixed objects of national expendi- ture. The surplus of this fund, as it was called, or the excess of those branches of revenue above the charges fixed on them, was annually appropriated during war among the ways and means to the current war expenditure. VOL. VII. B i 32 Geo. Ill 18 li isToiiv OF i:r ROPE. chap, it was enacted by the statute passed on the occasion, XLL " That whenever in future any sums should be raised by 1792-1802. j oans on p er p e tual redeemable annuities, a sum equal to one per cent on the stock created by such loan should be issued out of the produce of the consolidated fund quar- terly, to be placed to the account of the commissioners." 1 69 ' Every additional loan was thus compelled to draw after itself, as a necessary consequence, a fresh burden, by the annual payment of which the extinction of the principal might to a certainty be expected in little more than forty years. Under this system the whole loans were contracted, Modiffc'a- and the sinking-fund was managed, till 1802 ; and as s^temi'n- immense sums were borrowed during that period, the ST" 1 ' n growth of the sinking-fund was far more rapid than had been originally contemplated. In that year an alteration April 14. of some importance Mas made, not indeed by Mr Pitt, but by Mr Addington, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, with his consent and approbation. " The capital of the debt," said he, "is now £488,000,000; its interest, including the charges of the sinking-fund, £23,000,000. It is impossible to contemplate either the one or the other without the utmost anxiety. What I now propose is, that the limitation which was formerly provided against the accumulation of the original sinking-fund should be removed ; and that both that original fund and the sub- sequent one, created by the act of 1792, should be allowed to accumulate till they have discharged the whole debt." This proposition was unanimously agreed to : it being enacted, " that this fund should accumulate till the whole existing redeemable annuities should be paid off." By this act, the original sinking-fund of £1,000,000, with the £200,000 subsequently granted, and the one per cent on all the subsequent loans, were combined into one con- s' Pari. Hist, solidated fund to be applied continually, at compound xxxv. 890, interegt ^ till t j ie w h i e debt then existing was paid off, which it was calculated would be in forty-five years. 2 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 19 Under these three acts of 1786, 1792, and 1802, the chap. sinking-fund continued to be administered with exemplary XLI " fidelity, not only during Mr Pitt's life, but after his death, 1802, till 1813, when a total change in the system took place, which eventually led to its ruin, and has, to all appear- ance, rendered the financial state of the country almost desperate. To obtain a clear view of the practical effects of Mr Pitt's system, it is necessary to anticipate somewhat the march of events, and give a summary of the operation of the sinking-fund which he established, down to the period when it was abandoned by his more embarrassed and less provident successors. From the accounts laid before parliament, it appears that the sinking-fund of a million which Mr Pitt estab- immense lished in 1786, had increased, by accumulation at com- the sinking pound interest, and the great additions drawn from the fund " one per cent on the vast loans from 1792 to 1812, to the enormous sum of fifteen millions and a half yearly in 1813, while the debt which it* had discharged during that period amounted to no less than £238,231,000 sterling. This great increase had taken place in twenty-seven years ; whereas Mr Pitt had calculated correctly that his original million would be only four millions in twenty-eight years ; the well-known period of the quadruplication of the sum at compound interest of five per cent. The sub- sequent £200,000 a-year granted, undoubtedly accelerated in a certain degree the rate of its advance ; but the true cause of the extraordinary and unexpected rapidity of its increase is to be found in the prodigious accumulation which the one per cent on subsequent loans produced. This distinctly appears from the table on next page, showing the sums paid off by the sinking-fund in every year from 1786 to 1813 — the loans contracted during that period — the stock redeemed by the commissioners, and the proportion of each loan paid to them for behoof of the public debt. It thence appears how rapidly and suddenly the sinking-fund rose, with the immense sums 20 HISTORY OF EUROPF.. CHAP. XLI. 1802. 16. Obloquy to which it became expustd. Table show- ing the pro- gressive growth of the sinking- fund. borrowed at different periods daring the war ; and when it is recollected that the loans contracted from 1792 to 1815 were £585,000,000, it will not appear surprising, that even the small sum of one per cent on each, regularly issued to the national debt commissioners, should have led to this extraordinary and unlooked-for accumulation."" It is this subsequent addition of one per cent on all loans contracted since the institution of the sinking-fund, which has been the cause at once of its extraordinary increase and subsequent ruin. While the nation in general were entirely satisfied with Mr Pitt's financial statements, and, delighted with the rapid growth of the sinking-fund, never examined whether the funds for its prodigious extension were provided by the fictitious supply * Table showing the sums paid to the commissioners for the reduction of the national debt in every year from 1792 to 1816; the stock redeemed by them in each year ; the loans contracted, and proportion of those loans paid to those commissioners in every year for that period ; with the public revenue of the state for the same time.— Moreau's Tables; Pebrer's Tables, 153, 154, 246; Pari. Papers, 1822, &c. 145; Porter's Pari. Tables,!. 1; Colqchotjn, 292, 294 ; Porter's Progress of the Nation, ii. 290. Expenditure, Years- Bunking- Fuud. Stock Re- deemed by Sinkir.g- Fund. Loans Con- tracted. Proportion of Loan paid to. Sinking- Fund. including Interest of Debt, Fund- ed and Un- funded, and Sinking-fund. Total Charge of Debt, in- cluding Sink- ing-Fund. Revenue. £ £ £ £ £ £ £ 1792 1,458,504 1,507,100 16,179,347 9,437,862 16,382,435 1793 1,534,970 1.962,650 4,500,000 17,434,767 9,890,904 17,674,395 1794 1,630,615 2,174,405 12,907,451 1,630,615 22,754,366 10,715,941 17,440,809 1795 ] ,672,000 2,804,945 42,090,646 1,872,200 29.305,477 11,081,159 17,374,890 1796 2,145,596 3,083,455 42,736,196 2,143.595 39,751,091 12,345,987 18,243,876 1797 2,639,724 4,390,670 14,620.000 2.639,724 40,791,533 13,683,129 18,668,925 1798 3,369,218 6,716.153 18,000,000 3,361 ,752 50,793,857 16,405,402 20,518,780 1799 4,-94,325 7,85S,109 12.500,000 3,984,252 51,241,798 20,108,885 23,607,945 1800 4,649.871 7,221,338 18,500,000 4,288,208 59,296,081 21,572,867 29,604,008 1801 4,767,992 7,315,002 34,410,000 4,620,479 61,617,988 21,661,029 28,085,829 18"2 5,310,511 8,091,454 23,000,000 5,117,723 73,072,468 23,808,895 28,221.183 1803 5,922,979 7,733,421 10,000,000 5,685,542 62,373,480 25,436,894 38,401,738 1804 6.287,940 10,527,243 10,000,000 6,018,179 54,912,890 25,066,212 49,335,978 1805 6,851,200 11,3.^)5,692 21,526,699 6,521,394 67,619,475 26,669,646 49,652,471 1806 7,015,167 12,234,064 18,000,000 7,1X1,482 76,056.796 28.963,702 53,698,124 1807 8,323,329 12,807.070 12,500,000 7,829,588 75,154,548 30,336,859 58,902,291 18' 18 9,479,165 14,171.407 12,000,000 8,908,673 78,369,689 32,052,537 61,524,113 18(9 10,188,607 33,965,824 19,532,000 9,555,853 76,566,013 32.781,592 63,042,746 1810 I0,9U4,4U 14,352,771 16,311,000 10,170,104 76,865,548 33,986,223 66,029,349 1811 11,660,601 15,659,194 24,000,000 10,813,016 83,735,223 35,248,933 64,427,371 1812 12,502,860 18,147,245 27,s71,325 11,543,881 88,757,324 36,388,790 63,327,432 1813 13,483,160 21.108,442 5S,763,100 12,439,631 105,943,727 38,443,147 63,211,422 1814 15,379,262 24,120,867 18,500,000 14,1x1,006 106,M32,260 41,755,235 70,926,215 1815 14,120,963 19.149,684 45,135,5S9 12,748,231 92,280,180 42,902,430 72,131,214 1816 13,452,696 20,280,098 3,000,000 11,902,051 65,169,771 43,902,999 62,264,546 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 21 of loans, or the solid growth of the revenue above the chap. expenditure, a few more sagacious observers began to XLL inquire into the solidity of the whole system, and, mis- im - taking its past operation, which had been almost entirely during war, for its permanent character, which was to appear chiefly on the return of peace, loudly proclaimed that the whole was founded on an entire delusion : that a great proportion of the sums which it paid off had been raised by loans ; that at all events, a much larger sum than the amount of the debt annually redeemed, had been actually borrowed since the commencement of the war ; that it was impossible that a nation, any more than an individual, could discharge its debts by mere financial , operations ; and that the only way of really getting quit ™ thTsink- of encumbrances was by bringing the expenditure perma- ^u&. nently under the income. 1 These doctrines soon spread among a considerable part of the thinking portion of the nation ; but they made General dif- little general impression till the return of peace had fhfdeit diverted into other channels the attention of the people, formerly concentrated on the career of Napoleon ; and democratic ambition, taking advantage of national distress, had begun to denounce all that had formerly been done by the patriots who had triumphed over its principles. Then they speedily became universal. Attacks on the sinking-fund were eagerly diffused and generally credited — the delusion of Mr Pitt's system, the juggle so long practised on the nation, were in every mouth. The mean- est political quacks, the most despicable popular dema- gogues, ventured to discharge their javelins at the giants of former days. The heedlessness of future consequences, which ever distinguishes the masses of mankind, came to infect general opinion : the aversion to taxation, so general among the many, made them lend a ready ear to any proposed reduction of taxation, without the slightest regard to its influence on the future fortunes of the empire ; and a system on which the greatest and best of sion. 22 HISTOET OF EUBOPE. chap, men in the last age had been united — in commendation of XLL which Fox had vied with Pitt, and Sheridan with Burke — error 18U-2. wafl ull iversally denounced as the most complete and ruinous deception that ever had been palmed off by official fraud on the credulity of mankind. Had these doctrines been confined to the declamations which is of the hustings, or the abuse of newspapers, they would dangerous, have furnished the subject only of curious speculation on much n ab- ves the way in which principles, just to a certain extent, and SixeVwith truths, undeniable as they were originally stated, became perverted, when they were employed, beyond what their authors intended, as an engine for the purposes of faction or ambition. But unhappily the evil soon assumed a much more serious complexion. The prevailing ideas spread to the legislature ; and the statesmen who succeeded to the government, imbued partly with the declamation of the period, influenced partly by the desire of gaining a tem- porary popularity by the reduction of the public burdens, without any regard to the interests of future times, went on borrowing or abstracting from the sinking-fund till it was totally extinguished. During the great convulsion of 1832, the commissioners for the reduction of the national debt issued an official intimation that their purchases for the public service had altogether ceased. The same mournful notice has since repeatedly been sent forth from the same office, accompanied, in some cases, with the still more alarming intelligence, that during a profound peace a considerable addition had been made annually to the total amount of the national debt. The principle acted upon since 1823, when it was first announced in parliament, has been to apply to the reduction of debt no more than the annual surplus of the national income above its expenditure ; and as that surplus, under the jealousy of expenditure incident to a democratic system, can never be expected to be considerable, Mr Pitt's sinking-fund may now, to all practical purposes, be considered as destroyed."* * The following table exhibits the progression and decline of the sinking- HISTORY OF EUROPE. 23 CHAP. XLI. 1802. 1.9. Comparison of the argu- ments for and against In the preceding observations, the march of events has been anticipated by nearly thirty years, and changes alluded to which will form an important subject of ana- lysis in the subsequent volumes of this, or some other history. But it is only by attending to the abandonment of Mr Pitt's system, and the effects by which that change XJJKJJ has been, and must be attended, that the incalculable fund importance of his financial measures can be appreciated, or the wisdom discerned which, so far as human wisdom could, had guarded against the evils which must, to all appearance, in their ultimate consequences, dissolve the British empire. It is perfectly true, as Mr Hamilton and fund from the time of its being first instituted in 1786, till it was broken upon by Mr Vansittart in 1813, and till its virtual extinction in 1838 :— Stock Money applied Total Stock Moue\ applied Total Years. to Reduction Amount of Years. to Reduction Amount of Redeemed. ofllebt. Funded Debt. Redeemed. of Debt. Funded Debt. £ £ £ £ £ £ 1786 662,000 500,000 239,693,900 1813 24,246,039 16,064,057 661,409,958 1787 1,503,000 1,000,000 239,200,719 1814 27,552,230 14,S30,957 740,023,535 1788 1,606,000 1,000.000 237,097,665 1815 22,599,653 14,241,397 752,857.236 1789 1,558,000 1,155,000 236,191,315 1816 24,001,0^3 13,945,117 si 0,31 1,940 1790 1,587,500 1,230,000 234,632,465 .1817 23,117,541 14,514,457 796,200,192 1791 1,507,100 1,371,000 233,044,965 1818 19,460,982 15,339,483 776,742,403 1792 1,962,650 1,458,504 231,537,865 1819 19,648,469 16,305,590 791,867,314 1793 2,174.405 1,634,972 229,614,446 1820 31,191,702 17,499.773 794,980,480 1794 2,804,945 1,872,957 234,034,718 1821 24,518,885 17,219,957 801,565,310 1795 3,083,455 2,143,697 247,877,237 1822 23,605,931 18,889,319 795,312,707 1796 4,390,670 2,639,956 301,861,306 1823 17,966,680 7,4S2,325 796,530,144 1797 6,790,023 3,393,214 355,323,774 1824 4,828,530 10,652,059 791,701,612 1798 8,102,875 4,093,164 381,525,836 1825 10,583,732 6,093,475 781,123,222 1799 9,550,004 4,528,568 414,936,334 1826 3,313,834 5,621,231 778,128,265 1800 10,713,168 4,908,379 423,367,547 1827 2,886,528 5,704,706 783,801,739 1801 10,491 ,325 5,528,315 447,147,164 1828 7,281,414 4,667,965 777,476,890 1802 9,436,389 6,114,033 497,043,489 1829 6,035,414 4,569,485 772,322,540 1803 13,181,667 6,494,094 522,231,786 1830 6,425,465 4,545,465 771,251,932 1804 12,860,629 7,436,929 528,260,642 1831 3,304,729 1,663,093 757,486,997 1805 13,759,607 9,402,658 545,803,318 1832 9,079 5,696 754,100,549 1806 15,341,799 10,625,419 573,529,932 1833 1,321,749 1,023,704 751,658,883 1807 16,064,962 10,185,579 593,694,287 1834 2,461.927 1,776,378 743,675,299 1808 16,181,689 10,584,672 601,733,073 1835 1,846,791 1,270,050 758,549,860 1809 16,656,643 11,359,579 604,287,474 1836 2,169,700 1,590,727 761,422,570 1810 17,884,234 12,095,691 614,789,091 1837 1,968,219 1,300,609 763,030,552 1811 20,733,354 13,075,977 624,301,936 1838 nil. nil. 762,771,224 1812 21,322,168 14,078,577 635,583,448 —Porter's Pari. Tables, i. andii. 6, 8 ; Pebrer's Tables, 247 '; Moreau's Tables; Porter's Progress of the Nation, ii. 260 ; and for 1833, 1834, 1835,1836, pp. 3, 4, each year. N.B. — This table exhibits the progress of the sinking-fund and stock redeemed in Great Britain and Ireland, which explains its difference from the preceding table, applicable to Great Britain alone. Since 1838 to 1843, no money has been applied to the reduction of the national debt; on the contrary, fresh debt, to the amount of £10,000,000, has been contracted, being at the average of £1,650,000 a-year. About as much has been paid off since 1843, but wholly by the operation of the war income-tax.— Porter's Pari. Tables, vii. 4, and viii. 4. 24 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, the opponents of the sinking-fund have argued, that neither national nor individual fortunes can be mended by l802, mere financial operations — by borrowing with one hand, while you pay off with another ; and unquestionably Mr Pitt never imagined that if the nation was paying off ten millions a-) car, and borrowing twenty, it was making any progress in the discharge of its debt. In this view, it is of no moment to inquire what proportion of the debt annually contracted was applied to the sinking-fund ; because, as long as larger sums than that fund was able to discharge were yearly borrowed by the nation, it is evi- dent that the operation of the system Mas attended with no present benefit to the state ; nay, that the cost of its machinery was, for the time at least, an addition to its burdens. But, all that notwithstanding, Mr Pitt's plan for the redemption of the debt was founded not only on consummate wisdom, but on a thorough knowledge of human nature. To be convinced of this we have only to look to the causes which have led to the abandonment of the sinking-fund since the war, and the state in which that abandonment has left the finances of the empire. Mr Pitt never looked to the sinkimr-fund as the means 20 *"" Value of the of paying off the debt while loans to a larger amount ume of'" than it redeemed were contracted every year : he re- peace * garded it as a fund which would speedily and cer- tainly effect the reduction of the debt in time of peace* It was then that its real effect was to be seen : it was then that the debt contracted during war was to be really " Mi- Pitt's speech on the budget in 1798, affords decisive evidence that he Pitt clearly laboured under no delusion on the subject of the operation of the sinking-fund jections since during war; but always looked forward to its effects when loans had ceased, in urged against consequence of the return of peace, as exemplifying its true character, and the system. a ] one effecting a real reduction of the debt. " By means of the sinking-fund," said he, " we had advanced far in the reduction of the debt previous to the loans necessarily made in the present war, and every year was attended with such accelerated salutary effects as outran the most sanguine calculation. But having done so, we have yet far to go, as things are circumstanced. If the reduction of the debt be confined to the operations of that fund, and the expenses of the war continue to impede our plans of economy, — we shall have to go far before the operation of that fund, even during peace, can be expected to counteract the effects of the war. Yet there are means by which I am confident XLI. 1802. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 25 discharged. And the admirable nature of the institution chap, consisted in this, that it provided a system, with all the machinery requisite for its complete and effective opera- tion, which, although overshadowed and subdued by the vast contraction of debt during war, came instantly into powerful operation the moment its expenditure was ter- minated. This was a point of vital importance ; indeed, without it, as experience has since proved, all attempts to reduce the debt would have proved utterly nugatory. Mr Pitt was perfectly aware of the natural impatience of tax- ation felt by mankind in general, and the especial desire always experienced, when the excitement of war ceases, that its expenditure should draw to a termination. He foresaw, therefore, that it would be impossible to get the popular representatives, at the conclusion of a contest, to lay on new taxes, and provide for a sinking-fund to pay off the debt which had been contracted during its con- tinuance. The only way, therefore, to secure that ines- timable object, was to have the whole machinery con- structed and in full activity during war, so that it might be at once brought forward in entire and efficient opera- tion, upon the conclusion of hostilities, without any legis- lative act or fresh imposition whatever, by the mere termi- nation of the contraction of loans. From what has now been stated, it will readily be discerned in what the grand merit of Mr Pitt's financial system consisted. It was the imposition, by law, of suf- ficient indirect taxes to meet not only the interest of it would be possible, in not many years, to restore our resources, and put the country in a state equal to all exigencies. Not only do I conceive that the principle is wise and the attempt practicable to procure large supplies out of the direct taxes from the year, but I conceive that it is ecpially wise, and not less practicable, to make provision for the amount of the debt incurred and funded in the same year : and if the necessity of carrying on the war shall entail upon us the necessity of contracting another debt, this principle, if duly carried into practice, with the assistance of the sinking-fund to co-operate, will enable us not to owe more than we did at its commencement. / cannot indeed take it upon me to say that the war will not stop the progress of liquidation ; but if the means I have pointed out are adopted, and resolutely adhered to, it will leave us at least stationary." — Pari. Hist, xxxiii. 1053, 1054. 20 II I ST dim OF EUROPE. chap, every new loan, but a hundredth part more to provide a sinking-fund for the extinction of its capital, which was 180 ' 2 - its grand distinction. It brought the nation successfully Distinctive through the crisis of the war. and would have proved the Rtt'ssyB- ultimate salvation of the empire, if it had been adhered Xk&J? 1 " to w * tn tnc steadiness which he so earnestly impressed fond. upon the nation, and if no subsequent monetary change had rendered impossible the continuance of the indi- rect taxes necessary to uphold the system. There was neither juggle nor deception in this. It was a very plain and practical operation, — viz : the providing a sur- plus of taxation to eat in at compound interest on the capital of the debt. This principle of providing such a surplus is the well-known and indispensable preliminary to every system for the reduction of burdens, whether in public or private. It Mas in the building upon that foundation the superstructure of a regular invariable system, and bestowing on it the wonderful powers of compound interest, that Mr Pitt's great merit consisted. It was the subsequent repeal of the indirect taxes laid on to provide this surplus fund during peace, when there was no necessity whatever for such a measure, and no motive for it but the thirst for temporary applause in successive administrations, or the difficulty ot upholding the indirect taxes, owing to a ruinous and unlooked-for contraction of the currency, which was the real evil that ruined this noble fabric, and has rendered the debt a hope- less burden on the nation. And if any doubt could exist on this subject, it would be removed by recollecting the example of France prior to the Revolution, when the system went on for half a century before that crisis, of borrowing large sums annually, and making no provision whatever for payment even of their annual interest, in con- sequence of which the finances got involved in such a state i See Ante, of hopeless embarrassment as, by rendering the convoca- tions, tion of the States-general unavoidable in a moment of extraordinary excitement, overturned the monarchy. 1 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 27 The result lias completely proved the wisdom of these views. Crippled and mangled as the sinking-fund has been by the enormous encroachments made upon it by 1 ^ 2 ' the administrations of later times, it has yet done much p roo f of during the peace to pay off the debt — amply sufficient ci pi3T to demonstrate the solidity of the principles on which Jg^JjJ it was founded. In the sixteen years from 1816 to *■*{£* 1832, even after these copious reductions, it has dis- y«*u*- charged more than eighty-two millions of the debt, besides the addition of seven millions made by the bonus of five per cent granted to the holders of the five per cents, which were reduced to four : that is, it has paid off in that time nearly ninety millions.* It is not a iuffde which, in a time so short in the lifetime of a nation, and during the greater part of which Great Britain was labouring under severe distress in almost all the branches of its industry, was able, even on a reduced scale, to effect a reduction so considerable. Nor has the experience of 'the last twenty years been less decisive as to the absolute necessity of making the it is clearly provision for the liquidation of the debt part of a per- f Effecting 7 manent system, to which the national faith is absolutely o/ttadebt! and unequivocally" bound, and which depends for no part of its efficiency upon the votes or financial measures of the year. Since this ruinous modification of Mr Pitt's unbending self-poised system was introduced ; since the fatal precedent was established of allowing the minister to determine, by annual votes, how much of the sinking- fund was to be applied to the current services of the year, * Funded debt on January 5, 1816, . . . £816,311,940 Unfunded ditto, . . • . 48,510,501 Total, £864,822,441 Total debt on 5tb January 1833, — viz : Funded, £754,100,549 Unfunded, 27,752,650 781,853,199 Paid off in sixteen years, .... £82,969,242 —Annual Finance Statement, 1833 ; and Pebrer, 246 ; and Porter's Parlia- mentary Tables, ii. 6. 2 3 II [STOEY OF El' ROPE. chap, and how much reserved for its original and proper desti- nation, the encroachment on the fund has gone on con- 180-2. tinually increasing, till at length it has, to all practical purposes, swallowed it entirely up. The sinking-fund, when thus broken upon, has proved the subject of con- tinual subsequent violation, till the shadow even of respect for it is gone. If such has been the fate of this noble and truly patriotic establishment, even when no increased burden was required to keep it in activity, and the temptation which proved fatal to its existence was merely the desire to effect a reduction of taxes long borne by the nation, it is easy to see how utterly hope- less would have been any attempt to make considerable additions to the annual burdens upon the conclusion of hostilities, with a view to effect a diminution of the public debt; and how completely dependent, therefore, the sinking-fund was for its very existence upon Mr Pitt's system of having all its machinery put in motion at the time the loans were contracted during war, and its vast powers brought into full view, without any application to the legislature, by the mere cessation of borrowing, on the return of peace.* * In Mr Pitt's Financial Resolutions, in the year 1799, which embrace a vast Durable and variety of important financial details, there is the clearest indication of the far-seeing lasting and permanent system to which he looked forward with perfect justice he lfad estab- for the entire liquidation of the public debt. One of these resolutions was, — Hshed. « That supposing the price of 3 per cent stock to be on an average, after the year 1800, £90 in time of peace, and £75 in time of war, and the proportion of peace and war to be the same as for the last hundred years, the average price of peace and war will be about £85 ; that the whole debt created in each year of the present war will be redeemed in about forty years from such year respec- tively, and the whole of the capital debt existing previous to 1793 will be redeemed in about forty-seven years from the present time ; that from 1808 to 1833 (at which time the capital debt created in the first year of the present war would be redeemed, and the taxes applicable to the charges thereof would become disposable,) taxes would be set free in each year of peace to the amount of £133,000, and of war to that of £168,000 ; that the amount of the sum annually applicable to the reduction of the debt would, in the course of the same period, gradually rise from £5,000,000 to £10,400,000; and that, on the suppositions before stated, taxes equal to the amount of the charges created during each year of the present war will be successively set free, from 1833 to 1840, to the amount in the whole of £10,500,000, and about 1846, further taxes to the amount of £4,200,000, being the sum applicable from 1808 to the HISTORY OF EUROPE. 29 Not a shadow of a doubt can now remain that Mr Pitt's and Mr Addington's anticipations were well founded, and that if their system had been adhered to since the peace, the whole national debt would have been dis- charged by the year 1845. The payment of eighty mil- lions, under the mutilated system, since 1815, affords a sample of what might have been expected had its effi- ciency not been impaired. Even supposing that, for the extraordinary efforts of 1813, 1814, and 1815, it had been necessary to borrow from the commissioners the whole sinking-fund during each of these years, still, if the nation and its government had possessed sufficient resolu- tion to have resumed the system with the termination of hostilities, and steadily adhered to it since that time, the debt discharged by the year 1836 would, at five per cent, have been above five hundred millions, and the sinking-fund would now (1835) have been paying off above forty millions a-year." Or, if the national engage- ments would only have permitted the sinking-fund to have been kept up at ten millions yearly from the produce of taxes, and if the accumulation were to be calculated at four per cent, which, on an average, is probably not far reduction of the debt existing previous to 1793 ; making in all, when the whole debt is extinguished in 1846, a reduction of £19,000,000 yearly." Such was the far-seeing and durable system of this great statesman ; and experience has now proved that, if his principles had been adhered to, and the taxes appli- cable to the charges of the debt had not been imprudently repealed, these anticipations would have been more than realised, notwithstanding the vast increase of the debt since that time. 1 * Table I., showing what the sinking-fund, accumulating at five per cent, if maintained at £15,000,000 a-year, would have paid off from 1816 to 1836 : — CHAP. XLI. 1802. 24. Had it been adhered to, the whole debt would have been discharged in 184o. 1816 . £15,000,000 Brought forward, £212,660,625 1817 15,750,000 1827 25,530,240 1818 16,537,500 1828 26,839,360 1819 17,363,870 1829 28,181,423 1820 18,231.<»73 1830 29,580,464 1821 19,143,566 1831 31,079,590 1822 20,100,774 1832 33,158,577 1823 21,005,038 1833 34,816,000 1824 22,055,284 1834 35,524 625 1825 23,157,048 1835 37,23S,312 1826 24,315,572 1836 Total in 20 years, 39,099,214 Carry forward, £212,660,625 £533,708,430 i Pail. Hist, x.wiv. 1155. Tables show- ing the pro- gressive growth of a sinking-fund of fifteen and one of ten mil- lions, from 1816 to 183G. 30 II I STORY OF EUROPE, CHAP. XLI. 1802. from the truth, the fund applicable to the reduction of the debt would now have been above twenty millions an- nually, and the debt already discharged would have exceeded three hundred and thirty millions! A more rapid reduction of funded property would not probably have been consistent, either with a proper regard to the employment of capital, or the due creation of safe chan- nels of investment, to receive so vast an annual discharge from the public treasury. Everything, therefore, conspires to demonstrate that Mr Pitt's system for the reduction of the national debt Mas not only founded on just principles and profound fysTem^ tlus foresight, but on an accurate knowledge of human nature, a correct appreciation of the principles by which such a salutary scheme was likely to be defeated, and the means bv which alone its permanent efficiency could be secured. And no doubt can now remain in any impartial mind, that, if that system had been resolutely adhered to, the whole debt contracted during the wars of the French Revolution might have been discharged in little more than the time which was occupied in its contraction. 2.5. Causes which have led to the Table II., showing what the sinking -fund, if maintained from the taxes at £10,000,000 sterling, and if accumulating at fom per cent only, would have paid off from 1816 to 1836 : — • 1816 £10,000.000 Brought forward, £138,243,700 1817 10,400,000 1827 16,032,580 1818 10,816,000 1828 16,673,880 1819 11,264,000 1829 17,340,832 1820 11,715,560 1830 18,034,464 1821 12,671,544 1831 18,754,840 1822 13,178,404 1832 19,505,032 1823 13,705,540 1833 20,285,232 1824 14,253,760 1834 21,096,640 1825 14,822,948 1835 21,930,504 1826 15,415,944 - 1836 23,107,724 Carry forward, £138,243,700 I Total in 20 years, £331,005,428 Supposing the stock, in the first case, purchased on au average at 90 by the commissioners, the £533,708,430 sterling money would have redeemed a tenth more of the stock, or £587,000,000. Supposing it bought, in the second case, at an average of 85, which would probably have been about the mark, the £342,000,000 sterling money would have purchased nearly a seventh more of stock, or £385,357,000, being just about a half of the debt existing at this moment, (1835.) HISTORY OF EUROPE. 31 What is it, then, which has occasioned the subsequent chap xli. ruin of a system constructed with so much wisdom, and so long adhered to under the severest trials with un- 1802# shaken fidelity % The answer is to be found in the tem- porary views and yielding policy of succeeding statesmen : in the substitution of ideas of present expedience for those of permanent advantage ; in the fatal contraction of the currency in 1819, which rendered the continuance of the indirect taxes which formed the basis of the sink- ing-fund difficult, and in the end impossible ; in the ad- vent of times when government looked from year to year, not from century to century ; in the mistaking the pre- sent applause of the unreflecting many for that sober approbation of the thoughtful few, which it should ever be the chief object of an enlightened statesman to obtain. When a Greek orator was applauded by the multitude for his speech, the philosopher chid him ; "for," said he, it was the " if you had spoken wisely, these men would have given pr^entpo- no signs of approbation." The observation is not founded two/ern- on any peculiar fickleness or levity in the Athenian ment - people, but on the permanent principles of human nature, and that general prevalence of the desire for temporary ease over considerations of permanent advan- tage, which it is the great object of the moralist to com- bat, and to the influence of which the greatest disasters of private life are owing. And, without relieving sub- sequent statesmen of their full share of responsibility for an evil which will now in the end probably consign the British empire to destruction, it may safely be affirmed that the British people, and every individual amongst them, must bear their full share of the burden. A general delusion seized the public mind. The populace loudly clamoured for a reduction of taxation, without any regard to the consequences, not merely on future times, but their own present advantage. The learned fiercely assailed the sinking-fund, and, with hardly a single excep- tion, branded the work of Pitt and Fox as a vile impos- 32 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLI. 1802. ture, incapable of standing the examination of reason or experience. The Opposition vehemently demanded the remission of taxes; the government weakly granted the request. Year after year passed away under this miser- able delusion; tax after tax was repealed amidst the applause of the whole nation;* the general concurrence in the work of destruction for a time almost obliterated the deep lines of party distinction, and, amidst mutual compliments from the Opposition to the Ministerial benches, the broad foundations of British greatness were loosened ; the provident system of former times was abandoned; revenue, to the amount of forty millions a- year, surrendered without any equivalent; and the nation, when it awakened from its trance, found itself saddled for ever with eight-and-twenty millions as the Table show- ing the amount of direct and indirect taxes repealed from 1814 to 1S34. Taxes repealed since the peace of 1814 to 1S34, — NET PRODUCE. GROSS PRODUCE. 1814 War duties on goods, &c. £932,000 £948,861 1815. Ditto, 222,000 222,749 1816. Property tax and war malt, . 17,547,000 17,886,666 1817. Sweet wines, 37,000 37,813 1818. Vinegar, &c. 9,500 9,524 1819. Plate glass, &c. 269,000 273,573 1820. Beer in Scotland, 4,000 4,000 1821. Wool, 471,000 490,113 1822. Annual malt and hides, 2,139,000 2,164,037 1823. Salt and assessed taxes, 4,185,000 4,286,389 1824. Thrown silk and salt, 1,801,000 1,805,467 1825. Wine, salt, &c. . 3,676,000 3,771,019 1826. Rum and British spirit?. 1,967,000 1,973,915 1827. Stamps, 84,000 84,038 1828. Rice, &c. 51,000 52,227 1829. Silk, &c. 126,000 126,406 1830. Beer, hides, and sugar, 4,070,000 4,264,425 1831. Printed cotton and coals, 1,588,000 3,189,312 1832. Candles, almonds, raisins, &c. 747,000 754,996 1833. Soap, tiles, &c. 1,000,000 1,100,000 1834. House duty, 1,200,000 1,400,000 £42,125,500 £44,845,529 Laid on in the same time, 5,813,000 Xet taxation reduced, £36,312,500 bich £18,690,000 was direct, and £17,' 190,000 indirect.- —See Pari. Pajcr, 14th June 1833, and Budget 1834, Pari. Deb. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 33 interest of debt, without any means of redemption, and chap. with a democratic constitution which rendered the con- L_ struction of any such in time to come utterly hopeless. isog-1832. The people were entitled to demand an instant relaxa- tion from taxation upon the termination of hostilities ; Great error the pressure of the war taxes would have been insupport- ^uLg'tt able when the excitement and expenditure of war were aTrTcftaxes over. The income tax could no longer be endured ; the onthe P eace - assessed taxes and all the direct imposts should at once have been repealed; no man, excepting the dealers in articles liable to indirect taxation, should have paid any- thing to government. This was a part, and a most im- portant part, of Mr Pitt's system. He was aware of the extreme and well-founded discoutent which the payment of direct taxes to government occasions ; he knew that nothing but the excitement and understood necessities of war can render them bearable. His system was, there- fore, to provide for the extra expenses of war entirely by loans or direct taxes, and to devote the indirect taxes to the interest of the public debt and the permanent charges of government — those lasting burdens which could not be reduced without injury to the national credit or secu- rity, on the termination of hostilities. In this way a triple object was gained. The nation, during the continuance of war, was made to feel its pressure by the payment of heavy annual duties, while upon its conclusion the people experienced an instant relief in the cessation of those direct payments to government, which are always felt as most burdensome; and at the same time the permanent charges of the state were provided for in those indirect duties which, although by far the most productive, are seldom complained of, from their being mixed up with the price of commodities, and so not perceived by those who ultimately bear their weight. Mr Pitt's system of taxation, in short, combined the important objects of heavy taxation during war, instant relief on peace, and a permanent provision for the lasting expenses of the state, VOL. VII. C taxes since 1816, 34 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, in the way least burdensome to the people. The in- 1_ fluence of these admirable principles is to be seen in the 1816-1832. cus ^ om g0 i 011 g ac |i ierec l to, and only departed from amidst the improvidence of later times, of separating, in the annual accounts of the nation, the war charges from the permanent expenses, and providing for the former by loans and temporary taxes, for the most part in the direct form, while the latter were met by lasting imposts, which were not to be diminished till the burdens to which they were applicable were discharged. Following out these principles, the income tax, the impudent assessed taxes, the war malt-tax, and in general all the indirecT ° war taxes, should have been repealed on the conclusion of hostilities, or as soon as the floating debt contracted during their continuance was liquidated: but on the other hand, the indirect taxes should have been regarded as a sacred fund set apart for the permanent expenses of the nation, the interest of the debt, and the sinking-fund, and none of them repealed till, from the growth of a surplus, after meeting those necessary charges, it had become apparent that such relief could be afforded with- out trenching on the financial resources of the state. That the growth of population, and the constant efforts of general industry, would progressively have enabled government, without injuring these objects, to afford such relief, at least by the repeal of the most burdensome of the indirect taxes, as the salt tax, the soap and candle tax, and part of the malt tax, is evident, from the con- sideration that the taxes given up since the peace amount to £42,000,000, while £5,000,000, only have been im- posed during the same period ; and consequently, after the repeal of the income tax, assessed taxes, and these oppressive indirect taxes, an ample fund for the mainte- nance of the sinking-fund, even at the elevated rate of fifteen millions a-year, would have remained. Thus Mr Pitt's system involved within itself the important and in- valuable qualities of providing amply for the necessities HISTORY OF EUROPE. 35 CHAP. XLI. 1810-1832. 29. Little good has been de- rived from of the moment, affording instant relief on the termination of hostilities, and yet reserving an adequate fund for the liquidation of all the national engagements in as short a time as they were contracted.* If, indeed, the nation had been positively unable to bear the burden of the sinking-fund of fifteen millions drawn from the indirect taxes, it might have been justly argued that the evil consequences of its abandonment, however o/Sect much to be deplored, were unavoidable ; and therefore taxes - that the present hopeless situation of the debt may be the subject of regret, but cannot be reproached as a fault to any administration whatever. But unfortunately this was by no means the case. To all appearance, the nation has derived no material benefit from a great part of the taxes thus improvidently abandoned, but has, on the con- trary, suffered in all its present interests, as well as its future prospects, from the change. In proof of this, it is only necessary to recollect, that during the war the nation not only existed, but throve under burdens infinitely greater than have been imposed since its termination, and that, too, although the exports and imports at that period were little more than half of what they have since become. During the four last years of the war, the sum annually raised by taxes was from sixty-five to seventy -five mil- lions, while twenty years after it was from forty-five to fifty ; although, during the first period, the exports ranged from forty-five to sixty millions, and the imports from Total taxes repealed since the peace, . £42,115,000 Might have been repealed, viz. — Property tax and war malt, £17,547,000 War duties on goods, 2,154,000 Annual malt and hides, . 2,139,000 Salt and assessed taxes, . 4,185,000 Candles, . 600,000 Soap tax, . 800,000 House tax, 1,200,000 27,625,000 Leaving to support the sinking-fund, 14,490,000 42,115,000 Besides £5,813,000 of fresh taxes imposed during the same period. 36 HISTORY OF EUROTE. chap. XLI. 1816-1832 30. Immense burdens un- der which the nation prospered during the twenty-five to thirty ; while, during the latter, the exports had risen to seventy-five millions, and the imports to forty- five ; and in the last year the former had swelled to the enormous amount of one hundred and five millions, and the latter to sixty.*" Without doubt, the prosperity of the later years of the war was in a great degree fictitious : most certainly it depended to a certain extent on the feverish excitement of an extravagant issue of paper, and was also much to be ascribed to a large portion of the capital of the nation being at that period annually borrowed and spent in an unproductive form, to its great present benefit and certain ultimate embarrassment. It is equally clear, that if this had gone on for some years longer, irreparable ruin must have been the result. But there is a medium in all things. As much as the public expenditure before 1816 exceeded what a healthful state of the body politic could bear, so much has the expenditure since that time fallen short of it. Violent transitions are as injurious in political as in private life. To pass at once from a state of vast and unprecedented expenditure to one of rigid and jealous economy, is in the highest degree injurious to a nation ; it is like reducing a patient suddenly from an inflamma- tory diet to the fare of an anchorite. It may sometimes be unavoidable, but unquestionably the change would be much less perilous if gradually effected. Official value. Official value. Raised by taxes. Exports. Imports. Great Britain Great Britain and Ireland. and Ireland. 1813, . £63,211,000 £38,226,283 £25,163,411 1814, 70,926,000 Records de stroyed by fire. 1815, 72,210,000 52,573,034 33,755,264 1816, 62,264,000 58,624,600 32,987,396 1830, 55,824,802 69,691,302 46,245,241 1831, 54,810,190 71,429,004 49,713,889 1832, 50,990,315 76,071,572 44,586,241 1836, 48,591,180 97,621,549 57,230,968 1837, 47,030,000 85,781,669 54,737,301 1838, 47.978,753 - 105,170,549 61,268,320 — Pebrer's Tables, 159,341; Porter 27th March 1839; Porter's Progress s Tables, i. 48, and ii. 49; Finance Accounts, of the Nation, ii. 296. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 3/ It was unquestionably right, at the conclusion of the chap. war, to have made as large a reduction as was consistent !_ with the public security in the army and navy, and to 1816 "J 832 - stop at once the perilous system of borrowing money. Argument Such a reduction at once permitted the repeal of the whole ject. direct war taxes. But having done this, the question is, Was it expedient to go a step further, and make such reductions in the indirect taxes, of which no serious com- plaint was made, as amounted to a practical repeal of the sinking-fund ? That was the ruinous measure. The maintenance of that fund at twelve or fifteen millions a-year, raised from taxes, with its growing increase, w r ould to all appearance have been a happy medium, which, without adding to, but, on the contrary, in the long run diminishing, the national burdens, would at the same time have prevented that violent transition from a state of expen- diture to one of retrenchment, under the disastrous effects of which, for twenty years after the peace, all branches of industry, with only a few intervals, continued to labour. No one branch of the government expenditure would have gone further to uphold, during this trying time, the in- dustry and credit of the country, and diffuse an active demand for labour through all classes, than that which was devoted to the sinking-fund. Such a fund, beginning at twelve or fifteen millions a-year derived from taxes, and progressively rising to twenty, thirty, and forty mil- lions annually, applied to the redemption of stock, must have had a prodigious effect, both in upholding credit and spreading commercial enterprise through the country. It would have produced an effect precisely opposite to that which the annual absorption of the same sum in loans, during the war, occasioned. The public funds, under the influence of the prodigious and growing purchases of the commissioners, must have been maintained at a very high level ; it is probably not going too far to say, that, since 1820, they would have . been constantly kept at from ninety to one hundred. The 429809 1816-1832. 32. 38 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, effect of such a state of things in vivifying and sustaining "VT T i ■ commercial enterprise, and counteracting the depression consequent upon the great diminution of the government Great Tm- expenditure in other departments, must have been im- weii'a S e uTti- mense. The money given for the stock purchased by the ™ges which" commissioners would have been let loose upon the country ; attended^ 6 their operations must have continually poured out upon KE - tne nation a stream of wealth, constantly increasing in fund. = amount, which, in the search for profitable investment, could not have avoided giving a most important stimulus to every branch of national industry. The sinking-fund would have operated like a great forcing-pump, which drew a large portion of the capital of the country annually out of its unproductive investment in the public funds, and directed it to the various beneficial channels of private employment. Doubtless the funds necessary for the accomplishment of this great work could only have been drawn from the nation, as the proceeds of the stock pur- chased by the commissioners, just as the produce of the taxes is all extracted from the national industry. But experience has abundantly proved that such a forcible direction of a considerable part of the national income, to such a productive investment, is often more conducive to immediate prosperity, as well as ultimate advantage, than if, from an undue regard to popular clamour, it is allowed to remain at the disposal of individuals. It is like compelling a spendthrift and embarrassed landowner, not only to provide annually for the interest of his debts, but to pay off a stated portion of the principal, which, when assigned to his creditors, is immediately devoted to the fertilising of his fields and the draining of his morasses. Nor is this all. The high price of the funds conse- Benefic'iai quent upon the vast and increasing purchases of the com- wouid have 1 mission ers, would have gone far not only to keep up that keeping up prosperous state of credit which is essential to the well- the funds. 01 " being of a commercial country, but have induced numbers of private individuals to sell out, in order to realise the HISTORY OF EUROPE. 39 great addition to their capitals which the rise of the public chap. securities had occasioned. To assert that this forced - application yearly of a considerable portion of the national 1816 ~ 1832 - capital to the redemption of the debt,, would have alto- gether counteracted the decline in the demand for labour consequent on the transition from a state of war to one of peace, would be going further than either reason or experience will justify. But this much may confidently be asserted, that the general prosperity consequent on this state of things could not have failed to have rendered the taxation requisite to produce it comparatively an endurable burden — that the nation would, to all appear- ance, have been much more prosperous than it has been under the opposite system, and, at the same time, would have obtained the incalculable advantage of having paid off, during these prosperous years, above two-thirds of the national debt. This prosperity, doubtless, would have been partly owing to a forced direction of capital ; but, whatever danger there may be in such a state of things while debt is annually contracted, there is comparatively little when it is continued only for its discharge — and when an artificial system has contributed to the formation of a burden, it is well that it should not be entirely re- moved till that burden is reduced to a reasonable amount. Every one, when this vast reduction of indirect taxes was going on, to the entire destruction of the sinking-fund Public «•- and Mr Pitt's provident system of financial policy, looked [ecTJite only, even with reference to present advantage, to one SSSui side of the account. They forgot that if the demands of ^n' 8 " government on the industry of the nation were rapidly effects - reduced, its demands on government must instantly un- dergo a similar diminution ; that if the exchequer ceased to collect seventy millions a-year, it must cease also to expend it. Every reduction of taxation, even in those branches where it was not complained of, was held forth as an alleviation of the burdens of the nation, and a reasonable ground for popularity to its rulers ; whereas, . 40 HISTORY OF EUROTE. CHAP. XLI. J816-1832. in truth, the relief even at the moment was more nominal than real. Though a diminution of those burdens was effected, it took place frequently in quarters where they were imperceptible, and drew after it an instantaneous and most sensible reduction in the demand for labour and the employment of the industrious classes, at a time when such demand could ill be spared, from the same effect having simultaneously ensued from other causes. Great part of the distress which has been felt by all classes since the peace was the result of the general diminution of expenditure, which the too rapid reduction of so many indirect taxes and consequent abandonment of the sinking- fund necessarily occasioned, and which the maintenance of its machinery, till it had fulfilled its destined purpose, would to a very great degree have alleviated. It augments our regret, therefore, at the abandonment of Mr Pitt's financial system, that the change had not even the excuse of present necessity or obvious expedience for its recom- mendation, but was the result of undue subservience to particular interests, or desire for popularity on the part of our rulers, unattended even by the temporary advan- tages for the sake of which its incalculable ultimate bene- fits were relinquished. Lord Castlereagh made a most manly endeavour, in Lord cLtie- 1816, to induce the people to submit for a few years to ror S regard- tllat elevated rate of taxation by which alone permanent in g the in- re lief from the national embarrassments could be expected ; come tax. f i • i i 1 but he committed a signal error in the tax which he selected for the struggle, and deviated as much from Mr Pitt's principles in the effort to maintain that heavy impost, as subsequent administrations did in their abandonment of others of a lighter character. The income tax, being a direct war impost of the most oppressive and invidious description, was always intended by that great statesman to come to a close with the termination of hostilities ; and its weight was so excessive, that it was impossible and unreasonable to expect the people to submit any longer HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 41 to its continuance. Nothing could be more impolitic, chap. therefore, than to commit government to a contest with XLL the nation on so untenable a ground. It was the subse- 181G " 1832 - quent repeal of indirect taxes to the amount of above thirty millions a-year, when they were not complained of, and when the fall in the price of the taxed articles, from the change in the value of money, had rendered their weight imperceptible, which was the fatal deviation from Mr Pitt's principles. The administrations by whom this prodigious repeal was effected are not exclusively responsible for the result. The Son It is not unlikely that, from the growing preponderance ^:g of the popular branch of the constitution, it had become f ? r this , •1 1 , ' change of impossible to carry on the government without the annual s y stem - exhibition of some such fallacious benefit, to gain the applause of the multitude ; and it is more than probable that, from the excessive influence which in later years it acquired, the maintenance of any fixed provident system of finance had become impossible. But they are to blame, and history cannot acquit them of the fault, for not having constantly and strenuously combated this natural, though ruinous, popular weakness ; and if they could not prevail on the House of Commons to adhere to Mr Pitt's financial system, they should at least have laid on them the respon- sibility of all the consequences of its abandonment. And as the repeal of indirect taxes during peace was the fatal error, so the return to an income-tax during the burdens of the Chinese, and the disasters of the Affghanistaun wars, in 1842, was a wise and manly measure, as much in accordance with the spirit of Mr Pitt's financial policy as the previous calamitous reductions of indirect taxes had been against it. It was impossible to explain Mr Pitt's system for the reduction of the debt, without anticipating the course of events, and unfolding the ruinous results which have followed the departure from its principles. The para- mount importance of the subject must plead the author's 42 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, apology for the anachronism ; and it remains now to XLI 1816-1832. advert, with a different measure of encomium, to the fund- ing system on which that statesman so largely acted, and the general principles on which his taxation was founded. It is evident that, in some cases, the funding system, or Advantages the plan of providing for extraordinary public expenses iu g system, by loans, the interest of which is alone laid as a burden on future years, is not only just, but attended with very great public advantage. When a war is destined ap- parently to be of short endurance, and a great lasting advantage may be expected from its results, it is often impossible, and if possible would be unjust, to lay its expenses exclusively upon the years of its continuance. In ordinary contests, indeed, it is frequently practicable, and when so it is always advisable, to make the expenses of the year fall entirely upon its income ; so that, at the con- clusion of hostilities, no lasting burden may descend upon posterity. But in other cases this cannot be done. When, in consequence of the fierce attack of a desperate and reck- less enemy, it has become necessary to make extraordi- nary efforts, it is often altogether out of the question to raise supplies in the year adequate to its expenditure ; nor is it reasonable, in such cases, to lay upon those who, for the sake of their children as well as themselves, have engaged in the struggle, the whole charges of a contest of which the more lasting benefits are probably to accrue to those who are to succeed them. In such cases, necessity in nations, not less than individuals, calls for the equalisa- tion of the burden over all those who are to obtain the benefit ; and the obvious mode of effecting this is by the funding system, which, providing at once by loan the supplies necessary for carrying on the contest, lays its interest as a lasting charge on those for whose behoof the debt had been contracted. Nor is it possible to deny, amidst all the evils which the abuse of this system has occasioned, its astonishing effect in suddenly augmenting the resources of a nation ; or to resist the conclusion 1816-1832, HISTORY OF EUROPE. 43 deducible from the fact, that it was to its vigorous and chap. XLI happy application, at the close of the war, that the extra- ordinary successes by which it was distinguished are in a great degree to be ascribed. * But this system, like everything good in human affairs, has its limits ; and if extraordinary benefits may some- its dangers. times arise from its adoption, extraordinary evils may still more frequently originate in its abuse. Many indi- viduals have been elevated, by means of loans contributed at a fortunate moment, to wealth and greatness ; but many more have been involved, by the fatal command of money which it confers for a short period, in irretrievable embarrassments. Unless suggested by necessity and conducted with prudence — unless administered with fru- gality and followed by parsimony, borrowing is to nations, not less than individuals, the general road to ruin. It is the ease of contracting compared with the difficulty of discharging ; the natural disposition to get a present command of money, and leaving the task of paying it off to posterity, which is the temptation that, to communities not less than single men, so often proves irresistible. Opulent nations, whose credit is high, become involved in debt from the same cause which has overwhelmed almost all the great estates in Europe with mortgages. The existence of the means of relieving present difficulties by merely contracting debt, is more than the firmness either of the heads of families or the rulers of empires can resist. And there is this extraordinary and peculiar danger in the lavish contraction of debt by government, that, by the great present expenditure with which it is attended, a * Loans contracted by the British government in the latter years of the war : — 1812, . £24,000,000 1814, . £58,763,000 1813, . 27,871,000 1815, . 18,500,000 Of these great loans upwards of £12,000,000 was, in 1813, 1814, and 1815, applied annually to the subsidising of foreign powers, in consequence of which the whole armies of Europe came to be arrayed in British pay on the banks of the Rhine ; while, at the same time, the Duke of Wellington, at the head of 80,000 men, was maintained on the southern frontier of France. — Moreau's Tables ; Pebrer, 246. 1816-1831 39, 44 HISTOllY OF EUROPE. chap, very great impulse is communicated at the time to every branch of industry, and thus immediate prosperity is generated out of the source of ultimate ruin. Mr Pitt was fully aware both of the immediate advan- Mr Pitt's tages and of the ultimate dangers of the funding system. viewsonthis TT . ti • i • i i i • i i subject. His measures, accordingly, varied with the aspect which the war assumed, and the chances of bringing it to an imme- diate issue which present appearances seemed to afford. During its earlier years, when the Continental campaigns were going on, and a rapid termination of the strife was constantly expected, as was the case with the Spanish revolution in 1823, or the Polish in 1831, large loans were annually contracted, and the greater part of the war supplies of the year were raised by that means ; pro- vision being made for the permanent raising of the interest, and of the sinking-fund for the extinction of these loans, in the indirect taxes which were simultaneously laid on, and to the maintenance of which the national faith was pledged, till the whole debt thus contracted, principal and interest, was discharged.""" It is no impeach- ment of the wisdom of this system, so far as finance goes, that the expectations of a speedy termination of the contest were constantly disappointed, and that debt to the amount of a hundred and sixteen million pounds was contracted before the Continental peace of Campo Forinio in 1797, without any other result than a constant addition to the power of France. The question is not, whether the resources obtained from these loans were beneficially expended, but whether the debts were con- tracted yearly under a belief, founded on rational grounds, that by a vigorous prosecution of the contest it might LOANS CONTRACTED. * 1793, £4,500,000 1794, 12,907,451 1795, 42,090,646 1796, 42,736,196 1797, . . ... . . 14,620,000 — Mobeau's Tables. £116,854,293 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 45 speedily be brought to a successful issue 1 That this view, chap. so far as mere finance considerations are concerned, was well founded, is obvious from the narrow escapes which 17s. fcheewt.:) but when, on the return of peace, prices fell to twelve or fif- teen pounds the hogshead (from 50s. to 60s, the cwt.,) including duty, it became intolerably severe. It then © became nearly a hundred per cent on the rude material — the same as if a duty of fifty shillings a-quarter had been laid on wheat raised in England for the home consump- tion. Nor had either the planter or the refiner the means of eluding this tax to any considerable degree, by either raising the price of the article to the consumer, or diminishing by economy or machinery the cost of its pro- duction. The cost of raising rude agricultural produce can hardly ever be diminished to any considerable extent by the application of machinery; and the stoppage of the slave trade necessarily, in the first instance at least, increased the cost of production, while the only way in which it seemed possible to render the burden tolerable was by augmenting the quantity raised, which necessarily depressed to an undue extent the price which it bore in the market. Being unable to diminish the cost of pro- duction from these causes, all the efforts of the planters to make head against their difficulties, and defray the interest of their mortgages, by raising more extensive HISTORY OF EUROPE. G\ crops of sugar, only tended to lower prices, and throw chap. the taxes as an exclusive burden on themselves. The L_ proof of this is decisive : the price of sugar in America 180G - mo - is generally higher than in England, if the duty be de- ducted, sometimes by fully a third. In- 1831, the price per hundredweight was, in Great Britain, twenty-three shillings and eightpence, excluding duty ; while in Ame- rica it was thirty-six shillings per hundredweight in the same year. Taking into view the greater expense of freight to Britain than to America from these islands, there can be no doubt that almost the whole tax has been paid in many years by the producers, amounting though it now does to a hundred per cent. Nothing more is requisite to explain the almost total ruin which had 1 R ° on ™ on8 ' fallen on these splendid colonies, even before the last N 1 ^' 1 /,','.;., fatal measure of emancipating the slaves was carried into p. 7.' efFect. 1 In all fiscal measures on this subject, there is one prin- ciple to be constantlv kept in view, to the neglect or over- important sight of which, more than anything else, the ruin of the between in- West Indies is to be ascribed. This is, that while many on^raK branches of manufacturing industry possess the means, by "SkcT improvements in machinery or the division of labour, of compensating very heavy fiscal burdens, the raisers of rude produce can hardly ever do the same; so that, unless they can succeed in laving the tax upon the con- sumer, which is very often altogether beyond their power, they are forced to pay it entirely themselves, and it becomes a ruinous direct burden on industry. No doubt can exist on this head, when it is recollected not merely how slight is the improvement which agriculture has ever received from the aid of machinery, but that, while in the most highly civilised states, such as England, the cost of raising manufactures is always, notwithstanding heavy taxes and a plentiful currency, less than in ruder states, that of producing agricultural produce is always much greater. Great Britain can undersell the world in manu- 62 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, factures, but her farmers would be ruined without a corn- law — a fact strikingly illustrative of this vital distinction, I806-i8io. an j p i n ting to a very different rate of indirect taxation when applied to rude produce and manufactured articles, which has never yet met with adequate attention. Such were the general features of Mr Pitt's financial .58. . . General policy. Decried by the spirit of party during his own Mr Pitt's" lifetime, and that of the generation which immediately mewures. followed ; stigmatised by the age which found itself de h urand an oppressed by the weight of the burdens he had imposed, foresight. anc i which had forgotten the evils he had averted ; oblite- rated almost, amidst the temporary expedients and con- ceding weakness of the governments by which he was succeeded, it is yet calculated to stand the test of ages, and appears now in imperishable lustre from the bitter and experienced, though now irrevocable, consequences of its abandonment. Grandeur of conception, durability of design, far-seeing sagacity, were its great characteristics. It was truly conceived in a heroic spirit. Burdening, perhaps oppressing, the present generation, it was calcu- lated for the relief of future ages ; inflicting on its authors a load of present odium, it was fitted to secure the bless- ings of posterity when they were mouldering in their graves. Founded on that sacrifice of the present to the future which is at once the greatest violence to ordinary inclinations, the invariable mark of elevated understand- ings, and the necessary antecedent of great achievements, it required for its successful development, patience, self- denial, and magnanimity in subsequent statesmen equal to his own. It fell, because such virtues could not be found in the age by which he was succeeded. It was abandoned, because the Revolution of 1832 placed a single class of society, that of the moneyed men and traders, in the chief possession of political power. In contemplating his pro- found plans for the ultimate and speedy liberation of England, even from the enormous burdens entailed on its finances by the Revolutionary war, we feel that we are HISTORY OF EUHOPE. 63 conversing with one who lived for distant ages, and who chap. • • XLI voluntarily underwent, not the fatigues which are forgotten in the glory of the conqueror, but the obloquy consequent 1 7 90 - 1806 - on the firmness of the statesman, in the prosecution of what he felt to be for the ultimate good of the nation. In comparing his durable designs with the temporary expedients of the statesmen who preceded and followed him, we experience the same painful transition as in pass- ing from the contemplation of the stately monuments of ancient Egypt, wrought in granite, and constructed for eternal duration, to that of the gaudy but ephemeral palaces of the Arabs who dwell amidst their ruins, and whose brilliancy cannot conceal the perishable nature of the materials of which they are composed. While doing justice, however, to the great qualities of this illustrious financier, it is indispensable that we should Their errors. not draw a veil over his faults; and the application of his tent of the own principles to the measures which he sometimes adop- t em. mg sys " ted will best explain the particulars in which he was led astray. I. The first great defect which history must impute to the financial measures of Mr Pitt, is having carried too far, and continued too long, the funding sys- tem, and not earlier adopted that more manly policy of raising as large a portion as possible of the supplies within the year, the benefits of which he himself afterwards so fully explained. During the years 1 793 and 1 794, indeed, when formidable armies menaced France on every side, and the iron barrier of the Netherlands was broken through to an extent never achieved by Marlborough or Eugene, a speedy termination of the war might reason- ably be expected, and it was just, therefore, to lay the vast expenses of those years in a great degree on the shoulders of posterity. But after that crisis was past — after Flanders and Holland had yielded to the victorious arms of Pichegru — after Spain and Prussia had retired from the struggle, and when the Republic, instead of contending for its existence on the Rhine, was pursuing, under Napo- 1790-180G. 64 HISTORY OF EURO IT.. chap. Icon, the career of conquest in Italy, it became evident that a protracted contest was to be expected, and mea- sures of finance suitable to such a state of things should have been adopted. The resolute system of raising a considerable portion of the supplies within the year should have been embraced, at latest, in 1796, and the enormous loans of that and the two following years reduced to one- half. These loans amounted to seventy-five millions; if forty millions had been raised in the time by taxation, in addition to the imposts actually paid, the difference in the sum since paid by the nation down to this time, on ac- count of the loans of these years, Mould have been above £120,000,000 ! So prodigious is the difference, as regards the ultimate accumulation of burdens, between the ener- getic and intrepid system of raising a large portion of the supplies within the year, and the more acceptable but delusive policy of providing at the moment only for the interest, and leaving to posterity the charge of providing for the liquidation of the principal. II. But if the insidious advantages of the funding, were Niggardly to be preferred to the ultimate benefits of the taxing system, "nii t.uy' it was indispensable that the warlike resources of the England, state should have been put forth on a scale, and in a way, calculated to reap sudden advantages commensurate to the immense burdens thus imposed on posterity ; that the contest, if gigantic and expensive, Mas at least to be short and decisive. That the military poM'er of England M r as capable, if properly directed and called forth, of making such an effort, is now established by experience. The more the histories of the campaigns from 1793 to 1800 are studied, the more clearly will it appear that the armies of France and the coalition were very equally poised ; that the scale sometimes preponderated to one side and sometimes to the other, but without any decisive advan- tage to either party. After three years of protracted strife, the Republican armies, in the close of 1795, were still combating for existence on the Rhine, and gladly HISTORY OF EUROPE. 65 accepted a temporary respite from the victorious arms of chap. Clairfait : after three additional years of desperate war- XLL fare, tliey were struggling for the frontiers of the Var and 179 °- 1806 - the Jura against the terrible energy of Suwarroff, and the scientific ability of the Archduke Charles. No doubt can remain, therefore, that the forces on the opposite sides of that great contest were, at these periods at least, extremely nearly matched. With what effect, then, might not the arms of England have been thrown in upon the scene of warfare ; and how would the balance, so long quivering in equilibrium, have been brought down by the addition of fifty thousand British soldiers, then reposing inactive in the British islands, on the theatre of Blenheim or Ramilies ! Herein, therefore, lay the capital error of Mr Pitt's financial system, considered with reference to the warlike This wa 's his operations it was intended to promote. While the former great dtfect ' was calculated for a temporary effort only, and based on the principle of great results being obtained in a short time by an extravagant system" of expenditure, the latter was arranged on the plan of the most niggardly exertion of the national strength, and the husbanding of its resources for future efforts, totally inconsistent with the lavish present dissipation of its funds. No one would have regretted the great loans from 1793 to 1799, amounting though they did to a hundred and fifty mil- lions sterling, if proportionate efforts in the field had at the same time been made, and if it was evident that nothing had been omitted which could have conduced to the earlier termination of the war. But our feelings are very different when we recollect that during these six years, big with the fate of England and the world, only two hundred and eight thousand men were raised for the regular army, and that a nation reposing securely in a sea-girt and inaccessible citadel, never had above twenty thousand soldiers in the field, out of a disposable force of above a hundred thousand, and that only in the two first years of the war. Mr Pitt's plans for military operations VOL. VII. E 66 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, were all based on the action of Continental armies, while XLL the troops of his own country were chiefly employed in 1790-I8O6. aidant colonial expeditions ; picking oif pawns in this manner at the extremity of the board, when by concen- trated moves he might have given checkmate to his adver- sary at the commencement of the game. His military successes, in consequence, amounted to nothing, while his financial measures were daily increasing the debt in a geometrical progression : and thence, in a great measure, the long duration and heavy burdens of the war. III. But the greatest of all Mr Pitt's errors, and the injudicious one which was the most inexcusable, because it was most wowing at variance with the admirable foresight and enduring p n ertnlr e fortitude of his other financial measures, was the extent to which he carried the ruinous system of borrowing in the three per cents — in other words, inscribing the public creditor for £100 in the books of the bank of England, in consideration of only £60 advanced to the nation. That this policy had the effect of lowering the interest of the loans contracted, and thereby diminishing the burdens of the nation at the moment, may be perfectly true ; though even that advantage, as will immediately appear, was very trifling. But what was the advantage thus gained, compared to the enormous burden of saddling the nation with the payment of forty pounds additional to every sixty which it had received 1 The benefit was temporary and inconsiderable; the evil permanent and most material. Of the seven hundred and eighty mil- lions which now compose the national debt, about six hundred millions have been contracted in the three per cents ; and if this whole debt were to be paid off at par, the nation would have to pay in all two hundred and fifty millions more than it ever received. Supposing it to be redeemed by a sinking-fund at 80, on an average — which, taking a course of years together, of peace and war, is probably not far from the mark, and which coin- cides with Mr Pitt's estimate in 1799 — the surplus to be HISTORY OF EUROPE. 67 paid above what was received, would still be one hundred chap. and fifty millions. 7 Nor have the evils of this improvident system of bor- ^ 9 °- mb - rowing been limited to the great addition thus unnecos- Itg e g; t in sarily made to the capital of the national debt. Its effect ]£° v ^£_ g upon the burden of the interest has been equally unfor- J^fj" tunate. Doubtless the loans were, in the first instance, peace. contracted during the war on somewhat more favourable terms, as to interest, than could have been obtained if the money had been borrowed in the 5 per cents — tliat is, if a bond for £100 bad been given for each £100 only paid into the treasury. But as a set-off against this tempo- rary and inconsiderable advantage, what is to be said to the experienced impossibility, with great part of the funds so contracted, of reducing the interest in time of peace 1 It is impossible to lower the interest of the three per cents till interest generally falls below three per cent ; because if it were attempted^when the rate was higher, all the stockholders would immediately demand their money, and government, being unable to borrow below the market rate, would become bankrupt. Nevertheless, it may safely be affirmed that interest, on an average, since 1815, has not exceeded, if it has reached, four per cent. Had the national debt all been contracted in the five per cents, it might all have been subjected to the operation which in 1824 proved so successful with the five per cents, and which, on £157,000,000 only of the debt, the amount of that stock, saved the nation at that time £1,700,000 a-year, to which is to be added the half of that sum since gained by the reduction of the same stock to three and a half; the two together, after taking into view the dissentients, having saved the nation, for ever, £2,400,000 yearly. Calculating the interest of the £600,000,000 in the three per cents (£360,000,000 sterling) at £18,000,000 a-year, the proportion of this annual burden, which would have been saved by the first reduction of one per cent, would have been £3,600,000, and by the second of one- 68 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLI. 1790-1806. 64. The tempo- rary diminu- tion of in- terest was no adequate compensa- tion for these evils. half per cent, £1,800,000 more; in all £5,400,000 for ever. The sum already saved to the nation, on interest alone, paid since 1824, would have been above fifty millions sterling. Every twenty years in future the sum saved, with interest, would exceed a hundred and fifty millions. The temporary reduction of interest obtained by con- tracting the debt in this ruinous manner will bear no sort of comparison with these serious losses, with which the system was ultimately attended. It appears, from the curious table of loans contracted during the war, compiled by Moreau, that the difference in the interest of the loans in the 3 per cents and the 5 per cents was seldom above a half per cent, generally not more than a quarter.'" What * Take, for example, the following loans contracted in the 3 and 5 per cents, at different periods during the war : — Amounts ac- tually paid into Interest. Fate per cent. Treasury. £ £ 1794. Loan in 5 per cents, 1,907,451 96,326 5 per cent. Do. in 3 per cents, 10,806,000 502,791 4^ per cent. 1795. Loan in 5 per cents, 1,490,646 80,494 5£ per cent. Do. in 3 per cents, 17,777,163 841,374 4 j per cent. 1796. Loan in 5 per cents, 2,034,889 101,744 5 per cent. Do. in 3 per cents, 8,500,000 493,145 5 h per cent. 1797. Loan in 5 per cents, 17,815,918 1,006,242 5g per cent. Do. in 3 per cents, 13,000,000 825,500 5 j per cent. 1801. Loan in 5 per cents, 2,227,012 111,380 5£ per cent. 1806. Loan in 3 per cents, 27,519,544 1,344,487 5| per cent. 1807. Loan in 5 per cents, 1,293,200 64,660 5| per cent. ) (Ah per cent, but £14 Do. in 3 per cents, > 10,800,000 512,400 < stock created for \ £60 paid. each 1809. Loan in 5 per cents, 7,932,100 408,878 5| per cent. Do. in 3 and 4 per cents, 11,600,000 538,433 4| per cent. 1811. Loan in 5 per cents, 4,909,350 258,315 5| per cent. Do. in 3 and 4 per cents, 11,925,243 569,500 4| per cent. 1814. Loan in 5 per cents, 5,549,400 277,470 54, per cent. Do. in 3 per cents, 12,345,076 574,362 4^ per cent. 1815. Loan in 5 per cents, 10,313,000 603,310 54 per cent. Do. in 3 and 4 per cents, 27,000,000 1,517,400 b\ per cent. — See Pebrer's Tables, 246, from Moreau. It clearly appears, from this remarkable table, that the difference between the interest paid on loans in the 3 and the 5 per cents, from the beginning to the end of the war, varied only from a half to an eighth per cent. And the real difference was even less than here appears ; for the public creditors were frequently, in the three per cents, inscribed for much more than £100 in con- sideration of £60 advanced. In particular, in 1807, they received no less than £140 of stock for each £60 paid. 1790-1806. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 69 is the additional burden thus undertaken during the con- chap. test, to the permanent reduction which the opposite system would have enabled government to have effected on the return of peace % Even supposing the difference of inte- rest on the loans while the war lasted had been on an average one per cent, what was this burden, during its continuance, to the reduction of the interest for ever to four or three-and-a-half per cent \ This thing is so clear that it will not admit of an argument. And if the public necessities had rendered it impossible to have raised the additional interest during the year, it would have been better to have contracted an additional loan every year while the inability lasted, to defray the additional interest, than, by contracting the debt on such disadvantageous terms, to have disabled posterity for ever from taking advantage of the return of peace to effect a permanent reduction of the public debts/"" So strongly, indeed, has the impolicy of this mode k of contracting debt now impressed itself upon the minds of our statesmen, that, by a solemn resolution in 1824, parliament pledged itself never again, under any pressure, to borrow money in any other way than in the 5 per cents : a resolution worthy of the British legislature, and which it is devoutly to be hoped no British statesman will ever forget, but whicli is too likely to be overlooked, like so many other praise- * The author was early in life impressed with the disastrous effects of this borrowing in the three per cents, but it was long before he found any converts to an opinion now generally received. In the year 1813, when a student at college, he maintained the doctrines stated in the text on this subject in a com- pany consisting of the most eminent and intelligent bankers in Scotland ; and, in particular, contended, that if Mr Pitt could not have afforded to pay annually from the taxes a larger interest for his loans than he actually undertook, he should have " borrowed a little loan to pay the interest of the great loan, rather than have contracted debt in the three per cents." They all, however, disputed the justice of the opinion, maintaining that the money could not have been obtained on other terms ; and the " little" loan became a standing joke against the author for many years after. Should these lines meet the eye of Mr Ander- son of Moredun, one of the oldest and most valued of the author's friends, and now one of the leading partners of the highly respectable firm of Sir William Forbes and Co. of Edinburgh, he will recui-, perhaps, not without interest, to this incident. 70 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, worthy determinations, amidst the warlike profusion or XLI democratic pressure of subsequent times. 179 °65 8U6 ^ * s true ' as ^ r ^^ contemplated the extinction of in Mr Pitt's the whole public debt before the year 1846 by the opera- sinking- tion of the sinking-fund, and had provided means which, if remecT/aU steadily adhered to, would unquestionably have 'produced these evils. ^^ result even at an earlier period, the disastrous effects which have actually occurred from this mode of contract- ing so large a portion of the debt are not to be charged so strongly as an error in his financial system. In the contracting of loans, present relief was, in his estimation, the great object to be considered, because the means of certainly redeeming them within a moderate period, on the return of peace, were simultaneously provided. It was of comparatively little importance that the interest of the 3 per cents could not be reduced during peace, when the speedy liquidation of the principal itself might be anticipated ; and the addition of nearly double the stock to the sum borrowed appeared of trifling moment, when the only mode of redeeming the debt which any one contemplated, was the purchase of stock by the sinking- fund commissioners at the current market rates. Still, though these considerations go far to excuse, they by no means exculpate Mr Pitt as regards these measures. Admitting that the reduced rate of interest during the war might be considered as a fair set-off against the enhanced rate for the pacific period of nearly the same amount which elapsed before the debt was discharged, still what is to be said in favour of a system which redeems at 85 or .90 a debt contracted at 58 or 60 \ In looking forward to this method of liquidating the debt, as cal- culated to obviate all the evils of inscribing the public creditor for a larger amount of stock than he had advanced of money, Mr Pitt forgot the certain enhancement of the price of stock by the admirable sinking-fund which he himself had established; and the more strongly and justly lie elucidated the salutary tendency of its machinery to HISTORY OF EUROPE. 71 uphold the public credit, the more clearly did he demon- strate the ruinous effects of a method of borrowing which turned all that advance to the disadvantage of the nation in discharging its engagements.""" ,To Mr Pitt's financial system there belongs a subject more vital in its ultimate effects than any which has been considered, and the whole results of which are even CHAP. XLI. 1791 * It is a common opinion that the great expenses of Mr Pitt's administration were owing to the subsidies so imprudently and needlessly advanced to foreign Table of the powers, to induce or enable them to carry on the contest. This, however, is a ^°' e e s e x f - mistake. The loans and subsidies to foreign powers during the whole war only every year, amounted to £52,528,470 ; of which no less than £33,000,000 were advanced £ p e ^ ent) during the three last years. At Mr Pitt's death the sum was only £6,370,000. during the ' The subsidies granted, with the years when they were received, and the other war. items of the expenditure of the war, were as follows :— (Moreau,) (Porter.) Subsidies to Foreign Powers. Ordinary. Extraordinary. 1793 1794 1795 1796 1797 1798 1799 1800 1801 1802 1803 1804 1805 1806 1807 1S08 1809 1810 1811 1812 1813 1814 1815 £ 2,198,200 4,000 810,500 99,500 120,012 325,0(10 2,613,178 200,114 1,400,000 1 2,050,000 2,660,103 2,977,747 I 5,315,828 11,294,416 10,024,624 11,035,248 Civil List. Ordnance. £ 4,167,312 9,209,236 14,562,737 13,738,350 16,208,690 '7,986,297, 3,165,854 9,898,716 4,241,433 Totals 53,128,470 9,971,8*9 8,838,208 6,951,193 8,134,315 12,183,891 10,758,343 9,282,192 9,956,684 11,353,390 12,591,041 11,357,623 13,753,163 3,9116.11(1(1 5,347,174 2,635,063 3,165,092 3,560,804 6,261,387 5,829,000 5,431,867 5,847,760 5,872,054 7,178,677 10,116,196 15,382,05(1 9,605,313 is..' ,985 10,968,535 16,532.94.') 17,662,610 23,172,137 £ 1,021,536 1,027,761 1,(125,842 1,125,052 1,081,046 1,111,376 1,208,067 1,247,420 1,290,136 1,338,766 1,425,545 1,417,517 1,914,1(14 1,676,323 1,680,061 1,724.147 1,696,994 1,651,297 1,582,097 1,748,349 1,708,526 1,675,152 1,682,021 £ 843,603 1,500,767 1,968,008 2,590,000 2,121,552 1,715,355 2,221,516 1,918,967 2,165,909 1,500,733 1,827,150 3,550,142 4,782,289 5,511.064 4,190,748 5,108,960 4,374,184 4,652,333 4,557,509 4.252,416 3,404,582 4,480,729 2,963,892 Total charge of Debt, Funded and Unfunded. £ 2,464,307 4,219,156 8,135,140 7,780,868 11,984,031 12,591,728 13,036,490 14,809,488 17,303,370 11,704,400 7,979,878 LI ,759,352 14,466,998 16,084,028 16,775,762, 17,467,891 19,236,037 20,854,412 19,540,679 20,500,339 21,996,624 21,961,567 16,373,870 £ 10,715,941 11,081,159 12,345,987 13,683,129 16,405,402 20,108,885 21,572,867 21,661,029 23,808,895 25,436,894 25,066,212 26,669,646 28,963,702 30,336,859 32,052,537 32,781,592 33,986,223 35,248,933 36,388,790 38,443,147 41,755,235 42,912,440 43,902,989 Total Expenditure. £ 22,754,366 29,305,477 39,751,091 40,761,583 50,739,857 51,241,798 59,296,081 61,617,988 73,072,468 62,373,480 54.912.S9II 67,619,475 76,056,796 75,154,548 78,369,689 76,566,013 76,865,548 83,735,223 88,757,324 105,943,727 106,832,260 92,280,180 65,169,771 384.787,438 132,936,125 71,082,262 328,236,415 619,830,1781,539,176,633 This most instructive table proves at a glance how little share either the foreign subsidies or civil expenditure had in the vast outlay of fifteen hundred millions during the war. The first was only a thirtieth, the latter hardly a forty-eighth of the total expenditure. The vastness of the sums absorbed by the debt is a striking feature, amounting to more than a third of the whole ; but it was in a certain degree unavoidable. The cost of the navy, amounting to about a fifth, is not to be regretted; for it gave England the naval dominion of the globe. It was the prodigious expenditure for the army, amounting to a fourth of the whole, which is the real subject of regret, attended as it was with no exploits worthy of being recorded till the last eight years of the war ; coinciding thus with what every other consideration indicates, that it was the niggardly use of that arm, and the ignorance which prevailed as to its efficiency, which was the real reproach of Mr Pitt's administration. 72 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLI. 1797. 66. Vast effects of the sus- pension of cash pay- ments in 1797- 67. Causes which pro- duced the suspension of cash pay ments in 1797. Its powerful operation in increas- ing the present re- t-ources of the state. yet far from being exhausted. The Suspension of Cash Payments in 1797, already noticed in the transactions of that year, was a measure of incomparably more impor- tance than any financial step of the past or the present century. When taken in conjunction with the almost total destruction of the productiveness of the Spanish mines in America, in consequence of the revolution which broke out in that country in 1808, and the subsequent and unavoidable resumption of cash payments, by the bill of 1819, in Great Britain, it led the way to a series of changes in prices, and, of consequence, in the relative situation, power, and influence of the different classes of society, more material than any which had occurred since the discovery of the mines of Potosi and Mexico, and which has already subverted the former balance of power in the interior of Great Britain. To it the future historian will perhaps point as the principal cause of the great revolution of England in 1832, and the ultimate decline of the British empire. This important and vital subject, however, so momentous in its consequences, so interesting in its details, requires a separate chapter for its elucida- tion, and will more appropriately come to be considered in a future volume, when the effects of the monetary changes during the whole war are brought into view, and the commencement of another set of causes, having an opposite tendency, from the rapid decay of the South American mines at its close, is at the same time made the subject of discussion. At present, it only requires to be observed, that the effects of the suspension of cash payments, whether good or evil, are not fairly to be ascribed to Mr Pitt. They were not, like the consequences of the issue of assignats in France, the result of a barbarous and inhuman confisca- tion, nor, like the subsequent changes of a similar kind in this country, of moneyed selfishness and theoretical opinions. They were forced on the British statesman by stern necessity. Bankruptcy — irretrievable national HISTORY OF EUROPE. 73 bankruptcy, stared him in the face, if the momentous chap. step was any longer delayed. Once taken, the fatal _1 L measure could not be recalled; a resumption of cash pay- h9t ments during the continual pressure and vast expenditure of the war was out of the question. The nation has had ample experience of the shock it occasioned, and the pro- tracted misery it produced, at subsequent periods, even in the midst of profound peace. To have attempted it during the whirl and agitation of the contest, would at once have prostrated all the resources of the kingdom. No doubt, however, can remain that the suspension of cash payments contributed essentially to increase the available resources of Great Britain for carrying on the war, and is to be regarded as the principal cause of its successful termination. An extension of the circulating medium, especially if accompanied by a great and increas- ing present expenditure, never fails to have this effect. It is when, from over-issue, it becomes depreciated, or, from distrust of government, discredited, or when the subsequent stoppage or contraction takes place, that the perilous nature of the experiment becomes manifest. Great im- mediate prosperity to all around him is often produced by the prodigality of the spendthrift ; but if he trenches deep, amidst this beneficent profusion, on the resources of future years, the day of accounting will inevitably come alike to himself and his dependants. In seeking for the causes of the vast and continued warlike exertions of England during the war, and of the apparently boundless financial resources which appeared to multiply, as if by magic, with every new demand upon them, just as in investigating the causes of the difficulties under which all classes have laboured since the peace, a prominent place must be assigned to the expansion of the currency, as productive of present strength, as the opposite system of contracting it, after the contest was over, was conducive to future weakness. No financial embarrassments of any moment were experienced while the war lasted, subse- 74 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, quent to 1797. In vain Napoleon waited for the failure of the funding system, and the giving way of England's 1797, financial resources. Year after year the enormous ex- penditure continued ; loan after loan, with incredible facility, was obtained; and at the close of the war, when the revenues of France and all the Continental states were fairly exhausted, the treasures of Great Britain were poured forth with a profusion unexampled during any former period of the struggle. No existing wealth, how great soever, could account for it wa?the so prodigious an expenditure. Its magnitude points to JfSfiL an annual creation of funds even greater than those which oflhfnatSn were dissipated. It is in the vast impulse given to the during the circulation by the suspension of cash payments, and sub- sequent extension of paper credit of every description, that the great cause is to be found of the never-failing resources of Great Britain during so long a period. Her fleets commanded the seas ; her commerce extended into every quarter of the globe ; her colonies embraced the finest and richest of the tropical regions ; and in the centre of this magnificent dominion was the parent state, the quickened and extended circulation of which spread life and energy through every part of the immense fabric. Great as was the increase of paper in circulation after the obligation to pay in specie was removed, it was scarcely equal to the simultaneous increase in exports, imports, and domestic industry ; and almost boundless as was the activity of British enterprise during those animating years, it must have languished from want of commensurate credit, if it had not been sustained by the vivifying influence of the extended currency. It is evident, also, that the funding system, with all its dangers and ultimate evils, of which the nation since the peace has had such ample experience, was eminently calculated to increase this feverish action of the body politic, and produce a tempo- rary flow of prosperity, commensurate, indeed, to the ulti- mate embarrassments with which it was to be attended, HISTORY OF EUROPE. 75 CHAP. XLI. 1797. 69. but still exciting a degree of transient vigour, which could never have arisen under a more cautious and economical system of management.* The contracting and immediately spending of loans, to the amount of thirty or forty millious a-year, in addition Great tem to a revenue of equal amount, raised by taxation, had an vantages of extraordinary effect in encouraging every branch, ot mclus- syste m. try, and enabling the nation to prosper under burdens which at first sight would have appeared altogether over- whelming. Government is proverbially a good paymaster, and never so much so as during the whirl and excitement of war. The capital thus sunk in loans was indeed with- drawn from the private encouragement of industry ; but it was so only in consequence of being directed into a channel where its influence in that respect was still more * Table showing the amount of bank-notes in circulation from 1792 to 1815, with the commercial paper under discount at the Bank during the same period, and the gold and silver annually coined at the Bank, with the exports, im- ports, and revenue for the same periocT. 17: 13 17!« 1794 1795 1796 1797 1798 179ft 1800 1801 1802 1803 1804 IN 15 IN 16 1807 1NIS 1809 1810 1811 1812 1813 1814 1815 1816 L.5 Notes in circula- tion. 11,307,380 11,388,910 10,744,020 14,017,510 10,729,5-20 9,674,780 ll,647,t>10 11,494,150 15,372,980 13,578,520 12,574,800 12,35(1,970 12,546,560 13,011,010 13,271,520 12,840,790 14,093,690 14,241,360 15,159,180 16,246,130 15,951,290 15,407,320 16,455,540 18,226,400 18,021,220 Commer- cial Paper rendered at Bank. 807,585 1,448,220 1,465,650 1,471,540 2,634,760 2,612,020 3.90\960 4,531,270 4,860,160 4,458,6(10 4,1(19,890 4,695,170 4,301,500 5,860,420 7,114,090 7,457,030 7,713,610 8,345,540 9,035,250 9,001,400 2,946,500 3,505,000 5,350,1(00 4,490,600 5,403,900 6,101,900 7,905,100 7,523,300 10,747,600 9,982,400 11,365,500 12,380,100 13,484,600 12,950,100 15,475,700 20,020,600 14,355,400 14,291,600 12,330,200 13,285,800 14,917,000 11,416,400 1,171,863 2,747,4:10 2,558,895 493,416 464,680 2,600,297 2,91 17 ,565 449,962 189,937 450,242 437,019 596,445 718,397 54,668 405,106 None. 371,714 298,946 316,936 312,263 None. 519,722 None. None. None. Official Value of Imports into Great Britain. 11,307,380 11,388,91(1 10,744,020 14,017,510 10,729,520 10,542,365 13,096,830 12,959,801! 16,854,880 16,213,280 15,186,880 15,319,930 17,077,830 17.871,170 17,730,120 16,950,08(1 18,788.81;,, 18,542,860 21,019,600 23,360,220 23,408,320 23,120,930 24,801,080 27,361,650 37,022,620 19,659,358 19,659,357 32,294,893 23,736,889 23,187,319 21,013,956 25,123,203 34,066,700 28,257,781 30,435,268 28,308,373 25,104,541 26,454,281 27,444,720 25,504,478 23,326,845 25,660,953 30,170,292 37,613,294 25,340,704 24,923,932 Records destroyed by fire. 32,622,771 31,822,053 I 26,374,921 Official Value of Exports from Great Britain. 34,904,850 20,390,179 26,748,082 27,123,338 3d, 518,', 13 38,917,010 37,317,087 29,556,637 33,381,617 34.838.5W 37,873,334 38,075,339 31,071,108 30,540,491 33,9,84,101 30,588,1184 39,9.56,639 45,667,216 42,656,843 27,837,252 37,982,977 British Revenue. Vessels' Tonnage. 17,864,461 17,707,983 17,899,394 18,456.298 18,548,628 19,852,646 30,492,995 35,311,018 34,069,457 35,516,351 37,111,620 38,203.937 45,515,152 50,555,190 54,071,908 59,406,731 62,147,601 63,879,8(12 67,825,597 65,309,100 65,752,125 68,302,860 51,358,398 70,240,313 57,420,437 72,203,142 48,216,186 62,640,711 Table show- ing the paper and coin issued with the exports, imports, and revenue of every year during the war. 1,905,438 1,725,949 2,147,629 2,107,863 2,268,570 2,283,443 3,263,714 2,281,631 2,324,819 2,368,408 2,426,044 2,474,774 2,478,799 2,616,96. 2,681,276 2,648,593 —Pad. Deb. vii. xiv. xv.; App. Pari. But. xxxv. 1563; Colquhoun, 99 — Moreau's Tables, and Pebrer, 279.— Marshall's Digest, pp. 97, 147, 236. Thus, in the twenty-four years from 1792 to 1816, the circulation of England, including the large and small notes and commercial paper discounted at the Bank, was more than tripled ; the revenue tripled, the exports more than doubled, and the imports increased a half. The increase of commercial paper, from 1792 to 1810, was sevenfold— indicating, perhaps, the greatest and most rapid rise in mercantile transactions in the whole history of the world. 76 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, powerful and immediate than it ever would have been in XLL the hands of individuals. It was in great part dissipated, 1797-18I6. ^1^^ [ n a f orm w hich did not reproduce itself, and afforded no means of providing for its charges hereafter ; but still that circumstance, how prejudicial soever to the resources of the state in future times, did not diminish the temporary excitement produced by its expenditure. Under the combined influence of this vast contraction of loans and extended paper circulation, the resources of the nation were increased in a rapid and unparalleled progression : exports and imports doubled, the produce of taxes was continually rising, prices of every sort quickly rose, interest was high, profits still higher, and all who made their liveli- hood by productive industry, or by buying and selling, found themselves in a state of extraordinary and increas- ing prosperity. That these favourable appearances were to a certain extent delusive ; that the flood of prosperity thus let in upon the state was occasioned by exhausting, in a great degree, the reservoirs of wealth for future emergencies ; and that a long period of languor and depression was to follow this feverish and unnatural period of excitement, is indeed certain. But still the effect at the moment was the same ; and in the activity, enterprise, and opulence thus created, were to be found the most powerful resources for carrying on the contest. How beneficial soever to the finances of the state in future times it might have been, to have raised the whole supplies by taxation within the year, it was impossible that from such a prudent and parsimonious system there could have arisen the extraordinary vigour and progressive creation of wealth which resulted from the lavish expenditure of the national capital in maintaining the conflict ; and but for the profuse outlay, which has been felt as so burden- some in subsequent times, the nation might have sunk beneath its enemies, and England, with all its glories, been swept for ever from the book of existence. Had Mr Pitt's system, attended as it was, however, with HISTORY OF EUROPE. 77 this vast expenditure of capital instead of income on the chap. current expenses, made no provision for the ultimate redemption of the debt thus contracted, it would, not- W-isie. withstanding the prodigious and triumphant results with The undue which it was attended, have been liable to very severe of'populaT reprehension. But every view of his financial policy P™ h e e r J£ must be imperfect and erroneous, if the sinking-fund, ^f.^, a which constituted so essential a part of the system, is not durable sys - x . _ " . tern for re- taken into consideration. Its great results have now been duction of completely demonstrated by experience : and there can be no question that, if it had been adhered to, the whole debt might have been extinguished with ease before the year 1845 ; that is, in nearly as short a time as it was created. Great as were the burdens of the war, therefore, he had established the means of rendering them only temporary ; durable as the results of its successes have proved, the price at which they were purchased admitted, according to his plan, of a rapid liquidation. It is the subsequent abandonment of the sinking-fund, in conse- quence of the unnecessary and imprudent remission of so large a proportion of the indirect taxes on which it depended, which is the real evil that has undone the mighty structure of former wisdom ; and for a slight and questionable present advantage, rendered the debt, when undergoing a rapid and successful process of liquidation, a lasting and hopeless burden on the state. The magni- tude of this change is too great to be accounted for by the weakness or errors of individuals ; the misfortune thus inflicted upon the country too irreparable to be ascribed alone to the improvidence or shortsighted policy of sub- sequent governments. Without exculpating the members of the administrations who did not manfully resist, and, if they could not prevent, at least denounce the growing delusion, it may safely be affirmed, that the great weight of the responsibility must be borne by the nation itself. If the people of Great Britain have now a debt of seven ■ hundred and seventy millions, with hardly any fund for 78 H1ST0EY OF EUROPE. chap, its redemption, they have to blame, not Mr Pitt, who was XLI. British empire compelled to contract it in the course of a desperate 1797-I8I6. s t rU ggl e f or the national independence, and left theni the means of its rapid and certain liquidation, but the blind democratic spirit which first, from its excesses in a neigh- bouring state, made its expenditure unavoidable, and then, from its impatience of present sacrifice at home, destroyed the means of its discharge. "All nations," says M. Tocqueville, in his profound And it must work on American democracy, "which have made a great ruhTthe y and lasting impression on human affairs, from the Romans to the English, have been governed by aristocratic bodies : the instability and impatience of the democratic spirit render the states in which it is the ruling power incapable 1 Tocque- of durable achievements." 1 The abandonment of a sys- 237.' tern fraught with such incalculable future advantages as the sinking-fund, but requiring a present sacrifice for its maintenance, affords decisive evidence that the balance of the constitution had become overloaded in reality, before it was so in form, on the popular side, and that the period had arrived when an " ignorant impatience of taxation " was to bring about that disregard of everything but present objects, which is the invariable characteristic of the majority of mankind. During nearly thirty years of aristocratic rule in England, that noble monument of national foresight and resolution progressively prospered : with its decline, the efficiency of the great engine of redemption was continually impaired under the increasing influence of the unthinking multitude ; and at length, upon the subversion of that aristocratic predominance by the great change of 1832, it was finally to all practical purposes destroyed. Irretrievable ultimate ruin has thus been brought upon the state ; for not only is the burden now fixed upon its resources inconsistent with the perma- nent maintenance of the national independence, but the steady rule has been terminated, under which alone its liquidation could have been expected. HISTORY OF EUROPE. / i) In truth, the abandonment of the sinking-fund, in con- chap. XII sequence of the weak and vacillating conduct of the successive administrations in yielding to- partial clamours, ] ' 9 ^ m - raised by interested parties for a reduction of taxation Thecontrac- _»-.,, i ' tion of the affecting themselves, was so enormous an error, and is currency by fraught with such evidently disastrous effects to the future { 8 Vw independence and existence of the country, that it would £ cause of be wholly unaccountable, in an age of intelligence and political activity, were it not explained by the dreadful effects of the sudden and prodigious contraction of the currency which took place in consequence of the act compelling the Bank of England to resume cash pay- ments in 1819. Whoever will cast his eye over the instructive table given in the Appendix to the last volume of this work, will at once perceive that this fatal measure, which, at the very time that the annual supply of the precious metals for the globe had been reduced a half by the effects of the South American revolutions, curtailed the paper circulation of the British islands by another half, had the effect of lowering prices for the next thirty years by fully fifty per cent.'"" The remuneration of industry in every department being so greatly reduced, while money engagements of all sorts, public and private, underwent no diminution, the payment of most of the indirect taxes became impossible. It was an easy matter for the masters engaged in the principal branches of manufacture in the kingdom to prove to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that, under the forcible reduction of prices which the contraction of the currency had pro- duced, they could not carry on their operations without a great reduction or entire liberation from taxation. Such relief had become to them, in many cases, the price of existence. Hundreds of thousands would be thrown out of employment if it was not given. This explains, and can alone explain, the otherwise inexpli- cable infatuation of so many different administrations in * See Appendix, Chap. xcv. 80 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, abandoning to so great an extent the indirect taxes, the XLL sheet-anchor of the British finances. Disastrous as it 1797-18I6. was? ^hat abandonment was an effect, not a cause. It was the direct and unavoidable effect of a violent and uncalled-for contraction of the currency to the extent of a half, at the very time when the failure in the wonted supplies of the precious metals for the use of the globe, and the prodigious increase of population and transac- tions in the British islands, most loudly called for its increase. But this only removes the difficulty a step further which was back. How did it happen that government could ever totheascSr- have been induced to give their consent to a measure enc J y edU- fraught with such ruinous consequences as this COntraC- 111 onev duTed b P y the tion °f tne currency has proved to he r ( It affected the war. exchequer at least as much as the general industry of the country; it at once stopped the liquidation of the public debt, starved down the military and naval estab- lishments of the empire to a scale inconsistent with its lasting defence, and has kept the treasury ever since in almost ceaseless embarrassments. The solution of this enigma is to be found in the weight acquired in the country by a body previously little regarded, but which has now become paramount to all others, in consequence of the success of the war, — the moneyed interest. So vast had been the accumulation of capital during the contest, so immense the numbers, and powerful the influence, of the trading and commercial classes who had risen to affluence while it continued, that they had now come to overshadow all the other classes of the state put together. The classes had become all-powerful whose interest was to buy cheap and sell dear. The consumers were enabled to set the producers at defiance. The Reform Act, pro- duced by the wide-spread and universal suffering occa- sioned by this important change, gave the moneyed interest a permanent sway in the state; for it bestowed two- thirds of the seats in the House of Commons on the HISTORY OF EUROPE. 81 members for burghs, and two-thirds of the votes in every chap. burgh on the trading or moneyed classes, or the persons L_ whom they could influence. Thence the entire deviation 1806 - of British legislation since that time from all the prin- ciples which formerly regulated it. Thence the aban- donment of the sinking-fund to cheapen government, of the corn-laws to cheapen labour, of colonial protection to cheapen sugar and wood, of the navigation laws to cheapen freights. England, like imperial Rome, had fallen under the rule of a body of moneyed patricians, whose interests were adverse to that of all the indus- trious classes in the state, but whose influence outweighed them all put together. They desired to cheapen every- thing except money, and that they sought to make as dear as possible. Ultimate ruin will be brought upon the British as it was on the Roman empire, from the same cause, and in the same way. And thus the entire success of the measures of protection and a sufficient currency, which formed the leading features of Mr Pitt's domestic policy, was the immediate cause of their abandonment by the next generation, because they reared up a wealthy moneyed class whose interests were at variance with those of industry, but whose influence was beyond its control. But if the sun of British greatness is from these . 74 causes setting in the Old, it is from the same cause These causes rising in renovated lustre in the New World. The ^ e B ™[* h impatience of the democratic spirit, both in the British NewWorfa. isles and on the shores of the Atlantic — the energy it develops, the desires it creates, the burdens which it perpetuates, the convulsions which it induces, all conspire to impel the ceaseless wave of emigration to the west; and the very distresses consequent on an advanced stage of existence force the power and vigour of civilisation into the primeval recesses of the forest. Two hundred thousand of the Anglo-Saxons or Celtic race are now annually impelled, by necessity, ambition, or restlessness, VOL. VII. F 1797-1816. 82 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, from the British islands to the shores of the New World."" In two centuries the name of England may be extinct, or survive only under the shadow of ancient renown ; but a hundred and fifty millions of men in North America will be speaking its language, reading its authors, glorying in its descent. Nations, like individuals, were not destined for immortality; in their virtues equally as their vices, their grandeur as their weakness, they bear in their bosoms the seeds of mortality. But in the passions which elevate them to greatness, equally as in those which hasten their decay, is to be discerned the unceasing operation of those principles at once of corruption and regeneration which are combined in humanity ; and which, universal in communities as in single men, compensate the necessary decline of nations by the vital fire which has given an un decaying youth to the human race. * In the year 1848, 258,000 emigrants sailed from the British islands, of whom 244,000 were destined for the United States or Canada, and in 1849 the number was still greater. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 83 CHAPTER XLIL FROM THE PEACE OF FRESSBURG TO THE RENEWAL OF THE CONTINENTAL WAR. JANUARY — OCTOBER, 1806. The peace of Pressburg seemed to have finally subjected chap. the Continent to the empire of France. The greatest L and most formidable coalition which had ever been 1! | 06 - arrayed against its fortunes was dissolved. The military immense J ° .it i , 11 results of the strength of Austria had received, to all appearance, an campaign of irreparable wound ; Prussia, though irritated, was over- Austerlltz - awed, and had let the favourable moment for striking a decisive blow elapse without venturing to draw the sword ; and even the might of Russia, hitherto held in undefined dread by the states of southern Europe, had succumbed in the conflict, and the northern autocrat was indebted to the generosity of the victor for the means of escaping from the theatre of his overthrow. When such results had been gained with the great military monar- chies, it was of little moment what was the disposition of the lesser powers; but they, too, had been terrified into submission, or retired from a contest in which success could no longer be hoped for. Sweden, in indignant silence, had withdrawn to the shores of Gothland; Naples was overrun; Switzerland was mute; and Spain con- sented to yield its fleets and its treasures to the conqueror of northern Europe. England, it is true, with unconquer- able resolution and unconquered arms, still continued the contest; but after the prostration of the Continental 84 HISTORY OF EUROrE. CHAP. XLII. 1806. The premier- ship offered to Lord Hawkes- burv, and declined. i Arm. Re?, 1806,18,21, Pari. Deb. iv. 67, 7-5. Pellew's Sidmouth, ii. 414. armies, and the destruction ' of the French marine, it appeared no longer to hare an intelligible object; while the death of the great statesman who had ever been the uncompromising foe of the Revolution, and the soul of all the confederacies against it, led to a well-founded expectation that a more pacific system of government might be anticipated on the part of his successors. The hopes entertained by Napoleon of such a tem- porary accommodation with England as might leave him at liberty, by fostering his naval power, to prepare the means of its final subjugation, were soon to all appear- ance likely to be realised. The death of Mr Pitt dis- solved the administration of which he was the head. His towering genius could ill bear a partner in power or rival in renown. Equals he had none — friends few ; and with the exception of Lord Melville, whom the pend- ing accusation had compelled to retire from government, perhaps no statesman had ever possessed his unreserved confidence. There were many men of ability and resolu- tion in his cabinet, but none of w r eight sufficient to take the helm when it dropped from his hands ; and when he sank into the grave, the ministry, which was sup- ported by his single arm, fell to the earth. The King, indeed, who was aware of the danger of introducing a change of policy in the midst of a desperate conflict, and still retained a keen recollection of the humiliation to which he had been subjected in consequence of the India bill introduced by the Whigs in 1784, made an attempt to continue the government in the hands of the same party, and immediately after Mr Pitt's death commissioned Lord Hawkesbury to form a new administration on the same basis. But that experienced and cautious states- man soon perceived that -the attempt, at that period at least, was impossible, and the only use he made of his shortlived power was the dubious one of accepting the wardenship of the Cinque Ports, 1 which had been held by Mr Pitt, and was the most lucrative sinecure in the gift XLII. 1806. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 83 of the crown. This office was pressed upon him bj the chap. King, and had undoubtedly been well deserved by his faithful services, for which he had hitherto declined any remuneration ; but, being the sole act of a shortlived power, it was much commented on, and gave rise to keen and acrimonious discussions in both houses of parliament under the succeeding administration. Independently of the acknowledged weakness of the ministry after Mr Pitt ceased to sustain its fortunes, the Public' opin- state of public opinion rendered it extremely doubtful neceTsityof whether any new administration could command general ot^anies! 1 support which was not founded on a coalition of parties, and a union of all the principal statesmen of the time, to uphold the fortunes of the state. The defeat of Auster- litz, and the consequent exposure of Great Britain to the necessity of maintaining the war single-handed against the forces of combined Europe, had made a deep impres- sion on the public mind. Many believed some change of system to be necessary; and the opinion was sensibly gaining ground, that, having unsuccessfully made so many attempts to overthrow the power of revolutionary France by hostility, the time had now arrived when it was not only expedient, but necessary, to try whether its forces might not be more effectually disarmed by pacific rela- tions. Complaints against the abuses of government — some real, some "imaginary — during the conduct of so long and costly a war, had multiplied to a great degree. The Opposition journals had increased in number and vehemence of declamation; and the vote against Lord Melville in the House of Commons had shaken the opinion of numbers in the integrity of government, in that point where Mr Pitt's administration had hitherto been regarded as most pure. The Tories, it was said, are exhausted by perpetual service for twenty years ; the hopes of the state are to be found in the ranks of the Whigs ; or, at all events, the time has now arrived when those absurd party distinctions should cease, and all true 1806. 86 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, friends to their country, on' whichever side of politics, - must unite for the formation of a liberal and extended administration, on so broad a basis as to bring its whole capacity to bear on the fortunes of the state during the perilous times which are evidently approaching. A general wish, accordingly, was felt for the formation of a government which should unite " all the talents " of the nation, without regard to party distinction — a natural wish at all times, and frequently indulged by the British people, but which has never led to any good result in the history of England. It never can do so, except in such a crisis of national danger as would have led the Romans to appoint a dictator, and as calls for the suspension of all difference in foreign or domestic policy 180b, i 7, 2o. for the warding off immediate danger, by which all are equally threatened. 1 Yielding, at length, though unwillingly, and with Mr Fox is sinister presentiments, to the inclinations of the people snt for, and the necessity of his situation, the King, on the 26th January, sent a message to Lord Grenville, so long the firm supporter of Mr Pitt's foreign administration, re- questing his attendance at Buckingham House, to confer with his Majesty on the formation of a government. Lord Grenville suggested Mr Fox as the person he. should consult on the subject. The King, though per- sonally averse to that statesman, instantly saw the neces- sity of making his private feelings give way to the public good. " I thought so, and I meant it so/' replied the King: and immediately the formation of an administra- tion was intrusted to these two illustrious men. No time was lost in sending for Mr Addington, recently before created Lord Sidinouth, who agreed to form part of the administration. The anxious wish expressed both by the sovereign and the nation that the government should PejieVs be formed on the broadest possible basis, so as to include Sidmoutn, .. - *■ ii. 414. all the leading men of the country, led to a coalition of parties, 2 which, although it gave great apparent stability 2 Ann. R 1806, 21 II i ST OKY OF EUROPE. 87 at the outset, was little calculated iu the end to insure chap. the permanence of the administration. !_ Three distinct and well-defined parties, independent 1 ® 06, of the partisans of Mr Pitt's cabinet, then divided the state of par- legislature and the nation. The ardent Whigs, who had country, e adhered through all the horrors of the French Revolu- JSiSpL. tion to democratic principles, were represented by Mr Fox and Mr Erskine, and embraced all the zealous adherents of highly- popular institutions throughout the country. Parliamentary reform, Catholic emancipation, the repeal of the test acts, the abolition of slavery, peace with France, were inscribed on their banners. Another section of the Whig party existed, who had recently been arrayed in fierce hostility against their former allies. They were composed of the old Whig families which had seceded with Mr Burke, at the commencement of the French Revolution, from the popular side, and acted with Mr Pitt till his resignation in 1800, but never coalesced with his government after his resumption of power. This party, led in parliament by Lord Gren- ville, Earl Spencer, and Mr Windham, embraced many powerful aristocratic families, and a large portion of private worth and ability, but their hold on the affections of the populace was not so considerable as that of their stancher brethren. In hostility to France, and fierce opposition to revolutionary principles, they yielded not to the warmest partisans of Mr Pitt ; but in domestic questions they inclined to the popular side, although they might be expected to form a salutary check on the innovating ardour of the more democratic portion of the government. Less considerable from general support or parliamentary eloquence than either of these great parties, though highly respectable from the weight of private character, the adherents of Mr Addington's administration, who had remained in Opposition ever since they were dis- placed from power, were still of importance from their business talents and the intimate acquaintance they had 88 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLII. 1806. 6. Composi- tion of the cabinet. with the machinery of government. Lord Sidmouth (formerly Mr Adclington) was the leader of this portion of the old Tory administration, whom exclusion from office had led to coalesce, not in the most creditable manner, with their ancient antagonists ; and, from the known pacific inclinations of their chief, no serious dif- ference of opinion in the cabinet was anticipated, at least so far as foreign affairs were concerned. The leaders of these three parties were combined in the new cabinet ; but the preponderance of Mr Fox's adherents was so great as to render the ministry, to all intents and purposes, a Whig administration, which speedily appeared in the universal removal of all Tory functionaries from every office, even the most incon- siderable, under government. Mr Fox, though entitled, from his talents and influence, to the highest appoint- ment under the crown, contented himself with the im- portant office of Secretary for Foreign Affairs, deeming that the situation in which most embarrassment was to be expected, and where his own principles were likely soonest to lead to important results. Lord Grenville was made First Lord of the Treasury ; Mr Erskine, Lord Chancellor ; Lord Howick, (formerly Mr Grey,) First Lord of the Admiralty; Mr Windham, Secretary at War; Earl Spencer, Secretary of State for the Home Department."" The cabinet exhibited a splendid array of ability, and was anxiously looked to by the country, with the undefined hope which naturally arises upon admitting * The Cabinet was composed of the following members : — Lord Erskine — Lord Chancellor. Earl Fitzwilliam — President of the Council. Viscount Sidmouth — Lord Privy Seal. Lord Grenville — First Lord of the Treasury. Lord Howick — First Lord of the Admiralty. Earl Moira — Master General of the Ordnance. Earl Spencer — Secretary of State for Home Affairs. Mr Fox — Foreign Affairs. Mr Windham— Secretary at War. Lord Henry Petty — Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lord Ellenborough — Chief Justice, with a seat in the Cabinet. — Ann. Reg. 1806, 26. HISTORY OF EUROTE. 89 -a party whose leaders had been so long celebrated by chap. their eloquence and genius, for the first time, after so L_ long an exclusion, to the administration of public affairs. 1806 - But, amidst the general satisfaction, there were many who observed with regret that all the members of the recent government were excluded from office, and antici- pated no long tenure of power to a coalition which de- parted thus widely from the path of its predecessors, and voluntarily rejected the aid of all who had grown versant in public affairs. By a still greater number, the admission of the Lord Chief- Justice into the cabinet was justly regarded as a most dangerous innovation, fraught with obvious peril to that calm and dispassionate administration i of judicial duties, which had so long been the glory of 1806,26,28! English jurisprudence. 1 Notwithstanding the essential and total change which the ministry had undergone, and the accession of a party First mea- , , , i i i/i r sures of the to power who had so long denounced the measures of new minis- their rivals as fraught with irreparable injury to the S'jgJ 116 best interests of the state, no immediate change in the policy of government took place ; and Europe beheld with surprise the men who "had invariably characterised the war as unjust and impolitic, preparing to carry it on with a patience and foresight in no degree inferior to that of their predecessors — a striking circumstance, character- istic alike of the justice of the reasons which Mr Pitt had assigned for its continuance, and the candour of the party who had now succeeded to power. The budget of Lord Henry Petty was but a continuation of the financial sys- tem of his great predecessor, modified by the altered situation of affairs, and the necessity which had obviously arisen of making provision for a protracted maritime struggle. The system of raising as large as possible a proportion of the taxes within the year, so happily acted upon since 1798 by the late government, was continued and extended; and, in pursuance thereof, it was proposed to carry the war taxes from fourteen to nineteen millions .90 HISTOliY OF EUKOPE. chap, and a half — an increase which' was effected by raising the XLII . _ income-tax from six and a half to ten per cent, and by 1806, an addition of 3s. a hundredweight to the duty on sugar. The loan, notwithstanding this great addition, was still £18,000,000, to provide for the interest of which, and for a sinking-fund to redeem the principal, the war wine-duty was declared permanent, producing £500,000 a-year, and an additional duty laid on pig-iron, calculated to produce as much more, besides lesser duties, to the amount in all of £1,136,000." The great addition to the income-tax was loudly complained of as a grievous burden, and a total departure from all the professions of economy so often made by ministers ; but there is reason to believe that T „ , ^ , indirect taxes could not have been relied on to produce so 1 Pari. Deb. , . L vi. 566, 574. great an increase as was required m the public revenue ; l 1806, 7if' and there can be no doubt that, in adopting the manly course of making so great a demand on present income * BUDGET OF GREAT BRITAIN FOR 1806. Expenditure, Extraordinary. Navy, ..... £15,281,000 Army, ..... 18,500,000 Ordnance, ..... 4,718,000 Miscellaneous, .... 2,170,000 Arrears of subsidies, . . . 1,000,000 Vote of credit, .... 2,000,000 £43,669,000 Income, Extraordinary. Malt and personal estate duties, . . £2,750,000 Grants from captured ships, . . 1,000,000 Lotteries, .... 380,000 Surplus of consolidated fund, . . 3,500,000 War-taxes, . . . 19,500,000 ) Deduct as outstanding at \ 18,000,000 end of year, . . 1,500,000) Loan, 18,000,000 £43,630,000 exclusive of the permanent income on the one hand, and permanent charges on the other, which added largely to both sides of the account : the charges of the debt being £23,000,000, and the total sum raised by taxes and other sources of revenue, £55,796,000, while the total expenditure was £72,750,000, and income, including the loan of £18,000,000, no less than £73,796,000— Par?. Deb. vi. 566, 569; Porter's Pari. Tables, i. 1. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 91 rather than increase the debt, they acted a truly patriotic chap. XXill- 1806. and statesmanlike part. The return of Napoleon to Paris, where he arrived on g the night of the 26th January, to the great disappoint- g 6 *™^ ment of the municipality and people, who had made the to Paris. . . (. i . ' . it , • Financial most magnificent preparations lor Ins triumphal reception, crisis there. had become necessary, from the financial crisis which had there occurred, and which threatened to involve the government in the most serious embarrassments. This catastrophe, partly arising from political, partly from commercial causes, had long been approaching, and the public consternation was at its height when the Emperor re-entered the Tuileries. Matters had arrived at such a pass, that the public service could no longer be carried on, and nothing but the Emperor's unparalleled victories and speedy return could have averted a national bankruptcy. He had often, during the preceding years, declared his resolution not to issue treasury bills ; but he forgot to follow the only rule by which that resource could be averted, that of keeping his expenditure within his income. As it was, he instantly applied his mind, with its wonted vigour, to the consideration of the tremendous crisis which had arisen. Without undressing or going to bed, he sent for the minister of finances at midnight, and spent the whole remainder *of the night in a minute and rigid exa- mination of that functionary, and all the persons connected with his establishment. At eleven next day, the council J^w^ of finance was assembled : it sat nine hours ; and when vn : in. . . n ~ Inters, vi. it broke up, M. Mollien was appointed minister of finances, 25, is?, 188, and M. cle Marbois, the former minister, dismissed. 1 This panic, which at the time excited such consternation at Paris, and which, if the issue of the campaign had been itsostensi- doubtful, might have been attended with the most disas- trous effects, arose from very simple causes. During the whole of 1805, the Bank of France, yielding to the flood of prosperity which on all sides flowed into the empire, 92 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, and urged on by the constant demand for accommodation on the part of all the contractors and others engaged in 1806 - the public service, rendered necessary by the expenditure of government constantly keeping in advance of the re- ceipts of the treasury, had been progressively enlarging its discounts. Before the Emperor set out for the army, they had risen from thirty to sixty millions, double the usual amount. In the midst of the apparent prosperity produced by that excessive increase, the sagacious mind of Napoleon perceived the seeds of future evil ; and amidst all the turmoil of his military preparations at Boulogne, he repeatedly wrote to the minister of finances on the subject, and warned him of the danger of the Bank of France trusting too far the delusive credit of individuals engaged in extensive transactions, or pushing to an undue length, in the form of a paper circulation, the royal privi- lege of coining money."" The immense discounts which occasioned the peril were almost entirely granted to the functionaries engaged in the public service, and who, being obliged to make good their payments to government by a certain day, and embarrassed by the remote period to which all payments from the public treasury were post- poned, were unavoidably driven to this resource to supply the deficiencies arising from the backward payments of 1 J3l£fll. v. 85,88. Bour individuals, and the peremptory demands of the treasury, Thiers,' vil' and their credit was in some sort interwoven with that of the general administration. 1 The Bank of France was the quarter to which they in general applied for accommoda- 188, 189, 191 * His words are, in a letter to the minister of finances 2 — "The evil origi- » From Bou- nates in the bank having transgressed the law. What has the law done? It logne, Sept. has given the privilege of coining money in the form of paper to a particular 24, lSOo. company; but what did it intend by so doing ? Assuredly, that the circulation thus created should be based on solid credit. The bank appears to have adopted a most erroneous principle, which is to discount to individuals, not in proportion to their real capital, but to the number of shares of its capital stock which they possess. That, however, is no real test of solvency. How many persons may be possessed of fifty or a hundred such shares, and yet be so embarrassed that no one would lend them a single farthing 1 The paper of the bank is thus issued in many, perhaps a majority of cases, not on real credit, but on a delusive supposition of wealth. In one word, in discounting after this HISTORY OF EUEOPE. .03 tion ; but the pressure thus occasioned upon that estab- chap. lishment was so severe that, even after the successes at Ulm, U ' LU ' they had announced to the Emperor that they could not con- * 806 - tinue their advances, and that the drain of specie was such that they themselves stood in the most imminent danger. To relieve the pressure on the bank, attempts had been made to obtain a supply of the precious metals from every Vast sp'ecu- quarter whence they could be drawn. For this purpose, ouvrard.' ' recourse was had to certain great mercantile companies, who were engaged in most extensive speculations in all parts of the world, and so deeply implicated in the fur- nishing of the precious metals to that establishment, that their support on its part was almost a matter of self- preservation. The greatest of these was that of which Ouvrard was the leading partner ; and its engagements with the Bank of France were to an enormous amount. This great capitalist had for several years been engaged in vast contracts for the service of the Spanish fleet ; and so extensive were his transactions, that almost all the treasures of Mexico found their way into his coffers. Gradually he had introduced himself into the principal departments of the French service ; and before the middle of 1S05, nearly seventy millions of francs (£2,800,000) was owing chiefly to the company of which he was a member by the public treasury of that country. The long delays thrown in the way of the liquidation of this debt by the government occasioned an excessive multipli- cation of paper securities, which soon fell considerably in value in the money market ; but so implicated was the manner, the bank is coining false money. So clearly do I see the dangers of such a course, that, if necessary, I would stop the pay of my soldiers rather than persevere in it. I am distressed beyond measure at the necessities of my situation, which, by compelling me to live in camps, and engaging me in dis- tant expeditions, withdraw my attention from what would otherwise be the chief object of my anxiety, the first wish of my heart — a good and solid organisation of all that concerns the interest of banks, manufactures, and commerce." What admirable wisdom in these remarks, written at the camp of Boulogne, in the midst of the boundless arrangements which the march of the army to Ulm, already commenced, must have required, and of which his corre- spondence furnishes such ample proof ! — See Bigxo>", v. 85, S6. 94 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, treasury in these transactions, that it was compelled to go on in the same perilous course, and thus increase the 1806 ' depreciation, which had already become sufficiently alarm- ing. M. Desprez, a great capitalist, engaged also in the collection of specie, and who had long supported the bank, became embarrassed, and himself solicited aid from that establishment. The consequence was, that the bills of the public contractors sank so much in value that they would no longer pass current in the market ; at length iBign v. t ] iey f e ri s0 i ow as 10 instead of 100. A universal clis- 85,93. Bour. J vii. 92, loo. quietude prevailed, and the demands upon the public 197*201!' treasury had already become very heavy, at the moment when it had little else than paper securities in its coffers. 1 Matters were in this critical state when the breaking n The im'me- out of the German war, and departure of the army for cf a the C ex- e the Rhine, occasioned an immense and immediate demand £lbL?p- s for metallic currency, which alone would pass in foreign foTth! lie! states, both on the part of government and individuals, man war. Napoleon, for the different branches of the public service, took fifty millions of francs (£2,000,000) from the Bank of France, without the slightest regard to its necessary effect upon the credit of that establishment. Unable, after this great abstraction, to meet his other engage- ments, the minister of finances had recourse to Ouvrard, Vanlerbergh, and Seguire, who advanced 102,000,000 francs (£4,080,000) to the public treasury, and received in return long-dated bills for 150,000,000 francs. To meet this advance Ouvrard hastened to Madrid, to obtain a supply of piastres from the Spanish government ; and such was the ascendency which he had acquired at that capital, that he shortly after concluded a treaty with the King of Spain, in virtue of which his company, during the whole remainder of the war, acquired " an exclusive right to carry on the whole trade to the Spanish colonies, and to import the whole treasures and merchandise brought from thence to the European shores." Never before had such a power been vested in any company : 1806. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 95 nearly the whole treasures of the world were to pass chap through their hands. But though this treaty gave Ouvrard the prospect of obtaining from America, before a year expired, 272,000,000 francs (£11,400,000) in hard dollars, yet this would not furnish a supply for present necessities ; and the efforts of, all the capitalists of the Continent, which were put in requisition for the occa- sion, were unable to meet the crisis or avert a catastrophe. Desprez — who had demanded a loan of 100,000,000 francs (£4,000,000) from the Bank, which they could not oive him — and several other of the greatest capitalists, — including M. Recamier, the splendour of whose living, as well as the beauty of his wife, had long riveted public attention — failed. This immediately occasioned a terrific run upon all the other public functionaries, as well as the bank and the treasury. Paper would no longer pass ; credit was at an end ; and M. Vanlerbergh, one of the greatest of the national contractors, was prevented from failing solely by an advance to a great amount from the public funds. The consequences would have been fatal to the empire had a disaster at the same time occurred in Germany, for the government were absolutely without the means of replenishing any branch of the public service. But the battle of Austerlitz and the treaty of Pressburg operated like a charm in dispelling the panic : with the cessation of Continental war the demand for the precious metals immediately ceased ; and the crisis was in fact over, when the return of the Emperor to the Tuileries entirely restored the public confidence. The danger, however, had been so pressing, that nothing but the instantaneous x Bi v termination of the war could have averted it : and, by 8 ?.^- P,T!'" J vu. 100,1 1 1. merely protracting the contest in Moravia for a few weeks, Sav. ii. 157, •/ Jr o 16*2 Thiers the Allies would infallibly have brought the French govern- vi. 197,201'. ment to a national bankruptcy. 1 Napoleon was highly indignant at these embarrass- ments, and fully appreciated the magnitude of the peril from which he had been extricated by the fortunate 96 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, victory of Austerlitz.* Public opinion, as usual, followed the impulse set by its leaders ; the imprudent facility of 1806. ^ c | e Marbois, the minister of finances, became the gene- Measures of ral object of reprobation, and the greatest wits of the Napoleon in capital exerte d t h e ir talents in decrying his administra- quence. fo^ The Emperor minutely scrutinised the embarrass- ments of the bank and the treasury : it was found that the total deficit of the public contractors to the govern- ment amounted to 141,000,000 francs, (£5,600,000,) of which Ouvrard and Vanlerbergh owed nearly two-thirds, and prosecutions were immediately ordered against all the defaulters, including M. Desprez, who were thrown into prison without distinction. Measures of the last severity were threatened against Ouvrard and his partners, who were offered their choice between standing the chances of a criminal prosecution, and the immediate cession of all they possessed. They preferred the latter, and in conse- quence that gigantic company was reduced to bankruptcy : but in the end nearly the whole deficit was recovered for the nation. The system of providing for the public service by means of contractors was shortly after aban- doned : but a few years after, the government was under » Bour. vii. the necessity of resuming it : and Napoleon ultimately v. 96, 97 gn " made the most ample amends to the injured M. de Thiers, vi. ^^^ ^ appointing him president of the Chamber of Accounts. 1 In fact, though it suited the interests of the Emperor ReaUa'use to represent this alarming catastrophe as exclusively the tr f oph e e. catas " result of the imprudent facility of the minister of finances, and the inordinate profusion of discounts by the bank, yet the evil in reality lay a great deal deeper, and the crisis was, in fact, occasioned by the vicious system to * " Beaten," says Savary, " in the depths of Moravia, deprived by inconceiv- able imprudence of all the resources on which he was entitled to calculate, he would have been wholly unable to repair his losses, and his ruin from that moment was inevitable." — Savary, ii. 161. + The unbending firmness of M. de Marbois being mentioned in laudatory terms in presence of Madame de Stael, " He," said she, " is nothing but a willow painted to look like bronze."— Bouk. vii. 111. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 07 which the extravagant expenditure of the imperial govern- 'CHAr. ment had driven the finance ministers. Although the 1806. budgets annually presented since Napoleon seized the government had exhibited the most flattering aspect, yet in reality they were in a great degree fictitious, and intended to conceal the distressed condition of the finances. The actual receipts of the treasury for the last five years had been a hundred millions of francs below the annual expenses. In addition to this, the payments of the finance minister required to be almost all made in the course of each year; while the period of his receipts for the same time, according to the established mode of collecting the revenue, extended to eighteen months. Hence arose an indispensable necessity for recourse to money-lenders, who advanced cash to the treasury, and received in return bills payable when the tardy receipts of the revenue might be expected to be realised. In this way, while the receipts and expenditure, as exhibited in the budget annually presented to the Chambers, were nearly equal, there was in reality a most alarming deficit, which was daily increasing ; and it was only by largely anticipating, im 87 by the discount of bills accepted by the treasury, the 88, 10*3. ' revenue of succeeding terms or years, that funds could be 86, 97! provided for the liquidation of the daily demands upon it. 1 Recourse was at first had to the receivers-general of the departments to'make these advances : and this system Means by succeeded, though with some difficulty, during the com- crisis had paratively economical years of 1803 and 1804. But the beena"oid- vast expenditure of 1805, occasioned partly by the equip- ed - ment of the expedition at Boulogne, partly by the cost of the Austrian war, rendered these resources totally insuffi- cient ; and it became necessary to apply to greater capital- ists, who, in anticipation of future payments, could afford to make the great advances required by government. M. de Marbois was thus driven by necessity to M. Ouvrard and the company of the Indies, who were already the contractors for the supplies to almost all the forces, both VOL. VII. G 1806. 1 Biffn. 98 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, by land and sea ; and thus' became invested with the _1_ double character of creditor of the state for advances made on exchequer bills, and also for payment of the supplies furnished to the different branches of the public service. Thence the deep implication of this company with the transactions of government, and the necessity of the Bank of France supporting, by extraordinary and lavish discounts, the credit of individuals or associations, from whom alone government derived the funds requisite for its immense engagements. The monetary embarrass- ments of 1805, therefore, like almost all others, were occasioned by an extravagant expenditure : but they arose s^ls.' Y ' not on the part of individuals, but of government ; the crisis was not commercial but political. 1 Thence the singular and instructive fact, that the whole The root of inordinate discounts, of which Napoleon so loudly com- theextmva- plained, were made not to individuals engaged in private diuJreT 11 " undertakings, but to the contractors for the public service. mJnt rn " The root of the evil lay in the extravagant expenditure of the Emperor himself, which rendered the anticipation of future revenues indispensable, to a perilous extent, in every branch of government. He often boasted that he never had, and never would, issue government paper. This was quite true ; but it was equally true, what he passed over, that his expenditure of a hundred millions of francs annually, beyond his income, drove all the government contractors to that perilous expedient. Considered in this view, this financial crisis was not a mere domestic embarrassment, but an important event in the progress of the contest : it indicated the arrival of the period when France, almost destitute of capital from the confiscations of the Convention, and severely weakened in its national credit by the injustice committed during its rule, was unable from its own resources to obtain the funds requi- site for carrying on the gigantic undertakings to which its ruler was driven in defence of its fortunes; and when foreign conquest and extraneous spoliation had become HISTORY OF EUROPE. 99 indispensable, not merely to give vent to the vehement chap. passions, but to maintain the costly government and 1_ repair the financial breaches occasioned by the Revolution. 1806, Napoleon, however much he was disposed to lay the fault, according to his usual system, on others, was in secret perfectly aware of the perilous pass to which his financial affairs had now been brought, and, like Alexander, he trusted to his sword to cut the Gordian knot. Mar- bois had long before represented to him the danger of " having for the bankers of the state those to whom its ministers were indebted;" and Napoleon was so sensible of this, that he had expressed his resolution, in military fashion, to have M. Ouvrard arrested, and made to 1 Bign y disgorge some of what he called his ill-gotten wealth, but 87,. B8. ^ he had never been able to emancipate himself from his 97, 99! influence. 1 * The crisis of 1805, however, made decisive measures necessary. " I will have no alliance," said he, " between Financial the bank and the treasury. If such existed, a simple congruence movement of the funds might reveal the most important ^Francl state secrets. We cannot too soon sign a decree for the emancipation of the treasury." The difficulty was, that the treasury had to pay every twelve months a hundred and twenty millions of francs (£4,800,000) more than it received, in consequence of the backwardness of all pay- ments to the exchequer. To liquidate part of this debt, sixty millions (£2,400,000) were funded in the five per cents ; the capital of the Bank of France was doubled ; and deposit banks, under the name of " caisses de service," where the receivers-general of the revenue were invited to * " Bourrienne," said he, in 1800, " my part is taken : I will cause M. Ouvrard to be arrested." — " General," replied the secretary, " have you any proofs against him]" — "Proofs'? What are required] He is a contractor, a scoun- drel. He must be made to disgorge. All of his tribe are villains. • How do they make their fortunes ] At the public expense. They have millions, and display an insolent extravagance when the soldiers are without shoes or bread. I will have no more of this." He was accordingly arrested and thrown into prison ; but as there was no evidence whatever against him, he was speedily liberated, and soon, from his great capital, regained all his former influence with the government. — Bour. vii. 94, 95. 100 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLII. 1806. 1 Bign. v, 89. 189, and 195. 17. And imposi- tion of the French armies as a burden on foreign states. Nov. 18. 2 Gaeta, i. 272, 434. 3 Bign. v. 99, 100. deposit the sums they had drawn as soon as they were received, and encouraged to do so by being offered interest for all sums so deposited prior to the time when they were bound to make them forthcoming. By this means, the necessity of having recourse to paper credit to raise funds upon anticipated revenues was in a great measure avoided, and the collection of the taxes conducted with much greater regularity than formerly. 1 But these financial improvements, great as they were, did not strike at the root of the evil, which was a permanent expenditure by government greatly beyond its income. To cure this by means of loans, the well-known practice in Great Britain, was impossible in a country so ruined in its commercial relations and interests as France then was. The victories of Ulm and Austerlitz provided the means of solving the difficulty. From the moment the Grand Army crossed the Rhine, it was fed, clothed, lodged, and paid at the expense of Germany." On the 18th November, an edict of the Emperor directed the transmission of all funds to the army of the north to cease ; and on the 1 8th of December a similar order was given in regard to the army of Italy. Thus the three principal armies of the empire ceased to be any longer a charge upon its finances, and the tributary or conquered states bore the burden of the greater part of that enormous military force by which they were overawed or retained in subjection. This system continued without intermission during the whole remainder of the reign of Napoleon ; and the budgets annually presented to the Chambers were in consequence, as the Duke de Gaeta, 2 their principal compiler, himself confesses, no true statement of the imperial expenses. 3 They were delusive even in what concerned the domestic * From the castle of Louisberg in Wiirtemberg, Napoleon wrote, so early as 4th October 1805, to the minister of finances at Paris — "The army maintains the most exact discipline : the country hardly feels the presence of the troops. We live here on Bons : 1 have no need of money from you." These Bons were treasury bills, which were discharged by the French government out of the contributions levied on the inhabitants, or the sums extracted from the con- quered countries. — Bignox, v. 100. HISTORY OF EUROPE. roi CHAP. XLII. 1806. 18. nuances of France, by always exaggerating 'tlie/ income; and diminishing the expenditure; and, as* concealing the greater part of the enormous contributions levied by the army in the conquered states, totally fallacious. The budget of France for 1805, presented to the Chambers in February 1806, accordingly exhibited a French bud- most deceptive picture of the national finances ; but even and mp™-' as it was, it showed an expenditure of 666,000,000 francs minister of (£26,600,000,) and an income of only 589,000,000 francs tbe interior - (£23,600,000,) the balance being made out by contribu- tions levied from foreign states.* But although Napoleon knew as well as any one the perilous nature of the crisis which the government had recently experienced, it was no part of his policy to permit his subjects to share his disquietude, and he resolved to dazzle the world by a * The receipts and expenditure exhibited were as follows : — BECEIPTS. Direct taxes, . . . 311,649,196 francs. Registration and stamps, Customs, Lottery, Post-office, Excise, Salt, Total from Fi-ance, „ from Italy, „ from Germany and Holland, 172,763,591 52,725,918 13,860,000 10,000,000 * 25,000,000 3,000,000 588,998,705 francs, or £23,600,000 30,000,000 or 1,200,000 100,000,000 or 4,000,000 Army, Navy, Church, Interest of debt, Civil list, Minister of Finance, „ of Justice, „ of Interior, „ of Treasury, „ of Police, Miscellaneous, Total, 718,998,705 francs, or £28,800,000 EXPENDITURE. 271,500,000 140,000,000 35,000,000 69,140,000 27,000,000 43,349,800 21,200,000 29,500,000 8,000,000 700,000 20,765,339 666,155,139 francs, or £26,600,000 -See Due de Gaeta, 304 ; Bignon, v. 102 ; Peuchet, 560. 10^ H;I STORY OF EUROPE. chap. Splendid, exposition of the state of the empire. The report XLIL drawn up by Champagny, minister of the interior, con- 1806 - tained a picture of the imperial dominions, which, from the magnitude of the victories it recounted, and the splen- dour of the undertakings it commemorated, might well bear a comparison with Pliny's panegyric of Trajan. It represented the navigation of the Seine and the Saone as essentially improved ; Alessandria as surrounded with impregnable fortifications ; Genoa furnishing its sailors and naval resources to France ; Italy delivered from the presence of the English ; the sciences, the arts encouraged; the capital about to be adorned by the most splendid monuments ; the Alps and the Appenines yielding to the force of scientific enterprise, and the noble routes of the Simplon, Mont Cenis, the Corniche, and the Mont Genevre, opening to loaded chariots a path amidst here- tofore impassable snows ; numberless bridges established over the Rhine, the Meuse, the Loire, the Saone, and the Rhone ; harbours and wet-docks in a state of rapid con- struction in five-and-thirty maritime cities ; the works of io^ios." Antwerp and Cherbourg promising soon to rival the greatest naval establishments of England. 1 The exposition concluded with a rapid view of the Exposition advantages which France had derived from the successive umphs^of coalitions which had been formed against its existence. France : s i- « -j;] ie nrs t coalition, concluded by the treaty of Campo lence as to ' J -r%i • l Trafalgar. Forinio, gave the Republic the frontier of the Rhine, and the states which now form the kingdom of Italy ; the second invested it with Piedmont ; the third united to its federal system Venice and Naples. Let England be now convinced of its impotence, and not attempt a fourth coalition, even if subsequent events should render such a measure practicable. The house of Naples has irrevo- cably lost its dominions ; Russia owes the escape of its army solely to the capitulation which our generosity awarded : the Italian peninsula, as a whole, forms a part of the great empire ; the Emperor has guaranteed, as HISTORY OF EUROPE. 103 chief supreme, the sovereigns and constitutions which chap. compose its several parts/' In the midst of these just subjects for exultation, Napoleon had not the moral 1806- courage to admit the terrible disaster of Trafalgar. That decisive event was only alluded to in the following passage of his opening speech to the Chambers : — " The tempests have made us lose some vessels after a combat impru- dently engaged in. I desire peace with England ; I shall not on my side retard its conclusion by an hour. I shall always be ready to terminate our differences on the foot- ing of the treaty of Amiens/' Thus, while the Neapolitan dynasty, for merely making preparations for war, was declared to have ceased to reign, England, which had struck so decisive a blow at his maritime strength, was invited to a pacification on terms of comparative equality — a striking instance of that resolution to crush the weak, 1 B; n and temporise, till the proper time arrived, with the {J 4 ' 11 . ; powerful, which formed so remarkable a feature of Napo- 91. leon's policy. 1 The return of Napoleon to Paris was the signal for the commencement of magnificent public structures in that Erection of capital. The municipality voted a monument to the mthe°Pk£> Emperor and the Grand Army, which, after much hesita- end me - tion as to the design, it was at length resolved to make a triumphal column, composed of the cannon taken in the Austrian campaign, surmounted by a statue in bronze of the Emperor. The design was speedily carried into effect ; five hundred Imperial guns, melted down and cast anew, assumed the mould of the principal actions of the cam- paign, which wound, like the basso-relievo on Trajan's pillar at Rome, to the summit of the structure, one hun- dred and twenty feet from the ground, where the statue of Napoleon, afterwards carried off by the Emperor Alex- ander as a trophy of victory to St Petersburg, was placed. Since the accession of Louis Philippe, it has been replaced by an admirable bronze representation of the great con- queror in his gray riding-coat, the dress which has become J 80S. 104 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, canonised in the minds of the French by the feelings of XLII . . . . admiration, almost amounting to devotion, with which his memory is regarded. The standards taken from the enemy during the campaign — one hundred and twenty in number— were brought with great pomp through the streets of Paris on the 1st of January, and divided between the senate, the tribunate, the city of Paris, and the cathedral of Notre Dame. " These standards," said the Archbishop of Paris, when they were placed beneath the sacred roof, " will attest to our latest posterity the efforts made by Europe against us ; the glorious deeds of our soldiers ; the protection vouchsafed by heaven to France ; the prodigious success of our invincible Emperor, and the homage which he has rendered to God for his victories." The senate decreed that his birth-day should be one of the national fetes. Magnificent rejoicings were projected by the Emperor to signalise the return of the Grand Army to the capital ; but they were adjourned, i b; v ^ rs ^ on * ne accoun t °f the sojourning of the troops on the 112, ii3. Austrian frontier, next from the menacing aspect of 1 ni&rs vi. *~^ ™ 372,374.' Prussia, and finally abandoned after the gloom and bloodshed of the Polish campaign. 1 The ominous announcement, made from the depths of Advance of Moravia, that the dynasty of Naples had ceased to reign, against" was not long allowed to remain a dead letter. Massena Naples. wag \y U8 [iy em pl y ec i ; i n January, in collecting his forces in the centre of Italy, and before the end of that month fifty thousand men, under the command of Joseph Buona- parte, had crossed the Pontifical States and entered the Neapolitan territory in three columns, which marched on Gaeta, Capua, and Itri. Resistance was impossible; the feeble Russian and English forces which had disembarked to support the Italian levies, finding the whole weight of the war likely to be directed against them, withdrew to Sicily ; the court, thunderstruck by the menacing procla- . mation of 27th December, speedily followed their example ; the governors of the cities first exposed to invasion hast- HISTORY OF EUROPE. 105 cued to appease the conqueror by submission ; a futile chap. attempt at negotiation by means of Prince St Theodore XLIL did not suspend for an instant the march of the victorious 1806, troops. In vain the intrepid Queen Caroline, who still remained at Naples, armed the lazzaroni, and sought to infuse into the troops a portion of her' own indomitable courage ; she was seconded by none. Capua opened its gates ; Gaeta was invested ; the Campagna filled with the invaders ; she, vanquished but not subdued, compelled to wgjJV^ yield to necessity, followed her timid consort to Sicily : v. '114,110- and, on the 15th February, Naples beheld its future 56,58. sovereign, Joseph Buonaparte, enter its walls. 1 But although the capital was thus occupied by the invaders, and the reigning family had taken refuge in Successful the sea-girt shores of Sicily, the elements of resistance cakbria. still existed in the Neapolitan dominions. The Prince of Hesse- Philipsthal had the command of Gaeta, and he had inspired the garrison of eight thousand men which he commanded with a share of his own heroic resolution. When summoned to capitulate, this gallant officer replied, that his honour would not -permit him to lower his colours till the last extremity ; and the long resistance which he made, coupled with the natural strength of the place, which could be approached, like Gibraltar, only by a neck of land strongly fortified, inspired the Sicilian cabinet with the hope that something might yet be done for the deliverance of its Continental dominions. During the first tumult of invasion, the peasantry of Calabria, in despair at the universal desertion of the kingdom, both by their government and its allies, submitted to the enemy ; and General Reynier, with a considerable corps, in the outset experienced little resistance in his occupation of the principal strongholds of the country. But the pro- traction of the siege of Gaeta, which occupied Massena with the principal army of the French, gave them time to recover from their consternation ; and the cruelty of the invaders, who put to death without mercy all the 106 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, peasants who were found with arms in their hands, on XLIL the pretence that they were brigands, drove them to 1806, despair. A general insurrection took place in the begin- ning of March, and the peasants stood firm in more than one position. But they were unable to withstand the shock of the veterans of France, and in a decisive action in the plain of Campo-Tenese their tumultuary levies, i Bot. iv. though fifteen thousand strong, were entirely dispersed. 90. iw' The victorious Reynier penetrated even to Reggio, and ll6. 10 ' , the standards of Napoleon waved on its towers, insight of the English videttes on the shores of Sicily. 1 When hostilities had subsided, Joseph repaired in per- joseph' son to the theatre of war, and sought, by deeds of charity, freateXing to alleviate its distresses, while his beneficent mind con- slc t mJ w ° templated great and important public works to ameliorate March 30. t ] iat sava g e an d neglected district. He visited the towers of Reo-crio, admired the magnificent harbour of Tarentum, Go 7 ° and had already formed the design of canals and roads to open up the sequestered mountains of Calabria. In the midst of these truly princely projects he received at Savig- liano, the principal town of the province, the decree by which Napoleon created him king of the Two Sicilies. April 4. By so doing, however, he was declared not to lose his con- tingent right of succession to the throne of France ; but the two crowns were never to be united. At the same time the states of Venice were definitively annexed to the kingdom of Italy, and that capital was to give his title to the eldest son of its sovereign. The beautiful Pauline, now married to Prince Borghese, received the duchy of Guastalla, subsequently united to the same dominions ; the Princess Eliza was created Princess of Lucca Piom- bino ; Murat was made Grand-duke of Berg, with a con- siderable territory : and the Emperor reserved to himself a Bign. v. twelve duchies in Italy, of which six were in the Nea- lx l 93^)i. ' politan dominions, which were bestowed on the principal Coiietta,ii. officerg of hig m . my 2 Thus, while he was elevating the members of his family to the neighbouring thrones, the 1806. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 107 military hero of the Revolution gave abundant indica- chap. tions of his design, by reconstructing the titles of honour which it had cost so much bloodshed to destroy, utterly to overturn its principles."" Events, however, soon occurred which showed the ^ infant sovereign what an insecure tenure he had of his Naples is dominions. Hardly had he returned to Naples to receive the by sir ski- congratulations of his new subjects on his elevation, when gLJS the island of Capri, the celebrated retreat of the Emperor f^JSf Tiberius, whose romantic cliffs bound the horizon to the °f *t.f u - south of the bay of Naples, was wrested from his power by an English detachment. Nothing but the generous forbearance of the commander of the squadron, Sir Sidney Smith, saved his capital and palace from a bombardment amidst the festive light of an illumination. Shortly after, a still more serious disaster occurred in the southern provinces of his dominions, attended in the end with important effects on the fortune of the war. Encouraged by the prolonged resistance of Gaeta, and the accounts which were brought from all quarters of the disaffection which prevailed in Calabria, .the English commanders in Sicily resolved upon an effort by land and sea, with the double view of exciting an insurrection on the one side of the capital, and relieving the fortress which so gallantly held out on the .other. In the beginning of July an July i. expedition set sail from Palermo, consisting of somewhat less than five thousand men, which landed in the Gulf of St Euphemia: and the commander, Sir John Stuart, * " The interest of our crown," said Napoleon, " and the tranquillity of the continent of Europe, require that we should secure in a stable and definitive manner the fate of the people of Naples and Sicily, fallen into our power by the right of conquest, and forming part of the great empire — we therefore declare our well-beloved brother Joseph King of the two Sicilies." By the same decree, Berthier was created Prince of Neufchatel, which had been ceded by Prussia ; Talleyrand obtained, with the title of Prince of Benevento, the principality of the same name, which belonged to the Pontifical States ; Bernadotte became Prince of Pontecorvo ; Cambaceres and Lebrun, Dukes of Parma and Placen- tia. Substantial reservations in favour of the crown of France accompanied the creation of these inferior feudatories : a million yearly was reserved from the Neapolitan revenues to be distributed among the French soldiers. — Hard. ix. 94, 95; Bign. v. 131. 108 HISTORY OF EUROPE. thap. issued a proclamation calling on the Calabrians to repair XLI1, to his standard and unite their efforts to expel the intrud- 1806- ing sovereign. Few or none, however, of the peasantry appeared in arms ; no intelligence of more distant arma- ments was received; and the English general was begin- ning to hesitate whether he should not re -embark his troops, when advices were received that Reynier, with a French force not greatly exceeding his own, was encamped at Maida, about ten miles distant. With equal judgment and resolution, Sir John Stuart immediately resolved to advance against his opponent ; and if he could not expel the enemy from the Neapolitan territories, at least give the troops of the rival nations an opportunity, so much longed for, of measuring their strength on a footing of comparative equality. He moved forward his forces, accordingly, in quest of the enemy. On the 5th July the outposts of the two armies were within sight of each other, and both sides prepared for a decisive conflict on the following morning : the French never doubting that 2w%u tne J vou ld speedily drive the presumptuous islanders into coiiettaji. the sea; the English anxious, but not apprehensive, that Reg. 1806, it would be found, in the hour of trial, that they had xv.i42,i45i not degenerated from their ancestors of Blenheim or Poictiers. 1 When the English army arrived in sight, the corps of Reynier Reynier, consisting of five thousand infantry, six hundred Ittack e him. cavalry, and a battery of horse-artillery, was strongly posted on a range of wooded heights which skirted the little plain stretching from their feet toward the sea; while the British, bivouacking in that marshy and un- healthy expanse on the banks of the Amato, were in a situation of all others the most exposed to the pestilential influences of the malaria, at that sultry season in full activity. But Reynier was inspired with a supercilious contempt for his opponents, with whom he had combated in Egypt, and the defeats from whom, there received, he had entirely ascribed, in his subsequent publication, to the HISTORY OF EUROPE. 109 errors of General Menou. He was encouraged, besides, chap. by the arrival of reinforcements in the night, which raised _ 1_ his forces to seven thousand five hundred men, and, resolving to leave nothing to the diseases of the climate, ^n^Dum. he marched at once to the encounter. Hastily, therefore, JJ^ he descended from the heights, crossed the sluggish stream, 1806, 142. and advanced against the enemy. 1 Surprised, but nothing dismayed, at the unexpected 2g appearance of forces so much more considerable than Battle of they had anticipated, the British troops awaited, with July «. undiminished resolution, the attack. Their right rested on the Amato, at the point where its lazy current falls into the sea; the thickets and underwood which enve- loped its mouth were filled with light troops, who kept up a destructive fire on the assailants as they approached. Notwithstanding the heavy loss which they sustained in consequence, the French bravely advanced, and, impatient of victory, after a few volleys had been exchanged, rushed forward with the bayonet. But they little knew the enemy with which they had now to deal. No sooner did the English right, consisting of the light companies of the 26th, 27th, 35th, 58th,61st, 81st, and 85th regiments, per- ceive the levelled steel of their opponents, than they too advanced with loud cheers to the charge; the 1st light infantry, a famed French regiment, as gallantly pressed forward; and the rival nations approached each other till their bayonets literally crossed. At that appalling moment French enthusiasm sank before British intrepidity; their battalions broke and fled, but were instantly overtaken amidst deafening shouts, and assailed with such fury, that in a few minutes seven hundred lay dead on the spot, and a thousand, including General Compere, were made prisoners. Taking advantage of this overthrow, the brigade under General Auckland, which was imme- diately to the left of the victorious right, also pressed forward, and drove the enemy in that quarter from the field of battle. Defeated thus in the centre and right, Reynier 110 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, made an attempt with his cavalry, in which arm the XLIL British were totally deficient, to overwhelm the other flank. 1806. ^ rolling fire of musketry repelled them from the front of the line ; but their squadrons, rapidly wheeling round the immovable infantry, succeeded in turning its left. This movement might have yet retrieved the day, had not the French cavalry, in the midst of their advance, been assailed by a close and well-directed fire in flank from the i sir J.stu- 20th regiment, which had that morning landed, and came art's Des- llD most opportunely at the decisive moment to take a patch, Ann. 1 cr J t Reg. 1806, p ar t in the action. This unexpected discharge totally art \ D Ann U P most opportunely at the decisive moment to take a Reg. 'l 806, Bot'.iv.2ii, disconcerted the horse, which fled in disorder from the Sta, £ so. field of battle ; and the enemy, routed at all points, with- U6™iS" drew his shattered battalions across the Amato, weakened by the loss of half their numbers. 1 * The battle of Maida, though hardly noticed by the Greatmorai French nation amidst the blaze of Ulm and Austerlitz, vfctor^f thiS lmd a most important effect upon the progress of the war. It is often by the feelings which it excites, and the moral impression with which it is attended, more than by its immediate results, or the numbers engaged on either side, that the importance of a victory is to be estimated. In this point of view, seldom was success more important than that thus achieved. True, the forces engaged were incon- siderable, the scene remote, the probable immediate advantages trifling : but what mattered all that 1 it was a duel between France and England, and France had suc- cumbed in the conflict. At last the rival states had come into collision, on terms approaching to equality, and free from the paralysing influence of lukewarm or dubious allies. The result had been decisive : the veterans of Napoleon had fled before the British steel. Indescribable was the national exultation at this glorious result. The disasters of the early years of the war were forgotten, or * The total loss of the British was only 44 killed and 284 wounded. The Duchess of Abrantes states the entire loss of the French at 5000 men. — D'Abrantes, ix. 136; and Sir J. Stuart's Despatch, Ann. Reg. 1806, 594. 1806. HISTORY OF EUROPE. Ill ascribed to their true cause, —general inexperience in the chap. military art ; confidence, the surest presage of victory, when guided by prudence, was transferred from the naval to the land service ; and, reposing securely on the fights of Alexandria and Maida, all classes openly expressed their ardent desire for an early opportunity of measuring the national strength on a greater scale with the conquerors of continental Europe. Publications began to issue from the press which strongly urged the adoption of a more manly system of military policy,""" and the descent of the British in large bodies on the shores of Germany or Italy : the people no longer hesitated to speak of Cressy and Azincour. The British historian need entertain no fears of exaggerating the moral influence of this success, even with so inconsiderable a force. He will have occasion to portray a similar result to the enemies of his country, from the successes of the Americans with detached ships at the close of the war. Napoleon was well aware of its importance : he received the accounts of the defeat at Maida with a degree of anguish which all his matchless powers of dissimulation could not conceal. 1 " Sive tanta, i D'Abr. ix sive minor, victoria fuit, ingens eo die res, ac nescio an maxima illo bello, gesta sit ; non vinci enim ab Hanni- bale, vincentibus tunc difficilius fuit, quain postea vin- ic cere. z i But, though productive in the end of the most iinpor- 2g tant consequences from the moral feelings which it itsimme- • f>T»/r-i it xi diate results inspired, the victory of Maida was not attended at tne are less con- moment with any durable results. In the first instance, bI indeed, considerable advantages were gained. Every town and fort along the coast of Calabria fell into the hands of the victors. The whole artillery, stores, and * In particular, Captain Pasley's able and energetic treatise on the military- policy of England ; a work which had a powerful effect in directing the public attention to this important subject. t " Be the victory great or small, a great affair was achieved on that day, and I know not but the most important in the war. For not to be con- quered by Hannibal, was then more difficult than afterwards to conquer." — Livy, xxiii. 16. 136. 2 Liv. xxiii. 112 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, ammunition collected for the invasion of Sicily, were taken XLIL or destined. The French forces made a precipitate 1806. Retreat on all sides, and the insurrection spread like wild- fire through the whole southern provinces of the Neapo- litan dominions. A few days after, the town of Crotona, containing a thousand men, chiefly wounded, surrendered to the insurgents. The detachments of the French were cut off on all sides, and massacred with savage cruelty by the peasantry, whose ferocity General Stuart in vain endeavoured to appease, by a proclamation earnestly imploring them not to disgrace their cause by a deviation from the usages of civilised warfare. So general were 148JL55. T ' the losses, that Reynier was unable to stop his retreat till 1806 595 ne reached the intrenched camp of Cassano, where the ? oU --nlo- junction of Verdier's division enabled his shattered army, J om. n. 2.-JO. J ill 11 Bign.v.i26. weakened by the loss of eight thousand men, at length to make head against the enemy. 1 These disasters might have been attended with impor- Surrender tant results upon the whole campaign in the Peninsula, could Gaeta have held out till the combined English and Neapolitan forces approached its walls. But the progress of the siege, and the vigour of Massena, who commanded the attacking army, rendered this impossible. After a gallant resistance, and the display of great skill on both sides, which rendered this siege one of the most memor- able of the whole war, a practicable breach was effected - in front of the citadel, while a second, of smaller dimen- sions, was formed on its flank. Already a column of three July is. thousand grenadiers was prepared for the assault. Prince Hesse Philipsthal had some days before been mortally wounded by the bursting of a shell, and removed on board an English vessel to Sicily : his successor was not ani- i^ ig V Elated with his dauntless spirit ; proposals of capitulation DuiL xv. were made ; and Massena, glad on any terms to render 155 170 . . Bot!iv.'ii4. his force disposable for still more pressing exigencies, granted them the most honourable conditions. 2 "* The * The physical difficulties experienced by the assailants in this memorable HISTORY OF EUROPE. 113 garrison, still seven thousand strong, marched out with chap. the honours of war ; and on the 18 th July the French flag waved on its classic and almost impregnable battle- ments. The surrender of Gaeta, by rendering disposable the 3Q whole besieging force of Massena eighteen thousand Retreat of , f ■ • s-i i 1 • i i 1 the English. strong, made the insurrection in Calabria hopeless, ana suppression the ulterior stay of the English army on the Neapolitan ? e ction. nsu shores impossible. Sir John Stuart, therefore, slowly bent his steps towards the straits of Messina; and at length, on the 5th September, after a residence of two months, the last detachments of the English embarked for Palermo, leaving of necessity, though on this occasion for the last time, the stain too often thrown on their arms, of exciting a people to resistance whom they sub- sequently abandoned to their invaders. Meanwhile the advance of Massena, though stubbornly resisted and attended with great bloodshed, was a succession of triumphs. The insurgents stood their ground bravely at the romantic defile of Lauria, so well known to travellers in Calabria, but were at length turned by the Monte Aug. 5. Galdo, and defeated with great slaughter. A guerilla warfare ensued, attended with savage cruelty on bothiDum. xv. sides. The stream of the Calore, which flowed through JJ^Isft, the theatre of the contest, descended to the sea charged |}J- g£ iv - with the bodies of the slain. But after several months a™- *%• of carnage, the French troops regained all the ground us. they had occupied prior to the descent of the English; 1 siege were of the most formidable description ; its details, which are fully given by General Mathieu Dumas, are highly interesting to the military reader. No less than 120,000 cannon-shot and 22,000 bombs were fired by the garrison upon the besiegers before they returned a single gun; but when their batteries were opened on the 10th July, the superiority of their fire became soon apparent. — Gaeta, named after the nurse of ^Eneas,* underwent a desperate siege from the Austrians in 1707, when it surrendered only after a murderous assault by Marshal Daun. Thirty years afterwards it was besieged and taken when defended only by an insufficient garrison. — See Dumas, xv. 155, 170. * " Tu quoque litoribus nostris, JEne'ia. nutrix, iEternani moriens famara, Caieta, dedisti." Virgil, lib. vii. VOL. VII. H 114 H1ST0EY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLII. 1806. Nov. 10. 31. Domestic reforms of Joseph in Naples. and an amnesty, judiciously published by King Joseph, at length put a period to this sanguinary and hopeless contest, in which they lost by sickness and the sword little short of fifteen thousand men. No monarchy in Europe stood more in need of refor- mation than that of Naples when Joseph took possession of its throne. The administration of justice, the regu- lation of the finances, the general police of the country, stood equally in need of improvement. Hence the remarkable fact, so common on the Continent, so rare in England, that the most democratically inclined of the whole community were those of the higher ranks who had travelled, or received the advantages of a liberal educa- tion ; while the supporters of the arbitrary government, and all the abuses following in its train, were to be found among the rabble of the cities and the peasantry of the country. A state of things which, however at variance with what is generally prevalent in a constitutional monarchy, arises naturally from the feelings brought into action in such circumstances as here occurred, and has been since abundantly verified by the experience ot the southern monarchies of Europe, when exposed to revolutionary convulsions. Joseph Buonaparte, who was endowed by nature with an inquisitive and beneficent spirit, found ample room for, and soon effected, the most extensive ameliorations. Without conceding in an undue degree to the democratic spirit, he boldly intro- duced reforms into every department. The estates held by the nobles by a military tenure were deprived of their unjust exemption from taxation; their castles, villages, and vassals subjected to the common law of the realm ; the number of convents was restricted; part of their estates appropriated to the discharge of the public debt, part devoted to the establishment of schools in every province for the youth of both sexes. Academies for instruction in the military art, in naval science, in draw- ing, a national institute, and various other useful institu- HISTORY OF EUROPE. 115 tions, were established in the capital. Roads, bridges, chap. harbours, and canals, were undertaken or projected ; and _! — 1_ a general spirit of activity Mas diffused by the energy of 1806, the government. Great part of these improvements have survived the ephemeral dynasty with" which they origi- t ^^ nated, and constitute part of the lasting benefits induced a. 1, is.' in other countries by the disastrous wars of the French 135,130. Revolution. 1 The conquest of Naples and ascent of the throne of the Two Sicilies by the brother of Napoleon was not the only Miserable usurpation which followed the peace of Pressburg. The £dSLe°" old commonwealth of Holland was destined to receive a {J JggJ* master from the victorious Emperor; while the republic of Venice, incorporated by the decree of 30th March with the kingdom of Italy, furnished a noblesse to surround and support his throne. Since their conquest by the French, under the victorious arms of Pichegru, the Dutch had uniformly shared in all the revolutionary convulsions of the parent republic ; and the authority latterly conferred on the grand pensionary in 1*605, had almost established among them a monarchical government. Meanwhile the misfortunes of the state were unparalleled. Its most valuable colonies had been conquered by the English, and were to all appearance indefeasibly united to that absorbing power. The Cape of Good Hope had become a half-way house to their vast dominions in Bengal ; the island of Ceylon had recently been added to their possessions in the Indian Archipeligo; and Surinam itself, the entrepot of the commercial riches of Holland in the eastern seas, had fallen into their hands. Their harbours were blockaded, their commerce ruined, their flag had disappeared from the ocean ; and the state, as usual at the close of revolu- tionary convulsions, had fallen under the despotic rule of ignoble men, whose tyranny over others was equalled a Hmd fa only by their base adulation to the foreign rulers of the 99, 100. commonwealth. 2 The people, despairing of relief, and ui. ' worn out by the exactions of obscure tyrants, in the 116 HISTOKY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLII. 1806. 33. Napoleon's measures to place his brother Louis on the throne of that country. May 26. June 5. 1 Hard. ix. 99, 100. Bign. v. 141, 142. 34. Creation of military fiefs in the king- dom of Italy. election of whom the respectable classes had taken no share, were desirous of any change which promised a more stable and creditable order of things. Encouraged by these dispositions, Napoleon resolved to place his brother Louis on the throne of Holland. With this view, a Dutch deputation, composed of persons entirely in his interest, was instructed to repair to Paris and demand his appointment. A treaty was soon con- cluded, which, on the preamble " that it had been found by experience that the annual election of a chief magis- trate was the source of continual discord, and that in the existing state of Europe a hereditary government could alone guarantee the independence and furnish securities to the civil and religious liberties of the state," declared Louis king of Holland. A few days after, the new monarch was proclaimed, and issued a decree, in which he promised to maintain the liberties of his people, whose independence was guaranteed by the Emperor. But the elusory nature of that independence was made painfully evident by the characteristic speech which Napoleon made to his brother on the occasion : — " Never cease to regard yourself as a Frenchman. The dignity of constable of the empire shall be reserved to you and your descendants. It will recall to your recollection the duties you have to discharge towards me, and the importance which I attach to the guardianship of the strong places which I intrust to you, and which compose the northern frontier of my states." 1 At the same time, the incorporation of the Venetian states with the kingdom of Italy afforded the Emperor an opportunity of laying the foundation of that territorial noblesse by which he hoped to add stability and lustre to his throne. Twelve military fiefs were created out of the ceded districts, which Napoleon reserved for the most distinguished of his marshals and ministers ; while a fif- teenth of the revenue which these states yielded to the trea- sury at Milan was set apart to form appanages suitable to HISTORY OF EUROPE. 117 those dignities. A revenue of one million two hundred chap. thousand francs (£48,000) was on this occasion set apart LI1 ' from the taxes of the kingdom of Italy, to form a fund 1806 - out of which he was to recompense his soldiers, and which was soon divided among a great variety of claimants. Thus Napoleon was rendering the conquests of his arms not only the source of power to himself, but of emolument lwJStt? to his followers in every degree. 1 The system upon which Napoleon now openly entered, of placing his relations and family on the thrones of the Napoleon adjoining kingdoms, and surrounding France with a girdle, [^these"™ not of affiliated republics, but of dependent dynasties, was measures - not, as has been sometimes imagined, a mere ebullition of personal vanity or imperial pride. It had its origin in profound principles of state policy, and a correct appre- ciation of the circumstances which had elevated him to the throne, and continued to surround him when there. He clearly perceived that it was revolutionary passion, con- verted by his genius into the spirit for military conquest, which had placed him on his ^present pinnacle of power, and that he was regarded with a jealous eye by the old European dynasties, who both dreaded, from dear-bought experience, the fervour which had elevated him to the throne, and were averse to the principles which had over- turned the ancient family. He felt that, of necessity, how- ever disguised under the semblance of friendship, his hand was against every maa, and every man's hand against him. This being the case, the only permanent bond of alliance to which he could trust was that which united him to his own family, and identified with his own the interests of inferior royalties, dependent on the preservation of his great parent diadem. " I felt my isolated position," says he, " and threw out on all sides anchors of safety into the ocean by which I was surrounded ; where could I so reasonably look for support as in my own relations 1 could I expect as much from strangers 1 " Such were the views of Napoleon ; and that, situated as he was, they were founded XL1I. 1806. 118 HISTORY OF, EUROPE. chap, on reason, is perfectly obvious. That the measures to which they led him, of displacing the adjoining monarchs, and seating on their thrones the members of his own family, were calculated to excite in the highest degree the jealousy and hostility of the other Continental powers, and thus had a powerful influence in producing his ultimate overthrow, is indeed equally certain. But these consider- ations afford no ground for impeaching the soundness of the principles by which his conduct was regulated. They show only that he was placed in circumstances which required a hazardous game to be played ; and add another to the many illustrations which the history of this eventful period exhibits of the eternal truth, that ! b; those who owe their elevation to revolutionary passion, 132, 143. whatever form it may have assumed, are driven on before Las C'as. , J , vii. 127. a devouring flame, more fatal in the end to those who are impelled by, than to those who resist its fury. 1 "" On the same day on which a king was given by the Audience French Emperor to the United Provinces, an ambassador Turkish arrived from the Grand Signior, who came to congratulate am assacor. y m Qn j^ g access i on ^ the imperial dignity. He was received with the utmost condescension ; and the words used by Napoleon on the occasion are well worthy of being recorded, when taken in conjunction with his sub- sequent conduct to that power by the treaty of Tilsit. " Everything," said he, " that can happen, either of good or bad fortune, to the Ottomans, will be considered in the same light by France. Have the goodness, M. Ambassador, to transmit these words to Sultan Selim. Let him ever recollect that my enemies, who are also his own, may one day penetrate to his capital. He never can have any cause of apprehension from me : united to my throne, he need i45. g "' v fear nothing from his enemies/' 2 Within a year after these words were spoken, Napoleon signed on the Niemen * " The truth is," said Napoleon, " that I was never master of my own movements — I was never altogether my own. I was always governed by cir- cumstances." — Las Cas. vii. 124, 125. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 119 a treaty with Russia for the partition of the whole Turkish chap. territories in Europe. But while fortune seemed thus lavishing her choicest l006 ' gifts on Napoleon by land, and the dynasties of Europe Nayai ope - were melting away before his breath, disaster, with equally sailing and unvarying course, was attending all his maritime opera- theBrest° tions, and the sceptre of the ocean had irrevocably passed fleet> into the hands of his enemies. The victory of Trafalgar, with the subsequent achievement of Sir Richard Strachan, had almost entirely destroyed the great combined fleet which under Villeneuve had issued from Cadiz : but the squadrons of Rochefort and Brest, upon the co-operation of which Napoleon had so fondly calculated, still existed ; and he was not yet sufficiently humbled by disaster to renounce altogether the hope of deriving some advantage from their services. He resolved to employ the remain- der of his naval forces, not in regular battles with the English fleet, but in detached operations in smaller armaments, against their remote colonies or merchant vessels. Half the Brest squadron, consisting of eleven line- of-battle ships, was victualled for six months ; and in the R^: 13 ' middle of December, when the Channel fleet was blown off the station by violent winds, they stood out to sea, and shortly after divided into two squadrons. The first, under Admiral LeisseguCs, consisting of five ships of the line and two frigates, was destined to carry out succours to St Domingo ; while the second, under Willaumez, embracing six ships of the line and two frigates, received orders to make for the Cape of Good Hope, and do as much injury as possible to the English homeward-bound merchant fleets. But a cruel destiny awaited both squadrons, which 1 nearly annihilated the enemy's remaining naval force, 84,86. Am. . .... Reg. 1806, and almost closed the long series of British maritime 229." triumphs during the war. 1 Admiral Leissegues arrived without any accident at St Domingo, and disembarked his troops and stores ; but the damage he had experienced from the wintry storms 120 HISTORY OF 'EUROPE. chap, during the passage of the Atlantic rendered some repairs necessary, which were undertaken in the open roadstead XLII. 1806. of that harbour. The imprudent security which had pefeatofthe dictated that resolution was soon severely punished. On drouTst the 6th February Admiral Duckworth, who had been Dommgo. detached from the blockading squadron before Cadiz in pursuit of the enemy, hove in sight with seven ships of the line and four frigates. Four of the English ships engaged each a single adversary, while the three others united against the Imperial, a splendid vessel of a hundred and thirty guns, which bore the Admiral's flag, and was equal to the encounter of any two of its opponents. So unequal a contest as that with three, however, could not be of long endurance. Notwithstanding all their efforts to escape, the French squadron were overtaken and brought to close action : a desperate conflict of two hours ensued, which terminated in the whole of their line-of- battle ships being taken or destroyed ; three having struck their colours, and two, including the superb Imperial, being driven ashore and burned. The frigates stood out to sea during the confusion of this murderous engagement, and escaped. Nothing could exceed the gallantry with which the French in all their ships stood to their guns : on board the three taken alone, the killed and wounded were no less than 760 ; while the total loss of the iDum. xv. British was only 64 killed, and 294 wounded. The 86,89. Ann. _ •■,,«■ i t t ~™ e ■- i Reg. 1806, Imperial, before it ran ashore, had seen 500 ol its bravest v. 156. lgn " sailors mowed down by the irresistible fire of the English vessels. 1 Though not overtaken by so overwhelming a disaster, Disasters of the cruize of Admiral Willaumez, with the remainder of mJSTquar the Brest fleet, was in the end nearly as calamitous. dron. Having received intelligence, when he approached the Cape, of the capture of that settlement by the British, he stood over for Brazil, where he watered and revictualled at Bahia, and moved northward towards the West Indies, in hopes of falling in with the homeward-bound Jamaica HISTORY OF EUROPE. 121 fleet. Thither he was tracked by Sir Alexander Cochrane, chap. with four sail of the line, who, though not in sufficient 1 strength to risk an engagement, followed him at a dis- tance, and, by means of his look-out frigates, observed all his movements. On the 12th July, • Sir John Borlase Warren arrived from England at Barbadoes. His squa- dron had been fitted out and performed the voyage with unexampled rapidity, having left Spithead only on the 4th June : Sir Richard Strachan soon after made his June 4. appearance with a second fleet in the same latitude ; while j u i y 8. a third, under Admiral Louis, put to sea in the end of July is. August, to intercept the return of the French. As it was August 28. now evident that the attention of the English government was fully fixed on this squadron, the last which the enemy had at sea, the most serious apprehensions began to per- vade the French that they would share the fate of their comrades on the coast of St Domingo ; and under the influ- ence of these feelings the Veteran, of seventy-four guns, commanded by Jerome Buonaparte, separated from the rest of the squadron, and without any orders stood away in the night of the 30th July for France. Discouraged by j u i y 3o. this defection, and perceiving no possibility of maintaining his position, Willaumez saw no resource but to make sail for the first friendly harbour in Europe. In doing so, however, he was assailed by a furious tempest, which totally dispersed his fleet. The Foudroyant, severely dis- abled, with difficulty reached the Havannah, pursued by the English frigate Anson under the very guns of the Moro Castle ; the Impetueux was standing in for the Chesapeake, when she was descried by Sir Richard Strachan's squadron, driven ashore and burned, her crew being made prisoners ; two other seventy-fours were destroyed by the English in the same bay ; the Cassard alone, which was supposed to have foundered at sea, regained Brest about the middle of October in the most deplorable condition. Jerome Buonaparte, in the Veteran, made a rich prize in returning to Europe ; but, chased by 122 HISTORY OF. EUROPE. CHAP. XLII. 1806. 1 Ann. Reg. 180b', 230, 231. Bign. v. 157, 158. Dum. xv. 90, 94. 40. Capture of Linois, and other naval operations. Sept. 18, 1805. March I'd. 1806. March 14. some English vessels when he reached the bay of Biscay, he was obliged to let go his booty, and after a hard run only reached the coast of France by steering his vessel ashore under the batteries of the little harbour of Con- carneau, where she was abandoned, but the crew and guns got into safety. 1 The squadron under Admiral Linois, which had so long wandered almost unmolested in the Indian Ocean, and done very great damage to our commerce in the East, after its inglorious repulse by the China mercantile fleet, of which an account has already been given, * made an attack on the Centurion, fifty guns, and two English merchant- men, in the bay of Vizigapatam. But though they took one of the merchantmen, and drove the other on shore, they could make no impression on the line-of-battle ship, which, with undaunted resolution, bore up against triple odds, and at length succeeded in repulsing the enemy. Finding that the Cape of Good Hope had been conquered by the British, Linois reluctantly bent his steps homeward, and had reached the European latitudes, when he fell in the nio-ht into the middle of Sir John Borlase Warren's squadron, and after a short action was taken, with the Marengo of eighty, and the Belle Poule of forty guns. Next day, five large frigates, with troops on board bound for the West Indies, were met at sea by a British squadron under Sir Samuel Hood, and, after a running fight of several hours, four out of the five were captured. The only division of the enemy at sea at that period which escaped destruction was the Rochefort squadron, under Admiral Lallemand, which had the good fortune not to fall in with any of the British fleets, and at length, after a cruise of six months, regained its harbour, having made eight hundred prisoners from merchant vessels in the course of its voyage. From its singular good fortune in eluding the pursuit of all the fleets sent in search of it by the British government, Lallemand's was called by the * Ante, Chap, sxxvu. § 27. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 123 English sailors the Invisible Squadron. He had the for- chap. tune to meet and capture the Calcutta of fifty guns, which, while convoying some merchantmen, fell into the 1806 * middle of his fleet of four line-of-battle ships, and sur- isoi. rendered after a gallant resistance : and his safe return , , ° , 1 Ann. Reg. was celebrated as a real triumph by the French, who i«oe, 220. 1 J Bign. v. in those disastrous days accounted an escape from the 153, 154. enemy at sea as equivalent to a victory. 1 These maritime transactions conduct us to an important epoch in the war— that in which the French and Spanish Reflections navies were totally destroyed, and the English fleet, navaTdls-^ by general consent, had attained to universal dominion. p^ c ° f There is something solemn, and apparently providential, in this extraordinary ascendency acquired on that ele- ment by a single power. Nothing approaching to it had occurred since the fall of the Roman empire. Napoleon afterwards acquired important additions of maritime strength. The fleets of Russia, the galleys of Turkey, the important harbours of Denmark, were put at his disposal : but he never again ventured,, on naval enterprises ; and, with the exception of an unhappy sortie of the Brest fleet, which was soon terminated by the flames of Basque Roads, no sea-fight of any moment occurred to the conclusion of the war. Fearless and unresisted, the English fleets thence- forward navigated the ocean in every part of the globe, transporting troops, convoying merchantmen, blockading ports, with as much security as if they had been traversing an inland sea of the British dominions. Banded Europe did not venture to leave its harbours. All apprehensions of invasion disappeared ; and England, relieved alike from danger of domestic warfare and of colonial embarrass- ment, was enabled to direct her undivided attention to land operations, and launch forth her legions in that career of glory which has immortalised the name of Wellington. It was not thus at the commencement of the struggle, nor had it been thus in the preceding war. The mild 124 HISTORY OP .EUROPE. chap, and pacific Louis XVI. had nursed up the French marine XLIL to an unprecedented pitch of power. The French and 1806 - Spanish fleets had ridden triumphant in the Channel. Greatness of Gibraltar had been revictualled in presence of superior l^Tundt forces only by the admirable skill of Admiral Howe; and Louis xvi. more t j ian once ^ } iac [ seemed for a moment doubtful whether the ancient naval greatness of England was not about to yield to the rising star of the Bourbons. When the war broke out, Louis bequeathed to the Convention a gallant fleet of eighty ships of the line, and a splendid colony in St Domingo, which equalled all the other sugar islands of the world put together. But revolutionary convulsions, however formidable in the creation of a military, can never produce a naval power. The insanity of Brissot and the society of Les Amis des Noirs cut off the right arm of the maritime strength of France by the destruction of St Domingo ; the confiscations of the Convention utterly ruined her commercial wealth ; the blockade of her harbours deprived her of the only means of acquiring naval experience. One disaster followed another, till not only her own fleets were destroyed, but the navies of all Europe were so utterly paralysed, that the English flag alone appeared on the ocean, and the monarch whose will was obeyed from Gibraltar to the North Cape, and from the Ural Moun- tains to the Atlantic Ocean, did not venture to combat the sloops which daily insulted him in his harbours. This astonishing result led to a total change in the Napoleon's weapons by which Napoleon thereafter combated Great system in Britain, and impelled him into that insatiable career of thfnava i conquest which ultimately occasioned his ruin. He at once perceived that it was in vain, at least for a very con- siderable time, to make any attempt to withstand the English at sea, and that the prospect of ultimately rival- ling their power on that element could only be enter- tained after a costly construction of ships of war, during a long course of years, in all the harbours of Europe. war. HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 125 Abandoning, therefore, all idea of renewing any niari- chap time contest, till his preparations, everywhere set on XLII. foot, for the formation of a navy were completed, he 1806, turned his mind to the conversion of his power at land to such a course of policy as might strike at the root of the commercial greatness of England. Thence the Continen- tal System, based on the project of totally excluding British goods and manufactures from all the European monarchies, which required for its completion the concur- rence of all the Continental powers, which could every- where be enforced only by the most rigid police, and could succeed only through the intervention of universal dominion. From the moment that this ruling principle obtained possession of his mind, the conquest of Europe, or at least the subjection of all its governments to his control, became a matter of necessity ; for if any consider- able state were left out, the barrier would be incomplete, and through the chasm thus left in the defences, the enemy would speedily find an entrance. The termination of the maritime war, therefore, is not only an era of the highest importance, with reference to the separate interests of England, but it is the commencement of that important change in the system of Continental warfare which neces- sarily brought Napoleon to the alternative of universal dominion or total ruin. Doubtless the highest praise is due to the long line of brave and illustrious men, who, during a series of ages, Reflections reared up the astonishing maritime power of England. It growth of was not, like the empires of Napoleon or Alexander, con- j^S? 11 structed in a single lifetime ; nor did it fall with the fortunes P ower - of the heroes who gave it birth. It grew, on the contrary, like the Roman power, through a long succession of ages, and survived the death of the most renowned chiefs who had contributed to its splendour. So early as the time of Edward III. the English navy had inflicted a dreadful wound on that of France ; thirty thousand of the van- quished had fallen in a single engagement ; and the 126 II I STORY OF EUROPE. chap, victory of Slujs equalled in magnitude and importance, though, from the frequency of subsequent naval triumphs, ] ttOU. it has not attained equal celebrity with, those of Cr< and Azincour. The freeborn intrepidity of Blake, the fire of Essex, the dauntless valour of Hawke, contributed to cement the mighty fabric. It grew and hardened with every effort made for its overthrow. The power of Louis XIV., the genius of Napoleon, were alike shattered against its strength ; the victories of La Iloguc and Trafalgar equally bridled, at the distance of a century from each other, the two most powerful monarchs of Europe ; and the genius of Nelson only put the keystone in the arch which already spanned the globe. The world had never seen such a body of seamen as those of England during the revolutionary war. Dauntless to their ene- mies, yet submissive to their chiefs — brave in action, yet cool in danger — impetuous in assault, yet patient in defence — capable of the utmost efforts of patriotic devo- tion, yet attentive to the most minute points of naval discipline — submissive to orders equally when facing the muzzles of an enemy's broadside, or braving the storms of the northern ocean — capable of enduring alike the vertical rays of the torrid zone, or the frozen severity of an arctic winter — cherishing, amidst the irregularities of naval life, the warmth of domestic affection ; and nursing, amidst the solitude of the waves, the ennobling sentiments of religious duty. By such virtues, not a transient, but an enduring fabric is formed. It is by such fortitude that a lasting impression on human affairs is produced. But amidst all our admiration of the character of the character of British navy, destined to rival in the annals of the world uavy/ euci the celebrity of the Roman legions, we must not omit to pay a just tribute to the memory of their gallant and unfortunate, but not on that account less estimable anta- gonists. In the long and arduous struggle which for three centuries the French navy maintained with the English, they were called to the exercise of qualities not 45 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 127 less worthy of admiration. Theirs was the courage which chap. can resolutely advance, not to victory, but defeat ; the XLI1, heroism which knows how to encounter not only danger 180,; - but obloquy ; which can long and bravely maintain a sinking cause, uncheered by one ray of public sympathy ; which, under a sense of duty, can return to a combat in which disaster only can be anticipated ; and sacrifice not only life, but reputation, in the cause of a country which bestowed on success alone the smiles of general favour. Napoleon constantly lamented that his admirals, though personally brave, wanted the skilful combination, the daring energy, which distinguished the leaders of his land forces, and gave the English admirals such astonishing triumphs. But had he possessed more candour, or been more tolerant of misfortune, he would have seen that such daring can be acquired only in the school of victory ; that, as self-confidence is its soul, so despondence is its ruin ; that the vehement bursts of anger with which he visited the leaders under whom disasters at sea had been incurred, was the chief caudb of this nervous dread of responsibility ; and that, in reality, the admirals who encountered not only danger but disgrace in combating the arms of Nelson, were often more worthy of admira- tion than those who led his land forces to certain victory at Austerlitz or Jena. As the English navy has thus risen by slow degrees to universal dominion, so the analogy of history leads to the Problbie conclusion, that great and durable results are to be pro- SSrfft?" duced by its agency. And without presuming to scan Sf navy too minutely the designs of Providence, in which we are wld - merely blind though free agents, it may not be going too far to assert, that the ultimate object for which this vast power was created, is already conspicuous. The Roman legions bequeathed to the world the legacy of modern Europe ; its empires and monarchies are but provinces of their dominion, regenerated by the fierce energy of north- ern valour. The English navy will transmit to mankind 128 HISTORY OF' EUROPE. chap, the still more glorious inheritance of Transatlantic and XLIL Australian greatness. A new world has been peopled by 1806 - its descendants, and imbued with its spirit : freedom, tempered by power, will follow in its footsteps : more closely than it did the march of the Roman legions will the career of civilisation follow the British flag. The era is fast approaching in this narrative, when another power, equally slow in its growth, equally permanent in its pro- gress, will come before us, arising to greatness in the east of Europe. The Cross is inscribed on its banners : Wo to the Crescent ! is the watch-cry of its people ; and while the brilliant meteor of Napoleon, rising on the fleeting ascendant of passion and crime, is extinguished in blood, these two colossal empires, irresistible, the one by sea and the other by land, will each lay the founda- tions of the spread of Christianity through half the globe. These defeats of the French naval squadrons were not Region the only maritime operations of this year. Before Mr ofG e oo C d ape Pitt's death, he had prepared an expedition, under Sir Si David Baird, consisting of five thousand men, for the reduction of the Cape of Good Hope, the naval arma- ment being under the direction of Sir Home Popham. On the 4th January 1806, the whole reached Table Bay; but the violence of the surf precluding the possibility of disembarking in that quarter, they were obliged to land in Leopard Bay, from whence they moved immediately towards the capital. On the 8th they came up with the Dutch forces, five thousand strong, chiefly cavalry, in battle array, upon an elevated plateau which the road crossed on the summit of the Blue Mountains. The Hollanders stood several discharges without flinching ; but no sooner were preparations made for charging with the bayonet, than they broke and fled, leaving seven hundred killed and wounded on the field of battle ; while the loss of the victors was only two hundred and twelve. This action decided the fate of the colony : Cape Town surren- dered ; General Jansens, who had retired with three thou- HISTORY OF EUROPE. 129 sand men towards the Hottentot country, was induced by chap. an honourable capitulation, which provided for his safe 1, return to Europe with all his forces, to abandon a hopeless 180(j - contest ; and within eight days from the time when the , Ann< Reg troops were first landed, the British flag waved on all the JgJ^gjj^ forts, and this valuable colony was permanently annexed *v. 69, 73. to the British dominions. 1 This well-concerted enterprise added an important settle- 48. ome ment to the British colonial girdle, which already almost sir h n • 1 i • t 1 • Popham encircled the earth : but the facility with which it was resolves i . , . . -1 , i ■• • . 1 «to attack achieved, inspired the commanders with an overweening B uenos confidence, which ultimately led to serious disasters. Sir Ayres# Home Popham had at a former period been privy to certain designs of Mr Pitt for operations in concert with General Miranda in South America, and had even been appointed, in December 1804, to the Diadem of sixty- four guns, " for the purpose of co-operating with General Miranda, to the extent of taking advantage of any of his proceedings which might tend towards our attaining a position on the continent of South America favourable to the trade of this country." 2 This intention, however, had a Lord Mei- been afterwards abandoned, or at least suspended, in con- dence in sir sequence of the urgent remonstrances of Russia against ha'm'sTriai. any such remote employment of the British forces; and ^ a r 7 ch9 ' when he arrived at the Cape, Sir Home had no authority, express or implied, to employ any part of the forces under his command on any other expedition. But his ardent imagination had been strongly impressed by the brilliant results, both to the nation and the officers engaged in the service, which might arise from such a destination of part of the force which had effected the reduction of the Cape of Good Hope ; and having persuaded Sir David Baird, the governor of that settlement, to a certain extent to enter into his views, he set sail in the beginning of April 3 Ann Re? from Table Bay, taking with him the whole naval force *®f vg£ under his command, and fifteen hundred land troops. 3 xv. 73, 73. With these, and two companies which he had the address VOL. VII. 1 130 HISTORY OF' EUROPE. chap, to procure from St Helena, lie steered straight for the XLIL mouth of the Rio de la Plata. 1806. T j ie eX p e( jition reached the neighbourhood of Buenos whkh'faiis. Ayres on the 24Jh June, and the troops were immediately 28th June, ^^arked. General Beresford, who commanded the land forces, at once proceeded against that town, while the naval forces distracted the attention of the enemy, by threatening Monte Video, where the principal regular forces were collected. Buenos Ayres, chiefly defended by militia, was unable to withstand the energetic attack of the invaders ; and a capitulation was soon concluded, which guaranteed private property — a stipulation which the Eng- lish commanders religiously observed, though cargoes of great value were lying afloat on the river, and might, by the established usages of war, have been declared good prize. But public stores to a great amount fell into the hands looeJWf of the victors ; of which 1,200,000 dollars were forthwith xv. "74,7"!' forwarded to government, while quicksilver to double the amount was seized for the benefit of the captors. 1 Government were extremely embarrassed how to act Embarrass- when intelligence of this unlooked-for success reached the "oTernint British islands. Not that they felt any doubt as to the inexpedience and unhappy tendency of the enterprise ; for on the first information that the expedition was in contemplation, they had despatched orders to counter- mand its sailing ; which unhappily arrived too late to put a stop to its progress. But they were unable to stem or moderate the delirium of joy which pervaded the minds of the mercantile classes on receipt of the despatches. The English, subject beyond any other people, perhaps, of whom history makes mention, to periodical, though fortu- nately not very lasting, fits of insanity, were suddenly seized with the most immoderate transports. Boundless fields of wealth, it was thought, were opened, endless markets for the produce of manufacturing industry dis- covered ; and those fabled regious w T hich formed the Eldorado of Sir Walter Raleigh, appeared about to pour on this success. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 131 their inexhaustible treasures into the British islands, chap. Under the influence of these highly excited feelings, every 1806. principle of reason, every suggestion of sense, every con- sideration of policy, every lesson of experience, was swept away : speculations the most extravagant were entered into, projects the most insensate formed, expectations the most ridiculous entertained ; and government, unable to with- stand the torrent, were obliged to dissemble their real feel- J Ann. Keg. i . • • i i'iii 1806, 237, mgs, and give a certain counteuance to ideas which could 238. be fraught only with ruin to all who acted upon them. 1 But long before the cabinet of St James's were cither required to come to a resolution in what manner they Buenos were to act in regard to their new acquisition, or the ^tlkenV boundless consignments which were in preparation could ^* s have crossed the Atlantic, the conquest itself had returned Au s- 4 - to the government of its former masters. Ashamed of their defeat by a handful of foreigners, and recovered from the consternation which the unwonted occurrence of an invasion had at first produced, the Spaniards began to entertain serious thoughts 'of expelling the intruders. An insurrection was secretly organised in the city of Buenos Ayres, almost under the eyes of the English com- manders, without their being aware of what was going forward. The militia of the surrounding districts were assembled; Colonel Linieres, a French officer in the Spanish service, favoured by a thick fog, succeeded in crossing over from Monte Video at the head of a thou- sand regular troops; and on the 4th August the small English garrison, assailed by several thousand men from without, found itself menaced with insurrection within the city. The state of the weather rendered embarka- Aug. 12. tion impossible ; a desperate conflict ensued in the town ; and the English troops, after sustaining for several hours an unequal conflict with the enemy, in greatly superior force in the streets, and a still more deadly because unseen foe in the windows and on the roofs of houses, were obliged to capitulate. The terms of the surrender 132 HISTORY OF' EUROTE. chap, were afterwards violated by the Spaniards, and the XLIL whole remaining troops, thirteen hundred in number, 1806. mac i e prisoners of war, after haying lost nearly two hundred in killed and wounded. Sir Home Popham, the author of these calamities, succeeded in making his escape with the squadron, and cast anchor off the mouth of the river, where he maintained a blockade till reinforce- ments enabled the British to resume the offensive, attended, in the end, with still more unfortunate circum- stances in the succeeding year. General Miranda, whose projects against South America had been the remote cause of all these disasters, disappointed in his expecta- tions of assistance both from the British and American governments, set sail from New York at the head of a most inadequate force of one sloop and two schooners ; i Ann. Reg. and after undergoing many hardships, and landing on the all 6 ' 240 ' Spanish main, was obliged to re-embark and make the best of his way back to Trinidad. 1 Differences at this period arose, which threatened to Differences involve the British government in a far more serious Si^gard contest with the United States of North America. They to neutral originated in grievances which unquestionably gave the Americans much ground for complaint, although no fault could be imputed to the English maritime policy; and they were the necessary result of their having engrossed a large portion of the lucrative carrying trade between the belligerent powers. The first subject of complaint was the impressment of seamen said to be British in the American service : the next, the alleged violation of neutral rights, by the seizure and condemnation of vessels engaged in the carrying trade between France and her own or allied colonies. The first, though a practice of all others the most likely to produce feelings of irritation among those upon whom it was exercised, arose unavoid- ably from the similarity of habits and identity of language in the two states, which of course rendered desertion frequent from the one service to the other; and was a 1806. HISTORY OF EUROTE. 133 necessary consequence from the right of search which the chap. American government, by a solemn treaty in 1794, had recognised, and which constituted the basis of the whole maritime laws of Europe. It was impossible to expect that when British officers, in the course of searching neutral vessels for contraband articles, came upon English sailors who had deserted to the service of these neutrals, and whom they recognised, they should not reclaim them for their own country. If abuses were committed in the exercise of this delicate right, that was a good reason for making regulations to check them as far as possible, and provide for a due investigation of the matter, but none for abrogating the privilege altogether. 1 '"" The 'The ew, second arose from the decisions of the English admiralty per sir courts, which now declared good prize neutral vessels Ro ' b in S n"'s carrying colonial produce from the enemy's colonies to Rep - "■ m - the mother state, though they had landed and paid duties , Case of in the neutral country, contrary to the former usage, p° 1 1 ] ^ Ju1 >' which admitted that step as a break in the continuity of Rob. ii. 368. the voyage, and protected the cargo. 2 The ground of the distinction, as explained by Sir William Scott, was, that to bring the neutral within the * On the part of the Americans it was contended, " that the practice of searching for and impressing seamen on board their vessels was not only dero- gatory to the honour of their flag as an independent nation, but led to such out- rages and abuses, that, while it continued, no lasting peace or amity could be expected with Great Britain. It continually happened that native Americans were impressed, and obliged to serve in the English navy on pretence of their being British-born subjects; and such was the similarity of language and external appearance between the two nations, that even with the fairest inten- tions such mistakes must frequently happen. A practice which leads to such abuses cannot be tolerated by an independent state. It is in vain to appeal to abstract right, or the practice of other states ; the close similarity of the Ameri- cans and English renders the exercise of it infinitively more grievous in their case, than it could be in any other. The American government are willing to concur in any reasonable measures to prevent British deserters from finding refuge on board the American ships ; but they can no longer permit the liberty of their citizens to depend on the interested or capricious sentence of an English officer." To this it was replied on the part of Great Britain, " That no power but her own could release a British subject from the allegiance which he owed to the government of his nativity ; and that, provided she infringed not the jurisdiction of other independent states, she had a right to enforce their services wherever she found them : that no state could, by the maritime law, prevent its merchant 1806. 134 history op euroim:. chap, exception, it was necessary that there should be a bona fide landing and payment of duties ; and so it had been expressly stated in Lord Hawkesbury's declaration on Grounds of the subject, issued in 1802; whereas, under the system of England of revenue laws established in the United States, this bj$L w. e was Dot done. On the contrary, the payment of the Scott. duties was only secured by bonds, which were cancelled by debentures for the same sums the moment the goods were re-exported, which was usually done, without un- lading, next day, so that the whole was a mere evasion, and cost only 3^ per cent on the amount of the sums nominally paid. It was strictly conformable to legal principle to refuse to recognise such an elusory proceed- ing as sufficient to break the continuity of the voyage, and permit the goods to set out on their travels anew, as from a neutral state; but it was equally natural that the sufferers under this distinction should exclaim loudly . „ . . , against its severity, and ascribe to the British courts 1 Kobinson s # ° J ' Repo^iii- inconsistent conduct, in first recognising as legal a trade Ann. Reg. from the enemy's colony to the mother state, interrupted 1806 246 . 248.'" by payment of duties at a neutral harbour, and then, 1 after extensive capital had, on the faith of that recogni- vessels being searched for contraband articles; and if in the course of that search her subjects were discovered, who had withdrawn from their lawful allegiance, on what principle could the neutral refuse to give them up 1 It is impossible to maintain that a belligerent may search neutral vessels for articles of a certain sort, held contraband and belonging to that neutral, and not at the same time reclaim its own subjects, if simultaneously discovered. The right of impress- ment is a necessary corollary from the right of search ; it is in truth the exercise of a still clearer privilege. The difficulty of distinguishing an Englishman from an American is no reason for abandoning the right of searching for subjects of the former state, whatever reason it may afford for discrimination and forbear- ance in the exercise of it. If the right is abused, the officer guilty of the wrong will meet with exemplary punishment; if the Americans can show that a native of the United States has by mistake been seized for a Briton, he will be imme- diately released ; but it is impossible for Great Britain to relinquish for an instant a right essential to the existence of her navy, and the knowledge of which alone prevents her ships of war being deserted for the higher wages which the lucrative commerce of neutrals enables them to offer, as a bribe to the principal defenders of her independence. If such a change is ever to be made, it can only be on the neutrals providing some substitute for the present practice equally efficacious, and not moi'e liable to abuse, which has never yet been done." — See Ann. Reg. 1S06, 241, 245. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 135 nition, been sunk in the traffic, declaring the vessels chap. engaged in it good prize. _ i 8 oe. To these serious and lasting subjects of discord, was 54 added the irritation produced by an unfortunate shot v« from the British ship Leander, on the' coast of America, of Congress, which killed a native of that country, and produced so vehement a commotion, that Mr Jefferson issued an intemperate proclamation, forbidding the crew of that and some other English vessels from entering the har- bours of the United States. Meetings took place in all the principal cities of the Union, at which violent resolu- tions on all the subjects of complaint were passed by acclamation. Congress caught the flame, and after some preliminary angry decrees, passed a non-importation act Apni 18. against the manufactures of Great Britain, to take effect on the 15th November following. The English people were equally loud in the assertion of their maritime rights, and everything announced the commencement of \*™-*&- a Transatlantic war by a state already engaged with 249. more than half of Europe. 1 - But, fortunately for both countries, whose real inter- 55 ests are not more closely united than their popular pas- Th-™- sions are at variance, the adjustment of the matters in bothies dispute was placed in wiser and cooler heads than the differences. excited populace of either. Commissioners were sent from America to negotiate with Great Britain, and endeavour to obtain some clear and precise rule for regu- lating their trade with the enemy's colonies, not liable to be changed by orders of council or decisions of courts as to the intentions of parties. These commissioners were Mr Munroe and Mr Pinckney on the part of the United States, and Lords Holland and Auckland on that of Great Britain. The instructions of their respective governments were of the most conciliatory kind, and the gentlemen on both sides entered upon their important duties in a corresponding spirit. Under such auspices the negotiation, how difficult and embarrassing soever, 1800'. 136 HISTORY OF EUROTE. chap, could hardly fail of being brought to a successful issue. With respect to the impressment of seamen, the subject was found to be surrounded with such difficulties, that the American commissioners, in opposition to the letter of their instructions, found themselves constrained to be satisfied, in the mean time, with a pledge bj the British government, that they would issue directions for the exer- cise of this right with the greatest delicacy and forbear- ance, and would afford immediate redress upon any representation of injury sustained by America, reserving the final discussion of the matter to a future opportunity. But on the other points in controversy a satisfactory adjustment was effected. A clear and precise rule Mas laid clown for the regulation of the circuitous trade between the colonies and parent states of the enemy, which defined the difference between a continuous and interrupted voyage, and stipulated that, besides the goods being landed and the duties paid, there should remain, after the drawback, a duty of one per cent on European, and two per cent on colonial produce ; and an extension of the maritime jurisdiction of the United States was agreed to, five miles from the shore of their territory. Thus, by good sense and moderation on both sides, were these difficult questions satisfactorily adjusted, > Ann. Reg. and the British nation honourably extricated from an 250.Art.ii embarrassment which threatened, under far more perilous Treaty.' circumstances, to renew the dangers of the armed neu- trality or the northern coalition. 1 While England was thus extending her naval domi- Continentai nion into every part of the globe, and asserting with ne S a sbetw°een equal forbearance and spirit the maritime rights essential Prasb?a. and t° the preservation of the vast fabric, Napoleon was rapidly advancing in his career of terrestrial empire. Prussia was the first power which felt the humiliation to which these incessant advances led in all the adjoining states. The singular treaty has already been mentioned HISTORY OF EUROTE. 137 which was concluded by Count Haugwitz on the 15tli chap. December, whereby he substituted for the intended war- L_ like defiance an alliance purchased by the cession of 1806, Hanover from the unconscious and neutral, if not allied, England. Great was the embarrassment of the cabinet of Berlin when the intelligence of this unexpected arrangement arrived. On the one hand, the object of their ambition for the last ten years seemed now about to be obtained, and the state to be rounded by an adjoining territory which would bring it an addition of nearly a million of souls. On the other, some remains of conscience made them feel ashamed of thus partitioning a friendly power, and they were not without dread of offending Alexander by openly sharing in the spoils of his faithful ally. At length, however, the magnitude of the tempta- tion and the terror of Napoleon prevailed over the king's better principles, and it was determined not to ratify the treaty unconditionally, but to send it back to Paris with certain modifications. As a colour to the transaction, and also, perhaps, as a salve .to their own consciences, it was agreed to " accept the proposed exchange of Hanover for the Margravates, on condition that the completion of it should be deferred till a general peace, and the consent of the King of Great Britain in the mean time be obtained ;" while it was represented to the English minister at Berlin Jan. 26. that arrangements had been concluded with France for insuring the tranquillity of Hanover, which " stipulated expressly the committing of that country to the exclusive guard of the Prussian troops, and to the administration of the king, until the conclusion of a general peace." But i Harden- not a word was said of any ulterior designs of definitely Jr? Ln%, annexing Hanover to the Prussian dominions; and in the 12^° Mr mean time the French troops were replaced by the Prussian A 8 n n 6 - *«§• in that electorate, a large part of the army was disbanded, Hard. ij. and a proclamation to the same effect issued by the king v. 223, 226. on taking possession of that territory. 1 But it was alike foreign to the character and the designs 138 HISTORY O.F EUROPE. chap, of Napoleon to admit any modifications, how trifling soever, in the treaties which he had concluded with the 1806. ministers of inferior powers. The utmost indignation, increasing therefore, was expressed at St Cloud at the modifications beuveen'the proposed to be inserted in the treaty. " From that nIt° s .Prussia moment," says Bignon, " on the part of Napoleon the Hanover question was decided ; all sincere alliance was become impossible between Prussia and him ; it was regarded only as a suspected power, whose hollow friendship had Feb. 4. ceased to have any value in his eyes." On the 4th February it was officially announced to Haugwitz, that " as the treaty of Vienna had not been ratified within the prescribed time by the Prussian government, the Emperor regarded it as no longer binding." This rigour had the desired effect ; Prussia had not resolution enough to Feb. 15. resist ; and on the 1 5th February a new and still more disgraceful treaty was signed by Haugwitz at Paris, which openly stipulated not only the annexation of Hanover to the Prussian dominions, but the exclusion of the British flag from the ports of that electorate. It was ratified on the 26th, and immediately carried into execution. Count March 28. Schulenberg took possession of Hanover on the part of the Prussian monarchy, and immediately issued a proclama- tion, closing its harbours against English vessels. Finally, i8o" n i59 eg " on t Qe 1st April a patent appeared, formally annexing the Bign.v.232, electorate to the Prussian dominions, on pretence that, 2o4. Hard. . ix. 107. when belonging to Napoleon by the right of conquest, it 407, 408.' had been transferred to Prussia, in consideration of three of her provinces ceded to France. 1 This system of seizing possession of the territories of Measures of neutral or friendly states, in order to meet the wishes or by Great n suit the inclinations of greater potentates, when bounding Britain. their dominions, to which Napoleon, through his whole administration, was so much inclined, had succeeded per- fectly when the objects of spoliation were powers, like Venice or Naples, too weak to manifest their resentment. But Prussia was egregiously mistaken when she applied HISTORY OF EUROPE. 139 it to Great Britain. So early as the 3d February, Count chap xlii. 1806. Minister, the Regent of Hanover, had protested against the occupation of that electorate by the Prussian forces, , p , -. Feb. 6. from having observed in the conduct ot their generals various indications of an intention to do more than take March 17. possession of it for a temporary purpose. At the same time the mildest remonstrance, accompanied by a request of explanation, had been made by Mr Fox, when the intentions of the cabinet of Berlin became still more suspicious. But no sooner did intelligence arrive of the exclusion of the English flag from the harbours of the Elbe, and the Prussian proclamation appear announcing that they took possession of the country in virtue of the French right of conquest, than that spirited minister took the most decisive measures to show that perfidious govern- ment the dispositions of the power they had thought fit to provoke. The British ambassador was immediately recalled from Berlin ; the Prussian harbours were declared in a state of blockade ; an embargo was laid on all vessels of that April -23. nation in the British harboursj while a message from the King to both houses of parliament announced his resolu- tion " to assert the dignity of his crown, and his anxious expectation for the arrival of that moment when a more liberal and enlightened policy on the part of Prussia should remove every impediment to the renewal of peace and friendship with a power with whom his majesty had no other cause of difference than that now created by these hostile acts." An order in council was soon after issued, authorising the seizure of all vessels navigating 1 Hard.'ix. under Prussian colours ; and such was the effect of these 3-^.283. measures, that the Prussian flag was soon almost swept A 8 n n 6 - ^?|- from the ocean : and before many weeks had elapsed, four jsi- Pari J ... Deb.v1.0W, hundred of its merchant vessels had found their way into wtf. the harbours of Great Britain. 1 In the speech which he made shortly after in the House of Commons, Mr Fox drew in vivid colours, and depicted with all the force of his eloquence, the humiliating and 140 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, disgraceful part which Prussia had taken in this transac- XLIL tion. " The Emperor of Russia," said he, " after he left 1806. Austerlitz, abandoned the whole direction of his troops Mr Fox's that remained in Germany to the King of Prussia, and the e subje n ct. this country had promised him powerful assistance in pecuniary supplies. These were the means which he pos- sessed of giving weight to his negotiations ; and what use did he make of them 1 Why, to seize a part of the terri- tories of those powers who had been supporting him in the rank and situation that had enabled him to negotiate on fair terms with the French Emperor. At first he pre- tended only to take interim possession of the electorate of Hanover, till the consent of its lawful sovereign could be obtained to its cession at a general peace ; but latterly this thin disguise was laid aside, and he openly avowed that he accepted it in full sovereignty from France, to which it belonged by right of conquest. Such a proceed- ing rests upon no other conceivable foundation, but that worst emanation of the disorders and calamities of Europe in recent times — the principle of transferring the people of other states from one power to another, like so many cattle, upon the footing of mutual ambition or conve- nience. We may not at present be able to prevent the transfer ; but let us protest solemnly against its injustice, and vigorously make use of the forces which Providence has given us to make the guilty league feel the conse- quences of our just indignation. The pretext that Prussia received this territory from Napoleon, to whom it belonged by right of conquest, is as hollow as it is discreditable. It was merely occupied in a temporary way by the French troops ; it formed no part of the French empire ; above all, its cession had never been agreed to by this country — and where is there to be found an instance in history i Pari, Deb. f such a cession of military acquisition pending the vi 890 89° , . • • 892. Anm' contest % The conduct of Prussia in this transaction is a Reg. 1806, com p 0im( j f ever ything that is contemptible in servility, with everything that is odious in rapacity. 1 Other nations HISTORY OF EUROTE. 141 have yielded to the ascendant of military power — Austria CHAr XLII. 1806. was forced, by the fortune of war, to cede many of her provinces ; Prussia alone, without any external disaster, has descended at once to the lowest point of degradation — that of becoming the minister of the injustice and rapacity of a master." In consenting to this infamous transaction, the cabinet & . 60. of Berlin were doubtless actuated by the desire to depre- Napoleon's cate the wrath and conciliate the favour of the French iWiain Emperor. It is worth while to examine, therefore, Son! 1118 " whether that object was gained, and in what light their conduct was viewed by that dreaded conqueror. " From the moment," says Bignon, " that the treaty of 1 5th Feb- ruary was signed, Napoleon did more than hate Prussia — he conceived for that power the most profound contempt. All his views from that day were based on considerations foreign to its alliance : he conceived new projects — he formed new plans, as if that alliance no longer existed. In the mean time, he pressed the execution of all the stipulations it contained favourable to France : he would not permit the delay of a single day." 1 Hardenberg had » Bign. 23-?. the good fortune to escape the disgrace of being privy to these proceedings : he had, from his known hostility to Napoleon, been obliged to withdraw from the Prussian 107. cabinet before they were finally consummated. 2 The effects of this unmeasured contempt of Prussia soon appeared in a series of measures which overturned the whole His further constitution of the Germanic empire, and ultimately brought ^gre^on" the former power into hasty and ill-fated collision with ™^ r " the French empire. On 1 5th March, Murat, without any previous concert with the cabinet of Berlin, was invested with the duchies of Berg and Cleves, ceded to France, by the treaty of 15th February, by Bavaria, in exchange for the Prussian provinces of Anspach and Baireuth in Fran- conia. The establishment of a soldier of fortune, the brother-in-law of Napoleon, in the very heart of the West- phalian provinces, was not calculated to allay the now 142 HISTORY OP EUROPE. chap, awakened jealousy of the Prussian government ; and this XLII 1806. feeling was strongly increased when the French troops, towards the end of April, took possession of the abbacies of Warden, Essen, and Elten, on pretence that they belonged to the duchy of Cleves, without any regard to the claims of Prussia to these territories, founded on a prior right. This irritation was augmented by the impe- rious conduct of the French generals in the north of Germany, who openly demanded a contribution of four million francs (£160,000) from the city of Frankfort; and, in terms equally menacing, required a loan from the city of Hamburg to a still larger amount; while, in Bremen, every kind of merchandise suspected to be English, was seized without distinction, and committed to the flames. Six millions of francs (£240,000) was the price at which the imperial robber condescended, in a time of profound Continental peace, to tender to the city of Hamburg and i Bign. v. the Hanse Towns his protection. The veil which had so 247, 270. i on o. } lun o- before the eyes of the Prussian government now Ann. Keg. oo J © 1806 164. began to fall ; they perceived, with indescribable pain, Hard. ix. : 8. the hostility of its enemies. 1 No words can paint the mingled feelings of shame, Universal patriotism, and indignation, which animated all ranks in illtSnorth Prussia, when the rapid course of events left no longer of Germany. an ^ ^q^^ n0 £ on \j fa^ their rights and interests were totally disregarded by France, in favour of whom they they had made so many sacrifices ; but that they had sunk to this depth of degradation without any attempt to assert their dignity as an independent power. The Queen and Prince Louis, who had so long mourned in vain the temporising policy and degraded position of their country, now gave open vent to their indignation ; nor did they appeal in vain to the patriotic spirit of the people. The inhabitants of that monarchy, clear-sighted and intelligent beyond almost any other, as well as 136, 224, that their long course of obsequiousness to France had 225. Bour. i p i ii pi i vii.137,158. procured lor them only the contempt ot that power, and niSTOKY OF EUROPE. 143 enthusiastic and brave, perceived distinctly the gulf into chap. which their country was about to fall. One universal * cry of indignation burst forth from all ranks. It was not 180G - mere warlike enthusiasm, but the profoundest feeling of national shame and humiliation which animated the people. The young officers loudly demanded to be led to the combat; the elder spoke of the glories of Frederick and Rosbach: an irresistible current swept away the whole nation. Publications, burning with indignant eloquence, issued from all the free cities in the north of Germany where a shadow even of independence was still preserved ; * and that universal fervour ensued which is i Anri> Reg> the invariable forerunner, for good or for evil, of great gJSdJf- events. Guided by wisdom and prudence, it might have ™b£ 9 \ led to the most splendid results ; impelled by passion and 416,420.' directed by imbecility, it induced unheard-of disasters. 1 While these generous feelings were gaining strength in the north of Germany, unbounded discontent arose in the Formation south, from the exactions of the French army, which LJlcyof retired from Austria after the peace of Pressburg. Accord- the Rhlne - ing to Napoleon's usual policy, the whole of these immense bodies of men were fed, clothed, and lodged, at the expense of the territories in which they were quartered, or through which they passed ' K and a large part of their pay was also laid on the unhappy Germans, under pretence of retaining it, as a gratuity for the men, in the imperial exchequer, when they returned home. Unbounded was the exaspe- * One of the most remarkable of these was a pamphlet published by the cele- brated Gentz, which at the time produced a very great sensation. " The war Gentz's pam- hitherto conducted against France," said he, " was just and necessary in its 1^°" the origin, and certainly it has not become less so during its progress. If it has hitherto failed from false measures, are we to regard everything as lost ? Is Germany destined to become what Holland, Switzerland, Spain, and Italy now are 1 But how is our salvation to be effected 2 By assembling what is dis- persed, raising what is fallen, resuscitating what is dead. We have had enough of the leagues of princes ; they have proved as futile as they are precarious. There remains to us but one resource — that the brave and the good should unite; that they should form a holy league for our deliverance : that is the only alliance that can defy the force of arms, and restore liberty to nations, and peace to the world. You, then, who amidst the universal shipwreck have yet preserved the freedom of your souls, the honesty of your hearts; who have 144 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, ration which this iniquitous system excited in the countries XLIL in which it was enforced. But strong as were the feelings 1806. Q f p a t r i ti sm anc l indignation which the conquests and rapacity of the French had awakened in a large portion of the German people, they were not as yet universal : the hour of the resurrection of the Fatherland had not arrived. By appealing to the blind ambition of some of their princes, and nattering the inconsiderate feelings of many of their people, Napoleon had contrived to animate one portion of its inhabitants against the other ; and on this division of opinion he had formed the project of reducing the whole to servitude. The first design of the Confederation of the Rhine had been formed, as already noticed, the year before, during the residence of the Emperor at Mayence ; but it was brought to maturity, from his witnessing the enthusiasm excited among the lesser states of Germany by the victories in which they had shared, gained under the standards of France over Austria, and the regal dignity to which these had elevated their sovereigns. France, on this occasion, played off with fatal effect the policy so uniformly followed by its chiefs since the Revolution — that of rousing one portion of the population in the adjoining states against the other, and raising itself, by their mutual divisions, to supreme dominion over both. As his differences with Russia assumed a more envenomed character, and the hostility of Prussia became more apparent, Napoleon felt daily hearts capable of sacrificing your all for the good of your fellow-citizens, turn your eyes upon your country; behold it mutilated, bleeding, weighed down, but not destroyed : in all but the grave there is hope. It is neither to England nor Russia that we must look for our deliverance, how desirable soever the co-operation of these powers may be; it is for Germany alone that the honour of our deliverance is reserved. It is Germany which must raise itself from its ruins, and accomplish the general emancipation. We shall do more : ice shall deliver France itself, and restore to that power a free and pacific existence, consistent with the independence of Europe." Gentz, Europe en 1806; and Hard. ix. 122, 123. On the eve of the battle of Jena, what could appear more misplaced than this prophecy ! yet how exactly it was accomplished at a future time ! — a remarkable instance of the manner in which genius, piercing through the clouds of present events, can discern the ultimate changes in which they are to terminate. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 145 more strongly the necessity of uniting the states in alliance chap. with him into a durable confederacy, which should enable -1 — _ him at all times to direct their military resources to his 180b - own purposes. It was no small matter to have such an outwork beyond the great frontier rampart of the Rhine ; their contingents of troops would place nearly a fourth of the military force of Germany at his disposal ; and, what was to him perhaps of still greater importance, under , Hard ix> the pretence of stationing the vast contingent of France JgJJJbo, in such a situation as to protect its allies, he might lay sos. .Luc-' the whole expenses of two hundred thousand men on their isl u resources. Influenced by such desires on both sides, the negotia- u tions for the conclusion of the treaty were not long of p ™ e ^ d - being brought to a termination. The plenipotentiaries X confe- of all the powers who were to be admitted into the con- deracy * federacy assembled at Paris in the beginning of July ; and on the 12th of that month, the act of the confedera- tion was signed. The members of it were — the Emperor of the French, the Kings of J3avaria and Wiirtemberg, the Archbishop of Ratisbon, the Elector of Baden, the Grand-duke of Berg, the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, the Princes of Nassau-Weilburg, Nassau-Usingen, Hohen- zollern-Hechingen, Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Salm-Salm, Salm-Kirburg, Isemburg-Birchstein, Aremberg, Lichten- stein-Darmberg, and the Count de la Leyen. The Arch- duke Ferdinand, Grand-duke of Wiirtzburg, acceded to the confederacy a short time afterwards. By the act of Sept. so. confederation, the states in alliance were declared to be severed for ever from the Germanic empire, rendered independent of any power foreign to the confederacy, and placed under the protection of the Emperor of the French. Any hostility committed against any of them was to be considered as a declaration of war against the whole. 2 "Arts. \,J, Several of the allies received accessions of territory or dignity : the free towns of Frankfort and Nuremberg were handed over, the first to the Prince Primate of VOL. vii. K 146 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. Ratisbon, the second to the King of Bavaria : all the XLIL members of the confederacy were invested with the full 1805. SO y ere ig n ty of their respective states, and received a gift i Arts. 24, of the foreign territories enclosed within their dominions. 1 25 ' Lastly, a separate article provided the military contingent which each of the confederates was to furnish for their , Q „, common protection ; which were, for France, two hundred 2 Seelreatv, v 1 _. r Cl . 1 , .-, j Ann. Re g : thousand, and for the German states, fifty-eight thousand Martens' ' men. But subsequent experience soon proved that Napo- Ifiolloe! 1 "' leon exacted and received military aid to double that number from them. 2 '" This confederacy was by far the most important blow The Em- which Napoleon had yet levelled at the independence of rounVes'the the European states. It was no longer an inconsiderable Ge™any. power, such as Switzerland, Venice, or Holland, which received a master from the conqueror : the venerable fabric of the Germanic empire had been pierced to the heart, and some of her fairest provinces had been reft from the empire of the Csesars. The impression produced in Europe by this aggression was proportionally great. Sixteen millions of men were by a single stroke transferred from the empire to a foreign alliance ; and profound pity was felt for the Emperor, the first sovereign of Christendom, who was thus despoiled of a large portion of the dominions which, for above a thousand years, had been enjoyed by his predecessors. Charlemagne had been crowned emperor in 800 ; Napoleon dissolved the empire in 1 806. Immense was the sensation which this violent aggression produced in Europe. Nor was this feeling of commiseration lessened * The contingents were settled as follows : — France, 200,000 Bavaria, 30,000 Wiirteniberg, . 12,000 Baden, 3,000 Berg, 5,000 Darmstadt, 4,000 Nassau, Hohenzollern, and others, 4,000 258,000 — Ann. Beg. 1806, 166. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 147 by what immediately followed. On the 1st August chap. notification was sent to the Diet of Ratisbon of the formation of the confederacy, both on the part of the 1806 ' Emperor of France and the coalesced princes. The former deemed it unnecessary to assign any reasons for his con- duct ; but the latter pleaded, as their excuse for violating their engagements to the empire, the inconsistency between their present situation and their ancient bonds, and the necessity, amidst the weakness of their former chief, of looking out for a new protector, who might possess power adequate to secure them from insult. Under such flimsy devices did these selfish princes conceal a dereliction of loyalty and desertion of their country, calculated to produce unbounded calamities to Germany, and which they them- selves were destined afterwards to expiate with tears of blood. But how keenly soevec the Emperor Francis might feel the open blow thus levelled at his dignity, and the formation of a separate and hostile state in the heart of his dominions, he was not in a situation to give vent to his resentment. , Soult still held the battlements of Braunau ; on one pretext or another the evacuation of the German states, which by the treaty of Pressburg was to be effected at latest in three months, had been delayed ; the French battalions were in great strength on the Inn ; the prisoners made during the campaign had not been restored ; while the dispirited Austrian troops had not yet recovered the rude shocks of Ulm and Austerlitz. Au g .6and9. Wisely yielding, therefore, to a storm which they could 240^243.' not prevent, the Imperial cabinet dissembled their feelings; ^' Y ^ 7 d \ and, mstly considering this stroke as entirely subversive [ x - 15 7. ' J J ° . ill Martens, of the empire, the Emperor Francis, by a solemn deed, viii. 501. renounced the throne of the Caesars, and declared himself 50.5. ' the first of a new series of Emperors of Austria. 1 * * Napoleon set forth, in his communication to the Diet of Ratisbon, announcing the Confederation of the Rhine : — " The German constitution is no longer but a shadow ; the Diet has ceased to have any will of its own. His majesty the Emperor and king can, therefore, no longer recognise its existence. He has accepted, in consecmence, the "title of Protector of the Confederation 148 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. Though in appearance levelled at the Emperor Francis XLIL as chief of the empire, this violent dislocation of the 1806. Germanic body was in reality still more formidable to Great sensa- Prussia, from the close proximity of its frontier to the these^events coalesced states. The sensation, accordingly, which it ST 8 * produced at Berlin was unbounded. All classes, from the cabinet of the King to the privates in the army, perceived the gulf which was yawning beneath their feet; they saw clearly that they were disregarded and despised, and reserved only for the melancholy privilege of being last devoured. The increasing aggressions of Napoleon or his vassals speedily made them aware that this was their destiny. The senseless declamations of Murat, in particular, contributed not a little to open the eyes of all persons in the north of Germany to the dangers which awaited them. His companions said at table, " Yours is a pretty principality, indeed, for the brother-in-law of so great an emperor. Doubtless you will soon be King of Westphalia, and get a noble king- dom carved out of that despicable Prussia, which has betrayed all the world." Bernadotte, who was established at Anspach, indulged in still more extravagant chimeras; and Augereau's officers at Wiirtzburg drank toasts openly, to success in the approaching war with Prussia. Nor were these vain and senseless words only. Murat advanced claims seriously to the principality of Embden, and the three abbacies which formed part of the indemnity awarded to Prussia for its cessions in Franconia, as of the Rhine. In his pacific views, he declares that he will never cany his Addresses of views beyond that river. He has hitherto been faithful to all his promises." Napoleon The confederate princes declared, — " The results of the three last wars having peror Francis proved that the Germanic body was really dissolved, the princes of the West to the Ger- au( j South have deemed it expedient to renounce all connexion with a power which has ceased to exist, and to range themselves under the banners of the Emperor of the French, who is bound alike by the interests of his glory and those of his empire to secure to them the enjoyment of external and internal tranquillity." With more truth and dignity the Emperor Francis said, in his act renouncing the throne of the empire : — " Being convinced of the impos- sibility of discharging any longer the duties which the Imperial throne imposed upon us, we owe it to our principles to abdicate a crown which could have no HISTORY OF EUROTE. 149 well as to the free cities of Hamburg and Bremen, chap. xlii. The twenty-fourth article of the Confederation of the Rhine conferred on that military chief the sovereignty 1806, of all the German principalities of the House of Orange, and rendered its head, brother-in-law to the King of Prussia, tributary to the vassal of Napoleon ; while the injurious treatment to which the Prince of Latour and Taxis, brother-in-law of the Queen of Prussia, was exposed, was a fresh outrage to that monarch in the most sensitive part. To avoid, however, if possible, an immediate Sept. 27. rupture with the court of Berlin, Prussia was given to understand by the French Emperor, that if she was desir- ous to form a league of the states who were attached more or less to her in the north of Germany, France would not oppose its formation."" But that power was informed shortly after, that the Hanse Towns, which Napoleon Oct. 3. reserved for his own immediate protection, could not be permitted to join that northern confederacy ; that Saxony could not be allowed to form a part of it against its J^Jef* will ; while the Elector of Hesse was invited to join the gjjf-^jjj Confederacy of tlie Rhine, and on his refusing to comply, Reg. \m, was struck at by a resolution which cut on his access to vi. 507, 551. part of his own dominions. 1 But all these grievances, serious as they were, sank into insignificance compared to that which arose, when it was discovered by M. Lucchesini, the Prussian ambas- sador at Paris, that France had entered into negotia- tions with England on the footing of the restitution of value in our eyes, when we were unable to discharge its duties and deserve the confidence of the Princes Electors of the empire. Therefore it is that, con- sidering the bonds which unite us to the empire as dissolved by the Confedera- tion of the Rhine, we renounce the Imperial crown, and by these presents absolve the electors, princes, and states, members of the supreme tribunal, and other magistrates, from the duties which unite them to us as their legal chief." See Hard. ix. 159, 162. * "L'Empereur Napoleon verra sans peine, et meme avec plaisir, que la Prusse range sous son influence, au moyen d'une confederation semblable a celle du Rhin, tons les e'tats du nord d'Allemagne. On promettait de n'apporter aucun obstacle a une confederation de ce guerte. Napoleon a I'ambassadeur Francais d Berlin, Septembre 29,1806."— Thiers, vi. 507. 150 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. Hanover to its lawful sovereign; that while continually !— urging the cabinet of Berlin to look for indemnities for lm ' such a loss on the side of Pomerania, Napoleon had Fresh u'm- engaged to Russia, in the treaty signed with d'Oubril, Pnf s e s iaat its ambassador at Paris, to prevent them from depriving ofVrance tne King of Sweden of any part of his German domi- WarHke Sia ' n * ms > au d that while still professing sentiments of amity preparations and friendship to Frederick-William, he had offered to of Prussia. i • 1 throw no obstacles in the way of the re-establishment of the kingdom of Poland, including the whole of Polish Prussia, in favour of the Grand-duke Constantine. Irritated beyond endurance by such a succession of insults, and anxious to regain the place which he was conscious he had lost in the estimation of Europe, the Aug. o. King of Prussia put his armies on the war-footing, des- patched M. Krusemark to St Petersburg, and M. Jacobi to London, to endeavour to effect a reconciliation with these powers ; opened the navigation of the Elbe ; con- cluded his differences with Sweden ; assembled his gene- rals, and caused his troops to defile in the direction of Leipsic. The torrent of public indignation at Berlin became irresistible : the war party overwhelmed all oppo- sition; in the general tumult the still small voice of reason, which counselled caution and preparation in the outset of so great an enterprise, was overborne. Prince Louis and his confederates openly boasted that Prussia, strong in the recollection of the Great Frederick, and the discipline he had bequeathed to his followers, was able, single-handed, to strike down the conqueror of Europe ; the young officers repaired at night to sharpen their sabres on the window-sills of the French ambassa- dor ; warlike and patriotic songs resounded, amidst > Hard. ix. thunders of applause, at the theatres ; and the Queen b^.v.409, roused the general enthusiasm to the highest pitch, by Reg. i8o?' clis P la J m g her beautiful figure on horseback in the streets 167. ' of Berlin, at the head of her regiment of hussars, in the uniform of the corps. 1 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 151 While Prussia, suddenly and violently awakening from chap. the trance of ten years, was thus taking up arms and rushing headlong into a contest, single-handed, with the 1806, conqueror of southern Europe, negotiations of an inipor- Renewed tant character, terminating in a resolution equally warlike, discord* had taken place with Russia and England. The retreat ^I!! n , i Jr or ranee ami of the Emperor Alexander and his army from the disas- Russia - trous field of Austerlitz, had apparently extinguished all causes of discord between the vast empires of Russia and France. Their territories nowhere were in contact. The vast barrier of Germany, with its two thousand walled cities, and forty millions of warlike inhabitants, severed them from each other. They had parted with mutual expressions of esteem, and the interchange of courteous deeds between the victor and the vanquished. The conclusion of the peace of Pressburg, by releasing the Czar from all obligations towards his unfortunate ally, seemed to have still further Removed the possibility of a rupture ; while the withdrawing of Austria from the Con- tinental alliance left no rational ground for renewing the contest on account of any danger, how imminent soever, to the balance of power from the aggressions of Napoleon. "Napoleon/' said Prince Czartorinski to Alexander, "is at present victorious, but he may not be always so. Austria is beat down, but she detests her conqueror. Prussia is divided between the war and peace pursuit, but she will end by ranging herself on the side of German indepen- dence. Await your time : protract affairs till one or other of these powers is ready to act. Meanwhile remain united to England, and ready to resume your arms on the first favourable opportunity. You will in the end compel Napoleon to give you what is your due." — "When we con- tend," replied Alexander, " with that man, we are children contending with a giant. Without Prussia we can do nothing. She is the only power that has not been con- quered by France." There appeared, therefore, no chance of an immediate collision between the powers. But not- 152 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, withstanding these favourable circumstances, the secret am- bition of these potentates again brought them into collision ; 1806. ailc j ^ q liar t er where the difference arose, indicated that it 425,426.™' was the glittering prize of Constantinople which brought them to the fields of Ejlau and Friedland. 1 Cattaro, a small barren province situated to the south Differences of Ragusa, on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, derives tar°o U ,\?ich its value from the excellence of its harbour, which is the by tbe U Rui largest and safest in that sea, and the skill of its seamen, sians. which has always secured them an honourable place in its naval transactions. By the treaty of Pressburg, it had been provided that this province should be ceded by the Imperialists to the French within two months after its final ratification. When this period had expired, the French commissioners authorised to take possession had not arrived ; and the Russian agent there, taking advan- tage of that circumstance, succeeded in persuading the inhabitants, who were almost all of Greek extraction, that their intended transference to France had fallen to the ground, and that they were at liberty to tender their allegiance to whom they chose. In pursuance of these instigations, the people, who are styled Montenegrins, and ardently desired the establishment of a power professing the Greek faith within their bounds, rose in a tumultuous manner, shut up the Austrian commander, who had only a slender garrison at his disposal, within the fortress, and commenced a strict investment, in which they were soon supported by a Russian man-of-war, which arrived from March 4. Corfu. After a short blockade, he surrendered the place to the insurgents, who immediately transferred it to the Russians, by whom it was occupied in force. But the circumstances attending the transaction were so suspicious, 2 Ann _ R that the Austrian subaltern officers in the fortress pro- 150 6 ' Bi° n testecl against its conditions, and the governor was after- y 258,262. wards brought to a court-martial at Vienna for his conduct Hard. ix. , . . 195, 195. on this occasion, and sentenced to confinement in a Tran- sylvanian fortress for life. 2 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 153 Nothing that has since transpired authorises the belief chap. that Austria was privy to this transaction ; nor does any 1806. motive appear which could induce her, for so trifling an object, to run the risk of offending the Emperor Napoleon, The French whose terrible legions were still upon the Inn. But no JJ-JJ rT- sooner did he receive intelligence of it, than Napoleon f^ n a - in 4 t c ; ordered Marshal Berthier to delay the evacuation of the ^ g ]; bour " fortress of Braunau, on the Austrian frontier, and the march of all the French troops towards the Rhine was , countermanded. In this way the important object was gained of keeping a hundred and fifty thousand men still at free quarters on the German states. He made no effort to dispossess the Russians and Montenegrins from Cattaro; but, on the pretext that because the Austrians had failed in performing their obligations to him, he was at liberty to look for an indemnity wherever he could find it, seized upon the neighbouring city of Ragusa, a neutral power with which he had no cause whatever of hostility. There Lauriston, who commanded the French garrison, was shortly after besieged by the Russians both by land and May 27. sea; but before anything of moment could be transacted in that quarter, the Austrians, exhausted by the prolonged stay of such an immense body of men on their territory, made such energetic remonstrances to the cabinet of St Petersburg on the subject, that they agreed to the evacua- tion of Cattaro; and M. d'Oubril, who was despatched from the Russian cabinet to Paris, ostensibly to negotiate the exchange of prisoners, but really to conclude a treaty July 0. between the two powers, brought authority for its sur- render to the French. In consequence, however, of that ambassador having exceeded his instructions, the treaty which he concluded was not ratified by the Emperor Alexander ; and as hostilities for that reason still con- tinued, Lauriston was reduced to the last extremity in • Ragusa, and saved from destruction only by the opportune arrival of Molitor, who advanced at the head of reinforce- July 6. ments from Dalmatia. The territory of Ragusa was now 154 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, fully occupied by the French, and continued in their hands '— till the end of September, when it was invaded by a 1806, powerful body of Russians and Montenegrins. But these i Ann _ Reg . troops, having been drawn out of their intrenchments by a 15? 6 'S skilful stratagem on the part of Marmont, were attacked hS' 265 ' anc ^ d e f eate d with great loss, and even experienced some 219, 221. difficulty in regaining the fortresses of Castel Nuovo and Cattaro, from whence they had issued. 1 M. d'Oubril came to Paris by Vienna ; but, notwith- D'Oubrii standing his conferences with the English and Austrian treaty at" ministers at that capital, he appears, when he arrived at tween e " Paris, to have acted in a way not agreeable to the cabinet Russia 6 . and °f St Petersburg or his instructions. Talleyrand and the French ministers made such skilful use of the dependence of the negotiations with England, which Lord Yarmouth was at that moment conducting at Paris, and of the threat totally to destroy Austria if hostilities were resumed, that they induced in the Russian ambassador a belief that a separate peace with these powers was on the eve of signature, and that nothing but an instant compliance with the demands of the Emperor could save Europe from dismemberment, and the Czar from all the consequences of a single-handed contest with Napoleon. Under the influence of these fears July 20. and misrepresentations, he suddenly signed a treaty as disgraceful to Russia as it was contrary to the good faith which she owed to Great Britain. Not content with sur- rendering the mouths of the Cattaro, the subject of so much discord, to France, without any other equivalent than an illusory promise that the French troops should evacuate Germany in three months, he stipulated also, in the secret articles, " that if, in the course of events, Fer- dinand IV. should cease to possess Sicily, the Emperor of Russia should unite with the Emperor of France in all measures calculated to induce the court of Madrid to cede to the Prince-Royal of Naples the Balearic Isles, to be enjoyed by him and his successors with the title of king — the harbours of those islands being shut against the HISTORY OF EUROPE. 155 British flag during the continuance of the present war ; chap. that the entry to these isles should be closed against _1 !_ Ferdinand himself and his queen ; and that the contract- 1806, ing parties should concur in effecting a peace between Prussia and Sweden, without the latter power being de- prived of Pomerania " Ragusa also was to be evacuated, and the integrity of the Ottoman dominions guaranteed by both the contracting parties — a provision which forms a striking contrast to the agreement for the partition of that power concurred in within a year afterwards at Tilsit. Thus did Napoleon and d'Oubril concur in despoiling the King of Naples of the dominions which were still under his command, without any other indemnity than a nominal throne of trifling islands to his son ; gift away Sicily, garrisoned by English troops, without consulting either the court of Palermo or the cabinet of London ; dispose of the Balearic Islands, without the knowledge or , Martens consent of the King of Spain; and stipulate the retention ™| 30 |' of Pomerania by Sweden, at the very moment that France ix. 119,120. held out the acquisition of that duchy as an equivalent 329. ' which should reconcile Prussia to the loss of Hanover. 1 M. d'Oubril seemed to be aware, at the time he signed this extraordinary treaty, that he had exceeded or devi- which is ated from his instructions ; for no sooner was it concluded, by thecaM- than he set off in person to render an account of it at St p^eraburg. Petersburg, observing, at the same time — " I go to lay the treaty and my head at the feet of my imperial master." In effect, before he reached the Russian capital, intelligence of the formation of the Confederation of the Rhine had arrived, which unexpected event greatly strengthened the influence of the party hostile to France. A change of ministry had ensued : Prince Adam Czar- torinski, and the chiefs inclined for a separate accommo- dation, were displaced, and succeeded by the Baron Budberg, and the nobles who supported the English in opposition to the French alliance. The treaty was, in consequence of these events, formally disavowed by the 156 HISTORY OF EUROFE. chap. Imperial government, as "entirely in opposition to the XLIL instructions which d'Oubril had received," though they 1806. p ro f essec l their willingness to resume the negotiations on a basis which had been communicated to the cabinet of Aug. 25. the Tuileries. By this disavowal, indeed, the Russian jrovernnient was saved the dishonour which must for ever have attached to it had so disgraceful a treaty been uncon- ditionally ratified ; but upon comparing the powers con- ferred on the ambassador by one ministry, with the refusal to ratify the treaty by its successor, it was difficult to avoid the inference, that the difference in reality arose from a change of policy in the Imperial cabinet, between the time of issuing the instructions and signing the treaty, not any deviation from those instructions on the part of its ambassador. And all reflecting men began to conceive the most serious apprehensions as to the consequences which might ensue to the liberties of Europe from the 33o,°3u. alliance of two colossal powers, which thus took upon 221,222.' themselves, without any authority, to dispose of inferior thrones, and partition the territories of weaker states. 1 * The rapid succession of more important events left no Opening of time for the advance of the fresh negotiations thus pointed befwee a n lors at by the cabinet of St Petersburg. All eyes in Europe Engknd!" were turned to the conferences between France and Eng- land, which had been long in dependence at Paris ; and the turn which they were now taking left little hope that hostilities, in every quarter, could be brought to a termi- nation. This celebrated negotiation took its rise from a fortuitous circumstance equally creditable to the govern- ment of both powers. An abandoned exile, in a private * The powers conferred on M. d'Oubril bore : — " We authorise, by these presents, M. d'Oubril to enter into negotiations with a view to the establish- ment of peace, with whoever shall be sufficiently authorised on the part of the French government, and to conclude and sign with them an act or convention on bases proper to consolidate peace between Russia and France, and to pre- pare it between the other belligerent powers ; and we promise on our imperial word to hold good and execute faithfully whatever shall be agreed to and signed by our said plenipotentiary, and to adhibit to it our imperial ratification in the terms that shall be specified." On the other hand, the act of disavowal bore — " The pretended act of pacification concluded by M. d'Oubril has been Bisrn. v. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 157 audience with Mr Fox, in February, had proposed to that chap. minister to assassinate Napoleon. Either penetrating the design of this wretch, who had once been an agent of the 180G- police in Paris, or inspired by a generous desire to prevent the perpetration of so atrocious an offence, the English minister, after having at first dismissed him from his pre- sence, had the assassin apprehended, and sent information to M. Talleyrand of the proposal. This upright proceed- Feb. 10. ing led to a courteous reply from that minister, in which, after expressing his satisfaction at the new turn which the war had taken, which he regarded as a presage of what he might expect from a cabinet of which he fondly measured the sentiments according to those of Mr Fox, " one of the men who seem expressly made to feel the really grand and beautiful iu all things," he repeated that passage, in the exposition of the state of the empire by the Minister of the Interior, wherein Napoleon declared that he would always be ready to renew conferences with England on the basis of the treaty of Amiens. Mr Fox March 26. ,. ... . Bign. v. replied that he was inspired with the same sentiments ; 2 ™> 2 ?9. and thus commenced a negotiation under the most favour- 184, i«7. able of all auspices — mutual esteem on the part of the viti. '92*94. powers engaged in it. 1 The basis proposed by Mr Fox was, that the "two parties should assume it as a principle, that the peace was England to be honourable to themselves and their respective allies." Ru2 s a ° b n e _ — "Our interests," said Talleyrand, " are easily reconciled, jj\j^2 y from this alone, that they are distinct. You are the Ration. masters of the sea. Your maritime forces equal those of all the kingdoms of the earth put together. We are a great submitted to a council specially summoned to that effect, and compared with the instructions which he had received here, and the instructions transmitted to him at Vienna before his departure from that town ; and they found that M. d'Oubril, in signing that treaty, has not only deviated from the instructions he had received, but acted in a manner directly contrary to the sense and spirit of the orders themselves." The penalty inflicted on the ambassador, however — that of mere banishment to his estates— did not. look as if there had been any very serious deviation from instructions.— See Martens' Sup. iv. 308, 312 ; and Hard. ix. 222. 158 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. Continental power ; but other nations have as great armies on foot as ourselves. If, in addition to beiug omnipotent I806# on the ocean from your own strength, you desire to acquire a preponderance on the Continent by means of alliances, peace is not possible." Talleyrand strongly urged the English minister to lay all the allies on either side out of view, and conclude a separate accommodation ; but in this design he was unsuccessful. Mr Fox insisted, with honourable firmness, that Russia should be made a Despatch, party to the treaty. " Do you wish us to treat," said he, " conjointly with Russia ? We answer, Yes. Do you wish us to enter into a separate treaty, independent of that , t, , t. , oower % No." Finding the English minister immovable 1 Pari. Deb. *- & fe viii. 103, on this point, M. Talleyrand had recourse to equivoca- 108. Bign. . l . . J . . . . . /* _ v. 267,274. tion ; and it was agreed that the accession ot the Con- tinental powers to the treaty should be obtained. 1 The next step in the negotiation was to fix the basis Basis of uti on which the interests and honour of England and France fix«i"' themselves were to be adjusted. To ascertain this im- portant point in a manner more satisfactory than could be done by the slow interchange of written communications, M. Talleyrand sent for Lord Yarmouth, one of the English travellers whom Napoleon had detained a prisoner ever since the rupture of the peace of Amiens, and pro- posed to him the basis on which France was willing to June 13. enter into an accommodation. These were the restitution of Hanover, which, after great difficulty, Napoleon was brought to agree to — although he had only a few months 2 Lord Yar. b e f ore ce ded it to Prussia — and the retention of Sicily by mouth s t * •> commun. England or its allies :* the recognition of the Emperor Pari. Deb. . «= . _, . ' . , & . £ , viii. no. or rrauce by England, and the guaranteeing of the integrity of the Ottoman dominions by France. 2 These * " I inquired," said Lord Yarmouth, " whether the possession of Sicily would be demanded, it having been so said. ' Vous l'avez,' he replied — 'nous ne vous la demandons %>as ; si vous ne la possediez pas, elle pourrait augmenter do beaucoup les difficultes.' Considering this to be very positive, both from the words and the manner of delivering them, I conceived it would be im- proper to make further cpiestions. We ask nothing of you (nous ne vous demandons rien,) amounting to an admission of uti 'possidetis, as applicable to HISTORY OF EUROPE. 159 terms Lord Yarmouth justly considered as equivalent to chap. the establishment of the principle of uti possidetis, and L- stated them as such in his communication made the same 1806 ' day to Mr Fox on the subject. At the time when the proposals were made by the French government, no accommodation had been effected which FrSiUCG tic* with Russia ; and it was an object of the highest impor- parts from. tance to induce Great Britain, on any terms, to accede to the basis of a negotiation. But when the next commu- nication from Talleyrand was made, circumstances had entirely changed. D'Oubril had expressed his willingness to sign a separate peace in behalf of Russia, and Napoleon was resolved to take advantage of this circumstance to exact more favourable conditions than he had at first agreed to from the British government. When pressed, therefore, by Lord Yarmouth to adhere to the principle of uti possidetis, and in particular to agree to the King June is. of Naples retaining Sicily, he replied, that though the sentiments of the Emperor in favour of peace had under- gone no alteration, "yet that some changes had taken place, the possibility of which he had hinted at when I last saw him," alluding to the readiness of Russia to treat separately; and further mentioned that the Emperor had received reports from his brother, and the general officers under his command, stating that Naples coidd not be held zuithout Sicily, and the probability they saw of gaining possession of that island ; that the restitution of Hanover for the honour of the British crown, the retention of Malta for the honour of the navy, and of the Gape of Good Hope for the interests of commerce, should be sufficient inducements to the cabinet of St James's to enter into the negotiation ; that if a confidential com- his Majesty's conquests." Talleyrand concluded with these words : — ' Les sentiments de la France sont entierement changes : l'aigreur qui characterisait le commencement de cette guerre n'existe plus. Et ce que nous desirons le plus, c'est de pouvoir vivre en bonne intelligence avec une aussi grande puis- sance que la Grande Bretagne.'"— Lord Yarmouth's Communication, No. 12; Pari. Deb. viii. 110. 160 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. chap, munication had been made three mouths before, the XLIL questions both of Holland and Naples might have been 1806. arranged in the manner most satisfactory to Great Britain ; but that now, when their dominions had been settled on the Emperor's brothers, any abandonment of any portion of them would be " considered by the Emperor as a retrograde measure, equivalent to an abdi- cation." Lord Yarmouth continued to insist, in terms of Mr Fox's instructions, for the basis of uti possidetis as the one originally proposed by France, and to which Great Britain was resolved to adhere; that it was alone on the faith of this basis, more especially as applied to Sicily, that the conferences were continued ; that any June 26. tergiversation or cavil, therefore, on that capital article would be considered as a breach of the principle of the negotiation in its most essential part; that full powers were now communicated to him to conduct it; but that the possession of Sicily was a sine qua non, without which it was useless to continue the conferences. Tal- Juiy l. leyrand upon this offered the Hanse Towns as an equiva- iLordYar- lent to the King of Naples for the loss of that island: ^ U F h ox's nd an d when this was refused, to give Dalmatia, Albania, Despatches, an( j R a £usa as an indemnity to his Sicilian majesty: June 19. ° J tvt July i, 5, looking out thus, according to the usual system of Napo- Pari. Deb. leon, in every direction for indemnities at the expense of lis". ' minor neutral states, rather than surrender one foot of his own acquisitions. 1 This clear departure on the side of France from the ContJua- basis of the negotiation originally laid down by its own iiegotfa- he minister, and open avowal of the principle that neutral ^aduaTS- anc l weaker powers were to be despoiled in order to trangement reconcile the pretensions of the greater belligerents, of the par- *■ -i -\ ties. augured but ill for its ultimate success; and the notes which were interchanged gradually assumed a more angry character; but the conferences were still continued for a considerable time. Mr Fox, with the firmness which became a British minister, invariably insisted that Sicily HIST011Y OF EUROPE. 1G1 should be retained by the King of England, and enjoined chap. on Lord Yarmouth to demand his passports if this 1806. was not acceded to. The changes in Germany conse- ^J® quent on the Confederation of the Rhine were admitted by Talleyrand, but offered to be modified, if peace with Great Britain was concluded. Mr Fox refused to be any party to the project of despoiling Turkey and Ragusa, independent and neutral states, to provide an equivalent for the abandonment of Sicily ; but threw out a hope that by the cession of part of the Venetian States, with the city of Venice, from the kingdom of Italy to the July 19. King of Naples, an accommodation might be listened to. To this, as making the proposed equivalent come from his own allies, Napoleon would by no means consent. Advices were received at Paris that an army of thirty thousand men had been assembled at Bayonne. All the July 20. i jyii* \< ox s officers in that capital belongiug to corps in Germany and Lord ' received orders instantly to join their respective regi- De^Tui/ ments, and the approaching signature of a separate treaty £;] $)! 9 ' between France and Russia, in which the cession of Jjjf^f Sicily in exchange for the Balearic Isles, taken from 12& Mar- Spain, was a principal article, came to the knowledge of 472.' the British plenipotentiary. 1 The conclusion of the separate peace between Russia and France on the day following these communications, Progress of 1 i ' Tillij. the negotia- clid not, of course, lessen the expectations 01 the latter t ion. power, though it removed all difficulty arising from the July condition to which Great Britain had uniformly adhered, of making the cabinet of St Petersburg a party, either directly or in substance, to the pacification. But the demands of France did not rise in the manner that might have been expected after so great an advantage: she was still willing to allow Great Britain to retain Malta, the Cape, and her acquisitions in India, and to restore Hanover: full powers were given to Lord Yarmouth, which were exchanged with those of General Clark. Specific retention of Sicily by the King of Naples was YOL. vii. L 1806. 162 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, no longer insisted for, it being agreed by Great Britain XLII . . that an adequate equivalent, if provided by lawful means, should be accepted. Napoleon continued to urge the acquisition of the Hanse Towns, either by Prussia, as a compensation for Hanover, or by his Sicilian majesty: July 30. and held out the menace that, by not acceding to such an arrangement, the invasion of Portugal would be ren- dered inevitable, for whicli an army was already assem- bled at Bayonne. Nay, he even hinted at ulterior views in regard to the Spanish peninsula, which the resistance of England would cause to be developed, as similar ones mouth's and had been in Holland and Naples. But, regardless of these Desjicis, threats, Mr Fox firmly insisted for the original basis of AujJt 8 '3 uti possidetis, as the only one which could be admitted ; 1806. Pari. an( j as matters appeared as far as ever from an adjust- 125, 138. ment, Lord Lauderdale was sent to Paris with full powers to treat from the British government. 1 Under the auspices of this able nobleman, the nego- Thenego- tiation was protracted two months longer without leading tiation is . _ . „.. -n^Ti •• broken off. to any satisfactory result. the English minister con- tinued incessantly to demand a return to the principle of uti possidetis as the foundation of the negotiation ; and the French cabinet as uniformly eluded or refused the demand, and insisted for the evacuation of Sicily by the English troops, and its surrender to Joseph, and the abandonment of all the maritime conquests of the war, with the exception of the Cape of Good Hope, by Great Britain. Lord Lauderdale in consequence repeatedly demanded his passports, and the negotiation appeared on the point of terminating, when intelligence was received in London of the refusal of the Emperor of Russia to Sept. 3. ratify the treaty signed by M. d'Oubril. This important event made no alteration in the proposals of Great Britain, further than an announcement that any treaty now concluded must be with the concurrence of Russia ; Se r t. is. but it considerably lowered those of Napoleon, and Tal- leyrand announced that France " would make great con- HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 163 cessions for the purpose of obtaining peace." These chap were afterwards explained to be the restoration of Hano ver to Great Britain ; the confirmation of its possession of 8e ^6. Malta; the cession of the Cape, Tobago, and Pondicherrj to its empire ; and the grant of the Balearic Isles, with an annuity from Spain, in lieu of Sicily, as a compensation to the King of Naples. To these terms the English ?p a °ri*p 6 e ' b , cabinet would by no means accede ; and as there was no Jg; 17 B 3 ; ' g]i longer any appearance of an accommodation, Lord Lau- j^jjj? 4 derdale demanded and obtained his passports, nine days g^g th after Napoleon had set out from Paris to take the com- Sept. mand of the army destined to act against Prussia. 1 Thus this negotiation, begun under such favourable gQ auspices, both with England and Russia, broke off with Real views . pi • f o* *l 1 ofthepar- both powers on the subject of the possession ot bicily ana ties in this of the mouths of the Cattaro. Apparently these were ne s otiatlou - very inconsiderable objects to revive so dreadful a contest, and bring the armies of the south and north of Europe to Eylau and Friedland; but in reality the secret ends which the hostile powers had in view, in contending for these distant possessions, were more considerable than might be at first imagined. It was not merely as an appanage of the crown of Naples that Napoleon so obstinately insisted on Sicily for his brother; it was as the greatest island in the Mediterranean, as open- ing the wav to the command of that inland sea, and clearing the route to Egypt and the Indies, that it became a paramount object of desire. It was not an obscure harbour on the coast of the Adriatic which brought the colossal empires of France and Russia into collision; it was a settlement on the skirts of Turkey, it was the establishment of a French military station within sight of the Crescent, which was the secret matter of ambition to the one party, and jealousy to the other. Thus, while Sicily and Cattaro were the ostensible " J . J rSign. v. causes of difference, India and Constantinople were the 363^ 365. real objects in the view of the parties; 2 and the negotiation 1800. 164 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, broke off upon those eternal subjects of contention between England, Russia, and France — the empire of the seas, and the dominion of continental Europe. The intelligence of the refusal of Alexander to ratify state of af- d'Oubril's treaty with France excited an extraordinary iiiT a prus- transport at Berlin, which was much heightened when tu a m s , U and ma shortly after it became evident that the negotiations at preparations p ar i s f or aT1 accommodation with Great Britain were not tor war on both sides, likely to prove successful. The war party became irre- sistible ; a sense of national degradation had reached every heart; the Queen was daily to be seen on horse- i Bign. v. back at the head of her regiment in the streets of Berliu. 1 403 The enthusiasm was universal; but in the guards and officers of that distinguished corps it rose to a pitch approaching to frenzy. In proportion to the force with which the bow had long been bent one way, was the violence with which it now rebounded to the other. Wiser heads, however, saw little ground for rational con- fidence in this uncontrolled ebullition of popular effer- vescence; and even the heroic Prince Louis let fall some expressions indicating that he hoped for more efficient support in the field than the declaimers of the capital.* Aug. 26. Lucchesini, who had so long conducted the Prussian diplomacy at the French capital, sent despatches to his government full of acrimonious complaints of the cabinet of the Tuileries, which either by accident or design fell into the hands of the French police, and were laid before Napoleon. He instantly demanded the recall of the Sept. 3. obnoxious minister, who left Paris early in September, and was succeeded by Knobelsdorf, whose mission was mainly to protract matters, that the cabinet of Berlin Sept. 7. might complete its preparations, and if possible gain time * He repeated with emphasis the lines of the poet Gleims, in allusion to the warlike bards of Berlin : — " Sie singen laut im hohen chor Vom Tod, furs Vaterland uns vor : Doch kommt ein einziger Husar, So lauft die ganze Barden Schar." HISTORY OF EUROPE. lb'5 for the distant succours of Russia to arrive on the Elbe. chap. But as the troops on both sides were hastening to the scene of action, and it was evident of how much impor- 1806 - tance it was that the strength of Russia should be thrown into the scale before a decisive conflict took place, Napo- leon easily penetrated their design, and resolved himself to commence hostilities. His forces were so great that they might well inspire confidence in the issue of the con- test. He had four hundred and fifty thousand men on foot, of whom a hundred and fifty thousand were in the interior, and a hundred and seventy thousand with the Grand Army in the centre of Germany, besides fifty thousand in Lombardy. Thirty thousand horse, and ten thousand artil- lerymen, formed part of the force with which he would first commence operations. His troops for some weeks past had been rapidly defiling from Braunau, the Inn, and the Necker, towards the banks of the Elbe, and one hundred thousand men were approaching the Thuringian Forest. He set out, therefore, from Paris to put himself at their head on the night of the 26th September, con- s ep t.2fi. veyed the Guard by post to Mayence, and was already far advanced on his journey to the theatre of war, when the Prussian ultimatum was delivered at Paris by M. Knobelsdorf. Its conditions were — 1st, That the French troops should forthwith evacuate Germany, commencing their retreat from the day when the King of Prussia Oct. i. might receive the answer of the Emperor, and continuing it without interruption. 2d, That the districts on the Wesel should be detached from the French empire. 3d, That no obstacles should be thrown in the way of the formation of a counter-league in the north of Germany. No stronger proof of the infatuation which had seized the cabinet of Berlin can be desired than the fact of their , Jom H haviug, in the presence of Napoleon and the Grand Army, ;^ 43 Bi s n - and without any present aid either from Russia, Austria, or gg^jj^ England, proposed terms suitable rather to the day after vi. 508. the rout of Rosbach than the eve of the battle of Jena. 1 166 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. The public mind was at this period violently excited in Germany against the French, not merely by their prolonged 1806- stay beyond the Rhine, and the enormous expenses with Murder of which it was attended, but by a cruel and illegal murder EStS 8 "* committed by orders of Napoleon on a citizen of one of ^Sed° c " tne f ree cities of the empire, who had sold a work hostile to his interests. Palm, a tradesman in Nuremberg, had been instrumental with many other booksellers in circu- lating the celebrated pamphlet by Gcntz, already men- tioned, in which the principle of resistance to French aggression was strongly inculcated, and another by Arndt, entitled " The Spirit of the Age/' of a similar tendency, but in neither of which was any recommendation of assas- sination or illegal measures held forth. The others were fortunate enough to make their escape; but Palm was Aug. 12. seized by the French soldiers, dragged before a military commission of French officers assembled by the Emperor's orders at Braunau, and there sentenced to be shot, which inhuman decree was immediately carried into execution, without his beino- so much as allowed to enter on his Aug. 25. defence.""" This atrocious proceeding, for which there is not a shadow of excuse, either in the nature of the publi- cation charged, or in the law of nations, excited the most profound indignation in Germany. Men compared the * The judgment of the military commission convicting Palm, and sentencing Proceedings him to death, bore in its preamble : — " Considering that wherever there is an tar'^commis arm 3*' t ^ ie ^ rst an d m ost pressing duty of its chief is to watch over its pre- sion by which servation ; that the circulation of writings tending to revolt and assassination he was con- menaces not only the safety of the army, but that of nations; that nothing is more urgent than to arrest the progress of such doctrines, subversive alike of the law of nations and the respect due to crowned heads ; injurious to the people committed to their government; in a word, subversive of all order and subordination — declares unanimously, That the authors, printers, publishers, and distributors of libels bearing such a character, should be considered as guilty of high treason, and punished with death." Such were the doctrines in which the frenzy of the French Revolution, which began by proclaiming war to the palace and peace to the cottage, the contest which opened by an invitation to the people of all countries to throw off the yoke of crowned heads, terminated ! It is hard to say whether the barefaced falsehood, delu- sive sophistry, or cold-blooded cruelty of this infamous conviction are most conspicuous. The pamphlets which Palm had sold contained no doctrines whatever recommending assassination, or any private crime. If they had, HISTORY OF EUROPE. 167 loud declamations of the republican partisans in favour of chap. the liberty of the press with this savage violation of it by XLIL their military chief; and concluded, that the only freedom 1806# which they really had at heart was license for their own enormities, and the only system of government which was to be expected from their ascendency, that of military violence. A dignified proclamation, issued about the same time by the senate of Frankfort, after recounting the enormous contributions which they had paid to the French armies in 1796, 1799, 1800, and 1806, con- cluded with declaring their inability to preserve the inde- pendence of their country, which had been transferred to Aug. is. the Elector of Mayence, and recommending submission to the arms of France. Augereau replied to this proclama- Aug. -27. tion by a stern requisition to have the authors of it delivered up to him in twenty-four hours: the fate of Palm was universally anticipated for the magistrates of the state : but after they had been arrested, Napoleon, , „ , . 1 1 ' i Hard. ix. alarmed at the universal horror which that tragic event 2 * 6 > 25( ? ; . _ had excited, deemed it prudent to drop further pro- 33y. n ' v *° ' ceedings. 1 The death of this unfortunate victim did not pass unre- vengecl, either upon Napoleon or the French people. It fell deeply and profoundly on the generous heart of Mr Fox, whose enthusiastic hopes of the extension of general they were published, not in the dominions' of France, or by any person who owed allegiance to its Emperor, but in the free city of Nureniburg, in the heart of the German empire ; and they were addressed, not to the subjects of Napoleon, but to Germans, aliens to his authority, and enemies of his govern- ment. The French armies, contrary to the express terms of the peace of Pressburg, were remaining in and devouring the resources of that country, upon the hollow pretext that Russia, a separate power at war with France, had in the usual course of hostility conquered a town ceded by Austria to the French empire. The pamphlets published were nothing but appeals to the Germans to iinite against this foreign oppression, and certainly never had men a more justifiable cause of hostility. Applying Napoleon's principles to him- self, what punishment would they fix on the head of him who published pro- clamations calling on the Venetians, the Irish, and Swiss, to throw off the yoke of their respective governments, and avowed his intention, when he landed in England, to call on the whole subjects of the British empire to throw off the rule of their sovereign and parliament, and to establish annual parliaments and universal suffrage 1 — See Bignon, v. 337, 338. 168 HISTORY OF EUROTE. CHAP. XLII. 1806. 83. Influence ■which it had on the rup- ture of the negotiation with Eng- land. 84. Mr Fox's eyes are at last opened to the real nature of the war. Last instruc- tions of Mr Fox to Lord Lauderdale. freedom by the spread of republican principles were thus cruelly belied by the deeds perpetrated by its leaders in the name of the French people, and contributed, perhaps more than any other circumstance, to produce that firm resolution to adhere to the basis originally laid down by Napoleon for the negotiations which ultimately led to their abandonment. The carnage of Spain, the catastrophe of Moscow, the conquest of France, the exile to St Helena, are thus directly associated with this deed of blood. The brave and the free thenceforward saw clearly, in every part of Europe, that no hope for public or private liberty remained but in a determined resistance to the aggres- sions of France : that slavery and chains followed in the rear of the tricolor flag. Napoleon has frequently said, that if Mr Fox had lived, peace would have been con- cluded, and all the subsequent misfortunes of his reign averted ; but the truth of history must dispel the illusion, and the English annalist cannot permit the insidious praises of an enemy to tear from one of the brightest orna- ments of his country the honour of having at last been awakened to a sense of the nature of revolutionary ambi- tion, and of having possessed the magnanimity, in opposi- tion to his former long-continued delusion, instantly to act upon the conviction. In his last instructions, dictated a few weeks before his death, to Lord Yarmouth, there is to be found the firmest resolution to insist on the original basis of the negotiation, and never to consent to any other : Earl Spencer, who succeeded him, had merely to follow out the path thus clearly chalked out. * In several of the speeches which * " In the instructions/' says Mr Fox in his last important official despatch, " given to Lord Lauderdale, the repeated tergiversations of France during the negotiation are detailed. It is from thence alone that any delay has arisen. The offers made through Lord Yarmouth were so clearly and unequivocally expressed, that the intention of the French government could not be doubted. But they were no sooner made than departed from. In the first conferences after his Lordship's return to France, Sicily was demanded ; in the former, it had been distinctly disclaimed. This produced a delay attributable solely to France : our answer was immediate and distinct : the new demand was declared to be a breach of the principle of the proposed negotiation in its most essential 1806. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 169 lie had delivered, after be had obtained the direction of chap foreign affairs, is to be found a candid admission that his opinion as to the necessity and justice of the war had undergone a total alteration.""" Thus the discord of earlier years was at length by this great man forgotten in the discharge of patriotic duty : the two lights of the age came finally to concur in the same policy. If Mr Pitt struggled for fifteen years, amidst difficulty and disaster, to carry on the war, it was Mr Fox who bequeathed the flood of glory in which it terminated to his successors ; and who, after having spent the best part of his life in recom- mending less honourable and enlightened measures of parts. To obviate the cavil on the want of powers, full powers were sent to you, but with an express injunction not to use them till the French government should return to its former ground with respect to Sicily. M. Talleyrand, upon being informed of this determination, proposed to give the Hanse Towns in lieu of Sicily to the King of Naples. The moment this proposal was received here it was rejected; and the same despatch which conveyed that rejection carried out his Majesty's commands, if the demand for Sicily should still be persisted in, to demand his passports and return to England. M. Talleyrand upon this made fresh proposals, supported by Russia, as affording the means of preventing the meditated changes in Germany ; and stated, ' that these changes were deter- mined upon, but should not be published if peace took place.' That despatch was received here on the 12th, and on the 17th, in direct violation of these assurances, the German confederation treaties were both signed and published. Such are the unfounded pretences by which the French government seeks to attribute to delays on our part the results of its own injustice and repeated breach of promise." Such was Mr Fox's dying view of the negotiation up to the beginning of August ; and it surely contains no confirmation of Napoleon's assertion, that, if he had lived, peace would have been concluded. Its last stages, down to his death on 17th September, were conducted in strict con- formity to the instructions he had given to Lord Lauderdale. — See Mr Fox's Despatches, August 3d and lith, 1806; Pari. Deb. viii. 138, 164. * In the debate on Mr Windham's military system, on April 3, 1806, Mr Fox said, with admirable candour : — " Indeed, by the circumstances of Europe, I am ready to confess that / have been weaned from the opinions which I for- merly held with respect to the force which might suffice in time of peace : nor do I consider this as any inconsistency, because I see no rational prospect of any peace which would exempt us from the necessity of watchful preparation and powerful establishments. If we cannot obtain a safe and honourable peace, of which it is impossible in the actual state of affairs to be sanguine, and if we are not successful in carrying on the war, we must be reduced to that state which I for one cannot contemplate without apprehension, — 'toto divisos orbe Britannos,' — and be left to our own resources and colonial possessions. In such an arduous and difficult struggle, demanding every effort and every exertion, or indeed under any system which we may act upon, a large army is indispensable." — Pari. Deb. vi. 715, 716. 170 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, concession to his country, in his last moments " nailed XLIL her colours to the mast." * 1806. T | ie ] iea j t i 1 f this illustrious man had for some weeks 1806, 2.58." Death of past been declining ; and in the middle of July he was HisSLrac- compelled to discontinue his attendance in parliament, ter ' though he was still assiduous in his duties at the Foreign Office. Notwithstanding all the efforts of medical skill, his complaint daily became more alarming. Symptoms of dropsy rapidly succeeded, and yielded only for a brief space to the usual remedies. On the 7th September he Sept. 13. sank into a profound state of weakness, and on the 13th of the same month breathed his last, having entertained i Ann. Reg. almost to the end of life confident hopes of recovery. 1 Thus departed from the scene of his greatness, within a few months after his illustrious rival, Charles Fox. Few men during life have led a more brilliant career, and none were ever the object of more affectionate love and admiration from a numerous and enthusiastic body of friends. Their attachment approached to idolatry. All his failings, and he had many, were forgotten in the gen- erous warmth of his feelings, and the enthusiastic temper of his heart. " The simplicity," says Mackintosh, " of his character communicated confidence ; the ardour of his * This memorable final coincidence of opinion between Pitt and Fox, on tbe necessity of continuing the war, is not the only instance of a similar approxi- mation equally honourable to both parties. Ten years before, the champions of the constitution and of revolution, Mr Burke and Sir James Mackintosh, the well-known author of the Yindicice Gallicce, had in like manner come to view the origin of the convulsion in the same light. " The enthusiasm," said Mackintosh in a letter to Burke, " with which I once embraced the instruction conveyed in your writings, is now ripened into solid conviction by the expe- rience and conviction of more mature age. For a time, seduced by the love of what I thought liberty, I ventured to oppose, without ever ceasing to venerate, that writer who had nourished my understanding with the most wholesome principles of political wisdom. I speak to state facts, not to flatter : you are above flattery. I am too proud to flatter even you. Since that time a melancholy experience has undeceived me on many subjects, in which I was then the dupe of my own enthusiasm. I cannot say I even now assent to all your opinions on the present politics of Europe. But I can with truth affirm that I subscribe to your general principles, and am prepared to shed my blood in defence of the laws and constitution of my country." Burke answered from the bed of death : — " You have begun your opposition by obtaining a great victory over yourself; and it shows how much your own sagacity, operating on HISTORY OF EUROPE. 171 eloquence roused enthusiasm ; the gentleness of his man- char ners inspired friendship." — " I admired," says Gibbon, _— " the powers of a superior man, as they were blended in his attractive character with the simplicity of a child. No human being was ever more free from any taint of malignity, vanity, or falsehood." Nothing can more strongly mark the deep impression made by this part of Mr Fox's character than the words of Burke, pronounced Jjjgfljg^ six months after all intercourse between them ceased : — i. 3-24. " To be sure, he is a man made to be loved !" 1:: " A man of pleasure in every sense of the word ; dissi- g6 pated and irregular in private life; having ruined his prices- private fortune at the gaming-table, and often emerging from such haunts of vice to make his greatest appear- ances in parliament, yet he never rose without, by the elevation of his sentiments, and the energy of his lan- guage, exciting the admiration, not only of his partisans, but of his opponents. The station which he occupied in the British parliament was not that merely of the leader of a powerful and able party. He was at the head of the friends of freedom in the human race. To his words the ardent and enthusiastic everywhere turned as to those of the gifted spirit intrusted with their cause. To his sup- your own experience, is capable of adding to your own extraordinary talents and to your early erudition. It was the show of virtue, and the semblance of public happiness, which could alone mislead a mind like yours. A better knowledge of their substance alone has put you on the way that leads the most securely and certainly to your end." What words between such men !— See Mackintosh's Memoirs, i. 87, 88. * The convivial talents of Fox were great, as may well be believed from his so long being the idol of the brilliant circle of wits and beauties who in his early days did homage to the rising sun of the Prince of Wales. With men bis conversation often partook of the licentious character of the fashionable and unscrupulous society in which he lived ; but in the company of elegant women no man was more scrupulously well-bred, or often more felicitous in the delicate expression of flattery. On one occasion, when he was at a supper at the house of the young and beautiful Duchess of Devonshire, a sort of game went round, in which each gentleman presented the lady next him with fruit of some kind, accompanied by an impromptu line or verse : " Come, Mr Fox," said the Duchess, "you have given me nothing as yet: what are you thinking of!" . He immediately took a bunch of grapes, and presented it to the Duchess with the words, " Je plais jusqu'a l'ivresse." 180G. 87. debate. 172 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, port the oppressed and destitute universally looked as XLIL their last and best refuge in periods of disaster. " When he pleaded," says Chateaubriand, " the cause of humanity, he reigned— he triumphed. Ever on the side of suffering, his eloquence acquired additional power from his gra- tuitous exertions in behalf of the unfortunate. He crept even to the coldest heart. A sensible alteration in the tone of the orator discovered the man. In vain the stranger tried to resist the impression made upon him ; he turned aside and wept." Mr Fox was the greatest debater that the English par- Hia i extra- lianient ever produced: he has been styled by a most Lents in competent judge, " the most Demosthenian orator who has appeared since the days of Demosthenes." * Without the admirable arrangement and lucid order which enabled Mr Pitt to trace, through all the details of a complicated question, the ruling principle which he wished to impress upon his audience, he possessed a greater power of turn- ing to his own advantage the incidents of a debate or admissions of an antagonist, and was unrivalled in the power and eloquence of his reply. In the outset of his speech he often laboured under hesitation of expression, and was ungainly or awkward in manner ; but as he warmed with the subject, his oratory became more rapid, his delivery impassioned, and, before it closed, the enrap- tured senate often hung in breathless suspense on his words. He was an accomplished classical scholar, and was master of an extraordinary power of turning to the best advantage the information which he possessed, or had gained during the debate. But his habits were too desultory — his indolence too great— his love of pleasure too powerful, to permit him to acquire extensive knowledge.f Respectable as a historian, the fragment on the annals of the English Revolution which he composed is justly * Sir James Mackintosh. + No man more frequently referred to Adam Smith ; yet he had never read the " Wealth of Nations." 1806. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 173 admired for the purity of its style and the manliness of chap. its sentiments ; but the pen was too cold an instrument to convey the fervid bursts of his eloquence, and the reader will look in vain for the impassioned flow of the parliamentary orator." It is in the debates of the House of Commons that his real greatness is to be seen ; and a vigorous intellect will seldom receive higher gratification than from studying the vehement declamation — the power- ful and fervent reasoning — by which his great speeches there are distinguished. But, notwithstanding all this, the fame of Mr Fox is on M the decline, not from a diminished sense of his genius, His fame i i • i • c t r is on the but an altered view, among the thinking tew at least, or decline as his principles. With the extinction of the generation thinker. which witnessed his parliamentary efforts — with the death of the friends who were captivated by his social qualities, his vast reputation is sensibly diminishing. Time, the mighty agent which separates truth from falsehood — experience, which dispels the most general illusions — suffering, which extinguishes the warmest anticipations when unfounded in human nature, have separated the wheat from the chaff in his principles. In so far as he sought to uphold the principles of general freedom, and defend the cause of the unfortunate and oppressed, in whatever country — in so far as he protected in legislation the freedom of the press, and opposed the infamous traffic in human flesh, his efforts will ever command the respect and sympathy of mankind. But in so far as he sought to advance this cause by advocating the principles of democracy — in so far as he supported the wild pro- jects of the French revolutionists, and palliated when he could not defend their atrocious excesses — in so far as he did his utmost to transfer to this country the same * This is the more remarkable, as he had so elevated a conception of the proper character of history that he classed the chief works of thought thus : — 1. Poetry. 2. History. 3. Oratory. This was no slight homage to the histo- rical muse, when coming from the first orator of his own, or perhaps any age. —See Fox's History, Introd. p. vii. 174 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, destructive doctrines, and, under the name of Reform, XL11- sought to oiye an entrance here to Jacobin fanaticism and infidel zeal — in so far as lie counselled peace and recom- mended concession, when peace would have been the commencement of civil warfare, and concession a crouching to revolutionary ambition — he supported principles calcu- lated to destroy all the objects which he himself had in view, and induce the very tyranny against which the thunders of his eloquence were directed. The doctrines, that all abuses are owing to power being Reasons of confined to a few hands — that the extension of political influence to the lower classes is the only antidote to the evil — that virtue, wisdom, and intelligence will be brought to bear on public affairs when those classes are intrusted with their direction — and that the growth of democratic ascendency is the commencement of social regeneration, — are sometimes amiable, from the philan- thropy of those who support them, and always will be popular, from the agreeable flattery they convey to the multitude. They are liable to only one objection — that they are altogether visionary and chimerical, founded on a total misconception of human nature, and a fatal forget- fulness of the character of the vast majority of men who in every rank are swayed by selfishness or stimulated by passion. They invariably lead, when put in practice, to results diametrically the reverse of what were held forth or expected by their supporters. Abuses, by the intro- duction of a democratic regime, it is soon found, instead of being diminished, are multiplied tenfold ; tyranny, instead of being eradicated, is enormously increased; personal and social security, instead of being established, is kept in perpetual jeopardy; the weight of public opinion, instead of an antidote to evil, becomes its greatest promoter, by being exerted in favour of those by whom its enormities are perpetrated. It is by the opposing influence of these powers that the blessings of general freedom are secured under a constitutional HISTORY OF EUROPE. 175 monarchy ; no hope remains of its outliving the spring- chap. flood which drowns the institutions of a state, when these antagonist forces are brought for any length of time to draw in the same direction.* The liberties of England Ions; survived the firm resis- . 90. tance which Mr Pitt opposed to revolutionary principles ; His errors but those of France perished at once, and perhaps for cai^hiw ever, under the triumph in which Mr Fox so eloquently pher> exulted on the other side of the Channel. Taught by this great example, posterity will not search the speeches of Mr Fox for historic truth, or pronounce him gifted with any extraordinary political penetration. On the contrary, it must record with regret, that the light which broke upon Mr Burke at the outset of the Revolution, and on Mr Pitt before its principal atrocities began, only shone on his fervent mind when descending to the grave. It can only award to him, during the greater part of his career, the praise of an eloquent debater, a brilliant sophist, but not that of a profound thinker or a philosophic observer. But recollecting the mixture of weakness in the nature of all, and the strong tendency of political contention to dim * " In the contests of the Greek commonwealth," says Thucydides, " those who were esteemed the most depraved, and had the least foresight, invariably prevailed; for, being conscious of this weakness, and dreading to be over- reached by those of greater penetration, they went to work hastily with the sword and poniard, and thereby got the better of their antagonists, who were occupied with more refined schemes." — "In turbis atque seditionibus, "says the Roman annalist, "pessinio cuique plurima vis; pax et quies bonis artibus alun- tur."— " Enfin je vois," said the French demagogue when going to the scaffold, " que dans les revolutions l'autoritg toujours reste aux plus scelerats." — " A democratic republic," said the British statesman, "is not the government of the few by the many, but of the many by the few; with this difference, that the few who are thus elevated to power are the most worthless and profligate of the community." "Democracy," says the author of the Yindicke Gallicie, "is the most monstrous of all governments, because it is impossible at once to act and to control ; and consequently the sovereign power is there left without any restraint whatever. That form of government is the best which places the efficient direction in the hands of the aristocracy, subjecting them in its exercise to the control of the people at large." What a surprising coincidence between the opinions of such men in such distant ages ! He is a bold speculator who, on such a subject, differs from the concurring authority of Thucydides, Sallust, Danton, Mr Pitt, and Sir James Mackintosh.— Thucydides, 1. iii. c. 39; Sal- lust, de Bello Cat.; Riouffe, 67; Pari. Hist. xxx. 902; Mackintosh's Memoirs, i. 92. J76 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, the clearest intellect and warp the strongest judgment, it AL - will, while it condemns a great part of his principles, do 1806 ' justice to his motives and venerate his heart, — it will indulge the pleasing hope, that a longer life would have weaned him from all, as he honourably admits it had done from many, of his earlier delusions ; and admire the magnanimous firmness with which, on the bed of death, he atoned for his past errors, by bequeathing, in a moment of extraordinary gloom, the flag of England unlowered to his successors. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 177 CHAPTER XLIII. CAMPAIGN OF JENA — FALL OF PRUSSIA. No monarchy in Europe is less indebted than the Prus- chap. sian, for its political power and importance, to the advan- XLIIL tages of nature. Its territory, flat, sandy, and in great 1806 - part comparatively sterile, can only be brought to a high Natural dis- state of cultivation by long-continued efforts, and the un- S pTuS! sparing application of human industry. Its sea-coast has few advantageous harbours; its rivers, though numerous, and in general navigable, descend for the greater part of their course through the territories of separate or rival states. Without the natural fertility of the Sarmatian plains, or the mineral wealth "of the Bohemian mountains; desti- tute alike of the flocks of Hungary and the herds of Switzerland; enjoying neither the forests of Norway nor the vines of France — it depends entirely on grain crops and pastures, and for them the bounty of nature has afforded no peculiar advantages. Vast tracts of gloomy heath, or blowing sand, hardly less unproductive, form a large part of its surface ; in other places, cheer- less, desolate plains, thickly strewn with rushes or stunted firs, convey a monotonous, mournful impression to the mind of the traveller. Yet have the industry and per- severance of man conquered all these disadvantages : the * ^chow- arid sands have been covered with waving crops, the 117. *Per- rushy fields with rich pastures ; l and in no country in Yat ioa. Europe is agriculture now advancing with more vigor- VOL. VII. M 178 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIII. 1806. 2. Political situation and inhabi- tants of Prussia. ous strides, or population increasing with such steady rapidity.* If Prussia owes little to her natural advantages, she is indebted still less to the political facilities of her situa- tion, or the homogeneity in character of her inhabitants. Her territory, which has gradually been enlarged by the talents or good fortune of her rulers, is widely scattered from the Rhine to the Vistula, with other states in some places intervening, and in general in such long shreds as equally to expose her to attack and to deprive her of the advantages of a compact formation of defence. Her population is composed of different races, speaking in some places different languages, and but recently actuated in any by a common bond of national attachment. The old electorate of Brandenburg originally formed part of the vast monarchy of Poland, and broke off from that unwieldy commonwealth during the weakness of its unbridled democracy; Silesia, conquered by the Great Frederick in the middle of the eighteenth century, is a province of Bohemia, and is chiefly inhabited by Sla- vonian tribes; while Prussian Poland was the fruit of the iniquitous spoliation of that unhappy state in 1 772 and 1794, and its inhabitants retain all the mournful recol- lections and national traditions by which the Sarmatian race is characterised in every part of the world. Yet does the Prussian monarchy now form a united and prosperous whole : its rise during the last century has been rapid beyond example; it singly defeated, under * Prussia contains at present- Arable lands, . Vineyards, Meadows, Pastures, Forests, Wastes, lakes, &c. ARPENTS. 47,295,716 1,024,176 14,326,429 16,972,714 23,800,000 8,986,347 112,405,382 or nearly 111,000 square English geographical miles. Twenty-one thousand four hundred and ninety arpents make a square German geographical mile. — See Tchoborski, i. 115 ; and Forster and Weber, Statistiques de la Prusse, 17, 21. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 179 the Great Frederick, a coalition of the three most chap. . XLIII powerful monarchies in Europe ; and it yields to no _ L country in the world in patriotic spirit, and the glorious efforts which it has since made to maintain its inde- pendence. Augmented as it has been by the acquisitions made at the treaty of Paris in 1814, the Prussian Population , , . i o Pd 'IT r and extent monarchy now contains upwards or niteen millions ot of p rus3 ; a . inhabitants, who are diffused over a territory embracing one hundred and eleven thousand four hundred and eighty-eight square English miles — a surface little less than that of Great Britain and Ireland, which contain one hundred and twenty-two thousand. At the com- mencement of the war of 1806, however, both were much less considerable ; the former only amounting to nine million five hundred thousand souls, the latter to seventy- two thousand square miles of territory. If this consider- able population was placed ofi a compact and defensible territory, it would form a great and powerful monarchy, having nearly the resources, in population and territory, of the British empire in Europe at the commencement of the Revolutionary war ; but both population and terri- tory are so scattered over a long and narrow extent of level surface, that they seem at first sight to be a source rather of weakness than strength. They extend from the banks of the Niemen to those of the Sarre, over a space three hundred leagues, or nine hundred miles, in length ; while the greatest breadth does not exceed a hundred and thirty leagues, and their average is not above forty. These straggling territories are in many places interrupted by the possessions of foreign princes, enclosed within those of Prussia, which, on the other hand, has no inconsiderable portion of its dependencies imbedded in the dominions of other states. Thus the Prussian dominions present an irregular strip stretching along the whole north of Germany, having its back to the Baltic Sea and German Ocean, the harbours of which 180 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIII. 1806. 1 Malte Brun, v. 294, 295. Towns and manufactur- ing industry of Prussia. are liable to be blockaded by the superior fleets of Britain ; while its long front is exposed to the incursions of Austria, and its two extremities lie open, with no natural frontier capable of defence, and but few artificial strongholds, to the incursions of the great monarchies of France and Russia — the former possessing above twice, the latter nearly four times, its military resources. 1 The urban population of Prussia bears a remarkably large proportion to the rural, for the former amounts to a fourth of the whole inhabitants. The number of towns and burghs is ten hundred and twelve, of which thirty- seven contain above ten thousand inhabitants/" This great number and size of towns indicates either extra- ordinary riches in the adjacent territory, as in Lombardy and Flanders, or considerable manufacturing advantages, such as those which have raised the cities to such a stupendous magnitude in the north of England and the west of Scotland. Such, accordingly, is the case ; and the manufacturing industry of Prussia, in spite of the prohibitory system adopted generally by the Continental states, is very considerable. Inferior of course, by more than a half, in proportion to the square league of terri- Population Populatio in 1834. in 1834. * Viz. — Berlin, 258,000 Treves, 16,000 Breslau, 88,000 Stralsund, 16,000 Cologne, . 71,000 Halberstadt, . 15,000 Konigsberg, 70,000 Brandenburg, 15,000 Torgau, 70,000 Neisse, 13,000 Dantzic, 65,000 Glogau, 12,500 Magdeburg, 42,000 Bonn, 12,500 Aix-la-Chapelle, 37,000 Quedlinburg, 12,500 Stettin, 36,000 Gorlitz, 12,000 Elberfeld, 29,000 Brieg, 12,000 Dusseldorf, 28,000 Liegnitz, 11,500 Coblentz, 26,000 Griineberg, . 11,900 Posen, 25,000 Schweidnitz, . 11,000 Halle, 25,000 Minden, 11,000 Potsdam, . 24,000 Muhlhausen, . 10,500 Erfurt, 22,000 Prentzlow, 10,000 Memel, 10,000 Ascbersleben, 10,000 Frankfort-or -Oder, 18,000 Naumburg, . 10,000 Krefeld, . 1 7,000 — Malte Brcn, y. 29T, 303. HISTORY OF EURO TE. 181 tor j to that of Britain, it is considerably superior to that chap. of France.* The iron-works and manufactories of zinc 1 and copper, as well as the salt-works, in its dominions, are very extensive ; and the cotton manufactures, though recently established, are making, under the shelter of the heavy protective duties established against those of England, rapid progress. The total amount of its exports in 1828 was 24,102,000 thalers, or nearly £4,000,000, yw* and four thousand merchant vessels bore the flag of 291, 292. Frederick-William. 1 The main strength of Prussia, however, lies in its g agriculture ; and it is in the patriotic spirit and undaunted Jjjgjjjs^ courage of the class engaged in it, that the monarchy in gre s S of every age has found the surest bulwark against foreign aggression. So rapid has been the increase of sheep of late years in Prussia, that their number, which in 1816 amounted only to 8,261,400, had risen in 1825 to 14,156,000 — that is, nearly doubled ; and the most deci- sive proof of the general increase of rural produce is to be found in the fact, that though population in Prussia is now advancing more rapidly than in any country of Europe, so as to double, if 'the present progress should continue, in twenty-six years, yet no importation 01 foreign Brun)V . 289j grain is required. 2 ! Subsistence, under the influence of |^ ce ^ increased production, so far from becoming scarce, is ™ constantly declining in price, and the augmented comforts 36. and wants of a prosperous people are amply provided * Horse-power of machines in proportion to the square league of territory :— In Great Britain, . . 415 horses. In Prussia, . . . 183 — In France, . . • 178 — In proportion to her extent of surface, Prussia has fewer steam-engines than France, but more hydraulic machines; and, on the whole, a greater amount of mechanical power. — See Egen, Untersuchungcn uber denEffelt, (fee- Berlin, 1831; and Malte Brun, v. 291. t In 1828, the total population of the Prussian provinces, exclusive of the Canton of Neuchatel, was 12,672,000 inhabitants. In 1832, it was 13,843,000; and it is now (1843) upwards of 15,000,000. The proportion per square league- in the first period, was 892 ; in the second, 993— a prodigious difference to have taken place in so short a period as four years. — Malte Bkun, v. 276. erciale de ■ance, i. 182 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. chap, for by the labours of the agricultural portion of the xliii. ., community. 1806. j t was ^j s j ow degrees, however, and by the successive siow pro- efforts of more than one generation of great men, that Pmssiaat Prussia was raised to its present prosperous condition. hefra^d The monarchy, in reality, dates from the accession of Fre- S rowth Uent derick the Great ; but during the short period which has since elapsed, it has made unexampled progress. The treasure, indeed, amassed by that great warrior and able prince, had been wholly dissipated during the succeeding reign ; but, both under his sway and that of his successor Frederick- William, the monarchy had made important advances in territory, wealth, and population. By with- drawing from the alliance against France in 1794, the cabinet of Berlin succeeded in appropriating to itself a large portion of the spoils of Poland ; while the open preference to French interests which they evinced for the ten years which followed the treaty of Bale, was rewarded by a considerable share of the indemnities — in other words, of the spoils of the ecclesiastical princes of the empire ; and a most important increase of influence, by the place assigned to Prussia as the protector of the neutral leagues situated beyond a fixed line in the north of Germany. During this long period of peace, the industry and population of the country rapidly advanced ; a large por- tion of the commerce of Germany had fallen into its i Hard. v. hands, and the whirl and expenditure of war, so desolat- and vi. 379, . . „ , , . , -. -, 247, 249. mg to other states, was felt only as increasing the demand 29f"'2<'j. for agricultural produce, or augmenting the profits of neutral navigation. 1 At the death of the Great Frederick in 1786, the popu- statistkai lation of the monarchy was 7,000,000 of souls, and its details - revenue 31,000,000 thalers, or about £4,600,000 sterling. Bj' the shares obtained of Poland on occasion of its suc- cessive dismemberments, and the acquisition of Anspach, Baireuth, and other districts, its population was raised to 9,000,000 ; and although the treasure of 70,000,000 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 183 thalers (£10,500,000) left by the Great Frederick had chap. disappeared, and given place to a debt of 28,000,000 of XLIIL thalers, or £4,200,000, yet this was compensated by the 1806, increase of the revenue, which had risen to 36,000,000 thalers, or £5,400,000. Various establishments had been set on foot at Berlin, eminently calculated to promote the interests both of commerce and agriculture. In par- ticular, a bank and society of commerce were established in that capital, and institutions formed in the provinces to lend money to the landed proprietors on reasonable terms. By the aid of these establishments, and the effect of long- continued peace and prosperity, the finances of the state were in the most flourishing condition in 1804; all the branches of the public service were provided for by the current revenue, and some progress was even made in the reduction of the debt. The large share of the German indemnities, obtained through French and Russian influence by this aspiring power, made a considerable addition to the public resources : the acquisition of 526,000 souls raised the population to 9,500,000 souls, and the increase of 2,375,000 thalers yearly revenue swelled the income of the public treasury to 38,375,000 thalers, or £5,750,000 sterling — a sum equivalent, from the difference in the value of money, to at least ten millions sterling in Great Britain. This revenue, as in Austria, was the net receipt of the exchequer, and independent, not merely of the expenses of collection, but of various local charges in the different provinces. The regular army was nearly 200,000 strong, brave, and highly disciplined, but not to be compared to the French, either in the experience and skill of the officers, or in the moral energy which had been 293^297!' developed by the events of the Revolution. 1 Unlimited toleration prevails in Prussia. The Protes- tant is the religion of the sovereign and of the state, but state of re- persons professing all creeds are equally eligible to all Prussia? offices under government, and, practically speaking, no difference is made between them. On the whole, two- 184 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLILI. 1806. 1 Malte Bran, v. 282. Revenue and expen- diture of Prussia. thirds of the inhabitants are Protestants, one-third Catho- lics ; but the proportions between these two great divi- sions of Christians vary considerably in the different provinces.""" Each religion has its separate ministers and bishops. Berlin is every five years the seat of a general synod ; that capital has a Protestant bishop, and Konigs- berg another; but the Catholics have two archbishops and six bishops in the Prussian dominions. Like the Austrian government, however, the Prussians are careful not to admit the slightest interference in matters not purely spiritual by the court of Rome, and Catholic ministers of vacant livings are appointed by a variety of lay patrons, as in Great Britain, without any serious collision with the Holy See. 1 The revenue of Prussia, like that of all other countries in Europe, is derived partly from direct, partly from indi- rect taxation.! The total revenue is 79,810,000 florins, or nearly £8,000,000 sterling — a sum at least equal to * The Prussian population was divided, according to its religion, in 1829, in the following manner : — Provinces. Protestants. Catholics. Mormon- ites. Jews. Totals, includ- ing Military. Prussia, Posen, Pomerania, Brandenburg, Silesia, Saxony, Westphalia, Rhenish Pro- vinces. 1,448,113 309,495 864,588 1,505,471 1,284,448 1,316,700 504,611 499,840 529,921 687,401 7,543 20,535 1,091,132 89,081 711,883 1,678,719 13,919 245 171 1,315 19,408 67,590 4,709 10,341 20,970 3,607 11,981 22,421 2,008,361 1,064,506 876,842 1,539,592 2,396,551 1,409,388 1,228,548 2,202,322 7,753,264 4,816,215 15,658 160,978 12,726,110 Malte Brun, v. 304. t The particulars are — Direct taxes, 26,802,837 florins 5, or £2,680,253 Indirect, 40,740,000 4,074,000 Domains and forests, 7,171,428 717,142 Mines, 1,310,000 131,000 Lottery, 1,327,443 131,000 Miscellaneous, 438,572 43,857 Total, 79,810,000 florins, or £7,981,000 — Tchoborski's Finances de VAutriche et de la Prime, i. 4, 5. HISTORY OF EUROTE. 185 £14,000,000 sterling in Great Britain, if the difference chap. in the value of money is taken into consideration The expenditure is somewhat less, amounting only to 1806 * 75,238,571 florins, or £7,523,857 sterling, leaving a balance of above 5,000,000 florins, or £500,000 yearly to go to the discharge of the principal of the public debt.""' The public debt of Prussia in 1833 amounted to 723,450,000 francs, or £29,000,000 sterling. In 1823 the debt was 908,950,000 francs, or £36,350,000 ; so that in ten years they have reduced the debt by £7,000,000, at which rate it will be entirely extinguished in 1872. It would appear, therefore, that the finances of Prussia are in a more prosperous state than those of Austria, France, or Great Britain, in all of which, although their national resources are incomparably greater, the expendi- ture generally exceeds the income by a very considerable sum, and all thoughts of a sinking-fund, or of a permanent system for the reduction of "the debt, have been practi- cally abandoned. This fact speaks volumes as to the i Tchobor- patriotic spirit of the Prussian people, and the economy ^'dfrAu- and far-seeing policy of its government, especially when J^^* 16 the large military establishment they are obliged to keep j^j]^ up to secure their independence is taken into considera- v. 285, 310! tion. 1 The military establishment of Prussia is greater, in proportion to its population, than that of any other Military * r . _± ... P c establish- country in Europe. It consists, in time ot peace, ot one ment . hundred and twenty-two thousand men : but so admirable are the arrangements for the augmentation of this force in time of war, and such the ardent and patriotic spirit of * The particulars are — Interest of public debt, including sinking-fund, Civil list and court, . Army and ordnance, . Miscellaneous, Reserve fund, 12,244,286 florins, or £1,225,428 20,905,743 ... 2,090,574 33,180,000 ... 3,318,000 5,300,000 ... 530,000 3,318,572 ... 331,557 75,238,571 £7,523,857 — Tchoborski's Finances de I'Autriche et de la Prime, i. 9. 186 HISTORY OF EUROPE, CHAP. XLIII. 1806'. 1 Malte Brun, v. 286, 287. 11. The Land- wehr and Landsturm. the people, that the state could then without difficulty call forth an army of five hundred thousand combatants. The regular army is composed of three classes. 1st, Of voluntary recruits, who are received from seventeen to forty years of age. 2d, Of young men who are balloted for : a burden to which all the inhabitants of the king- dom, without exception, are subject. 3d, Of veteran soldiers who prolong the period of their service voluntarily beyond the period required by law. Every Prussian, without exception, from the royal family downwards, between the ages of twenty and fifty, is liable to be drawn for the military service in some department or other ; but he is only bound to serve in the regular army five years; and of these he is only three years actually with his colours, the other two being allowed to be spent at home. Thus the military duty is so short that it is never consi- dered as a burden, but rather as an agreeable mode of spending the first three years of manhood; and there are very few who either can or wish to avoid it. The cadres of the regiments, or permanent staff, and a certain pro- portion of the privates, are fixed, and hold to arms volun- tarily as a profession for life ; and this gives to the troops, notwithstanding the frequent change of the privates, the consistence and steadiness of old soldiers, while, at the same time, it spreads through a large part of the people a practical acquaintance with military duties. It is to this system, introduced by the Great Frederick, but matured and brought to perfection by those able states- men, Stein and Scharnhorst, after the treaty of Tilsit, that the stability and continual progress of the Prussian monarchy is, beyond all doubt, to be ascribed. 1 Besides the regular army, the military establishment of Prussia embraces also the landwehr and landsturm, which, in time of need, can quadruple its effective strength. The former is divided into two bans: the first comprehending all the young men from twenty to thirty- two who have not gone through the five years' service in HISTORY OF EUROPE. 187 the regular army ; the second formed of persons, whether chaf. they have served or not, from thirty-two to fifty years of L age. After that period all obligation of military service 1806# entirely ceases. During peace, the landwehr, which con- sists of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, are never called into active service, or removed from home ; but they are not on that account the less carefully and regularly instructed during a certain number of days in the year in their military duties. In case of war or invasion, the first ban are called out, and united to the regular forces, to whom they are soon scarcely inferior in discipline and prowess : the second ban form the garrisons of strong places, and perform the service of the interior. In addi- tion to this immense force, which numbers fully two hundred thousand combatants, there is organised in Prussia a second reserve, called the landsturm, which embraces every man, without exception, not already enrolled in one of the other services, between the ages of seventeen and fifty years. Such a force in many countries would be little more than a tumultuary rabble, more likely to be burdensome than available in real service; but in Prussia, where almost all the citizens have at one period or another served in the ranks, it forms a much more l Make efficient body, and actually performed good service on 285,28(5. many occasions during the glorious struggle of 1813. 1 Education is more generally diffused in Prussia than in any other country of equal extent in Europe. Over the Great diffu- whole of its dominions, one in seven of the whole popula- cation b tion is at school ; while in France the proportion is one Prussia - in twenty-three ; in England one in fifteen ; and in Scot- land one in eleven. There can be no doubt that this is the greatest proportion of persons undergoing instruction which obtains in the world. Instruction is there com- pulsory : the laws compel the sending of children to school by their parents, and, when necessary, that duty is enforced by the magistrates. In general, however, it is unnecessary, so great is the desire of parents and relations 188 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIII. 1806. 1 Malte Brun, v. 277, 278. 13. Manners and court of Berlin. to give their children the blessings of education. Schools are established in every parish, and the costs of instruc- tion are very trifling, so as to be within the reach of the humblest of the people ; and to the destitute it is given gratuitously. The tree of knowledge, however, has in Prussia, as elsewhere, brought forth its accustomed fruits of good and evil. In Prussia there are, according to the most recent returns, no less than twelve times as many crimes committed, in proportion to the population, as in France, where education is not diffused to a third of the extent it is in Prussia — a fact which demonstrates, equally with the experience of every other country, the sedulous care which it is indispensable to take before that great instrument of power is put into the hands of the people. 1 * The Prussian capital had long been one of the most agreeable and least expensive in Europe. No rigid etiquette, no impassable line of demarcation, separated the court from the people : the royal family lived on terms of friendly equality, not only with the nobility, but with the leading inhabitants of Berlin. An easy demeanour, a total absence of aristocratic pride, and of extravagance or parade, distinguished all the parties given at court, at which the king and queen mingled on terms of perfect equality with their subjects. Many ladies of rank, both at Paris and London, spent larger sums annually on their dress than the Queen of Prussia ; none equalled her in dignity and grace of manner, and the elevated sentiments with which she was inspired. Admira- tion of her beauty, and attachment to her person, formed one of the strongest feelings of the Prussian monarchy ; and nothing contributed more to produce that profound * In France and Prussia there were in 1826 : — PRUSSIA. FRANCE. Crimes against the person, . 1 in 34,122 1 in 32,411 " against property, . 1 in 597 1 in 9,392 " on the whole, . . 1 in 587 1 in 7,285 — Malte Brun, v. 278; and Balbi et Guerry, Sur V Education en France, hi. 786. HISTORY OF EUROTE. 189 irritation at France, which, in the latter years of the war, chap. pervaded all classes of its inhabitants, than the harshness XLIIL and injustice with which Napoleon, to whom chivalrous 1 1806 ; feelings were unknown, treated, in the days of her inisfor- 297, 299." tune, that captivating and high-spirited princess. 1 A spirit of economy, order, and wisdom, pervaded all the internal arrangements of the state. The cabinet, led its state at that period by Haugwitz, but in which the great S^Sj. abilities of Hardenberg and Stein soon obtained an ascendency, was one of the ablest in Europe. Its diplo- matists, inferior to none in information, penetration, and address, had long given to Prussia a degree of influence at foreign courts beyond what could have been expected from the resources and weight of the monarchy. The established principles of the Prussian cabinet, under the direction of Haugwitz, ever since the peace of Bale in 1795, had been to keep aloof from the dangers of war, and take advantage, as far as possible, of the distresses of their neighbours to augment the territory and resources of the monarchy. From a mistaken idea of present interest, not less than the influence of former rivalry with Austria, they inclined to the alliance with France, and derived great temporary benefits from the union, both in the accessions of territory which they received out of the ecclesiastical estates of the empire, and the increase of importance which they acquired as the head of the defen- sive league of the north of Germany. Little did they imagine, however, in what a terrible catastrophe that policy was to terminate, or anticipate, as the reward of their long friendship, a severity of treatment to which Austria and England were strangers, even after years of inveterate and perilous hostility. The interview at Memel in 1802, and the open support given by Russia to the Prussian claims in the matter of the indemnities, ., had already laid the foundation of an intimate personal 3po,^o]." friendship between Frederick- William and the Emperor 40T-V', Vii. Alexander. 2 But it was at first an alliance of policy 190 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIII. 1806. Sept. 25. Aug. 1/ Sept. 18. 1 Hard. ix. 272, 275. Bign.v.413, 415. Dum. xv.285,287. 16. And of Austria. rather than affection, and acquired the warmth of impas- sioned attachment at the tomb of the Great Frederick and on the field of Leipsic. Notwithstanding the inconsiderate haste with which Prussia had taken up arms, the cabinet of Berlin made some attempts to induce the other powers of Europe to share with them the dangers of the conflict. With England it was no difficult matter to effect a reconciliation. At the first authentic accounts of the change in the policy of Frederick-William, an order in council was issued, raising the blockade of the Prussian harbours. M. Jacobi, the Prussian minister in London, returned to that capital immediately after he had left it; and the British ministry had the generosity to resume its amicable relations with the cabinet of Berlin before an explanation had been given on the subject of Hanover. With Sweden an accommodation was also without difficulty effected, on the footing of the troops of that power taking possession of Lauenberg, which they did in the name of the King of Great Britain. It was not so easy a matter to convince the cabinet of St Petersburg of this unlooked-for change in the Prussian councils ; and, taught by the long vacil- lation of its policy, they were for some time unwilling to yield to the general joy which was diffused through the Russian capital, on the intelligence that war was resolved on. But no sooner was Alexander informed, by confiden- tial letters brought by General Krusemark from the King of Prussia, that he had embarked seriously in the contest, than he instantly wrote promising an immediate succour of seventy thousand men, and announcing his intention of himself marching at the head of a chosen army to aid in the support of his ally. 1 Important as the announcement of the intentions of Russia was, the accession of Austria would have been of still more value to the common cause, from its closer proximity to the scene of action, and the strong positions which the Bohemian mountains afforded on the flank of HISTORY OF EUROPE. 191 the probable theatre of war. The Prussian ambassador chap. accordingly was indefatigable in his endeavours to rouse J 1 the cabinet of Vienna to a sense of the vital importance 180b - of joining heart and hand in the approaching conflict for the liberties of Europe. He represented to Count Stadion, then prime minister at Vienna, " that the losses inflicted on Austria by the treaty of Pressburg were so immense, that the emperor, of necessity, must at some future period look out for the means of repairing them. The province of the Tyrol is of such irreparable importance to Austria, that no doubt can be entertained that she will take advan- tage of the first opportunity to resume it from Bavaria, by rousing the patriotic attachment of the inhabitants of that important province to their ancient masters. Napo- leon has justly conceived the most serious apprehensions for the faithful observance of that treaty which he him- self has been the first to violate. Does he not, in defiance of his engagements, still hold "the fortress of Braunau and the line of the Inn, six months after he was bouud by a solemn treaty to have evacuated Germany with all his forces \ The recent establishment of the Confederation of the Rhine, and -dissolution of the Germanic empire, too clearly demonstrate with what ulterior views the French government is actuated in regard to the countries beyond the Rhine. Honour, necessity, the existence of his people, have forced the King of Prussia to take up arms alone ; but a powerful Russian army, and the well-known gene- rosity of England, diminish the perilous chances of the conflict. Now, therefore, is the time for Austria and Prussia to lay aside their jealousies springing from the conquest of Silesia, and unite their forces against the common enemy, who is about to make the Confederation . J lni Hard. ix. of the Rhine an outwork from whence to enslave all the 277, 2'8i. other states of Germanic origin." 1 Forcible as these considerations were, and strongly as . the cabinet of Vienna felt their justice, there were yet many circumstances which forbade them to yield on this 192 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIII. 1806. 17. But the cabinet of Vienna resolves to remain neutral. Oct. 6. i Hard. ix. 279,281. Bign.v.418, 419. Luc- chesini, ii. 10G, 112. occasion to their inclinations. The conduct of Prussia for ten years had been so dubious and vacillating; her hostility to Austria, especially on the division of the indemnities, so evident; her partiality for the French alliance so conspicuous : her changes of policy during the last year so extraordinary, that no reliance could be placed on her maintaining a decided line of conduct for any length of time together, and, least of all, on her con- tinuing steadfast in that sudden and perilous hostility in which she had now engaged, and the vehemence of which was the worst possible guarantee for its endurance. Who could insure that she would not desert this alliance as she had done the first coalition against France, or abandon her policy as suddenly as she had done her recent hostility against England, and leave to Austria, irrevo- cably embarked, the whole weight and dangers of the contest? The Archduke Charles, on being consulted as to the state of the army, reported that the infantry, which had not yet been rejoined by the prisoners taken during the campaign, was hardly a half of its full com- plement; the cavalry but recently remounted, and for the most part unskilled in military exercises; the artil- lery numerous, but the majority of the gunners without any experience. The treasury was empty; some of the most valuable provinces of the monarchy had been torn away, and those which remained were exhausted by enormous war contributions, wrung from them by the enemy. Influenced by these considerations, the cabinet of Vienna resolved to preserve a strict neutrality, and issued a proclamation to that effect. However much the historian may lament that determination, from a know- ledge of the boundless calamities which an opposite course might have saved to both monarchies, it is impos- sible to deny that, situated as Austria was at that time, it was the most prudent resolution which its government could have adopted ; a and that, if Prussia was left single- handed to maintain the cause of European independence, HISTORY OF EUROPE. 193 it was no more than she was bound to expect from the chap. XLIII selfish and temporising policy which she had so long followed.* 1806 - Hopes were not wanting to the cabinet of Berlin of efficacious aid in another quarter where it was least Spain long expected, and of a kind to paralyse a considerable part to Franc™ of the French forces. Spain, bereft of her navy by the p^rf battle of Trafalgar, blockaded in her harbours, destitute Peace - of commerce, cut off from all intercourse with her colonies, had felt all the burdens of war without any of its glories. The public indignation was hourly accumulating against the Prince of the Peace, whose ignoble birth, exorbitant power, and immense wealth, rendered him as much an object of jealousy to the Castilian noblesse, as the uniform disasters which had attended his administration made him detested by the people. Still, however, that ruling favourite persevered, against the almost unanimous wishes of the kingdom, in the French alliance, till his pride was offended at the haughty conduct of Napoleon, who excluded the Spanish ambassador from any share in the negotiations for a general peace at Paris, and it was revealed to him, that in those conferences the French Emperor had seriously proposed to take the Balearic islands from the Spanish crown, and confer them as an . T , 1 * Lucches. indemnity for Sicily, together with a revenue drawn from »• 99, 100. Spain, on the King of Naples. 1 At the same time the 285, 28e! assembling of a powerful army at Bayonne, ostensibly * The instructions of Mr Adair, the British ambassador at Vienna at that period, were, not to stimulate the Austrian government to hurry into a war, Instructions of which the consequences, if unsuccessful, might be fatal to that country, but *° uielub"" to offer its government, if they deemed the opportunity favourable for engag- ject. ing in hostilities, or if the necessities of their situation compelled them to such a course, the whole pecuniary aid which Great Britain was capable of affording. Of the wisdom of this course of proceeding, no one who considers the pre- carious situation of Austria at that crisis can entertain a doubt ; and it affords another proof of the clear insight which Mr Fox at that period had obtained as to the insatiable ambition of Napoleon, and of the magnanimity with which that upright statesman instantly acted upou his conviction. " A man," says the Marquis Lucchesini, " unjustly styled by Napoleon and his adherents, the last prop of the pacific dispositions of the cabinet of St James's." — Vide Lucchesini, ii. 96, 97, note; and Bignon, v. 417. VOL. VII. N 194 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, directed against Portugal, sufficiently indicated a design 1 1 to overawe both states of the Peninsula. 1806. The light now suddenly flashed upon the Spanish At length rulers. They perceived, as Prussia had done during the hostiL'dis- same negotiation, that the French Emperor made use of agafns°t ns the powers with whom he was in alliance as mere depen- France. dencies, excluding them from any participation in treaties in which they were deeply interested, and disposing of their provinces to others without condescending even to ask their consent to the transfer. No sooner, therefore, did they receive intelligence of the rupture of the confer- ences between Great Britain and France at Paris, and the resolution of Prussia to take up arms, than they resolved to detach themselves from the French alliance, and join their forces to those engaged in the cause of European independence. Despatches from the Prussian envoy at Paris to the Prince of the Peace on this subject w T ere secretly intercepted and deciphered by the French government, which from that moment resolved on the overthrow of the Spanish branch of the house of Bourbon at the first convenient opportunity. At the same time, the Prince of the Peace, deeming concealment of his designs Oct. u no longer necessary, issued two proclamations, in the middle of October, in which he enjoined the immediate filling up of the ranks of the army, and the organisation of the national militia, under their constitutional leaders, in all the provinces of the monarchy. Thus was the ambi- tion and reckless disregard of national rights by Napo- leon again reviving, on a surer basis, because that of i Ann Reg< experience and common clanger, the great original Euro- Lu°cciJ? \ P ean coan tion against France; and on the eve of the ioo ioi. battle of Jena were the first sparkles of that terrible con- Hard. IX. . '-II 1 • 1 285, 28G. flagration visible, which afterwards burned with such fury in Russia, Germany, and the Spanish peninsula. 1 But although the greater and distant powers, with the exception of Austria, were thus arming in favour of the coalition, the lesser states nearer the scene of action were HISTORY OF EUROPE. 195 overawed by the influence and the authority of France, chap. Napoleon was daily receiving accessions of strength from 1806. the states which bordered on the Confederation of the Rhine. The Archduke Ferdinand, though brother to the TheiesUr Emperor of Austria, gave the first example of defection powers to- by joining his states of Wiirtzburg to that alliance; prance. the Elector of Hesse-Cassel, whom interest as well as Sept. 25. family connexions strongly inclined to the cause of Prussia, was nevertheless so overcome by his appre- hensions, as to persist, notwithstanding the utmost efforts of the cabinet of Berlin, in a forced neutrality ; and summoned to each of the hostile camps, and sorely per- plexed between his inclinations and his apprehensions, put his troops on the war footing of twenty thousand men, and contrived to protract his ultimate decision till the battle of Jena rendered submission to France a matter of necessity. Saxony alone, conterminous along its northern frontier with Prussia, and capable from its strength of adopting a more generous resolution, openly 1 joined the cabinet of Berlin ; but twenty thousand men 435, 442. were all that it brought to the standards of the Prussian 287, 288.' generals. 1 The whole weight of the contest, therefore, fell on ... 21. Prussia; for although great and efficacious aid might be Prepara- expected to be derived in time from Russia, and succours PmssiL were hoped for from England, both in men and money, brides. yet these auxiliaries were as yet far distant. The Musco- vite battalions were still cantoned on the Niemen; those of England had not yet left the Thames ; while Napoleon, at the head of a hundred and eighty thousand veteran troops, was rapidly approaching the Thuringian Forest. Nothing daunted, however, by this formidable prospect, Frederick-William gallantly took the field, and directed all the disposable troops of the monarchy towards Saxony and Erfurth. The total military strength of the kingdom was two hundred and forty thousand men, of whom one hundred and twenty thousand were assembled on the 196 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIII. 1806. 1 Lucehes. ii. 117, H8. Dum. xv. 289. Jom. ii. '275, 276, Hard. ix. 299, 300. Thiers, vii. 42, 43. 22. Her griev- ous want of foresight and defen- sive mea- sures. frontier, and twelve thousand were in observation in Westphalia, for the approaching campaign ; the remainder being dispersed in garrisoned depots, or not jet put in a state for active operations. Such was the general enthu- siasm, and so little did they anticipate the terrible reverses which awaited them, that the Prussian guards marched out of Berlin, singing triumphant airs, amidst the shouts of the inhabitants, almost in a state of sedition from the tumultuous joy they experienced on at length being about to measure their strength with the enemy. Napo- leon's forces were much more considerable. They amounted in Germany alone to one hundred and ninety thousand men ; of whom twenty-eight thousand were the terrible reserve cavalry under Murat, and they were directed by the ablest and most experienced marshals in the French army. 1 * The memorable military operations of the year 1813, and the tenacious hold which Napoleon then kept of the fortresses on the Elbe, when assailed by the greatly supe- rior forces of the coalition, have demonstrated that no position in Europe is more susceptible of defence than the course of that river ; and that supported by the ramparts of Magdeburg, Wittenberg, Torgau, and Dresden, an inferior force may there for a considerable time prolong its defence against an enemy possessing an overwhelming superiority in the field. Had these fortresses been pro- * Napoleon's army was divided into nine corps, and stationed as follows, on the 3d October, when he arrived at Wurtzburg, — MEN. First corps — Bemadotte — at Lichtenfelds, . . 20,000 Second do. — Marmont — Illyria, Third do— Davoust— Bamberg, . . . 27,000 Fourth do. — Soult — between Amberg and Bamberg, . 32,000 Fifth do. — Lefebvre, succeeded by Lannes— in front of Schweinfurt, 22,000 Sixth do. Ney— Nuremberg, .... 20,000 Seventh do. — Augereau — W T tirtzburg, . . . 17,000 Cavalry do. — Murat — between Wurtzburg and Kronach, 28,000 Imperial Guard — Bessieres and Lefebvre, after Lannes got the 5th corps— Wurtzburg, . . . 20,000 186,000 The bulk of the army was grouped round Coburg and Bamberg. The whole 1806. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 197 perly armed and provisioned, and the Prussians been chap. commanded by a general capable of turning to the best advantage the means of defence which they afforded, it is probable 5 that as protracted a contest might have been maintained as Napoleon supported in 1796 on the Adige, or Kray in 1800 around the bastions of Ulm, and time gained for the arrival of the Russians before a decisive blow was struck in the centre of Germany. But not only had no preparations for such a defensive system been made, but the nation, as well as its rulers, were in such a state of exultation as to despise them. None of these important bulwarks were provisioned; hardly were guns mounted on their ramparts. The interior fortified towns on the Oder and in Silesia were for the most part in the most deplorable state. No depots were formed; no pro- vision was made for recruiting the army in case of disaster. They had not even a rallying point assigned in the event of defeat, though the strong fortresses of Magdeburg, Wittenberg, and Torgau lay immediately in the rear of the theatre of war, and the Elbe spread its ample stream to arrest the victor. Careless of the future, chanting songs of victory, and enjoying its triumphant march through the villages, the army bent its steps towards Erfurth; gj^raa. strong in the recollection of the Great Frederick, stronger 117, 126. still in the anticipation of the overthrow of Napoleon, 1 force bearing on the Prussians, exclusive of Marmont in Illyria, was 186,000 1 Hard. men The Prussians, when the campaign opened, were divided into three armies : the right wing, under General Ruchehof 30,000 men, was stationed on the fron- tiers of the Hessian territories; the centre, 55,000 strong, commanded by the King in person, with his lieutenant-general, the Duke of Brunswick, under his orders, was in front of the Elbe around Magdeburg, with its advanced guard on the Saale; the left wing, composed of 40,000 men, including the Saxons, was commanded by Prince Hohenlohe, with Prince Louis, the King's brother, under him. In all 125,000-a noble force, but as much inferior to that at the command of Napoleon, as was the capacity of their leader compared to his. It was assembled in Saxony : its extreme left rested on the Bohemian moun- tains, and its advanced posts were pushed as far as Hof and the Kirchberg. A detached corps of 12,000 men, in Westphalia, was under the orders of a general destined to future celebrity— Blucher.— See Dumas, xv. 290, 514; Jom. 11. 275, 276 ; Official Report of the Prussian strength to the Duke of Brunswick, Hard. ix. 484, App. G.; and Thiers, Consulat et V Empire, vii. 42. 198 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. chap, and dreaming rather of the banks of the Rhine or the XLIIL plains of Champagne, than of the shores of the Vistula 1806 - and the fields of Poland. But if the infatuation of the army was great, greater imprudent still was the delusion of its commanders. The Duke of thepTus^an Brunswick, though an able man of the last century, and generals, enjoying a great reputation, was altogether behind the age, and ignorant of the perilous chances of a war with the veteran legions and numerous columns of Napoleon. The disasters of the late campaigns were by him ascribed entirely to timidity or want of skill in the Austrians ; the true way to combat the French, he constantly main- tained, was to assume a vigorous offensive, and paralyse their military enthusiasm by compelling them to defend their own positions. That there was some truth in this opinion, no one acquainted with the character and history of the French army could deny ; but unfortunately, it required, for its successful application, both a general and an army very different from the Prussian at this period. The former did not possess the energy and rapidity, the latter the strength or experience, requisite for so perilous a system. Bold even to rashness in the original conception of the campaign, the Duke of Brunswick was vacillating and irresolute when he came to carry it into execution ; and, while his opponent was counting hours and minutes in the march of his indefatigable legions, he frequently lost whole days in deliberation or councils of war, or changed the destination of the forces when their move- ments were half completed. The troops, indeed, were numerous and perfectly disciplined : the artillery admir- able ; the cavalry magnificent ; the staff skilful and highly educated, but in matters of theory and detail, rather than the practical disposal of large masses in presence of a powerful and enterprising enemy. But what the whole army, from the general to the lowest drummer, were alike ignorant of, was the terrible vehemence and rapidity which Napoleon had introduced into modern war, by the HISTORY OP EUROPE. 1.09 union of consummate skill at headquarters with enormous chap. masses and a vast application of physical force ; combining _1 1 thus the talent of Cresar or Turenne with the fierceness 1806 - of the sweep of Scythian warfare. Applying then to the present the experience of the past age, the usual error of second-rate men, they calculated their measures upon the supposition of a war of manoeuvres, when one of annihi- lation awaited them : and advanced as against the columns ' Hard - >*■ 301 303 of Daun or Laudohn, when they were in presence of Jom.ii.-iro. Napoleon and a hundred and fifty thousand effective men. 1 As usual in such cases, the contending parties prefaced the war of arms by mutual manifestoes calculated to rouse Procfama- the spirit of their respective forces, or vindicate their poieo°n t a " hostility in the eyes of Europe. That of Napoleon, which ^oif 6 ™* bore intrinsic evidence of his composition, was, as usual, admirably calculated to dazzle and stimulate his followers. " Soldiers ! the order for your return to France was already issued : you had already approached it by several marches : triumphal fetes awaited you ; preparations for your reception were already made in the capital : but whilst we were surrendering ourselves to a too confident security, new conspiracies were formed under the mask of friendship and alliance. Cries of war have been heard from Berlin : for two months provocations have daily been offered to us ; the same insane spirit which, taking the advantage of our dissensions fourteen years ago, conducted the Prussians into the plains of Champagne, still prevails in their councils. If it is no longer Paris which they propose to raze to its foundation, it is now their standards which they announce their intention of planting in the capitals of our allies ; it is Saxony which they wish to compel to renounce, by a shameful transaction, its inde- pendence, and range itself by their side ; it is your laurels which they wish to tear from your brows : thej^ insist upon our evacuating Germany at the mere sight of their . army ! The fools ! Let them learn that it is a thousand times easier to destroy the great capital than to wither XLIII. 1806. 200 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, the honours of a great people and its allies. Their pro- jects were then confounded : they found in the plains of Champagne defeat, shame, and death : but the lessons of experience are forgotten ; and there are men in whom the feelings of hatred and jealousy are never extinguished. Soldiers ! there is not one among you who would return to France by any other path but that of honour. We should never re-enter there except under triumphal arches. What then ! shall we have braved the seasons, the seas, the deserts — vanquished Europe, repeatedly coalesced against us — extended our glory from the east to the west — to return at last to our country like deserters, after having abandoned our allies, and to hear it said that the French eagle fled at the mere sight of the Prussian standards 1 But they have already arrived at our advanced posts. Let us then march, since moderation has not been able to awaken them from this astonishing trance : let the Prussian army experience the same fate which it did fourteen years ago : let them learn that if it is easy, by means of the friendship of a great people, to acquire power and dominions, its enmity, though capable of being roused only by an abandonment of every principle of wisdom 4, 6? m ' *' v ' and reason, is more terrible than the tempests of the ocean." 1 Less fitted to rouse the military passions and warlike Manifesto enthusiasm of its subjects, than this masterpiece of Napo- leon, the Prussian manifesto, drawn by Gentz, was yet a model of dignified reason, and concluded with a sentiment as to the ultimate issue of the contest, which subsequent events have rendered prophetic. " All our efforts, and those of our allies, to preserve peace have proved unsuc- cessful ; and if we are not willing to abandon to the despotism of an implacable enemy, and to deliver over to his devouring armies, the whole north of Germany, and perhaps of Europe, a war is inevitable. His majesty has resolved upon it, because the honour and security of the state are in danger : he would have deemed himself happy of Prussia. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 201 could he have attained the same end by pacific means ; chap. xliii. 180fi. but it is with the firmest confidence .that lie takes the command of the army which is about to combat for its country and national honour, because the cause in which it is engaged is just. His majesty is well aware that for long the army desired war ; and even when circumstances prevented him from yielding to its wishes, these wishes commanded his respect, because they took their origin in those feelings of honour and patriotism which have ever distinguished the Prussian forces. The nation, in a body, has manifested the warm interest which it takes in this conflict ; and that strong expression of enthusiasm has confirmed his majesty in the opinion, that now it is not only unavoidable, but in unison with the wishes of all the people. His majesty is convinced that the desire to preserve unchanged the national honour, and the glory which the Great Frederick has shed over our arms, will suffice to excite the army to combat with its accustomed valour, and to support with constancy all its fatigues. " But this war possesses even a more general interest. We have to deal with an enemy who all around us has The true beaten the most "numerous armies, humbled their most the -war as powerful states, annihilated their most venerable con- ?* serted in stitutions; ravished from several nations their honour, from others their independence. A similar fate awaited the Prussian monarchy : numerous armies menaced your frontiers; they were daily augmenting; it had become your turn to fall into the gulf, to bow beneath a stranger yoke; and already his pride and rapacity coveted the spoils of the north of Germany. Thus we combat for our independence, for our hearths, for all that is dear to us ; and if God gives victory to the just side, to our arms, to the courage which burns in the heart of every Prussian, we shall be the liberators of oppressed millions. Every warrior who shall fall on the field of battle will have sacrificed his life in the cause of humanity; every one who survives will acquire, besides immortal glory, a just 202 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIII. 1806. 1 Dum. xvi. 8, 10. 27. title to the gratitude, the triumph, the tears of joy of a liberated country. AVho amongst us could endure the thoughts of becoming the prey of a stranger % While we combat for our own safety, to avert for us the deepest humiliation to which a nation can be subjected, ive are the saviours of all our German brethren; the eyes of all nations are fixed on us as the last bulwark of liberty, security, or social order in Europe." 1 The opposite style of these two eloquent proclama- Reflections tions is very remarkable. Both are addressed to the prociama- strongest passions of the human breast ; both are master- pieces of manly oratory; but the language which they severally employ is strikingly characteristic of the dif- ferent situations in which their authors respectively stood. Napoleon speaks to his soldiers only of an insult offered to their arms — of glory and triumphs, and victories to be won; Frederick- William, equally firm, but less sanguine as to the result, disguises not the dangers and chances of the struggle, but reminds them of the duty they owe to themselves, their country, the cause of the human race. The former invokes the eagles of France, and calls on the soldiers to follow their glorious career : the latter appeals to the God of battles, and anticipates from his aid a final triumph to the arms of freedom. The battle of Jena and chains of Tilsit seemed for long to have announced an abandonment of this cause by the care of Providence ; but let these words be borne in mind, and compared with the final issue of the contest. Napoleon had no gallantry or chivalrous feeling in his Napoleon's breast. The Prussian minister had, with the ultimatum insult to the r , i i • / r» t-» t • • , c Queen of ot the cabinet oi Berlin, given a pressing request lor an Prussia. answer to the Prussian headquarters by the 8th October. " Marshal," said he to Berthier, " they have given us a rendezvous for the 8 th; never did a Frenchman refuse such an appeal. We are told that a beautiful queen is to be a spectator of the combat; let us then be courteous, HISTORY OF EUROPE. 203 and march without resting for Saxony." Francis I. chap. might have used the same language ; but what followed 1 1 in the first bulletin of the campaign, dictated by Napo- 1806, leon himself % " The Emperor was right when he spoke thus : for the Queen of Prussia is with the army, dressed as an Amazon, wearing the uniform of her regiment of dragoons, writing twenty letters a-day to spread the conflagration in all directions. We seem to behold Armida in her madness setting fire to her own palace. After her follows Prince Louis of Prussia, a young prince full of bravery and courage, hurried on by the spirit of party, who flatters himself he shall find a great renown in the vicissitudes of war. Following the example of these illustrious persons, all the court cries to ' To arms ! ' but when ivar shall have reached them with all its hor- rors, all will seek to exculpate themselves from having been instrumental in bringing, its thunder to the peaceful plains of the North!' Such was the language in which Napoleon spoke of the most beautiful princess in Europe, rousing her subjects to patriotic resistance ! How singu- larly prophetic is the concluding part of the sentence of J Nap. Bui- what he himself experienced, just six years afterwards, in 12. ' the frozen fields of Russia. 1 Animated by those heart-stirring addresses, the forces on both sides rapidly approached each other ; and their Preparatory advanced outposts were in presence on the 8th October. oh^TpTJs- Then began the terrible contest of the north with the siaus - south of Europe ; never destined to be extinguished till £j las > Plate the domes of the Kremlin were reddened with flames, and the towers of Notre Dame were shaken by the dis- charges of the Russian batteries. The first plan dis- cussed at Berlin was for the whole army to debouche in separate columns by the two great roads, those of Adorf and Saalfeld, and Eisenach and Gotha, and commence the offensive towards the valley of the Maine, on the east and west of the Thuringian Forest, the intermediate passes of which were to be occupied by a central corps; 204 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, but this plan was soon abandoned, as exposing the army , 1 to a perilous division of force in presence of so powerful 1806. an( j en terprising an enemy. The design ultimately Sept. 27. adopted was to advance with the right under Ruchel in front, which was pushed on to Eisenach; next in echelon followed the centre, commanded by the King in person, which, united with the corps of Hohenlohe, was to advance upon Saalfeld and Jena, while each wing was covered by a detached corps of observation, the right by Blucher on the confines of Hesse, the left by Tauenzein, on the side of Baireuth. The object of this movement was to deter- mine the hesitation of the Elector of Hesse-Cassel, and effect the junction of his contingent to the Prus- sian army, and at the same time pierce the centre of the valley of the Maine, which was the base of the enemy's operations, and cut them off from their communications with France. Both objects were important, and the design was well conceived, had the Duke of Brunswick pos- sessed a force adequate to its execution. But it necessarily involved his army in great hazard in presence of a numer- ous and skilful enemy; and by leaving open to his advance the great roads to Dresden and Leipsic, exposed the Prussians to the very danger of being themselves i Dum. xvi. turned and cut off from their communications and maga- 279,280.' ' zines, when endeavouring to inflict that injury on their opponents. 1 Napoleon was not a man to let slip the opportunity Counter which this hazardous attempt of the Prussians to pass his ^Napoleon, position afforded, of not merely defeating, but destroying Sprovfa™ their army. Confident in the numbers and experience of tToJ°s his n * s droops, which rendered a situation comparatively safe to them, which was to the last degree perilous to their opponents, he instantly resolved to retort upon the enemy the measure they were preparing to play off upon him ; and by throwing forward his army with the right in front, turn the Prussian left, and cut them off from their magazines on the Elbe, and the heart of the monarchy. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 205 On the 8th October, the French army was concentrated chap. round Bamberg ; at three o'clock on the morning of the _ -, 9 th, Napoleon put himself in motion, and his columns marched towards Saxony, on three great roads, by echelon, the right in front. On the right, Soult and Ney with a Bavarian division moved from Baireuth by Hof, on Plaucn ; in the centre, Murat with the cavalry, as also Ber- nadotte and Davoust, marched from Bamberg by Kronach, on Saalburg ; on the left, Lannes and Augereau, breaking up from Schweinfurt, advanced by Coburg and Graffen- tlial upon Saalfeld. The effect of these movements was to bring the centre and right of the French directly upon the Prussian magazines and reserves, while they were stretching forward on the left, to interpose between their antagonists and the Rhine. In commencing these move- ments, the French Emperor put in practice his usual system for providing for his army. This was to make his troops subsist daily, in general, on the resources of the country which they occupied, — to extend themselves sufficiently to obtain supplies, but not so as to be beyond concentra- tion in case of attack, — and to have in reserve in waggons bread adequate for several days, to meet any sudden emergency. This reserve store, carefully husbanded and duly replenished when drawn upon, served for all cases of concentration before or after battles. To convey it, Napoleon allowed two caissons for a battalion, and one for a squadron. Adding to that the carriages provided for the sick and wounded, he calculated that four or five hundred waggons should suffice for the largest army. The most peremptory orders were issued against any general or officer applying any part of these public conveyances i Jom ii# to his private purposes ; and in one instance, having dis- f^ 2 ^ covered that one of his marshals made such use of them 19 ^' : Bi u- v. 46a, 466. in the outset of the campaign, he manifested the utmost Norv.ii.456, . . 457. Thiers displeasure, and declared Berthier responsible for all such vii/38. evasions of his orders in future. 1 The Prussians were in the midst of their perilous 206 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, advance to the French left, when intelligence of this rapid XLIII . . . accumulation of forces against their own centre and left 1806. reached the Duke of Brunswick's headquarters. It was The Duke of indispensable to renounce forthwith the hazardous enter- renounces prise ; and orders were instantly despatched to countermand sive.° De- the advance, and direct the concentration of the army in th" p tSre tne neighbourhood of Weimar : the principal column, of war. commanded by the King, at Erfurt h ; Ruchel at Gotha ; Hohenlohe at Hochdorf ; the reserve, under the Duke of Wiirtemberg, at Halle. Thus the Prussians, in presence of the greatest general and most powerful army of modern times, were thrown into a change of position, and a com- plicated series of cross movements, with their flank exposed to the enemy — the situation of all others the most perilous in war, and which, not a year before, had proved fatal to the combined army, when attempting a similar movement in front of Austerlitz. To complete their danger, the concentration, from the orders which they received, took place on the centre and right ; whereas it was on the left, towards Hof, that it should have been made, to resist the rapid march of the invaders upon their magazines and resources. The Thuringian Forest, which those move- ments promised to render the first theatre of approaching hostilities, is a range of broken hills, for the most part covered with wood, which, branching off from the central chain that encircles Bohemia, stretches to the northwards until it subsides into the plains of Westphalia, where it terminates. This range separates the valley of the Rhine from that of the Elbe, the waters from the western slope flowing into the former, those from the eastern into the latter. It thus runs directly athwart the line of commu- nication between France and Prussia, and requires to be traversed in one quarter or another in going from the one country to the other. Three great roads cross this broken woody region, and conduct the traveller from the banks of the Rhine to the sands of Prussia. The first, starting from Mayence, follows the windings of the Maine, as far 1806. om. 11. 280. Dum. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 207 as Coburg, where it approaches the summit of the Thurin- chap. gian ridge, from which the Maine flows in one direction, the Saale in another. Three defiles penetrate the sum- mit level : that of Baireuth to Hof, that of Coburg to Saalfeld, that of Kronach to Schleitz. The second route, which is the one usually followed by travellers going from Mayence to Saxony or Berlin, passes the wooded summits of the Thuringian Forest to the left of their highest ele- vation. It branches off from the valley of the Maine at Hanau, ascends the lateral valley of the Fulda, and, after surmounting the ridge, descends by Eisenach, Gotha, and Weimar into the Saxon plains and the banks of the Elbe. The third, by striking far to the north, avoids entirely the Thuringian rauge, and, leaving the Rhine at Wesel, makes i j straight for the Westphalian plains between the northern xv?. - 2mT.' extremity of the hills and the sea. Of these routes fef n ' hS Napoleon chose the first, which brought him by Wiirtz- rr^ ie 303 -.. burg to the sources of the Saale ; and it was there that 59, 60. p er - he came in contact with the Prussian army, in the very vation. act of making their perilous movement from left to right. 1 But before the junction of the Prussian forces, even in this false direction, could be effected, the formidable Comm'e'nce- legions of Napoleon were already upon them. As might ™n"ies, and have been expected, when surprised in this manner in Cached the middle of a lateral movement, they were attacked at ^ odies of J Prussians. the same time in different quarters, and in all by greatly superior columns of the enemy. The French masses, dense and strong, marching on the great chaussees, fell perpen- dicularly upon the flank of their opponents when endea- vouring, by cross and often deplorable roads, to reach the points of rendezvous assigned to them. The consequences might easily have been anticipated. They were defeated in every quarter, and lost, in the very outset of the cam- paign, the moral influence of an advance. On the 9th, Oct. 9. Tauenzein, who was at the moment in front of Schleitz with six thousand Prussians and three thousand Saxons, was attacked by Bernadotte, at the head of greatly supe- 208 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. CHAP. XLIII. 1809. Oct. J 0. Oct. 11. 1 Bign. v. 468, 470. Dum. xvi. 51, 58. 33. Success of the French left against Prince Louis. rior forces, and after a gallant resistance dislodged from his position with the loss of several hundred men. The day following, Murat marched on Gera, and on the road fell in with and captured a convoy of five hundred car- riages and a pontoon train — an extraordinary proof of the advantage the French had already gained, when, on the third day after hostilities had commenced, they had fallen in with and captured a large part of the reserve trains and heavy baggage of the enemy. 1 Nor was the French left, under Lannes and Augereau, less successful. On the 1 0th, the former of these generals arrived on the heights of Saalfeld, and animated his troops to the highest degree by reading to them the pro- clamation of Napoleon on the opening of hostilities ; and on the same day, in continuing his advance upon Saalfeld, he fell in with Prince Louis, who commanded the rear- guard of the Prussian left, and had been stationed at Rudolstadt and Blankenburg by Prince Hohenlohe to cover the cross-march of his columns, who were then endeavour- ing to reach the points of rendezvous assigned them by their commander-in-chief. This gallant prince, in common with his immediate superior Prince Hohenlohe, had long expressed the opinion, which they had in vain endeavoured to impress upon the Duke of Brunswick, that Napoleon meditated an attack on the Prussian left, and that a concentration of their troops in that direction should have been made some days before."' Unable to prevent the disastrous resolution to assemble on the right, he now set himself with heroic bravery to mitigate its effects. The forces under his command were only eleven batta- * In the great council of war, held on the 5th October at Erfurth, when the Duke of Brunswick's project of continuing the march across the Thuringian Forest was discussed, Prince Hohenlohe, Prince Louis, and Colonel Massen- bach, his chief of the staff, strongly represented that, by continuing the march in that direction, the army would be exposed to certain ruin ; that they woidd soon arrive at a country where the ground was entirely favourable to the operations of the enemy, and adverse to their own method of fighting ; and that if the French were inclined, as seemed more than probable, to turn either of the wings of the army, nothing could favour this design so much as the HISTORY OF EUROPE. 209 lions and eighteen squadrons of hussars, with eighteen chap. pieces of cannon; and with these he had to withstand — L the shock of Lannes, with twenty-five thousand men. 1R0 °- Notwithstanding this fearful preponderance of force, he Pj^^ resolved to hold firm during the remainder of the day, to »• 13 ?> i?9. ° , ■', Dum. xvi. gain time for the evacuation of the considerable magazines 55, 57. which were collected close in his rear at Saalfeld. 1 In this gallant but unhappy determination he was 34 confirmed from an opinion that it was only by resuming Death of the old Prussian system of a vigorous offensive, that the spirits of the soldiers, which had been much sunk by the general order to retreat on the preceding day, could be revived. The sensible increase of the enemy all around him on the following day — even the turning of his right Oct. 10. flank by Suchet with a powerful body of light troops, which rendered his position no longer tenable, could not induce him to abandon his ground ; and, when the attack commenced, the Prussians were surrounded on all sides. Notwithstanding this, they made a gallant resistance, and enabled the artillery and chariots to leave Saalfeld in safety. Returning from the town to his gallant comrades, who still made gorjd their ground in its front, Prince Louis fouud them dropping fast under the murderous fire of the French tirailleurs. Soon their retreat was converted into a rout by the ravages of the hostile artil- lery ; and the prince himself, while combating bravely with the rearguard, and striving to restore order among the fugitives, was surrounded by the enemy's hussars — "Surrender, colonel," said their chief, not knowing the rank of his opponent, " or you are a dead man." Louis answered only by a blow with his sabre, which wounded plunging the Prussian host by columns into the forest. These sage observa- tions made no sort of impression on the Duke of Brunswick; and all the modi- fication of his plan which these generals could effect, was that the troops should halt for a day on the 8th October, and on the following morning throw out strong reconnoitring parties, and receive bread for eight days before entering the defiles of Thuringia. It may safely be affirmed that that council, by continuing this fatal advance, determined the result of the campaign. — See Dumas, xvi. 25, 26; and Saalfeld, Algemeine Gcschichte, iii. 299. VOL. VII. 210 HISTOKY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIII. 1806. 35. Discourage- ment of the Prussians, who are completely turned by the French. 1 Lucchos. ii. 137, 140. Bign.v. 468. 470. Dum. xvi. 51, 58. without disabling his adversary, who replied with a mortal stroke, which laid the heroic prince dead at his feet. In this disastrous encounter the Prussians lost twelve hundred prisoners, besides eight hundred killed and wounded, and thirty pieces of cannon. But this was the least part of their misfortunes : the heroic Prince Louis was no more. He had fallen, it is true, while bravely combating on the field of honour ; but his body had remained the trophy of the victors, and the continued advance of the enemy too surely indicated that defeat had attended the first serious encounter of the Prussian arms.'"" Their army was now broken in upon in several points ; its magazines in part seized ; its concentration interrupted ; and the dejected columns, without any fixed rallying points, were wandering about in every direction, while the terrible French legions, in dense masses, were falling perpendicularly on their flank. These disasters rapidly communicated their depress- ing effect to the minds of the soldiers. The death of Prince Louis, above all, equally dear to the officers and private men, diffused a universal gloom. So grie- vous a calamity in the outset of the campaign was regarded as the worst augury of its future fortunes ; and, as is usual with great bodies in a violent state of excitement, the transition was immediate from the preceding exultation to an extraordinary degree of depression. 1 Meanwhile the movements preparatory to a decisive battle continued, though in a very different spirit, on both sides. In deep dejection, and with infinite difficulty, the Prussians at length concentrated their forces in two * No sooner was the rank of the prince known, than Marshal Lannes, with deserved courtesy, showed his corpse all the honours due to so illustrious a character. It was interred with military honours in the cemetery of the princes of Coburg, at Saalfeld; and Berthier wrote on the 12th to the chief of the Prussian staff, announcing that the Emperor had ordered it to be restored, if it was desired that his remains should rest in the tomb of his ancestors — an offer which the disasters immediately ensuing rendered it impossible for the royal family at that time to accept. — Bignon, v. 469. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 211 great masses under the King in the neighbourhood of chap. Weimar, and under Hohenlohe near Jena. It was in the highest exultation, on the other hand, and in the full l ™^ anticipation of victory, that the French made a sweep Movements . , iiiT»* on both sides which brought them completely round the Prussian army, preparatory The early triumphs with which the campaign had opened **Jn™ had given Napoleon hopes of rapid and decisive success. He no longer feared, as he admitted he had clone at first, that he would be obliged to have recourse to the mattock. * The confusion of the enemy's columns had dissipated the prestige of the Great Frederick. Encouraged by these events, he now hesitated not to follow out the brilliant Oct. 12. career which had opened to his arms. A complete con- version, turning on the pivot of the left, took place in the direction of his columns, who wheeled round so as to face the Northern Ocean. Davoust, Bernadotte, and Murat marched upon Naumburg, where, on the next day, they Oct. 13. made themselves masters of considerable magazines ; Soult was advancing on Jena, where Lannes was already estab- lished; while Ney and Augereau were at lioda and Kahla, in its immediate neighbourhood. Such was the confusion of the Prussian movements, and the bad understanding which already prevailed between them and the Saxons, that, when the French took up the ground which the Allies had just quitted in the environs of Jena, they found the fields and roads covered with arms, cuirasses, and chariots, like the scene of a defeat. The Saxons had pillaged the Prussians, and the Prussians the Saxons. Baggage and ammunition waggons had been abandoned JJ^- by their drivers, and lay scattered in confusion, while ^82^253, some guns had even been spiked to prevent their being of uo, uT. service to the enemy. 1 * In setting out for the Prussian campaign, Napoleon expected to experience a more formidable resistance than he had yet met with in Europe. The exploits of the Seven Years' War had filled him with the highest idea of the troops trained in the school of its illustrious hero, and he said to his assembled officers at Mayence, " We shall have earth to move in this war." — See Joiuxi, ii. 2S2. 212 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIII. 1806. 37- Result of these man- oeuvres. Oct. 12. 1 Dum. xvi. 7-, 76. Jom. n.284. Luc- ches. ii. 141. 38. Concentra- tion of the Prussian forces near Weimar. The result of these different inarches was in the highest degree favourable to the French arms. By the advance on Nauinburg they had cut the enemy off from the line of retreat to Leipsic, and thrown their left back in such a manner that the French on the banks of the Saale had their back to the Elbe, and faced the Rhine ; while the Prussians had their back to the Rhine, and could only hope to regain their country by cutting their way through the enemy. Finding affairs in a situation so much more favourable than he could possibly have anticipated, Napo- leon, to gain additional time to complete the encircling of his antagonists, despatched, on the 12th, an officer of his household with proposals of peace to Frederick-William, taking care meanwhile not to suspend for one instant the march of his columns ; but the letter did not reach that monarch till the battle was over. In the evening of the 12th the army of Hohenlohe, which, with all the additions it had received from Ruchel, did not exceed forty thousand men, was grouped in dense masses on a ridge of heights to the north on the road from Jena to Weimar, between the Ilm and the Saale. Its advanced posts were on the Landgrafenberg, a steep hill between its position and the town of Jena, from the summit of which the whole lines of the Prussians could be descried, and over which the only road to the attack of their posi- tion in front lay. 1 The army of the King of Prussia, on the other hand, under the immediate command of the Duke of Bruns- wick, sixty-five thousand strong, was concentrated at the distance of somewhat more than a league in the rear of Hohenlohe, near Weimar. Thus the whole Prussian army, consisting of above a hundred thousand men, of which eighteen thousand were superb cavalry, with three hundred pieces of cannon, was at length assembled in a field of battle, where their far-famed tactics had a fair theatre for development ; and notwithstanding the early disasters of the campaign, an opportunity was afforded HISTORY OF EUROPE. 213 them of reinstating affairs at the sword's point. Each chap. army had passed its opponent, and mutually intercepted the other's communications. But there was this extreme 1806, difference between the two, that the army of the Duke of ^jom." Brunswick, cut off from all its magazines, had no resource J^gf; but in victory ; whereas that of Napoleon, though severed ««. .W' from the Rhine, had a clear line of retreat, in case of dis- isi." aster, to the Maine and the Danube. 1 It would have been well for the Prussians had they 3g continued and given battle in this concentrated position ; The Friis- it f» T^v ITV/Ti. slan arm y but the intelligence of the advance of Davoust and JYlurat is again upon Naumburg, which arrived at headquarters on the The King night of the 12th, led to a renewed separation, attended ^2Ei? in the end with the most frightful disasters. Conceiving that the French Emperor had no intention of immediate combat, and being anxious for the safety of that town where the principal magazines of the army were placed, the Duke of Brunswick came "to the ruinous resolution of again dividing his forces ; and while Hohenlohe was left in position near Jena, as a rear-guard to cover the retreat of the army, the principal body, with the King at its head, moved at daylight for Suiza, and at night arrived on Oct. 13. the heights of Auerstadt. Thus at the very moment when Napoleon, with above a hundred thousand men, was making his dispositions for a general battle on the clay following, and surmounting the difficulties of the approach to the enemy's position on the heights in his vicinity, the Prussian general dislocated the imposing mass of his soldiers, and diverging to the left with two- thirds of his forces, engaged in a hazardous flank-march of ten leagues in presence of his antagonists, leaving a comparatively inconsiderable rearguard to be crushed by more than double its force in its position at Jena. j^SjJJk Such was the dearth of provisions which already pre- jjjj?*^? 8 *' vailed in the Allied camp from the capture of their maga- v. 472. lirii Dum. xvi. zines by the enemy, that no regular supply of bread was 79, 83. dealt out to the men after the long and fatiguing march; 2 214 HISTOBY OF EUROPE. chap, but great numbers lay down, wearied and supperless, to sleep on the ground which was to cover their graves on the 1306. molTOW . Meanwhile Napoleon, never suspecting this division of Napoleon's the enemy 's force, and supposing they were to follow the for P t°he tions principles of the Great Frederick, which were to combat battle. j n concentrated masses and on as confined a field of battle as possible, was endeavouring, with his wonted energy, to overcome the all but insurmountable difficulties of the passage of the Landgrafenberg, by which access was to be afforded to his columns for the attack of the Prussian position. No sooner had the French light troops dislodged the enemy's patrols from these important heights, than the Emperor repaired to them in person, from whence he distinctly beheld the portion left of the Prussian army still reposing at leisure on its formidable position on the opposite ridge. Not doubting that he would have to deal with their whole force on the following day, he pressed without intermission the march of his columns ; and soon arranged the forces of Lannes, who with his infantry first reached its summit by the steep and rugged ascent, in such formidable masses around its declivities on the other side, that the enemy, who were now sensible of their error in abandoning so important a point, and were making preparations to retake it, were obliged to desist from the attempt. This valuable height, therefore, from which the whole of the Prussian position and all the movements of their troops were distinctly visible, remained in the hands of the French ; and its elevation not only gave them that advantage, but entirely concealed from the observation of the Prussians the rapid concentration of 1 Jom - £• troops on the Jena side of the mountain, which would at 28o, 286. J- iii- • • • i saaif. iii. once have revealed the intention or a decisive attack on camp.de the following day. Still the difficulty of surmounting 26o. e ' ' the ascent was very great, and for artillery and waggons it was as yet totally impassable. 1 Nothing, however, could long withstand the vigour of HISTORY OF EUROPE. 215 Napoleon and his followers. He stood on the spot till chap. the most rugged parts of the ascent were widened by JL blasting the solid rock, or smoothed by pioneers ; and 1806, when the men were exhausted, revived their spirits by And vigor- himself working with the tools, and exhibiting his old tTsurmount experience as a gunner, in surmounting the difficulty of graf^w'g. dragging the cannon up the pass. Animated by such an example, and the vigorous exertions of the successive multitudes who engaged in the task, the difficulties which the Prussian generals deemed altogether insurmountable were rapidly overcome ; before eight in the evening the ascent was passable for cavalry and artillery ; and at midnight the whole corps of Lannes, with all its guns and equipage, reposed in crowded array on the ridges and flanks of the mountain. The Imperial Guard, under Lefebvre, lay on its summit ; Augereau on its left ; Soult and Ney received orders to march early in the morning before daybreak to the right, in order to turn the enemy by his left, after the combat was begun ; Murat bivouacked during the night near Dornburg, but he was ordered up to Jena, and was in reserve before the action was far advanced ; while Davoust and Bernadotte were directed to advance from Naumburg, the first upon Apolda, in order to threaten the enemy's rear, the second upon Dornburg, to cut off his retreat to the Prussian dominions. The two armies now lay so near that their fires were within cannon-shot, and the lines of sentinels in communication : the lights of the Prussians, dispersed over a space of six leagues, threw a prodigious glow over the whole heavens to the northwest ; those of the French, concentrated in i j m. a. a small space, illuminated the heights in the middle of Bign.v.4'73, their position. Surrounded by his faithful Guards, the x't's?^™.' Emperor, after having despatched his last orders to his |^ J f ^i- marshals, wrapped himself in his cloak, and shared the camp.de frigid bivouac of the soldiers on the summit of the Land- 200. ' grafenberg. 1 At four in the morning of the 14th he was already on 216 HISTORY OF EUROPE, chap, horseback, and, surrounded by his generals, rode along XLIIL the front of the line of Suchet's and Gazan's divisions, 1806. 42. which were first to be engaged, and were already under situation of arms. " Soldiers ! " said he, " the Prussian army is on e bo r th ies turned, as the Austrian was a year ago at Ulm ; it now Smomi only combats to secure the means of retreat. The corps of the uth. vfhich should permit itself to be broken would be dishonoured. Fear not its renowned cavalry ; oppose to their charges firm squares and the bayonet." Loud acclamations rent the air at these words : but the morn- ing was still dark ; the first streaks of dawn were only beginning to appear, and a thick cold fog obscured every object around. Burning with impatience, the soldiers awaited the signal of attack, but for two long hours they were kept shivering in their lines. At length at six, when the day, though still misty, was light, and the Emperor judged that his marching columns would be so far advanced on their respective routs as to justify the com- mencement of the action in front, he gave the signal for the attack. Meanwhile the Prussians, little suspecting the tempest which was about to burst on them, were securely reposing in their position, and, anticipating a day of complete rest on the 14th, had made no provision either for marching or battle. This fatal security had been increased by the opinion generally entertained at Hohenlohe's headquarters, that the bearer of the flag of truce who had appeared at their advanced posts on the preceding day, and had been forwarded with his despatches to the king, brought proposals of peace, and that nothing serious would be attempted till his answer was received. Their position was strong and admirably chosen : secure from attack on either flank, and approachable in front only by narrow and steep defiles, in which, if the heads of the enemy's columns were vigorously resisted and hindered from deploying, horse, foot, and cannon would be jammed up together, and the disaster of Hohenlinden might have been repaid with interest to the French army. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 217 But the departure of the king with nearly two-thirds of chap. the army, and the total absence of any preparations for L an attack on the part of those who remained, deprived l806- them of the advantages which they might otherwise have l Lucches gained from this position, and relieved Napoleon from a risk oiA? 4 ?-- 155 " in the outset of the campaign, greater, perhaps, than he 305 > 3 °7- underwent even during the perilous changes which signal- observation. ised its later stages. 1 Great was the astonishment of the Prussian outposts, when, through the gray mist of the morning, they beheld Battle of the French battalions close upon them, and advancing October. swiftly in the finest order to the attack. They made, Atia^ - however, a gallant resistance, and did their utmost to pre- Plate 40 - vent the French, led by Suchet, from debouching from the defiles at the mouth of which they were stationed ; but being altogether unprepared for the attack, and com- pletely surprised, they were not long able to make good their post, and fell back, with the loss of twenty pieces of cannon, to the main body of the army. The ground thus gained by Suchet was of the utmost importance, for it enabled the heads of the French columns, after emerging from the defiles, to -extend themselves to the right and left, and gain room for the successive corps as they came up to deploy. Roused by the first discharge of firearms in front, Prince Hohenlohe rode through the mist from his headquarters in the rear at Capellendorf towards the front ; but, still confident that it would only prove a skirmish, he said to General Muffling, " that his troops should remain quiet in their camp till the fog had risen ; and that, if circumstances demanded it, he would move forward the division of Grawert, as he did not wish the Saxons to combat at all that day." Soon, however, messengers arrived in breathless haste from the outposts with urgent demands for assistance, and Grawert was rapidly advanced towards Vierzehn-Heiligen to support Tauenzein, who there with difficulty held his ground against the impetuous attacks of Suchet. Meanwhile the 218 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, whole army of the Prussians, alarmed by the sharp and XLIII incessant fire of musketry in their front, stood to their 1806, arms, and reinforcements "were sent to the points in advance which were menaced: but in spite of all their exertions the enemy gained ground ; the villages of Closwitz and Kospoda, at the foot of the eminence on which the lines of Hohenlohe were posted, were succes- sively carried ; and all the low grounds in front of his position were filled with troops. Still the mist was so thick as to be almost impenetrable; the contending bodies could not see each other till they were within a few yards' distance ; and under cover of this veil, and in the midst of the confusion arising from an unexpected attack, the movements of the assailants were completed, the defiles i Lucche?. passed, and the precious moments, when the heads of their jom. ii'. 286J columns might have been driven back into the gorges by a xvi." 94^97. vigorous attack, as those of the Imperialists had been at Hohenlinden, for ever lost. 1 At length at nine o'clock, the increasing rays of the Defensive sun dispersed the fog, and his light shone forth in tTe a p U rus-° f unclouded brilliancy. Then, and not till then, the Prussians perceived the full magnitude of the danger. On every side they were beset by assailants, no longer struggling through steep and narrow gorges, but deployed, with all their cavalry and artillery, on the open expanse to which these led. Directly in their front, the whole coi~ps of Lannes, having made itself master of the vil- lages at the foot of the Prussian position, was preparing to ascend the slope on which the latter stood: imme- diately to the right, Ney, and beyond him Soult, had already cleared the defiles, and were drawn up in line or column on the open ground; while Augereau on the left was pressing forward to turn their flank; and the Impe- rial Guard, with Murat's cavalry, were stationed in reserve on the slopes of the Landgrafenberg. Above ninety thousand men had outflanked on either side, and were preparing to crush forty thousand, in a strong position, sians. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 219 indeed, but totally inadequate to so desperate an chap. encounter. Surprised, but not panic-struck, the Prus- 1 sians drew up their lines in admirable order in the form 180 °- of an obtuse triangle, with the apex in front, to avoid the danger of being turned on their flanks ; and instruc- tions were despatched to Ruchel, who, with the reserve, twenty thousand strong, was at a short distance on their right, to hasten his march to the scence of action. Before he could arrive, however, the battle had commenced : the preparatory movements were made on either side in l J h ^ yL the finest stvle — the French columns advancing, and the J ° m - ";.' 2m - " i • i • i 11 Saalf. in. Prussian retiring to their chosen ground with all the pre- 306. cision of a field-day. 1 But though they stood their ground bravely, and received their assailants with a close and well-directed Commence- fire, the odds were too great to give any hopes of success, battle. Ney, indeed, whose impetuous courage led him to begin the attack before his columns were properly supported, and who had, by a charge of cuirassiers, carried a battery of thirteen pieces on an eminence, which severely galled his soldiers, was for a few minutes in imminent danger. The Prussian cavalry broke the French horse, and envel- oped the infantry in such numbers as would inevitably have proved fatal to less resolute troops; but the brave marshal instantly formed his men into squares, threw himself into one of them, and there maintained the com- bat by a rolling fire on all sides, till Napoleon, who saw his danger, sent several regiments of horse, under Ber- trand, who disengaged him from his perilous situation. But on all other points the French obtained early and decisive success. Ney, extricated from his difficulties, with an intrepid step ascended the hill, and after a sharp conflict carried the important village of Vierzehn-Heiligen, in the centre of the Prussian position. In vain Hohen- lohe formed the flower of his troops to regain the post ; in vain these brave men advanced in parade order, and with unshrinking firmness, through a storm of musketry 220 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, and grape ; the troops of Lannes came up to Ney's sup- XLIIL port, and the French established themselves in such 1806. strength in the village as to render all subsequent attempts for its recapture abortive. Emboldened by this success, Ney next attacked the right of the Prussian line towards Isserstadt, which Augereau with the French left had already carried. A devouring fire ran along the whole right wing, and the French were for some time arrested by the intrepid resistance of their adversaries ; but the odds were too great, and, despite of all their efforts, the Prussians were compelled to give ground in that quarter. But on the left of Vierzelm-Heiligen, they obtained some i Dum. xvi. advantage : their numerous and magnificent cavalry made jlmlhm severa l successful charges on the French infantry, when '287. _ Bign. advancing on the open ground beyond its enclosures ; Saaif.lii. several cannon were taken, and Hohenlohe for a short cheJ. ii. 156. time flattered himself with the hope of obtaining decisive success. 1 46. Matters were in this state when the approach of Ruchel The Pros- with his corps, twenty thousand strong, to the field of deTated. battle from the right, confirmed the Prussian general in these flattering anticipations ; and he despatched a press- ing request to him to direct the bulk of his forces to the village of Vierzehn-Heiligen, already the theatre of such desperate strife."'' Thither, accordingly, the brave Prus- sian directed his steps; but before he could arrive at the decisive point, matters had essentially changed for the worse, and he came up only in time to share and augment the general ruin. The lapse of time had now enabled the French to bring their immense superiority of force to bear upon the enemy at all points : Soult, by a heavy and well-directed fire, had driven the cavalry from * At this crisis, Hohenlohe wrote to Ruchel — " It is highly gratifying to me to hear at this moment that your Excellency has arrived to my support. Send all the force you can to the village of Vierzehn-Heiligen, the chief point of attack. You are a brave man and sincere friend. At this moment we beat the enemy at all points ; my cavalry has captured some of his cannon." — Dum. xvi. 114. * 1806. HISTORY OF EUKOrE. 221 tlie field on their left : while Lannes aud Augereau, press- chap. iDg thern at once in front and flank on their right, had forced back the infantry above half a mile. Emerging from the villages which had been the theatre of such obstinate conflict, the French forces advanced with loud shouts and in irresistible strength towards the Prussians, who, weakened and dispirited, and in some places almost mown down by the terrible fire of their adversaries, were now yielding on all sides. Up to this time, however, their retreat was conducted in the most orderly manner. Napoleon saw that the decisive moment had arrived, and from his station on the heights in the rear, sent orders to Murat with the whole cavalry to advance and complete the victory. This terrible mass was irresistible. Fifteen thousand horse, fresh, unwearied, in the finest array, animated by the shouts of triumph which they heard on all sides, bore down with loud cheers on the retiring lines of the Prussians. In an instant the change was visible. In vain their cavalry, so brilliant and effective in the early part of the day, strove to make head against the assailants, and cover the retreat of the infantry and cannon : their horses, wearied by eight hours of fighting or fatigue, were unable to withstand the fresh squadrons and ponderous cuirassiers of Murat, and by their over- throw contributed to the disorder of the foot-soldiers. After a gallant resistance, the lines were broken : horse, ^"ao"' 1 " foot, and cannon pressed tumultuously together to the f^-]'f 8 f rear, closely followed by the bloody sabres of Murat. In Saaif • >». the general confusion all order was lost : the infantry and Camp, de cavalry were blent together, the guns and caissons aban- 262, e 263. doned to the victors. 1 In the midst of this appalling scene, the columns of Rucliel, still in battle array, emerged through the cloud of fugitives to stem the torrent."" It was a movement * The rapid change for the worse in the prospects of the Prussians since he first approached the field, may be discerned in the altered tone of the next letter despatched to him by Prince Hohenlohe — "Lose not a moment in advancing with your as yet unbroken troops. Arrange your columns so that through your open- 222 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, extremely similar to the arrival of Desaix on the field of XLIII L Marengo : but he had to meet Napoleon, not Melas. The 1806. fresh troops, though advancing in good order, and with Arrival of an undaunted countenance, were speedily assailed on all is "over- * 10 sides : an ephemeral advantage gained by their cavalry ■w eimed. wag ra pidly, in the disorder of success, turned into dis- aster : in front they were charged with the bayonet by the French grenadiers, in flank assailed by an endless succes- sion of Murat's dragoons ; the villages of Romstedt and Capellendorf were strewed with their dead ; and Ruchel himself, while bravely animating his men, was wounded in the breast by a musket-ball, and carried off the field. After a terrible combat of an hour's duration, this power- ful reserve, which in any other circumstances would have changed the fortune of the day, was broken, dispersed, and almost totally annihilated. It was no longer a battle, but a massacre. In frightful disorder the whole army rushed like an impetuous torrent from the field: but nearly the whole right wing was cut off by the rapidity of Soult's advance, and made prisoners. Almost all the artillery of the Prussians was taken, and the victors entered Weimar pell-mell with the fugitives, at the distance of six leagues from the field of battle. Behind that town, on the road to Auerstadt, Hohenlohe, at six o'clock, collected twenty i Dum. xvi. squadrons, whose firm countenance till nightfall gave some Km. 1 * 475 res pite to the wearied foot-soldiers, now dispersed through 476. Luc- the fields in every direction ; while Napoleon, according ches. n. J ' I ' O 1.57, 158. to his usual custom, rode over the bloody theatre of death, 305, 306.' distributing prizes to those who had most distinguished 307, 308.' themselves, and giving directions for the care and consola- tion of the wounded. 1 While this terrible disaster was befalling the united corps of Hohenlohe and Ruchel, the King of Prussia was combating under very different circumstances, but with ings there may pass the broken bands of the battle : be ready to receive the charges of the enemy's cavalry, which in the most furious manner rides on, presses and sabres the fugitives, and has driven into one confused mass the infantry, cavalry, and artillery." — Lucchesim, ii. 157. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 223 little better success, on the plateau of Auerstadt. Little chap. expecting any engagement on the morrow, this fine army commanded by the Duke of Brunswick in person, had 1 ^ 6 ' bivouacked in close array around the village of that name : Preparatory the Queen was only prevailed on by the most pressing which led to entreaties to retire late in the evening, with a slender guard, \£ ^J g ° s ° to Weimar. Informed of the occupation of Naumburg by army - a considerable force, the Duke directed the division of Schmettau to occupy the heights of Koessen, and present themselves in battle array before the enemy, whom he supposed to be at the utmost a few thousand strong, while under their cover the remainder of the army leisurely continued its march towards the Elbe. These orders were obeyed ; but Schmettau's division, contenting them- selves with occupying the heights in the neighbourhood, neglected to send forward detachments to seize the defile of Koessen — an omission which was speedily taken advan- tage of by Davoust on the -morning of the 14th, who, Oct. u. advancing from Naumburg according to his directions, early seized upon this important pass. At six on that morning, the French marshal had received an order from Napoleon, dated three o'clock a.m., from his bivouac on the Land- grafenberg, in which he announced his intention to attack in a few hours the Prussian army, which he imagined to be concentrated in his front, and ordered Davoust to march without loss of time upon Apolda, in order to fall upon their rear, leaving him the choice of his route, provided he took a part in the action. The despatch added : " If the Prince of Pontecorvo (Bernadotte) is with you, you may march together; but the Emperor hopes that he will be already in the position assigned to him at Dornburg." Davoust instantly repaired to the headquarters of Bernadotte, who at that moment was in communication with his corps in the neighbour- . _, r . Hum. xvi. hood of Naumburg, and showed him this order, proposing 187, ui. that they should march together to Apolda; 1 but that Jom.ii.290. officer, relying on the ambiguous expression in the 224 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIII. 1806. 49. Battle of Auerstadt. Atlas, Plate 41. 1 Jom. ii. 2S0, 291. Dum. xvi. 139, 147. Bign.v.480, 481. Saalf. iii. 306. Personal ob- servation. . 50. Additional forces come up on both sides. despatch — which indicated that the Emperor " hoped lie would be in the position assigned to him at Dornburg" — did not conceive himself entitled to deviate from his pre- vious instructions, and set out with his whole corps in the direction of that town. Left thus to his own resources, Marshal Davoust not- withstanding began his march in the direction which Napoleon had assigned. His forces were considerable, amounting to twenty-six thousand infantry and four thousand horse — a body perfectly adequate to its destined task of falling on the rear of the Prussian army, when defeated in front by Napoleon, but little calculated to withstand the shock of fifty thousand infantry and ten thousand cavalry, whom the King was leading in j>erson to the encounter. The Prussians, on their side, were as little prepared for an action ; and, deeming their march sufficiently secured by Schmettau's division on the heights of Koessen, were in open column and straggling, advan- cing on their march towards the Elbe, when suddenly, at eight o'clock, they were met on the plateau by the vanguard of Davoust, which had emerged from the long and steep ascent so well known to travellers who visit that memorable field, and was already drawn up in battle array on its summit. The thick mist which here, as at Jena, concealed the movements of the opposing armies, prevented the troops seeing each other till they were only a few yards distant ; and both parties deeming their adversaries only an inconsiderable detachment, fell back to collect forces to clear their advance, — the Prus- sians, to drive the enemy back again down the defile, and secure the flank of the army from insult; the French, to clear their front, and pursue their route to Apolda. 1 Speedily reinforced, both sides returned to the charge. Davoust supported the advanced guard by the whole divi- sion of Gudin, with instructions to maintain themselves to the last extremity on the level space at the upper end HISTORY OF EUROPE. 225 of the defile, in order to gain time for the remainder of chap. XT TI T the corps to debouch ; while the King of Prussia, impa tient at the check given to the march of his army, ordered 1806, Blucher, with two thousand five hundred hussars, to ride over the Sonnenberg and clear the plateau of the enemy. Little anticipating the formidable resistance which awaited them, the Prussian cavalry were thrown into disorder by the close and steady fire of the French infantry, which speedily formed themselves into squares. Their cavalry were, indeed, overthrown by the overwhelming numbers of the Prussian horse ; but all the efforts of that gallant body, even when guided by the impetuosity of Blucher, were shattered against the compact mass of Gudin's infantry, and the terrible discharges of grape which issued from his artillery. Surprised at the obstinacy of the resistance, the King, adopting the opinion of Marshal Moellendorf, who insisted that it was only a detached column which occasioned the delay, and disregarding the advice of the Duke of Brunswick, who strongly counselled a general halt, and formation of the army in order of battle, till the mist cleared away and the enemy's force could be ascertained, continued the attack by means merely of successive divisions as they came up to the ground. The divisions of Wartensleben and the Prince of Orange were ordered to pass the defile of Auerstadt, where the road runs through a winding hollow skirted with copse-wood or rough slopes, and advance to the support of the discomfited cavalry. The former, who first emerged from the defile, was directed to assail the flank of Gudin's division, which had advanced On the i Jom a< plateau beyond the village of Hassenhausen. At this f^fr 2 ®- moment the mist was dissipated, and the sun shone in 30f >. n«m. full brilliancy on the splendid squadrons and regular lines 150. of the Prussians. 1 The Duke of Brunswick put himself at the head of the infantry, and led them gallantly to the attack, while Schmettau and Blucher pressed them with their respec- VOL. VII. p 226 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIII. 1806. 51. Desperate conflict which en- sued at the summit. 1 .Tom. ii. 292, 293. Dum. xvi. 139,156. Bign.v.482. Saalf. iii. 306. 52. Arrival of other divi- sions on the field. Pro- gress of the battle. tive divisions of foot and horse on the opposite flanks. But the brave troops of Gudin, forming themselves into squares, resisted all the charges with unconquerable reso- lution; and the nature of the ground, which permitted the successive divisions to come up to the support of either side only by degrees, the one by the long and winding defile of Auerstadt, the other up the steep ascent of Koessen, rendered it impossible for the Prussians to bring all their overwhelming force to bear at once upon the enemy. The conflict, therefore, was more equal than might have been imagined, and most severe. The French troops, stationed behind the hedges, enclosures, and gar- den-walls of Hassenhausen, kept up an uninterrupted and murderous fire upon the enemy. The Duke of Brunswick was mortally wounded by a ball in the breast while leading on a charge. Schmettau experienced the same fate. Wartensleben had his horse shot under him; and the Prussians, discouraged by the loss of their leaders, wavered in the attack, which, being made in line, and not in column, was not pressed with the requisite vigour. Still the terrible discharge of artillery and fire- arms continued. Gudin's division had lost nearly half its numbers, and it was evident they could not long main- tain their ground against their redoubtable and hourly increasing adversaries. 1 From this peril, however, they were at length relieved by the arrival of the other divisions of Davoust's army. Morand was the first who got up the defile. His troops, as they successively arrived on the summit, drew up on the left of Gudin, towards the Sonnenberg; and shortly after Friant, with his division, debouched upon the right, and extended to the foot of the Speilberg. The combat was now equal, or rather the advantage was on the side of the French, for their three divisions were superior in strength to those of Schmettau, the Prince of Orange, and Wartensleben, to which they were opposed. Prince William of Prussia, at the head of a powerful body of HISTORY OF EUROPE. 227 cavaliT, which had surmounted the Sonnenberg and chap. J> ° XLIII arrived on the French left, furiously assailed Morand's 1 division immediately after it formed ; but these veteran 1806, troops, with admirable coolness, threw themselves into squares, and with rapid discharges received the repeated and impetuous attacks of the Prussian horse. In vain these gallant cavaliers, with headlong fury, drove their steeds up to the very muzzles of the French muskets. In vain they rode round and enveloped their squares : ceaseless was the rolling fire which issued from those flaming walls ; impenetrable the hedge of bayonets which the front rank, kneeling, presented to their advances. The heroic devotion of Prince William in vain led them again and again to the charge; still the fire continued, 1 T still the bayonets remained firm. At length he himself {g^m. was wounded, half his followers were stretched on the ^jf^' field, and the remainder sought refuge in disorder, partly Bigj>-v.483. on the heights of the Sonnenberg, partly in the enclosures 306. of Neu Zulza, 1 While this desperate conflict was going on on the left ^ of Hassenhausen, the division of Friant had debouched Desperate from the defile, extended itself on the ground to its right, aiZ/tk and chased the enemy who assailed it back to the village onlhe Pruf- and heights of Speilberg, which were speedily carried. sianr, e ht - The left of the Prussians was thus threatened ; but it was not there that the principal danger lay. The progress of Morand on their right was much more alarming. On that side, not content with repulsing the furious attacks directed against them, the French had now assumed the offensive, and were rapidly pressing forward to the heights of Sonnenberg, from whence their guns would command the whole field of battle, and render untenable the posi- tion of the Prussian reserves, which had hitherto taken no part in the action. Sensible that the battle was irre- coverably lost if these important heights fell into the hands of the enemy, the King put himself at the head of a chosen body of troops, and bravely led them to the and is over thrown 228 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, charge. But if the attack was gallant, the defence was XLIIL not less obstinate : Morand himself was to be seen at the 1806 ' head of his regiments, and for some minutes the balance quivered. Insensibly, however, the French gained ground, and at length their artillery, dragged up to the summit of the heights, was placed in battery, and opened le^Te™"' sucn a tremendous fire of grape and cannister upon the Bign.v 483, enem y' s columns, as completed their discomfiture in that 484. Jom. ^ 7 L 1 ii. 294. quarter; and with the blood-stained Sonnenberg and the i46, c i47. lu village of Rehausen, the whole left of the field of battle fell into the hands of the invaders. 1 The experienced eye of Marshal Davoust now told The Pr'us- him that the moment for striking the decisive blow had advances?" arrived. The heights at Eckartsberg commanded the line of the enemy's retreat, as those of Sonnenberg did the field of battle : by moving forward his centre and seizing that important point, their defeat would be ren- dered complete, and all possibility of their rallying pre- vented. Thither, accordingly, Gudin's division advanced, driving before them the broken remains of Schmettau's and Wartensleben's divisions, which had lost nearly half their numbers during the sanguinary strife in which they had been engaged. But the Prussians made one effort more to regain the day. Their broken battalions, which had retired from the field, were rallied under cover of the powerful reserve commanded by Kalkreuth, who assumed the direction upon Moellendorf being wounded : this consisted of two divisions which had hitherto taken no part in the action, and were placed in front ; while the whole cavalry, re-formed under Blucher's orders, was posted in a second line immediately behind the infantry, to take advantage of any hesitation which might appear in the enemy's columns. Wearied by a morning's march and four hours' hard fighting, the French soldiers had now to withstand the shock of fifteen thousand fresh troops, to whom they had no corresponding reserve to oppose. Had the quality of the troops on the opposite sides been equal, this power- HISTORY OF EUROPE. 229 ful addition to the enemy's forces, at such a moment, chap. must have proved decisive : but nevertheless they were J 1 totally defeated; and this last success put the keystone to 1806 ' the arch of Marshal Davoust's fame. Though strongly posted on an eminence, and protected by the fire of a powerful battery, they were charged with such intrepidity by Gudin's division, supported by a part of Friant's, that they were driven from their position with the loss of twenty pieces of cannon. At the same time, Morand repulsed an attack against the troops which he had stationed on the heights of Sonnenberg : the artillery, from that commanding position, carried deatli through all the ranks of the enemy ; and at length his gallant forces descended from the eminence, and, carrying all before them, drove the reserves opposed to their advance through the defile of Auerstadt. Thither Blucher's cavalry followed the retreating columns : the Guards still kept their ranks, and "retired in good order in JS^^ open square, and by their firm countenance enabled the g£^?f- broken infantry to rally at a distance from the field jJM^j- of battle, where Davoust reposed amidst his heroic 485, 485. followers. 1 The King of Prussia, who, during this disastrous day, 55 had manifested the most signal coolness and intrepidity, Disastrous and, during the repeated charges which he made at the pS^a e head of his troops, had lost two horses killed under him, iTjStl gave directions for the army to retreat in the direction of JjJgjJ 1 Weimar, intending to fall back on the corps of Prince Hohenlohe, of whose disaster he was still ignorant. But as the troops, in extreme dejection, and with little order, were following the great road which leads to that place, they were suddenly startled in the twilight by the sight of an extensive line of bivouac fires on the heights of Apolda. These lights were made by the corps of Berna- dotte, who, adhering to his original instructions to march to Dornburg, had arrived in this position, after passing that town, late in the evening, and, ignorant of the com- 230 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, bats which had taken place, was preparing to fall on the L rear of the Prussian army on the following clay. His too 1806- strict adherence to the letter of the orders he had received deprived him of the glory of sharing in either battle, endangered Davoust's corps, and had wellnigh cost him lTiTjz^'' his own life* f rom the indignation of the Emperor : but, 29?* "Hard' nevertheless, this sudden apparition of a fresh corps of ix. 306, 307. unknown strength upon the flank of their line of retreat Saalf. iii. .fi n ! i -r. • i 307. at that untimely hour, compelled the rrussians to change their direction and abandon the great road. 1 * About the same time, obscure rumours began to circu- 56. & Meeting of late through the ranks of a disaster experienced on the the two dis- , , T -, ■. r> r • , • comfited same day at J ena ; and soon the appearance ot fugitives thSrflight. ft' 0111 Hohenlohe's and Ruchel's corps, flying in the utmost haste across the line which the troops retiring with the King were following, announced but too certainly the magnitude of the defeat sustained in that quarter. A general consternation now seized the men — despair took possession of the firmest hearts, as the cross-tide of the battalions flying from Jena mingled in increasing numbers •2 Dum . xvi . with the wreck which had survived the fight of Auerstadt. jom.!i 7 2a5 The confusion became inextricable, the panic universal. v 9 48(5 B 4 g b7 Infantry, cavalry, and artillery disbanded, and, leaving Hard.ix. their guns, horses, and ammunition waggons, fled in ches'.ii. 148. mingled disorder across the fields, without either direc- tion, command, or rallying point. 2 The King himself * Napoleon's auger at Bernadotte, on account of his not supporting Davoust, and taking a share in the battle of Auerstadt, knew no bounds. " If I should send him to a council of war," said he, " nothing could save him from being shot. I will not speak to him on the subject ; but I will let him see what I think of his conduct. He has too much honour not to be aware himself that he has committed a disgraceful action." In truth, however, Napoleon had no sufficient grounds for this ebullition. If Bernadotte did not take a part in the action, it was because his own latest instructions expressed a hope that he should go to Domburg rather than march toward Auerstadt with Davoust. Had he violated these instructions, and, in consequence, the Prussian army had escaped by Dornburg, its natural and most probable line of retreat, what defence could Bernadotte have offered for his conduct? "I was piqued," said that marshal, "to be addressed in the language of authority by Davoust ; but I did my duty. Let the Emperor accuse me if he pleases, I will answer him. I am a Gascon, but he is still more so." — Bour- rienne, vii. 161, 162. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 231 narrowly escaped being made prisoner during the tumult chap. and horrors of the night; and it was not till five in the XLIIL morning that, by a long circuit, he arrived at Sommerda, 1806, where he received the official news of the melancholy disaster at Jena, accompanied by the letter, offering an accommodation, so insidiously despatched by Napoleon the day before that great victory. Such were the astonishing battles of Jena and Auer- 57. stadt, which, in a single day, prostrated the strength of Losson'both the Prussian monarchy ; and did that in a few hours these 1"- which the combined might of Austria, Russia, and France, tlons ' in the Seven Years' War, had been unable to effect. The subsequent disasters of the campaign were but the com- pletion of this great calamity — the decisive strokes were given on the banks of the Saalc. The loss of the Prus- sians was prodigious : in the two fields there fell nearly twenty thousand killed and wounded, besides nearly as many prisoners ; and two hundred pieces of cannon, with twenty-five standards, were taken. Ten thousand of the killed and wounded fell at Auerstadt — an honourable proof that, if infatuation led them into the field, valour inspired them when there. Nor was that victory blood- less to the conquerors : their total loss was fourteen thou- *£ un ^ xvi - 1 lit. Camp. sand men : of whom seven thousand five hundred belonged de Saxe, i. -r. , .,..,.. pit ? 265. Dum. to Davoust s corps — a striking indication 01 the dauntless wi. m>. intrepidity with which they had fought. 1 Napoleon,""' with * Napoleon's official account of the battle of Jena, in the fourth bulletin of the campaign, is characterised by that extraordinary intermixture of truth and falsehood, and that unfailing jealous}' of any general who appeared to interfere with his reputation, which in one who could so well afford to be generous in that particular, is a meanness in an especial manner reprehensible: Davoust was the real hero of the day, since, with thirty thousand men, he had defeated the King of Prussia in person, at the head of sixty thousand. His own achievement in overthrowing forty thousand, or, including Ruchel, sixty thou- sand, with ninety thousand veteran troops, including the whole cavalry of Murat, is nothing in comparison. Nevertheless, he represents the action as all fought in one field; speaks of the enemy, eighty thousand strong, as being commanded by the King and the Duke of Brunswick in person, and after dilat- ing fully on his own achievements, dismisses the wonderful exploits of Davoust in the following words : — " On our right, the corps of Marshal Davoust per- formed prodigies. Not only did he keep in check, but maintained a running fight for three leagues, with the bulk of the enemy's troops, who were seeking 1806. 58. treat. 232 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, his usual disregard of truth, called his whole loss in both XLIII . battles four thousand, little more than a fourth part of its real amount. * Great as were these results, however, they were but Unparaiiei- a part of the effects which ultimately flowed from these of the re- rs memorable battles. The disasters consequent on the retreat of the Prussians exceeded anything hitherto recorded in modern history, and were equalled only by the still greater calamities which followed the flight from Waterloo. No provision had been made for such a con- tingency ; no rallying point assigned, no line of march prescribed, no magazines collected. The extraordinary circumstance of the four principal generals of the army — the Duke of Brunswick, Marshal Moellendorf, General Schmettau, and General Ruchel — being killed or disabled by wounds, left the confused mass of fugitives without a head. The unparalleled calamity of the survivors from two different defeats, experienced on the same day, cross- ing each other, and becoming intermingled during the horrors of a nocturnal retreat, rendered it impossible for them to know whose orders were to be obeyed. Thus, when morning dawned on the scene of ruin, the soldiers from the three armies of Ruchel, Hohenlohe, and the Duke of Brunswick, collected, as chance threw them together, in disorderly groups, and inspired only with a common panic, fled in different directions, as accident or intelligence guided their steps. Vast numbers of strag- glers wandered at large through the fields, or hurried with so little knowledge of the country, from the scene of to debouch on the side of Koesseu. That marshal has displayed alike the distinguished bravery and firmness of character which are the first qualities of a warrior. He was seconded by Generals Gudin, Friant, Morand, Daultanne, chief of the staff, and by the rare intrepidity of his brave corps." Who could imagine that it was the glorious battle of Auerstadt which was here narrated ? The injustice to Davoust is so manifest that it is admitted even by the eulo- gists of Napoleon.— See Bignon, v. 487, 488; and Fourth Bulletin, 1806, in Camp, de la Saxe, i. 265. * Davoust's loss at Auerstadt was 270 officers and 7200 privates, killed and wounded. Of these 134 officers and 3500 privates belonged to Gudin's division of 7000 men: in other words, more than a half of that band of heroes had HISTOKY OF EUROPE. 233 clanger, that, instead of avoiding, they rushed headlong chap. into the jaws of the enemy. It is in the extraordinary J L confusion arising from this disastrous -retreat, and the 180 ' terror which seized the minds of both officers and men at , Dum 178> finding themselves thus huddled together with soldiers to Jj& Bign.' whom they were perfect strangers, that the true cause of Jom/ii.297. 1 • i n liiir Hard. ix. the unparalleled disasters which followed the battle ot 307. Jena is to be found. 1 The effect of the general consternation which prevailed speedily appeared in the fate which befell the fragments Capture of of the mighty army. Six thousand fugitives, almost u,ooomen! without leaders, had taken refuge, the day after the 0ct ^ battle, in Erfurth, whose embattled walls and almost Atias.^ inaccessible citadels promised the means of at least a temporary defence. It contained also the grand park and reserve artillery stores of the army, with the greater part of its camp equipage. Thither also the Prince of Orange, Marshal Moellendorf^ and a great number of the wounded of distinction, besides seven thousand pri- vate soldiers, also wounded, had been conveyed. Such, however, was the terror of the governor at finding him- self thus suddenly overwhelmed by a mass of wounded and stragglers, incapable of aiding in the defence, but who would speedily consume his slender stock of provi- sions, that he thought the best thing he could do was to negotiate a capitulation, on condition that the officers ^{j^™- should retire on their parole into Prussia, and the private Jom.ii.298. x 9 _ . iii Lucches. 11. men remain prisoners of war/ On these terms the place 159. surrendered, and with it fourteen thousand men, including fallen. This was the bravest action fought by the French troops during the whole contest : but the valour both of the corps and the division was inferior to that displayed by the English in more than one action of the Peninsular war, if the number of killed and wounded, a fair test with armies both of which have been victorious, is taken as a criterion. At Talavera, out of 19,500 English soldiers, 5000 were killed and wounded; nearly the same proportion as fell of the victors at Auerstadt : but at Albuera, out of 7000 English troops, only 1500 were unwounded at the close of the fight; and 8481 red-coats fell at Waterloo, out of a force of native English not exceeding 29,000 men.— See Dumas, xvi. 177; Napier's Peninsular War, iii. 541 ; and Wellington's Official Account of the Battle of Waterloo, Ann. Reg. 1815, App. to Chron. 234 HISTORY OF EUROPE, chap, the dying Marshal Moellendorf and the Prince of Orange; a hundred and twenty pieces of cannon, and immense 1806. military stores, fell into the hands of the enemy. 60 Hohenlohe, who had retired, covering the retreat of The King the fugitives beyond Weimar with a considerable body gives the' of cavalry, in good order, at nightfall on the 14th found to Sen- himself so completely overwhelmed by the crowd of SsTto stragglers who attached themselves during the night to his Magdeburg. S q Ua d r0 ns, that by degrees his array melted away; and it was only by making frequent circuits, and repeatedly crossing the fields, that he was enabled to reach Dernstedt at seven on the following morning, at the head of sixty Oct. 16. horsemen. On the day following, the King, who had arrived at Sondershausen, accompanied only by his aides-de-camp, conferred the command of all the troops which had combated at Jena and Auerstadt upon Prince Hohenlohe, with the exception of the two divi- sions under the orders of Kalkreuth, the reserve at the latter battle, which it was thought would still be in some sort of order; but in the general confusion this corps had dispersed like the rest, and there remained only eight battalions around his standard. Magdeburg was assigned as the rallying point to the army, within the almost impregnable walls of which fortress it was hoped the wreck of its once mighty array could be reorganised, and a defensive struggle maintained till the arrival of the Russians from the Vistula, and of the rein- forcements which were collecting in the interior of the kingdom. Thither accordingly the King repaired, attend- ed only by a few horsemen, to make preparations for the reception of the army ; and there he was quitted by the British envoy, Lord Morpeth, who, seeing no chance of ujum. xu. diplomatic concerns being attended to amidst the general Kgn.vi.7, confusion, returned to London to render an account to o. Hard. . . ix. 3i»7. his bewildered cabinet of the extraordinary events which he had witnessed in the outset of his mission. 1 But if there was any one thing more than another in HISTORY OF EUROPE. 235 which the genius of Napoleon shone prominent, it was chap. in the vigour and ability with which he followed up a 1806. 61. beaten enemy. The present was not an opportunity to be lost of displaying this essential quality of a great Measures of general. Without an instant's delay, therefore, he pre- fofioVuJ ° pared to pursue the extraordinary advantages he had t evict01 ^ gained. From all parts of Germany his forces had been assembled to one point, in order to strike the decisive blow. That done, the next object was to disperse them like a fan over the conquered territory, to carry every- where the impression of their victory, and the terrors of their arms. On the night after the battle, Napoleon, instead of retiring to rest, sat up dictating orders to all the corps of his army for the directions they were to follow in pursuing the enemy. On the extreme right, Bernadotte, whose numerous corps was still untouched, received orders to advance from Apolda to Neustadt, to cut off the line of retreat from Weimar to Naumburg, and so shut out the army from the great road to Magde- burg. Davoust was to return to Naumburg to hold that important post, and keep himself in readiness to debouch on the Elbe before the enemy could arrive there; Soult was to move on Buttelstadt, the point in rear of the fields of battle, where the greatest number of fugitives had assembled; Murat and Ney to march direct upon Erfurth, and reduce that important place: while Lannes and Augereau were directed to take a position in advance of Weimar; and the Imperial Guard and Napoleon's headquarters were transferred to that town. The general object of Napoleon in these movements was, that while the corps of Soult, Murat, and Ney, pursued the broken remains of the Prussian army to Magdeburg, those of Bernadotte, Lannes, Davoust, Augereau, and the Guard, under his immediate orders, should cross the Elbe at x gee Barby, Dessau, and Wittenberg, and, moving upon Berlin orders in and Spandau, intercept the line of retreat of the Prussians 192, 193,' to Stettin and the Oder. 1 This was the more easy, as 236 HISTORY OF EUEOTE. chap, the French held the chord of the arc along which the .Prussians had to move. 1806. 62. Soult was the first who came up with the enemy. At Souitdefeats Greussen his cavalry reached the retiring squadrons of Kalkreuth's division, which alone preserved any sem- blance of an army. That general proposed a suspension of arms, in order to gain time, declaring that he knew an armistice had been concluded, and for the purpose of arranging its conditions repaired to the advanced posts in order to a conference with the French general. The terms, as might be expected, could not be agreed on. The state- ment was made in perfect good faith, under the impression founded on the letter from Napoleon offering an accom- modation, written the day before, but not received till the night after the battle ; and it gave the Prussian com- mander leisure to cause a considerable part of his forces Oct. 15. to defile in safety to the rear. Enraged at finding himself thus overreached, Soult, the moment the conferences were broken off, attacked the Prussian rearguard posted in front of Greussen, which, after a short resistance, was cut to pieces, and the victors entered that town pell-mell with the vanquished. Following up his success, the French marshal, early the following morning, resumed the pur- oct. 16. suit, and came up with the enemy at Nordhausen, where they were again defeated with the loss of twenty pieces of cannon, and three thousand men. Unable, from want of provisions, to keep his men together, and having no other means of escape to any part of his forces, the Prussian general divided his troops into two bodies, with instruc- tions to follow different routes to Magdeburg. An almost total dispersion immediately followed this order. The stragglers came into that fortress by companies, squadrons, i5 u Sool vL anc ^ g rou P s °f sm gle men in hardly any array ; and thus N° mi " 465 was * ne di sor g an i sa tion of the only divisions of the army 466. Luc-' which still preserved their ranks rendered complete within Oct.' 2i. ' three days after the battle. 1 Collecting prisoners at every step, Soult continued rapidly to advance, and on the 21st HISTORY OP EUROTE. 237 his vanguard readied the Elbe, and planted their victo- chap. XLIII rious standards around the walls of Magdeburg. J 1 A more important action awaited the arms of Berna- 1806 ' dotte. This able chief, whose too literal adherence to Prince' the letter of his instructions had deprived him of his share ofwurtem- of the laurels of Auerstadt, was burning with anxiety to ieltdby' achieve some exploit worthy of the deeds of his comrades f t e HaSe. tte and his own renown, when fortune threw the wished-for 0ct - 17 - opportunity in his way. Prince Eugene of Wiirtemberg, who commanded the Prussian reserve, fourteen thousand strong, stunned by the intelligence of the disasters of the army at Jena, was preparing to make the best of his way back to Magdeburg and the Elbe, when he was beset on all sides at Halle by the corps of Bernadotte. The Prussians who were brought into action had not shared in the preceding defeats : notwithstanding the great superiority of force on the part of the French, they made a brave resistance ; and there^might be seen what elements of success existed in their army had they been opposed by less, or guided by greater ability. Assailed with the utmost impetuosity by the vanguard of the French, under Dupont, at Passendorf, they were driven in haste back to the islands in the Saale, over which the road passes ; but in that defile they stood firm, and, supported by a cloud of light troops who lined the dikes on either hand along the margin of the stream, long withstood their assailants, and debarred all access to the gates. After an obstinate resistance, however, a column of grenadiers, headed by i gaalfiii Dupont himself, rushed across the bridges, carried the w, sob A . Jom. 11. oOO, guns which enfiladed them ; and, rapidly pursuing their 301. D Um . success, pushed on and made themselves masters of the 223. town. l The Prussians had now no alternative to gain time for 64. the retreat of their main body to Magdeburg, but to pre- Desperate vent as long as possible the French troops from debouching Inswdon from the gates on its opposite side : and the gallant efforts his retreat - of the Duke of Wiirtemberg long delayed them at that 238 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIII. 1806. Oct. 19. 1 Jom. ii. 300,301. Dum. xvi. 214, 223. Saalf, iii. 307, 308. 65. Saxony is overrun by the French. Oct. 18. - On Oct. 18,1813. important point ; but at length the increasing numbers of the French, and the murderous fire of the artillery which they brought up and planted on the ramparts, drove the Prussians from their strongholds in the gardens and walls of the suburbs, and enabled the columns to issue from the gates. Charged while retreating in open square along the level plain, the Prussians, during a running fight of four leagues, sustained severe loss from the enemy, and lost nearly their whole artillery. Still they combated with heroic resolution, and yet kept their ranks, when the pursuit ceased on the approach of night. Then the com- bat terminated on the right bank of the river ; but on the left bank a greater disaster awaited the Allied arms. Three thousand Prussians had broken up from their quar- ters near Magdeburg, in order to join the main body of the reserve at Halle, and, ignorant of the occupation of that town by the French, fell into the midst of such superior forces that they were almost all either killed or made prisoners. Honourable as this affair was to the Prussians, it augmented in an alarming degree the dangers of the army by dissipating its last regular corps : four thousand prisoners and thirty pieces of cannon remained in the hands of the victors, whose loss did not exceed twelve hundred men ; while the broken remains of the vanquished crossed the Elbe at Dessau in such haste, that they were unable completely to burn the bridge behind them, which was speedily restored by the French, who established themselves in force on the right bank, and drew their posts round Magdeburg. 1 Meanwhile the other corps of the army continued their triumphant progress, with hardly any opposition, through Saxony. Four days after the battle of Auerstadt, Marshal Davoust took possession of Leipsic : strange coincidence, that the French army should for the first time enter that city on the very day on which, seven years afterwards, they were there to experience so terrible an overthrow ! 2 Napoleon gave testimony of the rigorous warfare which he HISTORY OF EUROPE. 239 was about to commence against English commerce, by there chap issuing an edict of extraordinary severity against British merchandise. * Rapidly following up his success, Davoust, 1806, two days afterwards, reached Wittenberg, at the very time that the retiring Prussians were preparing to blow up its great bridge over the Elbe ; the French grenadiers rushed so rapidly over it, that the enemy had not time to set fire to the train, and thus that important passage was secured. On the same day, Lannes made himself master Oct. 19. of the passage at Dessau. Thither Napoleon followed with his Guards three days afterwards ; and, regarding Oct. 2:5. the capture of Berlin as certain and a secondary object, he already began to give directions for the march of his troops from the Elbe to the Oder. Davoust's corps was 8^ lgn j ' m ; pushed on towards that capital — Napoleon having permit- ftJJJ 2 ;^ ted, as a reward for his transcendant heroism at Auerstadt, 22 ^, 227. ' - Lucches. that his corps should be the first to enter the capital of ». 162. the fallen monarch. 1 ! Such was the rapidity of the French advance, that they arrived round Magdeburg before a large portion of the investment broken Prussians had taken refuge within its walls. Lrgfwhich Napoleon saw clearly the importance of accumulating as If/byHo-" large a number as possible of the enemy in a situation y^o' where it was evident they would ere long become his prisoners, and therefore he gave orders to leave the entrance to the place open, and dispersed his cavalry in * " Your city," said Napoleon, " is known throughout Europe as the prin- cipal depot of English merchandise, and on that account the enemy most dangerous to France. The Emperor and King commands— 1. Within fom'-and- twenty hours immediately following this notification, every banker, merchant, or manufacturer, having in his possession any funds the produce .of English manufactures, whether they belong to a British subject or the foreign con- signee, shall declare then amount in a register appointed for that special pur- pose. 2. As soon as these returns are authentically received, domiciliary visits shall be made to all, whether they have declared or not, to compare the regis- ters with the stock in hand to ascertain its exactness, and punish by military execution any attempt at fraud or concealment." Well may the honest General Mathieu Dumas exclaim, " What a deplorable abuse of victory ! " — Ddmas, xvi. 225. f Bernadotte was unavoidably detained a day longer than he was ordered in marching to the Elbe, and in consequence did not cross that river till the 23d 240 HISTORY OF EUEOTE. chap, all directions to drive the stragglers into that devoted XLI11, fortress." Murat's horsemen, in consequence, inundated 1806 - the adjacent plains ; and the garrison of the town, ill provided with subsistence, already began to feel the pangs of huno-er from the multitude of useless soldiers who were driven to its shelter. Summoned to surrender by Marshal Soult, the governor replied, that he hoped to gain the esteem of the besiegers by an honourable defence ; but the confusion of the garrison, and the evident discourage- ment of the multitudes of insulated men who thronged round the gates, rendered it more than probable that his resistance could not be prolonged for a very long period. Hohenlohe, despairing of preventing the investment of the place with so disorganised a wreck as was collected within its walls, and aware that the want of provisions would soon compel its surrender, resolved to depart with all the forces which still maintained the appearance of order, and make for the great line of fortresses on the Oder ; but such was the universal confusion which pre- vailed, that lie could only collect fifty battalions and a w?,^V'- hundred and sixty squadrons in a state to keep the field. 10,ll.Dum. ■• i i i • 223,237. With these he departed on the day following, leaving 304,308. fifty skeleton battalions, hardly containing in all twelve thousand combatants, within the walls. 1 Upon leaving Magdeburg, Hohenlohe, abandoning Berlin to its fate, made for Stettin, situated near the mouth of and 24th, instead of the 21st and 22d, before which time the corps of the Duke of Wiirtemberg had defiled through Magdeburg, and was in full march for the Oder. This escape of a considerable part of the best oi'ganised corps of the Prussians excited to the highest degree the indignation of Napoleon, who took occasion bitterly to reproach him with this delay, as well as with his conduct in not marching with Davoust to Auerstadt. Already were to be seen the germs of that mutual discontent which, seven years afterwards, on those very plains, brought Bemadotte in arms against the French Emperor on the field of Leipsic. — Bignon, vi. 9 ; Dumas, xvi. 230. * " Magdeburg," said Napoleon, " is a net where all the isolated men who have wandered about since the battle may be taken. We must, therefore, invert our manoeuvres, and beat all the country for fifteen leagues around : we shall thus collect numbers of prisoners, and also gain accounts of the direction taken by the strong columns of the enemy, of whose route we have as yet no certain intelligence." — Dumas, xvi. 232. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 241 the Oder, by the route of Spandau. But when he drew chap. near to the latter place, he received intelligence that on — — that very day it had capitulated to the first summons of ' the advanced posts of the cavalry under Murat, and that who is P ur- Davoust on the same day was to make his entrance into assailed. the capital. Driven thus to a circuit to avoid the captured towns, he moved by Gransee and Zeydenick, in order to reach before the enemy, if possible, the defile of Locknitz, near Stettin, which would have secured his retreat to that important fortress. Aware of the importance of antici- pating the Prussian general in these movements, Napoleon sent Murat forward with the cavalry, to get before him to the defile, while Lannes advanced as rapidly as possible in pursuit of his steps with his indefatigable infantry. By forced marches, Murat got the start even of the horsemen who formed the advanced-guard of Hohenlohe's corps ; and on leaving Zeydenick, the point where the road from Spandau and Berlin falls in with that from Magdeburg to Stettin, they were assailed Oct.26. by that active officer himself, at the head of Lasalle's dragoons. Confounded at being thus anticipated in a quarter where they expected a leisurely retreat, the Prussian horse made but a feeble resistance. Even the renowned regiment of the Queen's dragoons was repulsed after a short effort, surrounded, and almost cut to pieces ; and the Prussian cavalry were compelled to fall back on Templin, while their main body had to renounce all hope of pursuing the direct road to Stettin. Driven thus from his line of retreat, and his right flank being exposed to the attack of Marshal Lannes, Hohenlohe, after waiting at Gransee three hours in the vain hope of being joined by Blucher, who had retreated to the same quarter, changed his direction, and moved upon Boitzenberg, where 0ct 27 he arrived on the 27th, hoping to reach Stettin by this IJ^k^ circuitous route of Prentzlow; but in attempting to do so, Jom.iL308, the unhappy prince found himself again beset by his ix. ins. indefatigable pursuers. 1 VOL. vil. Q 242 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIII. 1806. G8. Is utterly- defeated at Prentzlow. Oct. 28. 1 Dum. xvi 285, 290. Jom.ii. 308 310. Hard. ix. 312. CI). And com- pelled to surrender. Profound grief of the Prussian troops. No sooner was Murat informed of his change of direc- tion, than he inarched across the country all night, from the one road to the other, again got before him, and as- sailed the Prussian horse at once in front and flank with his terrible dragoons, on the following morning, as they were continuing their march two leagues beyond Prentz- low. To troops wearied by incessant marching for a fort- night together, and discouraged by such a succession of disasters, the shock of his victorious squadrons was irresist- ible : the Prussian cavalry were speedily broken, and fell back in disorder to the suburbs of Prentzlow, already encumbered with infantry and artillery. To complete their misfortunes, Marshal Lannes appeared at this critical moment on their right flank, having, with indefatigable perseverance, marched all night from Templin on the direct road. Murat now summoned Hohenlohe to sur- render, which the latter refused, and brought up a power- ful battery of cannon to answer the fire of the French artillery, which was severely galling his troops as they attempted to debouch from the town. This battery was immediately attacked and carried, and a regiment of infantry and cavalry which advanced to support it broken and made prisoners. Prince Augustus of Prussia, at the head of his regiment, which was still two leagues in the rear of Prentzlow, was surrounded, and after heroically ■ resisting the repeated charges of the French cuirassiers, , during a march in hollow square of four miles, was at length made prisoner, with almost all his men, while bravely resisting to the last. 1 Overwhelmed by such a multitude of calamities, and seeing no chance of escape, while every hour increased the forces against him by permitting the formidable battalions of Lannes to arrive on his rear and flank, Prince Hohenlohe, after several unsuccessful attempts to obtain a capitulation, was obliged to lay down his arms, on condition that the officers should be dismissed on their parole. With him were taken fourteen thousand HISTORY OF EUROPE. 243 men, including the flower of the Prussian army ; the chap. Guards, six chosen regiments of cavalry, forty standards and fifty pieces of field-artillery. Notwithstanding the 1806 ' many defeats and disastrous circumstances which had occurred, this grievous surrender did not take place with- out the most profound grief on the part of the Prussian troops. The officers retired from the circle where it had been agreed to in stem silence, or shedding tears ; many of them fiercely and indignantly accused their comman- ders of treachery, and invited their comrades to cut their way through the enemy, sword in hand. The private soldiers, by loud sobs and lamentations, gave vent to their grief, and, flinging their muskets on the ground, \^™j™ 1, slowly and mournfully pursued their way into the town ; l^%f^ while a loud flourish of trumpets, the quick rattle ofg^.^i- drums, and the triumphant shouts of the soldiers, |)9, 310. announced the successive arrival of the French regiments 313. ' at the scene of their triumph. 1 Meanwhile another Prussian column — consisting of six regiments of cavalry, four of infantry, and eight pieces March and of artillery, which, avoiding Prentzlow, was moving upon theXke Passe walck — was overtaken by Milhaud's light cavalry, ^ and surrendered. • Of the army, lately so splendid and numerous, there remained only in the field the corps of the Duke of Weimar and General Blucher. The former of these, which formed the advanced-guard of the host that advanced to the Saale, and had been pushed on through the Thuringian Forest to Verra, with the view of threat- ening the rear of the French army, had become entirely detached by subsequent events from the principal body, and thus escaped the catastrophes of both defeats. Almost forgotten in the rapid succession of succeeding triumphs, the duke was left to his own discretion ; and he no sooner received accounts of the ruin of the main army, than he took steps for making the best of his way back to the Elbe. He had much difficulty in steering his course through the numerous corps of enemies which traversed 1806. 244 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, the intervening country in every direction ; but by great exertions lie contrived to escape, and, rallying to his standard a considerable detachment of Ruchel's corps, which had been separated from the remainder, reached the Elbe in safety at Stendal, by Seesen, Lutter, and Schladen, with fourteen thousand men. He was there Oct. 26. superseded in the command by the King of Prussia, and his corps passed into the hands of General Winning, who gave it a day's rest at Kyritz. As the approach of the French corps rendered those quarters dangerous, he broke up and retired towards the Oder, and by good fortune, and no small share of skill, he succeeded in i Thiers, vii. reaching Kratzemberg, near the lake of Muritz, in the first Dui^S wee k of October, where he joined Blucher with the 303' 3oe' caya l 1 T which had escaped from Auerstadt. Their Bign.vi.-23. united forces now amounted to twenty-four thousand men. 1 Meanwhile the fortresses on the Oder fell in the most Disgraceful disgraceful manner. The day after the capitulation of of stettin Hohenlohe, a brigade which had escaped from the wreck n ' of his corps, presented itself at the gates of Stettin ; the governor sternly refused them admittance, upon the pretence that his provisions were only adequate to the support of his own garrison. Next day, however, lie capitulated, on the first summons, to the advanced-guard of Marshal Lannes ; and the French, without firing a shot, became masters of a fortress of the first order, armed with a hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, and garrisoned by six thousand men. The brigade of Prus- sians, shut out from its walls, was soon after surrounded Oct. 29. at Anclam and made prisoners. Encouraged by these repeated successes, the French soldiers deemed nothing beyond the reach of their arms ; and the advanced-guard of Davoust's corps, which had traversed the district between the Elbe and the Oder without meeting with any enemies, presented itself before Custrin, and threatened the garrison with a severe bombardment if they did not HISTORY OF EUROPE. 24.3 instantly capitulate. This menacing outpost consisted chap. merely of a regiment of foot, and had only two pieces . 1 of artillery at its command. On the other hand, the 1806, governor of the town had ninety pieces of cannon mounted on the ramparts, and four hundred in the arsenal; four thousand brave men for a garrison, and every requisite for a prolonged defence. Nevertheless, such was the terror produced by Napoleon's arms, and such the skill with which the French officer, General Gauthier, con- cealed the real amount and description of his force, that the Prussians capitulated almost on the first summons ; Oct. 3i. and one of the strongest places in the kingdom, amply garrisoned, situated in an island of the Oder, and invested i Dumxvii . only on one side, had the disgrace of surrendering to a Jj'^'jj 11 " regiment of foot with only two pieces of cannon. The ^? u - .. besiegers could not approach it to take possession till the lea, 1&9. garrison furnished them with boats. 1 These disgraceful capitulations, at which the brave troops involved in them were so much exasperated that it Reflections was with difficulty they could be induced to yield obedi- event^De- ance to their officers in carrying them into execution, Fuxfcand^ demonstrated that the Prussian generals were so over- 2 e e d t>y S whelmed by the magnitude of their misfortunes, that they Na P° leou - deemed the monarchy irrevocably ruined, and that sauve qui pent had become the only remaining principle of their conduct. Astonished at his good fortune in effecting the reduction of such a fortress without firing a shot, Marshal Davoust inspected the fortifications on the day following, which he found in the best condition ; and, deeming his base on the Oder now sufficiently secured, pushed on his light troops to Posen, in Prussian Poland ; while six thousand Bavarians formed the investment of Glogau, the only remaining stronghold on its banks which was still in the hands of the enemy ; and Augereau established himself at Frankfort. Meanwhile Napoleon, after resting a day at Wittenberg, which he ordered to be put in a respectable posture of defence, in order to give him the com- 246 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, mand of the bridge over the Elbe, and where he established one of his chief depots, was busied with preparations for 180G - securing his rear during the perilous advance, so far from the base of the operations, in which lie was about to engage. The grand park of artillery was established at Wittenberg, where immense depots of ammunition and provisions were ordered to be formed; while, at Erfurth, a -rand depot was by his provident care formed for the col- x»v. a. lecting of horses from all parts of Germany. All the 13,20/Bi a. cavalry regiments were directed through that town, while iLSii. "' those on foot were mounted, and those indifferently pro- *. ' rided with horses soon found themselves in possession of hardy and powerful steeds. 1 The only corps of the Prussian army which had Bkcher'a hitherto escaped destruction was that formed by the : to union of Blucher's cavalry with the Duke of Saxe- rk ' Weimar's infantry, and commanded by the former of these generals. Before this junction was effected, Blucher's cavalry had been hard pressed by a brigade of horse under the French general, Klein, and escaped in consequence of his affirming that an armistice had been concluded on the propositions for an accommodation sent to Napoleon after the battle by the King of Prussia. Whether the I 'russian general really believed the report to that effect, which unquestionably prevailed through the whole army » Hariix. at that time, 2 or whether he made use of this very ques- tionable military stratagem as a device to extricate his troops from present danger, does not appear ; and there- fore neither praise nor blame can in this uncertainty be awarded on the subject. But this much is clear, that if he knowingly affirmed a falsehood, as the French assert, no necessity, how pressing soever, no advantage, how great soever, can suffice as any apology."" Though the But when the French historians inveigh with such severity against conducl on this occasion, and affirm, "In the campaigns of the lution, the Austrian generals have frequently had recourse to that strange 'In /;■, nch m ver,"* they forget or wilfully conceal immediately . on which they bestow no sort of censure. What is to be HISTORY OF EUROPE. 247 resistance of this corps, however, was more honourable, its chap. ultimate fate was not less calamitous. No sooner was — 1 Napoleon informed of the junction of these two corps in 1806 ' the north of Prussia, than he ordered their pursuit bj forces so considerable, that escape became impossible. Bernadotte was instructed to follow closely on their footsteps ; while Murat was despatched by a circuit to cut them off, on the right, from Stralsund and Rostock, under the cannon of which they might have found shelter ; and Soult threw himself on the left, to bar the communication with the lower Elbe. Blucher arrived at Boitzenburg the day Oct. 28. after the ill-fated Hohenlohe had left that town ; and having there learned the catastrophe which had befallen that brilliant portion of the army, he renounced all hope of retiring before the enemy, and retraced his steps in order to unite with General Winning and the Duke of Saxe- Weimar's corps, which he effected at Kratzemberg on the day following, Finding himself now at the head Oct. 29. of eighteen thousand infantry, six thousand cavalry, and sixty pieces of cannon, he resolved to move to the right, o ( £ UI ?f 8 xvi - recross the Elbe, raise the siege of Masdeburo-, and, Saak iii. supported by that fortress and Hameln, maintain himself j om .ii. : ii 7. as long as possible in the rear of the Emperor's army. 1 The project was boldly conceived and intrepidly fol- lowed out; but the three corps now directed against him, numbering nearly sixty thousand combatants, rendered said to General Lecourbe, who, in November 1799, escaped destruction at the hands of the Austrian general Starray, solely by falsely affirming that a nego- tiation for peace was commenced ] to Lannes and Murat, in the campaign of Austerlitz, who won the bridge of Vienna by the fallacious declaration that an armistice had been concluded, which they well knew was not the case ? or to the latter of these marshals, who a few days afterwards tried a similar piece of deceit with Kutusoff, and was only foiled by the superior finesse of that astute commander % All the French historians, Bignon, Norvins, and Thiers, mention these unworthy stratagems not only without censure, but with the highest admiration. 2 It would be well, if, in making such random assertions, they \ R»PP> 57, would calculate less confidently on the want of information or recollection in i v .406. Ante their readers ; and if, in the survey of the conduct of their own officers, they cha P- XL - § § would display a little of that warm anxiety for the great principles of public Joi' Thiers, morality, to which they so loudly appeal when any violation of it occurs to vi - 261, 262.' their disadvantage on the part of their enemies. 243 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, its execution impossible. A sharp conflict took place XLIIL w ith his rearguard at Nossentin, in which five hundred im - prisoners fell into the hands of the French; and the wiJe'he is next day the junction of Bernadotte with Soult ren- Nov.T dered it necessary for the gallant Prussian to be more Nov. 2. circimispect. An opportunity, however, soon occurred of taking his revenge. Next day the French hussars were charged and put to the rout by the Prussian light dragoons, at the entrance of a defile. Colonel Gerard Nov. 3. and three hundred horsemen were made prisoners: but the cavalry having fallen back on the support of their infantry, headed by Bernadotte in person, the Prussians were in their turn repulsed with severe loss. Finding the enemy's forces so considerable, that all chance of making good his way to the lower Elbe was out of the question, Blucher resolved to fall back by Gadebusch on Nov. 4. Liibeck, where he hoped to find resources to recruit his wearied troops, and the decayed bastions of which he flattered himself he would soon be able to put in a Nov. 5. respectable state of defence. Before arriving at that city, he was summoned by Bernadotte to surrender, and informed that he was beset by forces triple his own. " I will never capitulate," was the brief and characteristic reply of the Prussian general ; and, continuing his march, he entered Liibeck on the evening of the 5th, closely followed by his indefatigable pursuers. In the course of the pursuit, a detachment of twelve hundred Swedes fell into the hands of Bernadotte, who treated them with unusual courtesy and kindness. From the grati- , l)iim xvi tude of the Swedes for this treatment, arose the inter- ' ., change of good deeds which terminated in his elevation 1.23, ° ° >m. "■ to the throne of Gustavus Adolphus. At that period, 317. a . _ ■ ■ i i • • i i iu. 311,312. events, in appearance the most trivial, were big with the fate of nations. 1 Unfortunately for Liibeck, it was still surrounded by a ruined wall and deep ditches filled with water; and this gave Blucher an excuse for representing it as a HISTORY OF EUROPE. 249 military post, and disregarding all the remonstrances of chap. the magistrates, who loudly protested against this viola- XLIIL tion of their neutrality. Hastily planting the few heavy ^ 06- cannon which he still retained to defend the principal And is there gates, Blucher caused the greater part of his forces to afterades- dcfile through the town, and take post on the low marshy j}?™ te cou " ground on the opposite side, on the confines of the Danish territory. At daybreak on the following morning the French columns were at the gates, and every preparation was made for an instant assault. In spite of a heavy fire of grape and musketry from the old walls, the French approached with their accustomed gallantry to the assault. The corps of Bernadotte advanced Oct. 6. against the Burg-Thor, the gate which looked to the north; that of Soult approached the Huxtor-Thor and Muhlen-Thor, the gates of Hanover. After sustaining a terrible discharge from the bastions, which were armed with the Prussian field-pieces, the French advanced- guard, under Generals Merle and Frerc, succeeded in breaking through with their hatchets the exterior palli- sades of the Burg-Thor, and, rapidly following the Prus- sian regiments which held that outwork, entered the gate pell-mell with the fugitives, and made themselves masters of the adjoining bastions. At the same moment Soult's divisions threatened the gates opposed to their attack ; but so murderous was the fire which the Prus- , ^ i r „ ' Uum, xvi. sians kept up from the walls flanking their approaches, B &> ?28. that the assailants were unable to make any progress, till sis!' "Hard! Bernadotte's divisions, having penetrated into the town, Bignrvi.24. threatened to take the defenders in rear. 1 Even then, nevertheless, the brave Prussians at this gate, to the number of two thousand, faced both ways, Despite and, besieged in their turn, sustained the double attack thlZ™! from within and without. Posted on the roofs of houses, and on the summits of the ramparts, they kept up an incessant fire till their cartridges were exhausted, when they were all either killed or made prisoners. So rapid, 1806'. 250 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, however, was the advance of the French through the XLIII -i-k . Burg-Thor, that Blucher, who had retired to his lodgings, after having made his dispositions, to dictate orders, had barely time to mount his horse with his son and a single aide-de-camp, and ride off: all the rest of his staff were made prisoners. Having joined the remaining troops in the town, that brave general, with his gallant followers, prolonged the defence. He himself repeatedly charged along the Konig-Strasse at the head of a body of cavalry, but was unable to clear it of the French soldiers, who had now broken into the houses near the gate, and from thence kept up a fire of such severity upon the street as rendered it impossible for the dragoons to advance to its further extremity. Presently the besiegers brought up their field-pieces, the guns on the ramparts were turned upon the town, and repeated discharges of grape from both sides swept the pavement, and occasioned a terrific slaughter. With invincible resolution, however, the Prussians maintained the combat. From street to street, from church to church, from house to house, the conflict continued. Blood flowed on all sides. The incessant rattle of the musketry was almost drowned in some quarters by the cries of the wounded and the shrieks of the inhabitants, who in that day of woe underwent all the horrors consequent on a town being carried by assault. By degrees, however, the superior numbers of the French, who were soon reinforced by part of Murat's corps, pre- vailed over the heroic resolution of the Prussians. With difficulty Blucher succeeded, towards evening, in collecting- five thousand men, with whom he forced his way through by i Dum xvi the gate of Holstein, and rejoined his cavalry, which lay jom ?f Ii7 at Schwertau on the opposite side of the town, near the 3 . 18 - %«• Danish frontier: while the remainder of his corps in the vi. 24, 2o. ... , , Paaif. iii. tow n, consisting of eight thousand men, were slain before Q 1 O TJ 1 7 O O ix. 322. ' nightfall in that fearful fight, or fell into the hands of the enemy. 1 "" * The French writers made it a just reproach to the English army that its HISTORY OF EUKOPK. 251 The situation of Blucher, with his cavalry and this chap. slender body of infantry, was now altogether desperate. 1 He was driven up to Ratkau, in the extremity of Ger- 1 ^ 6 ' uianv, on the very edge of the Danish territory, where He retires J ' jo ill j-1" Katkau, a powerful body of troops was collected to prevent ins an d is there entrance. In the night he received intelligence that ^. pn " Travemunde, a fortified town on the sea-coast, to which he proposed to have retired, had been taken by Murat, calong with a battalion which he had sent forward to garrison that important post, where he hoped to have embarked; and to complete his misfortunes, information arrived in the morning that the salt-marshes between Schwertau and that town were not passable by the army. At the same time a flag of truce arrived from Murat, while his numerous squadrons had already driven the Prussian infantry out of Schwertau, and were closing in, in all directions, on his last position. Overcome by stern necessity, the hardy veteran, with tears in his eyes, agreed to a capitulation, in virtue of which all his troops laid down their arms. On this occasion were taken ten battalions and fifty-three squadrons, amounting to four y^™' thousand foot-soldiers, and three thousand seven hundred JfjfS^ cavalry, with forty pieces of cannon, the remainder of his j^ 21 ?^ 22 - fine train of artillery having been left on the ramparts of 313. ' Lubeck. 1 To complete the disasters of the Prussian monarchy, „ 8> nothing was wanting but the surrender of Magdeburg ; KOrfW and that important bulwark was not long of falling into soldiers committed such disgraceful excesses at Sau Sebastian, Ciudad Rodrigo, and Badajos, when these fortresses fell by assault. It is the duty of the histo- rian to condemn equally such outrages, by whomsoever committed; and certainly in this work no veil shall be thrown over those atrocities when they come to be recounted. But it would be well if they would reserve a little of their humane indignation for the sufferers under their own soldiery on similar catastrophes. On this occasion, though they pass it lightly over, the cruelties and devastation committed by Bernadotte's and Soult's corps for two days after the town was taken, notwithstanding all the efforts of these marshals, were equal to the very worst deeds that ever stained the British arms.— See the frightful details, drawn with a graphic hand, in Lettre de Villers a la Comtesse Fanny Bcauharnais, Amst. 1808. 252 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, tlie hands of Marshal Ney. Although its garrison was in L great part composed of fugitives of all regiments, who had 1806- made their escape into that asylum from the disastrous fields of Jena and Auerstadt, jet such was the strength of its works, and the ample store of provisions and maga- zines of all sorts which existed within its walls, that a prolonged defence might confidently have been antici- pated. Nevertheless, if its fall was not quite so disgraceful as that of Stettin and Custrin, it was such as to affix a lasting stigma on the Prussian arms. After fifteen days of a blockade, Marshal Ney commenced operations in form ; but before having recourse to the tedious method of regular approaches, he resolved to try the effect of a bombardment. Furnaces for this purpose were heated, and arrangements made to throw four-and-twenty pound shot, red-hot, into every part of the town, while a copious array of bombs was prepared to bring terror and con- flagration upon the inhabitants. It was not necessary, however, to proceed to these extremities. The citizens of Magdeburg preserved a vivid traditional recollection of the horrors which their forefathers underwent after the memorable storm by Count Tilly in 1631, when the whole town was reduced to ashes. No sooner, therefore, did the first flaming projectiles begin to descend upon their houses than they besieged General Kleist, the governor, with entreaties for a surrender. That officer, deeming the Prussian monarchy destroyed, and seeing no use in singly prolonging a contest now become hopeless, Nov. 8. agreed to a capitulation on the same terms as Stettin, in virtue of which this important frontier town, the bulwark of the monarchy, with its redoubtable ramparts still untouched, and not even an outwork lost, containing 1 Dum xvi. twelve thousand troops in arms, and four thousand in hos- t 43 ' 347 o',n pital, six hundred pieces of cannon, eight hundred thousand Jom. n.olJ). L L ° Bim.-yi.26. pounds of powder, a pontoon train complete, and immense 313. magazines of all sorts, fell into the hands of the enemy, who hardly mustered a greater force without its walls. 1 After these stunning calamities, it was not to be chap. xlik. 1800". HISTORY OF EUROPE. 253 stunning calamities, it 'was not to be expected that the fortresses on the Weser, which were now left far in the rear of the storm of war, should long ' ° 79. continue to hold out. A host of fugitives from Jena and Fail of . Till c i ill i." Hameln and Auerstadt had taken refuge in these strongholds, parti- Nienburg on cularly Hameln and Nienburg ; into the former of which General Lecocq, who had been separated in the confusion of the disastrous night which followed these battles, had thrown himself with four thousand men who still pre- served a military array. There he speedily found him- self blockaded by the forces of the King of Holland, who had advanced by Wiirtzburg and Paderborn to the banks of the Weser. The disastrous state of the monarchy gave him too plausible a ground for assailing the fidelity of the besieged. " You are insulated," said he, " without hope of succour. Abandoned, and more than a hundred leagues in the rear of the victorious invaders, what can your efforts do to avert the fall of the Prussian monarchy \ " These arguments, supported by the official intelligence of the fall of Magdeburg and the surrender of almost all the fragments of the army, produced the desired impression ; and it was speedily agreed that the fortress should be evacuated, the private soldiers made prisoners, and the officers return on their parole to Prussia. A mutiny broke Nov. 20. out among the soldiers upon learning the terms of this disgraceful capitulation ; but it was speedily suppressed by Savary's dragoons, the men disarmed, and the fortress, in admirable condition, delivered over, with five thousand prisoners, to the French. Nienburg speedily followed the Nov. 25. same example, and, with its untouched fortifications and garrison of three thousand men, capitulated to the victors ; ) Dum.xvi. and with it all the elements of resistance expired between Bigi.vi.27. the Weser and the Oder. 1 While the arms of Napoleon, guided by his penetr.it- 80 ing eye, were reaping in this astonishing series of sue- Na P°'eon dcttichf's cesses the fruits of the victories of Jena and Auerstadt, saxonyfrom the Emperor himself, occupied alike with military and tfi!° 254 HISTOEY OF EUROTE. chap, diplomatic objects, was preparing the means of further triumphs, and a more complete consolidation of the power 1806. which fortune and genius had thus combined to place at his disposal. His first care was to detach Saxony from the coalition ; and after the defeat of its army in those disastrous days, and occupation of its territory by the con- querors, this was easily accomplished. The Saxons have a hereditary jealousy of the Prussians, by whom they have a presentiment they are one day to be swallowed up. Necessity, not inclination, had brought them into the field with their ambitious neighbours ; and they gladly availed themselves of the first opportunity to range their forces on the side to which their secret inclinations had long pointed, and which seemed to be recommended alike by prudence and necessity. Early in the campaign, Napoleon had addressed to them a proclamation, in which he called on them to assert their national inde- pendence, and throw off that withering alliance with Prussia from which nothing but ultimate ruin was to be anticipated." This address had already produced a great impression on the Saxon troops, when the victory of Jena seemed to dissolve at once the bonds which held the two nations together. Improving on these dispositions, Napo- leon assembled the Saxon officers, three hundred in num- Oct. 17. ber, who had been made prisoners at Weimar, strongly represented to them the impolicy of any longer uniting their arms to those of their natural enemies the Prus- sians ; and offered, upon their subscribing the oath tendered to them of fidelity to its fortunes, to admit them into the Confederation of the Rhine. Gladly the * " Saxons ! the Prussians have invaded your territory. I have come to deliver you. They have violently dissolved the bond which united your troops, and incorporated them with their own ranks. You must, forsooth, shed your blood, for interests not merely foreign but adverse to those of your country ! Saxons ! your fate is now in your own hands. Will you float in uncertainty between those who impose and those who seek to liberate you from the yoke 1 My success will secure the independence of your country and your prince. The triumph of the Prussians would rivet on you eternal chains. To-morrow they will demand Lusatia ; the day after, the right bank of the Elbe. But what do I say? Have they not already done so? Have they not long endeavoured to force HISTORY OF EUROPE. 255 officers, for themselves and the troops under their com- chap. maud, subscribed the conditions ; and immediately they were all, with the private soldiers, six thousand in number, 1806 " sent back to Dresden. The Elector shortly after recalled the remainder of his forces from the Prussian standard ; he accepted first neutrality, then an alliance with the conqueror ; and before the war in Poland was concluded, his troops were to be seen actively engaged under the French eagles. Such was the origin of that intimate union which, down to the close of the war, subsisted between Napoleon and the Saxon government, and which, though in the end fraught with numberless calamities to ii i 1 Dum. xvi. that electorate, must ever command respect, from the 204,207. fidelity with which its engagements were adhered to under 4. lgn ' "" "' adverse fortune. 1 It was shortly after having detached Saxony from the Prussian, and united it to his own alliance, that Napoleon Refuses to received an answer from the King of Prussia to the pruLk* elusory proposals of accommodation made by him before the battle of Jena, and which that unhappy monarch eagerly caught at after that disaster, as the only light that seemed to break upon his sinking fortunes. The times, however, were not now the same : there was no longer any need of dissembling; the Prussian army was routed, and he was not the man to let slip the opportunity of completing its destruction. He therefore coldly replied, Oct. is. that it was premature to speak of peace when the cam- paign could hardly be said to have commenced ; and that, having resolved to try the fate of arms, the king must abide by its issue. At the same time, he made amends to your sovereign to recognise a feudal supremacy which would soon sweep you from the rank of independent nations? Your independence, your constitution, your liberty, would exist only in recollection ; and the spirits of your ancestors, of the brave Saxons, would feel indignant at seeing you reduced, without resist- ance, by your rivals, to a slavery long prepared by their councils, and your country reduced to the rank of a Prussian province," None could descant more fluently than Napoleon on the withering effect to inconsiderable states of an alliance with a greater power; for none put it in force so invariably towards his own tributary states. — Dumas, xvi. 205. 256 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, the infantry of Lannes' corps, which, in consequence of their not having been mentioned by Murat in his report 1806. Q f t | ie successes a t Prentzlow, in which they had borne so glorious a part, had not been mentioned in the bulletin regarding that event, by replying to a letter of remon- strance from Lannes on the subject. " You and your soldiers are children. Do you suppose I do not know all you have done to second the cavalry % There is glory enough for all. Another day it will be your turn to fill the bulletins of the Grand Army." When Lannes read these words to his soldiers, they were so transported with joy that they raised the cry "Vive l'Empereur d'Occident!" Nothing could have more completely answered the secret i Dum. xvi. wishes of the Emperor than both the title with which he 236 239 jom.ii.30i. was saluted by these brave men, and the circumstances so 19VLS6."' closely resembling those of the Roman legions under which it arose. 1 Following the march of his victorious armies, Napoleon Napokon continued his progress, by Weimar, Naumburg, Witten- dlm tS andthe Der g> anc ^ Potsdam, towards Berlin. On the march he derick°. fFre " passed the field of Rosbach, the well-known theatre of ° ct - - 5 - the Prussian victory over the French, and ordered the column erected in commemoration of that triumph, which had been thrown down by the soldiers of his army, to be preserved from further injury, and transported as a trophy to Paris. At Potsdam he visited, with eager haste, the palace of Sans-Souci and the tomb of the Great Frede- rick. Everything in the apartments of the illustrious monarch had been preserved as when he breathed his last : the book which he read shortly before his death remained on the table ; the furniture was untouched ; the writing materials still there : the simplicity of all surprised the conqueror, who was accustomed to the magnificence of St Cloud. By a singular coincidence, but one of the many with which the history of Napoleon is full, he visited the sepulchre on the anniversary of the day on which Alex- ander, just a year before, on the same spot, had sworn HISTORY OF EUROPE. 257 fidelity to Frederick-William. Such had been the con- chap. J XLIII. 1806. fusion of the Prussian flight, that on the tomb there still remained the cordon of the black eagle, the scarf and sword of the hero, which he had worn in the Seven Years' War, as well as the standards of his guard. With deep emotion Napoleon approached the awful monument ; but even at that solemn moment unworthy feelings gained the ascendency. He himself seized the venerable relics, and sent them with indecent haste off to Paris. " I will make a present of them," said he, " to the Hotel des Invalides : the old veterans of the Hanoverian war will receive with religious respect all that once belonged to one of the greatest captains of whom history has made mention." Such an act could not injure the dead ; his glory was enshrined in imperishable lustre in the page of history : but it lowered the living, and sullied the triumph of Jena by an unbecoming act of rapacity. Little did Napoleon at that moment anticipate the advent of times when the Prussians, now so humbled, were to have the mastery of his proudest trophies, and \f^'^ nausht was to remain but veneration for the remains of »■ 302 > 303 - . Dum. xvi. the dead to protect his own ashes in a foreign and far 249, 250. distant land from the rude hand of the spoiler. 1 "* This interesting episode did not interrupt for a moment the military movements of the corps immediately around the person of the Emperor. The same weakness and infatuation appeared there, as elsewhere, to have seized the * How much more honourable as well as magnanimous was the conduct of the Russian officer who, instead of destroying the monument erected at Cob- lentz to commemorate the campaign of 1812, simply engraved below the inscription the words, " Seen and approved by the Russian governor of Cologne, January 1, 1814." It is for the interest of all nations to preserve the trophies of their enemy's victory and the remains of the dead from insult ; for it is impossible to foresee how soon they may themselves suffer from an opposite system. Nor is such forbearance without its reward. It obliterates the dis- grace of defeat in the magnanimity of subsequent victory. The Pillar of Austerlitz, in the Place Vendome, is now a monument not less to German generosity than to French valour. It would be well for the memory of Napoleon if more instances of moderation in victory, and regard for the vanquished, were mingled with his military triumphs. VOL. VII. R 258 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. Prussian authorities. On the same day Marshal Davoust, agreeably to the promise of Napoleon, headed the splen- 1806. c j- c | van g liarc i w hich, with all the pomp of war, entered Berlin,' Berlin. No words can describe the mingled feelings of kudchar- rage, astonishment, and despair, which animated the ocSedly inhabitants at this heart-rending spectacle, occurring in theFrench. j ess ^ nan a f or tnioht after hostilities had commenced. Oct. £5. ~ With speechless grief they gazed on the proud array which defiled through their gates, and drank deep, in the agony of that dreadful moment, of the punishment for the political sins of their government during the last ten years. On the same day the strong fortress of Spandau, with its strong citadel and a garrison of twelve hundred men, surrendered, without firing a Oct. 26. shot, to Marshal Lannes;"" and Napoleon, after inspect- ing that stronghold, on the day following made his triumphal entry into the capital. He had not the same delicacy towards the feelings of its inhabitants which Oct. 27. he had previously evinced towards those of Vienna : the palace of Charlottenburg would have answered his pur- pose of a residence as well as that of Schoenbrun had done ; but he seemed as anxious to lacerate the feelings of the Prussians as he had been to spare those of the Austrians, and determined to punish ten years of subser- vience and ten days of warfare more than he had done the inveterate hostility of twelve campaigns. Surrounded, therefore, by all the splendour of the empire, in the midst of a brilliant staff, preceded by his splendid Guards on horseback in their richest attire, and environed by * Napoleon spoke thus of this fortress : — " The citadel of Spandau, situated on the Spree, fully victualled for two months, is an inestimable acquisition. In our hands it could sustain two months of open trenches. But such was the general confusion that the batteries were not even armed." — IQtli Bulletin. It is evident that treachery, or selfishness equivalent to treachery, occasioned the sudden fall of so many of the Prussian fortresses at this period ; and Bignon tells us that he became convinced of that when, on being sent by the Emperor to superintend the capitulation of Spandau, he found the governor, Benckendorf, occupied with no other consideration but disputes with the French commander as to some wretched culinary articles which he alleged the capitulation autho- rised him to remove ! —Bignon, vi. 13. HISTORY OP EUROPE. 259 Berthier, Duroc, Davoust, and Augereau, Napoleon, in his chap. usual simple costume, made his triumphal entry under L the arch erected to the honour of the Great Frederick. 1806 - The " observed of all observers," the object of eager gaze to the speechless assembled multitude, the mighty con- queror traversed the long street which leads from the ™«J gate Charlottenburg, and advancing through an innu- gg^g 5 - merable crowd, in whom passion, admiration, and wonder jgg-£ 18 - were mingled in some cases with joy, alighted at the gates 313. of the old palace. 1 Prince Hatzfeld, one of the leaders of the war party, ^ in the total absence of any authority emanating from the Affair of King, had been besought by the principal inhabitants to eSXh. take an interim direction of affairs, and assume the com- mand of the burgher guard. In doing so he had issued a proclamation, in which he said, " Nothing remains for us now but to assume a pacific attitude : our cares should not extend beyond what is within our own walls : that constitutes our sole interest, and as it is of the highest importance, we should bestow our exclusive attention upon it." This prince, as the chief of the pacific authorities, presented himself at the head of the magistrates before Napoleon at Potsdam, and was well received. He again waited on him when he arrived at the palace ; but the conqueror received him with a severe air, and averting his head said, " Do not present yourself before me; I have no need of your services; retire to your estates." Shortly after the astonished nobleman withdrew, he was arrested by orders of Napoleon, who had commanded him to be seized and executed before six o'clock that evening. In fact he had transmitted to Prince Hohenlohe a letter, containing military details in regard to what he had seen at Potsdam when waiting on Napoleon, which ' had been intercepted by Davoust and brought to the Emperor. The imperious commands of the conqueror left his subordinate authorities no alternative but submis- sion; although Berthier, shocked at the deed of violence 2G0 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, which was in contemplation, did his utmost to avert the VTTTT x storm, and even refused to write out the warrant, which 1806, Rapp was called in to do. He could not, however, prevent Napoleon from ordering another murder as atro- i Rapp, 109, cious as that of the Due d'Enghien, and the death-warrant ix. 315. ar ' was signed, and Rapp was directed to send it to Davoust for immediate execution. 1 The former brave and generous man, at his own immi- His pardon nent hazard, took upon himself to delay its transmission ; feon! apo " and in the mean time the Princess of Hatzfeld, having arrived in the antechamber of the palace, was informed of the danger of her husband, and sank in a swoon on the floor. Rapp advised her, after she recovered, to endeavour to throw herself in Napoleon's way at the hotel of Prince Ferdinand, where he was going in a short time ; she did so, and fell at his feet in the extremity of despair. Her grief and beauty touched Napoleon, who, though subject to violent fits of passion, was not insensible to generous emotions. Rapp warmly seconded the return to feelings of humanity, and orders were despatched to Davoust to suspend the execution till further directions. Meanwhile the princess was enjoined to repair to the palace, whither Napoleon soon after returned. He ordered her to be brought into the room which he occu- pied. " Your husband," said he with a benign air, " has brought himself into a distressing situation ; according to our laws, he has incurred the penalty of death. General Rapp, give me the letter : take it ; read, madam. Is it your husband's writing'?" She did so trembling. "I cannot deny his subscription/' she replied, almost faint- ing with emotion. Napoleon then took it from her, tore it, and threw it into the fire. " I have no longer any proof; your husband is pardoned." He then desired ,„„ Rapp to bring him back immediately from Davoust's 2 Rapp, 109, t r o li'iiii no. Bign. headquarters ; that officer ventured to admit that he had r1 ' 315. ar ' not even sent him there : 2 the Emperor manifested no displeasure, but on the contrary seemed gratified at the IX. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 261 delay which had taken place in the execution of the chap order. * XLm - Shortly after his arrival at Berlin, Napoleon paid a 1806 - visit of condolence to Prince Ferdinand, brother of the Najirs great King of Prussia, and father of Prince Louis who SSSKd- fell at Saalfeld, and manifested the most delicate atten- JKmJIi. tions to the widow of Prince Henry, as well as the 0ct - 30 - Princess Electoral of Hesse-Cassel. At the same time he addressed an animated proclamation to his troops, in which he recounted with just pride their astonishing exploits, and promised to lead them against the Russians, who, he foretold, would find another Austerlitz in the * It is always pleasing to record a generous action, and doubly so when it occurs in an enemy ; but justice compels the admission that, by delaying the transmission of this order, Rapp conferred a greater favour on Napoleon than on the intended victim of his passion ; for the one he saved only from death, the other from the guilt of murder. Rapp informs us that the Prince of Hatzfeld had come to Potsdam on the 25th, and it was for the account trans- mitted to Hohenlohe on that clay of what he there saw that he was about to be condemned. The 25th was the day on which Davoust entered Berlin. The information objected to was collected, and the letter written, therefore, before the prince had come under the military government of the French Emperor. There is no law against a private citizen, or a civic authority of one nation, transmitting to its military officers details which have come to his knowledge regarding an enemy, when not yet subject \p their authority— Napoleon himself called on the French prefects and magistrates to do so a hundred times. If the circumstance of Hatzfeld having collected and transmitted this informa- tion, while on a civil mission to the Emperor at Potsdam, exposed him to the penalty of death, what is to be said to Savary the year before, who, by orders of Napoleon, when conferring with the Emperor Alexander on the proposed terms of accommodation, obtained and brought to him military details of inestimable importance in regard to the temper and strength of the Allied army on the eve of the battle of Austerlitz; 1 or to Napoleon himself, who in J Sav. ii. 112, 1797 transmitted orders to his brother Joseph, when holding the sacred office 113< A nte~' of ambassador at Rome, to do all in his power to revolutionise the Eternal §' ujj * L City, and overturn the papal authority. 2 What the Prince of Hatzfeld did -Ante, chap, was no more than all ambassadors do, or than Napoleon invariably required xxv : § 72 ; from all his diplomatic agents. The character of the intended transaction Confidl'lte 1 '" may be judged of by what Berthier, with generous warmth, said on the occasion Na P°'eon, iv. — " Your majesty will surely not shoot a man connected with the first families 199 ' 201 ' in Berlin for so trifling a thing; the supposition is impossible— you will not do so;" and from his positive refusal to write out the order, as well as from Rapp's delaying its transmission. Had the prince been shot, it would have been, like the death of the Due d'Enghien and the bookseller Palm, an act of deliberate murder. History, therefore, cannot award to Napoleon the praise of having pardoned, on this occasion, a criminal who had forfeited his life either by the laws of war or the principles of justice; but it must not refuse the meed due to a conqueror who returns to generous feelings, after having 262 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, heart of Prussia." 7 Next day he reviewed the corps of XT TTT 1 Marshal Davoust ou the road to Frankfort, and, assem- 1806# bling the officers in a circle, assured them of the adinira- tion which he felt for their achievements, and the grief which he had experienced at the numerous losses which had thinned their ranks. " Sire," answered the marshal, " the soldiers of the third corps will ever be to you what the tenth legion was to Cresar." Already, in the emula- tion of the different corps, the mutual knowledge and attachment of the officers and men, were to be found the happy effects of that permanent organisation into separate armies and divisions, which, first of the moderns, Napo- •259? 26L '' leon had adopted from the ancient conquerors of the world. 1 While Napoleon and his followers were thus indulging unpawion- in an excusable pride at the retrospect of their wonderful SnSS achievements, the Prussian officers who had traversed the *° ^e Dake coim try, or reached the capital in virtue of the several wick - capitulations which had been granted, were exposed to the most grievous humiliation. The officers of the Guard, especially, who had escaped from the wreck of Hohen- lohe's corps, were ostentatiously marched by the Emperor through Berlin to Spandau. Words cannot describe the mortification of those high-spirited young men, at the unparalleled calamities in which their inconsiderate been led, iu a moment of irritation, to command an atrocious deed; and joyfully seizes on this incident as illustrative of that ascendency which, in his cooler moments, humane feelings obtained over ruthless passion in the mind of this extraordinary man. — Rapp, 108. * " Soldiers ! you are worthy defenders of my crown, and of the great people. As long as you are animated with your present spirit notliing can resist you. Behold the result of your labours ! One of the first powers in Europe, which recently had the audacity to propose to us a shameful capitulation, is annihi- lated. ' The forests and defiles of Franconia, the Saale, the Elbe, which our fathers would not have traversed in seven years, we have surmounted in seven days, besides, during the same period, fighting four combats and a great battle. We have arrived at Potsdam and Berlin sooner than the renown of our victo- ries ! We have made sixty thousand prisoners, taken sixty-five standards, including those of the royal guards, six hundred pieces of cannon, three for- tresses, twenty generals, while half the army regret their not having had an opportunity of firing a shot. All the Prussian provinces, from the Elbe to the Oder, are in our hands. Soldiers ! the Russians boast that they are advancing HISTORY OF EUROPE. 263 passions bad involved their country ; wherever they went chap. crowds beset their steps, some lamenting their sufferings, XLIIL others reproaching them as the authors of all the public 1806, misfortunes. Napoleon made a severe and ungenerous use of his victory. The old Duke of Brunswick, respect- able from his age, his achievements under the Great Frederick, and the honourable wounds he had recently received on the field of battle, and "who had written a letter to Napoleon, after the battle of Jena, recommending his subjects to his generosity, was in an especial manner the object of invective. His states were overrun, and the official bulletins disgraced by a puerile tirade against a general who had done nothing but discharge his duty to his sovereign. For this he was punished by the total confiscation of his dominions. So virulent was the lan- guage employed, and such the apprehensions in conse- 1 Bfe»- f- quence inspired, that the wounded general was compelled, Cakp.de ' with great personal suffering, to take refuge in Altona, 155*295. where he soon after died. 1 """ The Queen, whose spirit in prosperous and constancy in adverse fortune had justly endeared her to her sub- AndS'tue jects, and rendered her the admiration of all Europe, was rSafand pursued in successive bulletins with unmanly sarcasms ; t 1 f e H ^ e i t . or and a heroic princess, whose only fault, if fault it was, CasseL had been an excess of patriotic ardour, was compared to Helen, whose faithless vices had involved her country in to meet us : let us march to encounter them; we will spare them the half of their journey; they will find an Austerlitz in the heart of Prussia. A nation which has so speedily forgot the generosity which we manifested towards it after the battle when its Emperor, its court, the wreck of its army, owed its safety entirely to the capitulation which we granted to it, is a nation that will never be able to contend with us." — Dumas, xvi. 259, 260. * " If the Duke of Brunswick," said the bulletin, " has richly deserved the animadversions of the French people, he has also incurred that of the Prussian army and people : of the latter, who reproach him as one of the authors of the war; of the former, who complain of his manoeuvres and military conduct. The false calculations of the young may be pardoned, but the conduct of that old prince, aged seventy-two, is an excess of insanity, and his catastrophe can excite no regret. What can there be respectable hi gray hairs, when to the faults of age are united the ^consideration and folly of youth ? For these extravagancies he has justly incurred the forfeiture of all his dominions."— 23d and 27th Bulletins, Camp, de Saxe, ii. 216, 293. 264 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, the calamities consequent on the sies;e of Troy."" The XLIII 1 whole dominions of the Elector of Hesse-Cassel were next seized ; and that prince, who had not even combated at Jena, but merely permitted, when he could not prevent, the entry of the Prussians into his dominions, was de- throned and deprived of all his possessions. Animosity to England was the secret motive for all those acts of robbery. So strongly was Napoleon influenced by these feelings that he made no attempt to disguise that it was the ruling principle which governed all his measures towards the vanquished. f The Prince of Orange, brother- iBign.vi. in-law to the King of Prussia, in favour of whom the sfc^d 34 ' Prussian plenipotentiaries then at Berlin made the tiaa Com" s t ron gest representations, shared the same fate; while to de Saxe, ii. the nobles of Berlin he used publicly the cruel expression, 214.' " more withering to his own reputation than theirs 1 — "7 will render that noblesse so poor that they shall be obliged to * "All the world accuses the Queen as the author of all the calamities which have befallen the Prussian nation. The public indignation is at its height against the authors of the war, especially Gentz, a miserable scribbler, who sells himself for money. After her ridiculous journey to Erfurth and Weimar, the Queen entered Berlin a fugitive and alone. Among the standards we have taken are those embroidered by the hands of this princess, whose beauty has been as fatal to her people as that of Helen was to the citizens of Troy." — 27th and 23d Bulletins, Camp, de Saxe, ii. 215. It is worthy of observation, that M. Gentz, who is here stigmatised as a miserable hireling sold to England, was one of the most distinguished writers of the age, and one with whom Sir James Mackintosh, the eloquent apologist of the French Revolution, maintained a constant and valued correspondence down to the time of his death. That distinguished author, in reply to a letter from Gentz, which he received at Bombay, where he then was holding a high judicial appointment, thus speaks of the pamphlet to which Napoleon alluded : — " I received by the mail your two precious fragments. I assent to all you say, sympathise with all you feel, and admire equally your reason and your eloquence throughout your masterly fragment. I have read your letter fifty times since I received it, with the same sentiment which a Roman in the extremity of Mauritania would have felt, if he had received an account of the ruin of his country after the battle of Pharsalia, written the morning after that calamity, with the unconquerable spirit of Cato, and the terrible energy of Tacitus. He would have exulted that there was something which Csesar could not subdue, and from which a deliverer and avenger might yet spring." — Mackintosh's Memoirs, i. 304. Certainly of all the unaccountable peculiarities in the mind of Napoleon, the most extraordi- nary is his total insensibility to the ultimate ascendant of truth over falsehood, and the extent to which he calculated on palming off falsehood and misrepre- sentation on the credulity or ignorance of mankind. f M. Bignon, who was present on the occasion, gives the following curious 1806. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 265 beg their bread." When a conqueror, in the midst of his chap. greatest triumphs, uses such insulting language to the vanquished, and makes such an atrocious use of his vic- tory, it is impossible to sympathise with his fall, and Waterloo and St Helena are felt to be a just measure of moral retribution. " Nescia mens hominum fati sortisque futune, Et servare modum rebus, sublata secundis. Turno tempus erit, magno quum obtaverit emptum Intactum Pallanta, et quum spolia ista diemque Oderit." * Meanwhile the French armies, without any further 89. resistance, took possession of the whole country between Enormous the Rhine and the Oder; and in the rear of the victorious ti^sieTied bands appeared, in severity unprecedented even in the ^ d thT ia armies of the Republic, the dismal scourge of contributions. gjU^L Resolved to maintain the war exclusively on the pro- vinces which were to be its theatre, Napoleon had taken only twenty-four thousand "francs in specie across the Rhine in the military chest of the army. It soon appeared from whom the deficiency was to be supplied. On the day after the battle of Jena appeared a procla- mation, directing * the levy of an extraordinary war con- tribution of one hundred and fifty-nine million francs (£6,360,000) on the countries at war with France, of account of the conversation which led to the dethronement of the Elector of Hesse-Cassel : — " Duroc and I said everything we could, during breakfast, in favour of the Elector. He only petitioned to be allowed to resume possession of his estates; his fortresses were all to be ceded to the French arms; his troops, twelve thousand strong, were to be joined to their forces, and a heavy contri- bution paid. These offers appeared to make a considerable impression on the Emperor, especially the offer of so many troops ; but after musing a while, he said abruptly, ' Bah ! Brunswick, Nassau, Cassel : all these princes are essen- tially English; they will never be our friends,' — and instantly set out for a review. Two days afterwards appeared the 27th bulletin, containing the announcement of their dethronement." — See Bignon, vi. 35. * " mortals ! blind in fate, who never know To bear high fortune, or endure the low ! The time shall come when Turnus, but in vain, Shall wish untouched the trophies of the slain — Shall wish the fatal belt were far away, And curse the dire remembrance of the day." Dkyden's Virgil, x. 530. 266 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIII. 1806. 1 Hard. ix. 317. Bign, vi. 51, 53. Bour. vii. 219. 90. Cruelties exercised towards the conquered districts. which one hundred million was to be borne by the Prussian states to the west of the Vistula, twenty-five million by the Elector of Saxony, and the remainder by the lesser states in the Prussian confederacy. This enormous burden, equivalent to at least £12,000,000 sterling, if the difference between the value of money in England and Germany is taken into account, was levied with unrelenting severity; and the rapacity and exactions of the French agents employed in its collection aggravated to a very great degree the weight and odious nature of the imposition. Saxony, in the scourging con- tributions with which she was overwhelmed, had soon abundant cause to regret the French alliance ; while Berlin, as well as the Hanoverian and Prussian states which had been occupied, experienced, in the rapacity of General Clarke and his subordinate agents, all the bitter- ness as well as the humiliation of conquest. 1 Nor was this all. The whole civil authorities who remained in the abandoned provinces were compelled to take an oath of fidelity to the French Emperor/" — an unprecedented step, which clearly indicated the intention of annexing the Prussian dominions to the great nation ; while General Clarke, governor of Berlin, acting towards the magistrates as if they were already his subjects, barbarously shot a burgomaster of the town of Kyritz,f whose only fault was that he had, when destitute of any armed force, been unable to resist the abstraction of the arms of the burgher guard and local militia by Colonel Schill, who commanded a flying detachment, that still, in * The oath was in these terms : — "I swear to exercise with fidelity the authority which is committed to me by the Emperor of the French, and to act only for the maintenance of the public tranquillity, and to concur with all my power in the execution of all the measures which may be ordered for the ser- vice of the French army, and to maintain no correspondence with its enemies." — Bignon, vi. 51. f At a dinner given by Louis XVIII. in 1815, to the King of Prussia, this murder became the subject of conversation. " Sire," said Clarke, then Duke of Feltre, " it was an unhappy error." — " Say, rather, an unworthy crime !" replied the indignant monarch. — Hard. ix. 318. HISTORY OP EUROPE. 267 the opeti country, maintained its fidelity to the colours of chap. the monarchy. Even the highest .authorities gave way _ to the indiscriminate passion for pillage : " the name of General Clarke," says Bourrienne, " became justly odious from every species of exaction, and a servile execution of all the orders of Napoleon ;" while the great reputa- tion of the conqueror of Auerstadt was disgraced by the i Hard. i*. pillage of the noble library at Tempelberg, the country- ^siffi" seat of Baron Hardenberg, minister of state, which took jj^g^ place by his authority, while he was in person occupying *i£ai9. the edifice. 1 These evils great as they were, and disgraceful to the 91 arms and generals of France, were however, in the ordi- Military «> narv case, only transitory ; but it soon became evident of the coun- •* * i trv from til© that in the case of Prussia and the adjoining states they Rhine to the were to be permanent, and that the iron grasp of the Vlstu a - conqueror was to be not only laid, but retained, on the north of Germany. Early in November there appeared Nov. 3. an elaborate ordinance, which provided for the complete civil organisation and military occupation of the whole country from the Rhine to the Vistula. By this decree the conquered states were divided into four departments ; those of Berlin, of Magdeburg, of Stettin, and of Custrin; the military and civil government of the whole conquered territory was intrusted to a governor-general at Berlin, having under him eight commanders of provinces into which it was divided. Receivers-general were appointed in each province, charged with collecting its whole reve- nue and all the war contributions imposed on it, and their transmission to the French governors. Magistrates, police, gendarmes, all were nominated by the authority of Napoleon; the whole civil and military government of the country was concentrated in his hands. Clarke was governor-general, aided in the details of government by Count Daru, whose great capacity soon appeared in the admirable order which he introduced into every branch of the administration, and which would have 268 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, been worthy of the highest admiration if it had not been XLIIL rendered instrumental to the most cruel and universal 1806 ' system of public extortion. The same system of govern- ment was extended to the duchy of Brunswick, the states of Hesse and Hanover, the duchy of Mecklenburg, and the Hanse Towns, including Hamburg, which was speedily oppressed by grievous contributions, in exacting which the Dutch generals and troops were peculiarly conspicuous. The Emperor openly announced his determination to retain possession of all these states till England consented to his demands on the subject of the liberty of the seas. Careful, at the same time, to mingle with these impor- tant civil changes such deeds as might captivate the imaginations of his subjects, he paraded before the depu- tation which came to Berlin from the senate of Paris, to congratulate him on his victories, three hundred and forty grenadiers of his Imperial Guard, each bearing a 54,6™ bJI'. standard taken from the enemy in this short campaign — SSvfm the most splendid display of military trophies seen in Europe since the triumphs of the Roman generals. 1 Meanwhile the negotiations for the conclusion of a NegotiL separate peace between France and Prussia were resumed. Poland The misfortunes of the King rendered it almost indis- Sandsif" pensable that a respite should be obtained on any terms, Napoleon w hile it was not less advantageous for Napoleon to reap at once the fruits of his triumphs, without undergoing the fatigues and dangers of a winter campaign in the frozen plains of Poland. Plenipotentiaries, accordingly, were appointed on both sides : on that of France, Duroc ; on that of Prussia MM. Lucchesini and Rastrow. There was no need of lengthened conferences ; the situation of the parties gave to the one the power of demanding whatever he pleased, and deprived the other of that of withholding anything which was required. Napoleon insisted that Prussia should renounce all the provinces she possessed between the Rhine and the Elbe, pay a contribution of a hundred millions of francs for the HISTORY OP EUROPE. 269 expenses of the war, cease to take any concern in the chap affairs of Germany, and recognise in the princes of the XLIII. Confederation of the Rhine whatever titles the con- 1806 - queror chose to confer upon them. Not daring to refuse these conditions, and yet unwilling to take upon them- selves the responsibility of making so great a sacrifice, the Prussian envoys referred the matter to the King 0c t. 27. and his cabinet. They returned an answer agreeing to all the exactions which were required : but in the ,„. . interval matters had essentially changed for the worse, 48 > 49 - the wreck of the Prussian armies had been almost l^iS"' totally destroyed, and the demands of Napoleon rose in JiifS proportion. 1 Perpetually haunted by the idea that it was the influence of England which he required to combat, and Convention that the northern powers were brought into the field S ttfie% . only to maintain her cause, he next insisted that the tentiaries - Prussian troops should retire entirely to Konigsberg and the small portion of the monarchy which lies to the east of the Vistula ; that Colberg, Dantzic, Graudentz, Thorn, Glogau, Breslau, Hameln, and Nienburg, should be placed in the hands of the French ; and that no foreign troops should be suffered to enter any part of the Prussian territory.* In agreeing to terms so ruinous to the monarchy, the Prussian plenipotentiaries could hardly expect that the King would ratify them; but so desperate had its affairs now become, that it was of importance to obtain a delay even of a few days, in the departure of Napoleon for Posen, in order to gain time for the arrival of the Russian troops on the Vistula. They signed the " He was persuaded," says the Marquis Lucchesini, " that it was the intrigues of England which had arrayed the northern courts against France, which had brought about the refusal of the Emperor Alexander to ratify the treaty of Paris, and pushed forward Prussia into the field of battle. It was England, therefore, which it had become necessary to strike in Prussia; and it was on the conduct of the cabinet of London, in regard to the restitution of - conquests, that the Emperor announced he would measure his own steps for the future fate of the Prussian monarchy."— Lucchesini, ii. 176, 177 • Bignon vi. 44. 270 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIII. 1806. Nov. 16. convention at Charlottenburg accordingly, stipulating only for its ratification by the King of Prussia. In fact, how- ever, no hope remained to either side that it would lead to a permanent accommodation ; for, a few days before the truce was concluded, Talleyrand openly announced to the Prussian plenipotentiaries that they must look for no restitution of his conquests by the Emperor Napoleon, and that the vast territory from the Rhine to the Vistula would be retained until a general peace, as a means of compelling England to surrender its maritime acquisitions, and forcing Russia to evacuate the principalities of Wal- lachia and Moldavia, which had recently been invaded by its arms. Thus the unhappy Prussian monarchy was mum xvii macu3 responsible for the ambition or successes of other 66,67.Bign. p 0W ers, over whose measures it had no sort of control ; vi. 48. 49. I and the negotiations at Berlin, diverging from their original object, were degenerating into a mere manifesto of implac- able hostility against the cabinets of London and St Petersburg. 1 The severity of the terms demanded, as well as their whichthe express assurances that no concessions, how great soever, could lead to a separate accommodation, as Napoleon was resolved to retain all his conquests until a general peace, led, as might have been expected, to the rupture of the negotiations. Desperate as the fortunes of Prussia were, what was to be gained by the cession of three- fourths of its dominions, and its fortresses still unsubdued on the Vistula, to the French 1 Reft as he was of his kingdom and his army, the King still preserved his honour, and nobly resolved to continue faithful to his engagements. He declined, therefore, to ratify the armis- tice, which was presented to him for signature at Osterode, by Duroc, on the part of France, and at the f.Lucches. same time published a melancholy but noble proclama- Bign. 4i.48J tion, in which, without attempting to disguise his hopes, xvii. 69, 71. or conceal the deplorable state of his affairs, he rose superior to the storms of fortune, 2 and declared his vi. 48, 49 Lucches. ii. 182, 185. 186. Mar- tens, viii. 537. 94. Prussia refuses to ratify. XLIII. 180<). 95. nous HISTORY OF EUROPE. 271 resolution to stand or fall with the Emperor of Russia."" chap. This refusal was anticipated by Napoleon. It reached him at Posen, whither he had advanced on his road to the Vistula ; and nothing remained but to enter vigorously on the prosecution of the war in Poland. To this period of the war belongs the famous Berlin decree of the 21st November, against the commerce of Fame Great Britain. But this subject is too vast to be ade- ^against quately touched on in the close of a chapter embracing f ^ m s e h rce . such a variety of objects as the present ; and it will be fully enlarged on in a subsequent one, which will include also the Milan decree which followed in 1807, the Con- tinental System, and the Orders of Council adopted as a measure of retaliation by the British government. Napoleon set out from Berlin for the Vistula soon gg after he had fulminated this anathema against English Affairs of commerce, and at Posen, in Prussian Poland, gave audi- poWsian- ence to the deputies of that ►unhappy kingdom, who came p Sde P u- to implore his support to the remains of its once mighty t,es - dominion. His words were calculated to excite hope which his subsequent conduct never realised : " France," said he, " has never recognised the partitions of Poland ; but, nevertheless, I cannot proclaim your independence until you are resolved to defend your rights as a nation at every sacrifice, even that of life itself. The world reproaches you with having, in your continual civil dissen- Nov. 2.0. sions, lost sight of the true interests and safety of your country. Taught by your misfortunes, now unite, and prove to the world that the same spirit animates the whole * " Matters," said the proclamation, " had arrived at that pass, that Prussia could no longer hope to obtain peace, even at the price of the greatest sacri- fices. It was not in his power to make the Russian forces retrograde, since already their own frontiers were menaced. The Emperor of France has shown a determination, even when he acceded to the basis of a negotiation, not to suspend for one moment his military operations ; and he has protracted the conferences till his successes enabled him to declare that the conquest of Prussia should afford him the means of dictating peace to England and Russia. Compelled thus to resume hostilities, the King is not without hopes of yet bringing them to a successful issue. He hopes that the governors of the fortresses on the Vistula will not imitate the weakness of those on the Oder 272 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. Polish nation." Universal acclamations attended his arrival at Posen ; all the population advanced to meet his car- 1806. riage ; four magnificent triumphal arches were erected to the victor of Rivoli, Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena. Count Palatine Raclzenninski, at the head of the depu- tation from Great Poland, addressed him in terms of Eastern adulation, mingled with strange expressions, which proved prophetic : " The universe knows }*our exploits and your triumphs ; the west beheld the first development of your genius ; the south was the recom- pense of your labours ; the east became to you an object of admiration; the north will be the term of your victories. The Polish race, yet groaning under the yoke of the Germanic nations, humbly implores your august highness to raise up its remnant from the dust." — Napoleon replied, — " That which has been destroyed by force cannot be restored except by force. I would with pleasure behold the independence of Poland restored, and a barrier formed by its strength against the unbounded ambition of Russia; but petitions and discourses will not achieve this work ; and unless the whole nation, including nobles, priests, and burghers, unites and embraces the firm resolution to conquer or die, success is hopeless. With such a deter- 6o~ei'.~' ~ mination it is certain ; and you may always rely on my powerful protection." l While the main body of the French army was advancing by rapid strides from the Oder to the Vistula, Napoleon, ever anxious to secure his communications, and clear his rear of hostile bodies, caused two different armies to and Elbe, and all the disposable forces of the monarchy will hasten to unite their colours on the Vistula and the Wartha to the brave Russian battalions. Such a proof of courage and constancy is not new to the Prussian nation. In the Seven Years' War the capital and provinces were also occupied by the enemy ; but the firmness and intrepidity of the nation brought it safe through all its perils, and excited alike the admiration and astonishment of posterity. Then Prussia combated alone the greatest powers of Europe : now the power- ful and magnanimous Alexander is about to take his place by her side, with all the forces of his vast empire. Their cause is the same ; they will stand or fall together." — Dumas, xvii. 70, 71. 1 Dum. xvii. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 273 advance to support the flanks of the invading force. To chap. Jerome Buonaparte, who commanded the ninth corps, 1 consisting of twenty-five thousand Bavarians and Wtir- 1 ^ 6 ' tembergers, and who had Vandamme for his adviser, Advance of was intrusted the difficult task of reducing the six fortresses sS! of ° of Silesia — Glogau, Breslau, Brieg, Neisse, Schweidnitz, S^S& and Glatz— containing in all a force nearly equal to his SS'tf own. Glogau, however, with its garrison of three thousand Hamburg. men, made but a show of resistance, and, early in December, Dec. 8. fell into the hands of the French. The other bulwarks of the province exhibited more determination, and opera- tions in form were commenced against them. Mortier, on the extreme left, was intrusted with the subjugation of Hanover and the Hanse Towns, and the occupation of Hamburg, which was accomplished with hardly any resistance. Having done this, he advanced to observe Stralsund and the Swedes; while a fresh reserve was collecting on the Elbe, under the command of Louis, King of Holland. Thus, though the Grand Army was advancing by rapid strides to the shores of the Vistula, its flanks on either side were protected by subordinate corps ; and fresh forces, stationed in echelon in the rear, overawed the intermediate states, and kept up the com- munication with the Rhine. The whole of the north of Germany was overrun by French troops, while a hundred ^jf^ thousand were assembling to meet the formidable legions xv'n. 50,53. of Russia in the heart of Poland. 1 Vast as the forces of Napoleon were, such prodigious g& efforts over so great an extent of surface rendered fresh Levy of a supplies indispensable. The senate at Paris was. ready Option in to furnish them ; and on the requisition of the Emperor, ^5.' eighty thousand were voted from the youth who were to arrive at the military age in 1807. " In what more tri- umphant circumstances," said the Emperor, "can we call on the youth of France to flock to our standards % They will have to traverse, in j oining their comrades, the capital of their enemies, and fields of battle made illustrious by immortal VOL. VII. s 274 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, victories." It may easily be conceived with what trans- XLI11, ports this appeal was received by a nation so passionately 1806 - attached to military glory as the French, and the Emperor resolved to turn it to the best account. Not content with this great addition to his prospective resources, he insti- tuted corps of volunteers to receive the numerous and enthusiastic youth, whom even the conscription could not drain off in sufficient numbers ; additional battalions were added to the Imperial Guard, the troops of Hesse taken in a body into French pay, and the most energetic measures adopted to augment as much as possible the military resources of the Confederation of the Rhine. Detailed instructions were at the same time transmitted to Marmont in Illyria, and the Viceroy Eugene Beau- harnais, to have their forces disposed on the Austrian frontiers in the most advantageous position ; and the King of Bavaria was informed by the Emperor himself of all that he should do for the defence of his dominions. e^Dum The activity displayed in the fortresses on the Adige, the xvli 50,55. i sonz0j and the Inn, looked as if he was making prepara- dersinDum. tions rather for a defensive struggle in the plains of xvii i 1GCGS Just. " Bavaria, or the fields of Italy, than for a decisive stroke at Russia on the shores of the Vistula. 1 A treaty, offensive and defensive, between Saxony and Treaty'be- France, was the natural result of these successes. This France and convention, arranged by Talleyrand, was signed at Posen saxony. Qn t | ie j ^ D ecem ij er> It stipulated that the Elector of Saxony should be elevated to the dignity of king ; he was admitted into the Confederation of the Rhine, and his contingent fixed at twenty thousand men. By a separate article, it was provided that the passage of foreign troops across the kingdom of Saxony should take place without Dec 15 the consent of the sovereign — a provision which sufficiently 2 „Po m -;\ vii - pointed it out as a military outpost of the great nation 88,89. Mar- r J r . ° tens, viii. — while, by a subsidiary treaty, signed at rosen three 555! days afterwards, the whole minor princes of the house of Saxony were also admitted into the Confederacy. 2 HISTORY OP EUROPE. 275 Such was the astonishing campaign of Jena, the most chap. marvellous of all the achievements of Napoleon, that in XLIII. which success the most unheard-of attended his steps, 1806 - and his force appeared most irresistible to the bewildered i mi ieL nations. Europe had hardly recovered the shock arising "■ntorfflw n i p n /T ° campaign. from the fall of Austria m three months, during the cam- paign of Austerlitz, when she beheld Prussia overthrown in as many weeks by the shock of Jena. Without halting one day before the forces of the enemy, without ever once pausing in the career of conquest, the French troops had marched from the Rhine to the Vistula ; the fabric reared with so much care by the wisdom and valour of Frederick the Great had fallen by a single blow ; and one of the chief powers of Christendom had disappeared at once from the theatre of Europe. Three hundred and fifty standards, four thousand pieces of cannon, six first-rate fortresses, eighty thousand prisoners, had been taken in less than seven weeks. Of a noble array of a hundred and twenty thousand men, who had so lately crowded on the banks of the Saale, not more than fifteen thousand now followed the standards of the King to the shores of the Vistula, 1 Results so astonishing were altogether i Jom. u. unprecedented in modern Europe : they recalled rather 325 ' the classic exploits of Caesar or Alexander, or the fierce inroads of Timour or Genghis Khan, than anything yet experienced in Christendom. But they possessed this superiority over the achievements of antiquity or the sanguinary conquests of modern barbarism, that it was not over inexperienced tribes or enervated nations that the triumphs had been won, but the most warlike nation of the civilised world that had been overthrown, and the army which had not long before withstood the banded strength of Europe which had been dissolved. The talents displayed by Napoleon in this campaign, though of a very high order, were not equal to the trans- cendant abilities evinced at Ulm and Austerlitz. Doubt- less the celerity with which the hazardous advance of the 276 HISTORY OF EUROTE. CHAP. XLIII. 1806. 101. Talent and rashness dis- played by Napoleon during the campaign. 1 Nap. Mem, Book ix. 124, 125, on Water- loo. Duke of Brunswick across the Thuringian Forest to turn the French left and interpose between the Rhine and their army, was turned to the best account, and the Prussians cut off from their magazines and communica- tions at the very moment they were endeavouring to inflict that injury on the enemy : the vigour of the fight at Jena, and the incomparable energy with which the mighty host which there conquered was dispersed in pursuit of the broken remains of the enemy, and incessantly pressed on till they were totally destroyed, were worthy of the highest admiration. But in the very outset of the campaign, he exposed himself to unneces- sary hazard, and but for a change of position on the part of the bulk of the Prussian army, of which he was ignorant, might have been involved in as great a catas- toplie as the rout on the banks of the Isar had been to the Imperialists. To advance and attack the Prussian army, strongly posted at Jena, through the narrow and rugged defiles of the Landgrafenberg, was a greater piece of rashness in military conduct than it was in the Arch- duke John to advance against Moreau through the pines of Hohenlinden. Napoleon has told us this himself, — " The first principle of the military art," says he, " is never to fight with a defile in your rear ; for if defeated in such a station, total ruin is hardly avoidable." 1 Had the whole Prussian army, a hundred thousand strong, continued posted at the opening of the defiles as it was only the day before, instead of a rearguard of forty thou- sand only, the French would probably have never been able to debouch, and a disastrous defeat have been experienced. There was little of the usual calculation of means to end in this great commander, when he himself, with eighty thousand men, was opposed only to Hohen- lohe with forty thousand, while Davoust, with thirty thousand, was left to struggle with the King in person, at the head of sixty-five thousand. No man knew better than Napoleon that such combinations were against the HISTORY OF EUROPE. 277 first principles, not merely of the military art, but of chap. common sense applied to such subjects.. But the truth is, that the campaign of Austerlitz had given him an undue 1806, confidence in his destiny ; he deemed himself invincible, because he had always hitherto proved so ; and already were to be seen the symptoms of that fatal rashness which was to lead him to the Moscow retreat and the disasters of Leipsic. After making every allowance for the magnitude of the defeat sustained by the Prussians at Jena and Auerstadt, Reflections and the extraordinary circumstance of the fugitives from den fail of these two fields getting intermingled during their noctur- nal flight, there is something extraordinary and almost unaccountable in the sudden prostration of the monarchy. Had the people been lukewarm or disaffected in the cause, this result would have admitted of easy solution ; but this was very far indeed from being the case : public spirit ran high, patriotic ardour was universal, and unanimity unpre- cedented against Gallic aggression existed among all classes. Yet in the midst of this ardent and enthusiastic feeling, pusillanimity the most disgraceful was generally evinced, and fortresses all but impregnable surrendered at the first summons of a contemptible enemy ! Where were the soldiers of the Great Frederick, where the con- stancy of the Seven Years' War, when Magdeburg, Stettin, Custrin, and Glogau lowered their colours without firing a shot, and the weakness of these garrisons per- mitted the army on the Vistula to be reinforced at the decisive moment by forty thousand men, who otherwise would have been chained round their walls 1 These unprecedented capitulations demonstrate that, however high was the spirit of part of the nation, the same feel- ings were not universal, and that the kingdom of Prussia, newly cemented by the genius of Frederick, had not yet acquired that general patriotic spirit which can withstand the severer shocks of adversity, and constitutes the only secure basis of national independence. And the English 278 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, historian who recollects how the energies of his own XLIIL country were prostrated in a similar manner after the 1806, battle of Hastings, will probably be inclined to judge charitably of an infant nation placed in such trying cir- cumstances ; and feel a deeper thankfulness for that long career of national independence, that unbroken line of national glory, which has formed the indomitable public spirit of his own country, and constitutes the unseen chain which has so long held together the immense fabric of the British dominions. In proportion to the unbounded enthusiasm which these GeiS wondrous events excited in France, was the despondency e \Tcy°Sch which they diffused through the other states of Europe. in Euro T Alarm now seized the most sanguine, despair took posses- sion of the most resolute. The power which had risen up in Europe to vanquish and destroy seemed beyond the reach of attack. Every effort made against it, every coalition formed for its overthrow, had led only to fresh triumphs, and a more complete consolidation of its strength. The utmost efforts of Austria, supported by all the wealth of England and all the military strength of Russia, had sunk in the conflict ; and now a few weeks had sufficed to dissipate that admirable army which the Great Frederick had bequeathed as the phalanx of inde- pendence to his country. The thoughtful and philan- thropic, more even than the multitude, were penetrated with apprehensions at these portentous events."" They looked back to ancient times, and read in the long degra- dation of Greece and the Byzantine empire, the conse- * See, in particulai*, Sir James Mackintosh's letter on this subject, Memoirs, i. 304. " I do not," says he, " despair of the" fortunes of the human race. But the moral days and nights of these mighty revolutions have not yet been measured by human intellect. Who can tell how long that fearful night may be before the dawn of a brighter to-morrow ] Experience may, and I hope does, justify xxs in expecting that the whole course of human affairs is towards a better state ; but it does not signify to us, supposing that many steps of this progress may be to the worse. The race of man may reach the promised land ; but there is no assurance that the pre- sent generation will not perish in the wilderness. The prospect of the nearest part of futurity of all that we can discover, except with the eyes of HISTORY OF EUROPE. 279 quences of their subjugation by the military force of chap. Rome, and could anticipate no brighter prospect for futurity than the ultimate resurrection of Europe after 1806 ' many ages of slavery and decline. So little can the greatest intellects anticipate the future course of events in a society so perpetually influenced by new moving- powers as that of modern Europe ; and so necessary is it, in forming a judgment on the ultimate consequences of existing changes, not merely to look back to the lessons of history, but to take into account also the hitherto unex- perienced influence of fresh causes rising into action in the ever-varying scene of human affairs. That bright dawn, however, which philanthropy looked for in vain, and philosophy was unable to antici- Biucher's pate in the dark gloom of the political horizon, the S^prababie ardent mind of a hero had already begun to descry ; ofGermany. and, what is very remarkable, he fixed on the precise circumstances in the temper of the times which were destined to make it ultimately expand to all the lustre of clay. " I reckon much," said Blucher to Bourrienne at Hamburg, whither he had retired on his parole from Lubeck, " on the public spirit of Germany, on the enthusiasm which reigns in our universities. Success in war is ephemeral ; but defeat itself contributes to nourish in a people the principles of honour and a passion for national glory. Be assured, when a whole people are resolved to emancipate themselves from foreign domina- tion, they will never fail to succeed. I have no fears for the result. We shall end by having a landwehr such as speculation, seems very dismal. The mere establishment of absolute power in France seems the least part of the evil : an evil greater than despotism, or rather the worst form of despotism, approaches j a monarchy literally universal seems about to be established.— Sir J. Mackintosh to M. Ogilvie, Feb. 24, 1808.— Mackintosh's Memoirs, i. 383.— It is curious, but not unnatural, to observe the earliest and warmest advocates of the French Revolution most gloomy in their anticipations of its ultimate effects. Ardour of imagination, the habit of look- ing before the multitude into the ultimate consequences of passing events, a sincere desire for the good of mankind, naturally produced in the same minds, in 1790 and 1806, these opposite results. 280 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, the slavish spirit of the French could never produce. XLIII. England will yield us its subsidies ; we shall renew our 1806, alliances with Russia and Austria. I know well the principles of the coalition. The sole object which the Allied sovereigns have in view is to put a limit to the system of aggression which Napoleon has adopted, and which he pursues with the most alarming rapidity. In our first wars against France, at the commencement of its Revolution, we fought for the rights of kings, in which, for my part, I felt very little interest : but now the case is totally changed; the population of Prussia makes common cause with its government ; the safety of our hearths is at stake; and reverses, when such a spirit is abroad, destroy armies without breaking the spirit of a nation. I look forward without anxiety to the future, because I foresee that fortune will not always favour your Emperor. The time may come when Europe in a body, humiliated by his exactions, exhausted by his depre- dations, will rise up in arms against him. The more he enchains different nations, the more terrible will be the explosion when they burst their fetters. Who can now dispute the insatiable passion for aggrandisement with which he is animated 1 No sooner is Austria subjugated than Prussia is destroyed; and though we have fallen, Russia remains to continue the strife. I cannot foresee the issue of this struggle ; but supposing it to be favourable to France, it will come to an end. 1Bour vH You will speedily see new wars arise, and if we hold 205,206. fi rnij France, worn out with conquests, will at length succumb." 1 Blucher was right in these anticipations. It is not in the suffering but the prosperity of nations that the seeds of ruin are in general to be found; the anguish and humiliation which are the consequences of weakness, dis- union, or corruption, are often the severe school of ulti- mate improvement. If we would discern the true cause of the fall of Prussia, we must go back to the vacillation HISTORY OF EUROPE. 281 and selfishness which characterised its national councils chap. during the ten prosperous years which succeeded the XLin " treaty of Bale in 1795: which caused it to temporise J806 - when the moment for action had arrived, and brought it Saiuta^ in heedless security to the very edge of perdition; which 3HSi?" lowered the national feeling by sacrificing the national SJjJ* t0 honour, and paralysed the arms of its allies by inspiring distrust in the good faith of its government. In the misery and degradation consequent on the battle of Jena, is to be found the commencement of the causes destined to produce the glorious resurrection of 1813. Periods of adversity are seldom lost in the end to nations any more than individuals; it is the flow of unbroken prosperity, which, by promoting the growth of the selfish passions, is the real source, in most cases, of irremediable ruin. Those twin curses of humanity, despotism and democracy, act in precisely the same way on the sources of public welfare, by poisoning the fountains of individual exertion, and inducing in the active members of society a slavish submission to the authority of the irresistible executive, or a selfish prosecution of their own interest, instead of a generous devotion to the public good. Till this last stage of national degradation has arrived, there is always a hope of revival to its fortunes. No misfortunes are irre- mediable as long as the spirit of the people is unbroken ; no calamities irreparable but those which undermine their virtue. 282 HISTORY" OF EUROPE. CHAPTER XLIV CAMPAIGN OF EYLAU. DEC. 1806 — MARCH 1807. CHAP. XLIV. 1806. The campaign of Jena had destroyed the power of Prussia; inconsiderate valour had yielded to overwhelm- ing force and skilful combination ; with more justice the King than the people could say with Francis I. at Pavia, Advance of Tout est perdu hors llionneur. But Russia was still and F Rus- ch untouched; and while her formidable legions remained vt°tuk. the unsubdued, the war, so far from being completed, could hardly be said to have seriously commenced. Napoleon felt this. On the Trebbia, at Novi, at Diirrenstein, and Austerlitz, the French had experienced the stern valour of these northern warriors ; and he counted the hours, as the mortal conflict approached, which was to bring either universal empire or irreparable ruin in its train. Nor were the Russians less desirous to commence the struggle. Confident in the prowess of their arms — proud of the steady growth of an empire, the frontiers of which have never yet receded, and which its meanest peasant believes is one day to subdue the world — they anticipated a glorious result from their exertions, and, without under- rating the forces of their opponents, indulged a sanguine hope that the north would prove the limits of their power, and that, while they repelled them from their own fron- tiers, they would afford the means of liberation to oppressed Europe. The severity of a Polish winter could not deter these undaunted combatants. Eager 1806. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 283 for the conflict, both the mighty hosts approached the chap. Vistula; and, at a period of the year when some respite is usually given in ordinary war to suffering humanity, they commenced a new campaign, and advanced through a snowy wilderness to the bloody field of Eylau. Alexander had displayed the greatest activity in repair- 2 uw the losses which his army had sustained in the cam- Military 1 "o • .. , £r preparations paign of Austerlitz. Thirty fresh squadrons and ntty-one f Russia. battalions had been added to its amount, all the chasms occasioned by the casualties of war supplied, and the new French organisation into divisions universally adopted. 4 ' Nor was this all : — Anxious to rouse the religious enthu- siasm of his subjects, and deeply impressed with the magnitude of the struggle which was approaching, lie bad called out a defensive militia of six hundred thousand men, and excited their devout loyalty to the highest degree by a proclamation, in which Napoleon was repre- * The Russian army was organised into eighteen divisions, each of which was composed of six regiments of infantry, ten squadrons of heavy cavalry, ten of light, two batteries of heavy cannon, three of light or horse artillery, and a company of pioneers ; in all for each, eighteen battalions, twenty squadrons, and seventy-two pieces of cannon; about 12,000 men. The army was thus divided : — Battalions. Squadrons. Cannons. 1. Guard, under Grand-duke Constantine, 33 35 84 2. Polish army — Eight divisions, under Ostermanu, Sacken, Gallitzin, Touch- koff, Barclay de Tolly, Doctoroff, Essen, Gortchakoff, afterwards Ka- menskoi, .... 147 170 504 3. Army of Moldavia — Five divisions under Michelson as general-in-chief, com- manded by Wolkonsky, Zacomilsky, Milaradowitch, Meindorf, and the Duke of Richelieu, ... 90 100 306 4. Intermediate corps under the Count Apraxin, consisting of the divisions of General Ritchoff, Prince Labanoff, and Gortchakoff, ... 54 30 144 Total, 324 335 1038 besides the local corps in Georgia, Finland, and garrison battalions. The whole regular force was about 380,000 men ; but in no country is the difference • between the numbers on paper and in the field so great as in Russia, and the troops engaged in the campaign of Poland never exceeded 80,000 men.— See Jomini, ii. 335; and Wilson, 4. 284 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, sented as the relentless enemy of the Christian religion, and they were called on to shed their best blood in defence 1806 - of the faith of their fathers.'" This proclamation excited the ridicule of a large part of Europe, still tainted by infidel fanaticism, and not then awakened to the impossi- bility of combating revolutionary energy with any other weapons but those of religious fervour. But it was admirably calculated for the simple-minded people to whom it was addressed, and excited such an enthusiasm, that not only was this immense armament without diffi- 335 0m Hard CU ^J raised, but, contrary to usual custom, the peasants ix. 375,376. drawn for the regular army joyfully left their homes, and 99. Wilson, marched with songs of triumph, amidst the blessings of io, li. ar ' their countrymen, towards the frontier, the anticipated scene of their glory or their martyrdom. 1 The troops who were now pressing forward to defend Composi- the western frontiers of the empire were very different character of from those with whom the French had hitherto, for the her armies. mos ^ p ar ^ contended in the fields of Germany or the Italian plains. The forces of civilisation, the resources of art, were exhausted ; the legions of Napoleon had reached the old frontier of Europe ; the energy of the desert, the hosts of Asia were before them ; passions hitherto, save in la Vendee, unexperienced in the contest, were now brought into action. Religious enthusiasm, patriotic ardour, the fervour of youthful civilisation, were arrayed against the power of knowledge, the discipline of art, the resources of ancient opulence. There was to be seen the * " Buonaparte," said this proclamation, which was read in all the Russian churches, " after having, by open force or secret intrigue, extended his power over the countries which he oppresses, menaces Russia, which Heaven protects. It is for you to prevent the destroyer of peace, of the faith, and of the hap- piness of mankind, from seducing the orthodox Christians. He has trampled under foot every principle of truth ; in Egypt he preached the Koran of Ma- homet, in France manifested his contempt for the religion of Jesus Christ by convoking Jewish synagogues. Do you love your fellow-creatures 1 Fly the persecutor of Christians. Do you desire to be saved 1 Oppose an invincible barrier to his advances. He has dared to the combat God and Russia ; prove that you are the defenders of the Most High and of your countiy. Chase far from your frontiers that monster ; punish his barbarity to so many innocent persons, HISTORY OF EUROPE. 285 serf but recently emancipated from the servitude of his chap. fathers, whose mother and sisters had checked the lamen- XLIV - tations of nature when he assumed the "military habit, and 1806 - bade him go forth, the champion of Christendom, to pre- sent glory and future paradise ; there the peasant, inured from infancy to hardy exercise, ignorant alike of the enjoyments and the corruptions of urban society, long accustomed to rural labour, and habituated equally to the glow of a Russian bath or the severity of a Scythian winter; there the Cossack, whose steed, nourished on the steppes of the Don, had never yet felt the curb, while his master, following his beloved Hetman to the theatre of action, bore his formidable lance in his hand, his pistols and sword by his side, and his whole effects, the fruit of years of warfare, in the folds of his saddle. Careless of the future, the children of the desert joyfully took their way to the animating fields of plunder and triumph ; mounted on small but swift and indefatigable horses, they were peculiarly adapted for a country where provisions were scanty, forage exhausted, and hardships universal. The heat of summer, the frost of winter, were alike unable to check the vigour of their desultory operations ; and when the hosts on either side were arrayed in battle, and the charge of regular forces was requisite, they often appeared with decisive effect at the critical moment. Urging their horses to full speed, they bore down, by the viii.28?p er length of their spears and the vehemence of their onset, " the most powerful cavalry of Western Europe. 1 * whose blood cries aloud to Heaven for vengeance. God will hear the prayer of the faithful ; he will shield you with his power ; he will cover you with his grace. Your exploits will be celebrated by the church and by your country ; immortal crowns or abodes of eternal felicity await you."— Hardenberg' ix. 376. " Mounted," says Wilson, " on a little, ill-conditioned, but well-bred horse, which can walk with ease at the rate of five miles an hour, or dispute in his speed the race with the swiftest, with a short whip on his wrist, as he wears no spur, armed with the lance, a pistol in his girdle, and a sword, the Cossack never fears a competitor in single combat; but in the Polish war he irresistibly attacked every opposing squadron in the field. Terror preceded his charge; and in vain discipline endeavoured to present an impediment to sonal obser- vation. 286 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIV. 1806. 4. Imprudent division of her forces by the in- vasion of Moldavia. If the whole disposable Russian forces had been united upon the Vistula, they would have presented an imposing mass of a hundred and fifty thousand warriors, against which all the efforts of Napoleon would, in all proba- bility, have been exerted in vain. But by a strange and unaccountable infatuation, at the very moment when this formidable contest awaited them on the Polish plains, a large portion of their disposable force was drawn off to the shores of the Danube, and a Turkish superadded to the already overwhelming weight of the French war. Of the causes which led to this unhappy diversion, and the grounds which the cabinet of St Petersburg set forth in vindication of their aggression on the Ottoman domi- nions, a full account will be given in the sequel of this work ; * but, in the mean time, its effect in causing a most calamitous division of the Russian force is too obvious to require illustration. At Eylau the hostile forces on either side were nearly equal, and both retired without any decisive advantage from that scene of blood ; ten thousand additional troops would there have overthrown Napoleon, and driven him to a disastrous retreat, while fifty thousand of the best troops of the Muscovite empire were uselessly emplovcd on the banks of the Danube. At the same time it must be remembered that the war in Moldavia was resolved on, and the necessary orders transmitted, before the disasters in Prussia were known, or the pressing necessity for succour on the Vistula could have been anticipated ; the battle of Jena was fought on the 14th October, and on the protruding pikes. The cuirassiers alone preserved some confidence, and appeared to baffle the arms and skill of the Cossack ; but in the battle of Preuss-Eylau, when the cuirassiers made their desperate charge on the Russian centre, and passed through an interval, the Cossacks instantly bore down on them, speared them, unhorsed them, and, in a few moments, five hundred and thirty Cossacks reappeared in the field, equipped with the spoils of the slain. But they did not permanently wear them ; the steel trophies were conveyed by subscription to the Don and the Volga, where they are inspected as trophies of their prowess, and respected as the pride of their kindred and glory of their nation."— Wilson, 27, 28. When the author saw the Cossacks of the Don and the Guard at Paris in May 1814, this description was still precisely applicable. * See infra, Chap. lxix. on the Turkish War. XLIV 1806. iv. 23. 5. >an ment of Na- poleon on the Polish HISTORY OF EUROPE. 287 the 23d November, General Miclielson entered Moldavia, chap. and commenced the Turkish campaign. But though the Russian cabinet is thus not answerable for having given orders to commence an additional war unnecessarily in the midst of the desperate struggle in the north of Germany, yet it cannot be relieved of the responsibility of having, without any adequate cause, provoked hostilities in the southern provinces of its empire, at a time when the contest in Saxony, if not commenced, might at least have been easily foreseen, when the resolution to annul the treaty, signed by d'Oubril at Paris, had been already \ Jon ?-. »• taken, and all the strength of Europe was required to Ann. Reg. meet the encounter with the conqueror of Austerlitz on BipuSsz. the banks of the Elbe. 1 * While Russia, distracted by the varied interests of her mighty dominions, was thus running the hazard of destruc- Embarrass tion by the imprudent division of her forces in presence J!Sn" of the enemy, Napoleon was extremely perplexed at * e J Posen by the consideration of the Polish question. The destiny of the Sarmatian people, which enters so deeply into the solution of every political combination of the nineteenth century, here stood in the very foremost rank, and called for immediate decision. The advance of the French armies through Prussian Poland towards Warsaw, the ambiguous, but still encouraging words of the Emperor to the numerous deputations which approached him, had awakened to the highest degree the hopes and expectations of that unfortunate, but impassioned race. A solemn deputation from Great Poland, headed by Count Dzadiniki, waited upon Napoleon, and announced an approaching insurrection of the Polish nation, headed by their nobles, palatines, and chiefs : a great excitement * The determination to refuse the ratification of the treaty, signed at Paris by d'Oubril, was taken at St Petersburg on tbe 25tb August— the Dniester was passed on the 23d November. The resolution to provoke a Turkish war, therefore, was taken after it was known that a continued struggle with the enemy, whose strength they had felt at Austerlitz, had become inevitable.— Ante, Chap. xlti. § 72. 288 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, prevailed in Lithuania, and symptoms of alarming effer- XLIV " vescence were visible even in Galicia. The crisis was of 180( '; the most violent kind; an immediate decision was called oginski,ii. for by imperious necessity; .Napoleon was much at a loss 338. how to act, and the question was warmly debated by the council assembled at his headquarters. 1 On the one hand, it was urged by the friends of Arguments Poland, " that the only ally in the east of Europe, on Ssmtu* whom France could really and permanently depend, was of Poland. nQW preparing to range itself by her side, and enter into a contest of life or death in her support. The alliances of cabinets may be dissolved, the friendships of kings may be extinguished, but the union of nations, founded on identity of interest and community of feeling, may be calculated upon as of more lasting endurance. But what people was ever impelled towards another by such powerful motives, or animated in the alliance by such vehement passions, as Poland now is towards France \ Alone of all great nations, in ancient or modern times, she has been partitioned by her powerful and ambitious neighbours, struck down to the earth by hostile armies, and swept, by repeated spoliations, from the book of existence. Her nationality is destroyed, her people scattered, her glories at an end. Is it possible that these injuries can be forgotten, that such unparal- leled calamities should leave no traces behind them, in the breasts of the descendants of the Sarmatian race? Is it not certain, on the contrary, that they have left there profound impressions, ineradicable passions, which are ready, on the first favourable opportunity, to raise throughout the whole scattered provinces of the old republic an inextinguishable flame'? Where has the Emperor found such faithful followers, such devoted fidelity, as in the Polish legions of the Italian army, whom Muscovite barbarity drove to seek an asylum in foreign lands ? Is it expedient to refuse the proffered aid of a hundred thousand such warriors, who are ready HISTORY OF EUROPE. 289 to fly to his standards from the whole wide-spread fields chap. n • o XL1V. of Sarmatia s 1800. 7. " True, they are undisciplined — without arms, fortresses, magazines, or resources — but what does all that signify? Security** Napoleon is in the midst' of them ; his invincible legions nenKher will precede them in the fight; from his enemies and g^™* their spoilers his victorious sword will wrest the imple- ments of war; in the example of his followers, they will see the model of military discipline. The Poles are by nature warriors ; little training or organisation is requisite to bring them into the field. When the regular forces of Germany had sunk in the conflict, their tumultuary array chased the infidels from the heart of Austria, and delivered Vienna from Mussulman bondage. Nor is it merely a temporary succour which may be anticipated from their exertions; lasting aid, a durable alliance, may with confi- dence be expected from their necessities. Surrounded by the partitioning powers, they have no chance of indepen- dence but in the French alliance; the moment they desert it, they will be again crushed by their ambition. Not only the nationality of Poland, but the individual safety of its whole inhabitants, must for ever bind them to their deliverers ; they well know what cruel punishments and confiscations, would await them should they again fall under the Muscovite yoke. In restoring the oldest of European commonwealths, therefore, not only will a memorable act of justice be doDe, a memorable punish- ment of iniquity inflicted, but a durable alliance on the frontier of civilisation will be formed, and a barrier erected against the inroads of barbarism in the people Uom.ii.sss. who, in every age, have devoted their blood to combating 337. its advances." 1 Specious as these arguments were, and powerfully as they appealed to the generous feelings of our nature, it Arguments may be doubted whether they were not opposed by others side, against of greater solidity. " It is in vain," it was urged in ^eiKf reply, " to dwell on the misfortunes of Poland, or repre- tbe Poles * VOL. VII. t 1806. 290 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, sent her partition as an unavoidable calamity for which XLIV " her inhabitants are noways answerable. Such a misfor- tune may doubtless sometimes occur to a small state surrounded by larger ones ; but was that the case in the present instance 1 On the contrary, Poland was originally the most powerful nation in the north: her dominions extended from the Euxine to the Baltic, and from Suabia to Sinolensko. All Prussia, great part of the Austrian dominions, and a large portion of Russia, have at different times been carved out of her wide-spread territories. So far from being weaker than Russia, she was originally much stronger; and the standards of the Jagellons and the Piasts have more than once been planted in triumph on the walls of the Kremlin. Nevertheless, her history for the last five hundred years has been nothing but a succes- sion of disasters, illuminated at intervals by transient gleams of heroic achievement; and, notwithstanding the valour of her inhabitants, her frontiers have, from the earliest times, been constantly receding, until at length she became the prey of potentates who had risen to importance by acquisitions reft from herself. So uniform and undeviating a course of misfortune, in a kingdom so brave, so enthusiastic, and so populous, as even at the moment of its partition to contain sixteen millions of inhabitants, argues some incurable vice in its domestic institutions. It is not difficult to see what this vice was, when we contemplate the uniform and fatal weakness of the Executive, the disorders consequent on an elective monarchy, the inveterate and deadly animosity of faction, and the insane democratic spirit of a plebeian noblesse, which made John Sobieski, a century before its final destruction, prophesy the approaching ruin of the com- monwealth. "Such being the character of Polish institutions, as they have been ascertained by experience, and proved by the ruin of the commonwealth, it becomes a most serious question whether it is for the interest of France, for the HISTORY OP EUROPE. 291 aid of such an ally, to incur the certain and inveterate chap. hostility of the three northern powers. That Russia, ' LIV " Prussia, and Austria will thenceforth be combined in an 1806 - indissoluble alliance against France, if Poland is restored, certainty and the rich provinces ' now enjoyed by them from its torSLn of partition wrested from their vast dominions, is evident ; Jjjjj^jjj and, whatever may be thought of the strength of the inveterate ' J ° . . ° hostility of Sarmatian levies, there can be but one opinion as to the theNorttem military resources which they enjoy. What aid can pov Polish enthusiasm bring to the French standards, to counterbalance this strong combination of the greatest military powers of Europe 1 A hundred thousand horse- men, brave, doubtless, and enthusiastic, but destitute of fortresses, magazines, and resources, and inhabiting a level plain, unprotected by mountains, rivers, or any natural frontier, and open on all sides to the incursions of their well-organised opponents. Supposing that, by the aid of the vast army and still vaster reputation of Napoleon, they shall succeed at this time in beating back the Russian hosts, and wresting* Lithuania from their grasp, what may not be apprehended from the appearance of Austria on the theatre of conflict, and the debouching of a hundred and fifty thousand men in the rear of the Grand Army, when far advanced in the deserts of Mus- covy 1 That the cabinet of Vienna is preparing for the conflict is evident ; that she is arming is well known ; fear and uncertainty as to the future alone restrain her forces. But the stroke which by restoring Poland severs Galicia from her empire, will at once determine her policy, and bring the Imperial legions in formidable strength to the banks of the Elbe. Even supposing that, by an unprecedented series of victories, these dangers are averted for the moment, and the French battalions, loaded with honours, regain the Rhine, how is Poland, still torn by intestine faction, and destitute of any solid institutions, without fortresses, or the defence of mountain ranges, to withstand her formidable military neighbours 1 How is 292 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIV. 1806. 1 Jom. ii. 329. 10. Napoleon adopts a middle course, and rouses only Prussian Poland. France, at the distance of four hundred leagues, to pro- tect a power whose internal weakness has always been such that it has never been able to protect itself against its own provinces % If a barrier is to be erected against Russian ambition, and a state formed dependent on the French alliance for its existence, far better to look for it in Prussia, whose history exhibits as remarkable a rise as that of Poland does a decline, and the solidity of whose institutions, not less than the firmness of her national character, has been decisively exhibited in her contest with all the military forces of Europe during the Seven Years' War." 1 Pressed by so many difficulties, and struck in an espe- cial manner by the danger of bringing the forces of Austria upon his rear, while engaged in the hardships of a winter campaign in Poland, Napoleon resolved upon a middle course/" Irrevocably fixed upon humbling Prussia to the dust, and entirely indifferent to the irritation which he might excite among its people, he resolved to rouse to the uttermost the inhabitants of Prussian Poland ; but at the same time sedulously to abstain from any invitations to Galicia to revolt, and even to hold out no encourage- ment to the Russian provinces of Lithuauia to join the standard of Polish independence. Kosciusko, who, since his heroic achievements in 1794, had lived in retirement near Fontainebleau, was invited by Napoleon to join his countrymen ; and a proclamation, drawn up in his name, was even published in the French papers, in which he promised speedily to put himself at their head; but the course of time soon dispelled the illusion, and it became * " I love the Poles," said lie to Rapp, after having received one of their deputations ; " their ardour pleases me. I could wish to render them an inde- pendent people, but it is no easy undertaking. Too many nations are inter- ested in their spoils — Austria, Russia, Prussia. If the match is once lighted, there is no saying where it would stop. My first duty is towards France, and it is no part of it to sacrifice its interests to Poland— that would lead us too far. We must leave its destinies in the hands of the supreme disposer of all things — to Time. It will possibly teach us hereafter what course we ought to pursue." — Bour. vii. 250. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 293 painfully evident to the Poles that their illustrious hero, chap. despairing of success, or having no confidence in their !_ pretended allies, was resolved to bear the responsibility 180 ' of no future insurrections under such auspices. * In fact, he had been profoundly ' affected by the indifference mani- fested by all the European powers to the fate of Poland on occasion of the final partition, and thoroughly impressed with the idea that no efficacious co-operation could be expected from any of them. While, therefore, he ren- dered full justice to the military talents of Napoleon, he did not the less despair of seeing the deliverance of Sar- matia in good faith attempted by his despotic arms. The task of rousing the Poles in the Prussian dominions was therefore committed to Dombrowski and Wybicki ; the former of whom had acquired a deserved celebrity at the head of the Polish Legion in Italy, while the latter pos- ^.^ sessed such influence with his countrymen as to promise h. 337.' great advantage to the cause of Napoleon. 1 At the same time, every care was taken to excite the ^ feelings and diminish the apprehensions of the Poles of Forged' pro- t> 1 • • T7" • 1 > clamations Prussia; heart-stirring proclamations m Kosciusko s name i ssue din were addressed to them by the generals of their nation in Jjj^Ji the Italian army; but that brave man himself, faithful to S£ cite ' the oath he had taken to the Emperor of Russia, and Poland. aware of the delusive nature of Napoleon's support, refused to take any part in these proceedings ; resisted all the brilliant offers which he made to induce him to engage in his service, and even had the boldness, in foreign journals, to disavow the letter which the French government had published in his name. Notwithstanding this reserve, however, the advance of the French armies to Warsaw, * " Kosciusko," said this fabricated epistle, dated 1st November, "is about to place himself in the midst of you. He sees in your deliverers no ambitious conquerors; the great nation is before you ; Napoleon expects you ; Kosciusko calls you. I fly to your succour, never more to leave your side. Worthy of the great man whose arm is stretched forth for your deliverance, I attach myself to your cause never again to abandon it. The bright days of Poland have returned ; we are under the regis of a monarch accustomed to overcome difii- culties by miracles." — Hardenberg, ix. 329. 294 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, and the sedulous care which they took to save the inha- ,IV 1_ bitants from every species of insult or contribution, pro- 1806, duced an extraordinary excitement in the Polish provinces. Universally they were hailed as deliverers — the substantial benefits, the real protection, the fostering tranquillity of the Prussian administration, were forgotten in the recol- lection of ancient achievements, and, incited by the heart- stirring prospect of coming independence, the nation was fast running into its ancient and ruinous anarchy. The public exultation was at its height when Napoleon arrived at Posen : several regiments were already formed in ii. 337, 3k Prussian Poland ; and the arrival of the French troops 344 r , d 347.' in Warsaw, which the Russians evacuated at their Bign.vi.79, a pp roac i, 5 was universally hailed as the first day of Polish restoration. l Napoleon was not insensible to the important effects of Napokon's this national enthusiasm, both in augmenting the resources wiiSon of his own army, and intercepting those of his opponents; Dec! U L Ject ' but at tne same time lie felt tlie necessit J of not rousing all Poland in a similar manner, or incurring the imme- diate hostility of Austria, by threatening the tenure by which she held her Polish acquisitions. He resolved, therefore, to moderate the general fervour, and confine it to the provinces of Prussia, where it was intended to excite a conflagration ; and this was done by the bulletin which appeared on the 1st December : — " The love which the Poles entertain for their country, and the sentiment of nationality, is not only preserved entire in the heart of. the people, but it has become more profound from misfor- tune. Their first passion, the universal wish, is to become ao-ain a nation. The rich issue from their chateaus to demand with loud cries the re-establishment of the nation, and to offer their children, their fortune, their influence, in the cause. That spectacle is truly touching. Already they have everywhere resumed their ancient costumes, their ancient customs. Is, then, the throne of Poland about to be restored, and is the nation destined to resume HISTORY OF EUROPE. 295 its existence and independence \ From the depth of the chap. tomb is it destined to start into life 1 God alone, who L holds in his hands the combination of great events, is the 1806 - arbiter of that great political problem, but certainly never was an event more memorable or worthy of interest." Situated as Napoleon was, the reserve of this language was an act of humanity as well as justice to the unhappy race whose destiny it still held in suspense ; but it con- tributed powerfully to allay the rising enthusiasm of the Russian and Austrian provinces of the ancient common- wealth ; and the prudent, despairing of any national resurrection from such an ally, began to ask, " if the yjjjj^ restoration of the republic of Poland could in good faith jj^ila be expected from the man who had extinguished the 226. liberty of his own country V' 1 One chance, and only one, remained to Napoleon of smoothing away the difficulties which surrounded the Napoleon restoration of Poland, and that consisted in the proposal, S^to which at this time he made to Austria, to exchange its gSm?" share of Poland for its old .province of Silesia. During S 1 ^*' the negotiation with Prussia for a separate peace, he only refused - held out the prospect of this exchange in a doubtful manner to the cabinet of Vienna ; but no sooner had the King of Prussia refused to ratify the armistice of Dec. 15. Charlottenburg, than General Andreossi was authorised to propose it formally to that power. Count Stadion replied, that the good faith of the Imperial government would not permit them to accept a possession whose sur- render was not assented to by Prussia ; and it would indeed have been an extraordinary fault in policy, as well as breach of morality, to have thus despoiled a friendly power and reopened an ancient wound, at the very moment when a concentration of all energies was required to resist the enemy who threatened to destroy all the European states. In consequence of this refusal, the conduct of Napoleon, in regard to Poland, became still more guarded ; and, although a provisional government and local administra- 296 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIV. 1806. 1 Bign. vi. 90, 91. Hard. ix. 349, 350. _ Thiers, vii. 227. 14. Napoleon's strong de- claration in favour of Turkey. tion were formed at Warsaw, yet none but natives of Prussian Poland were admitted to any share in the direc- tion of affairs. Meanwhile the conduct of Austria was so dubious as to inspire no small disquietude for the rear of the Grand Army. Already sixty thousand men were assembled in Bohemia ; new troops were daily directed towards Galicia, and the greatest activity was displayed in forming magazines in both these provinces. When questioned concerning these armaments, the cabinet of Vienna returned only evasive answers, alleging the neces- sity of making their frontiers respected by the numerous armies by which they were surrounded. Napoleon saw well that the Austrians were dissembling, but he concealed his resentment, and merely sent General Andreossi to Vienna to keep a more vigilant eye on the warlike pre- parations which were going forward. 1 During his stay at Posen, the French Emperor made, on repeated occasions, the strongest professions of his resolution to support the Turks against the invasion of the Russians. To the Prussian plenipotentiaries at Char- lottenburg he declared, " That the greatest of all the evils which Prussia has occasioned to France by the late war, is the shock they have given to the independence of the Ottoman Porte ; as the imperious commands of the Emperor of Russia have brought back to the govern- ment of Wallachia and Moldavia the hospodars, justly banished from their administration ; which, in effect, reduces their principalities to the rank of Russian pro- vinces. But the full and complete independence of the Ottoman empire will ever be the object most at heart with the Emperor, as it is indispensable for the security of France and Italy. He would esteem the successes of the present war of little value, if they did not give him the means of reinstating the Sublime Porte in complete inde- pendence. In conformity with these principles, the Emperor is determined that, until the Sultan shall have recovered the full and entire command both of Moldavia HISTORY OF EUROPE. 297 and Wallachia, and is completely secured in his oivn inch- chap. pendence, the French troops will not evacuate any part of L the countries they have conquered, or which may hereafter 180 ' fall into their power." 1 The same resolution was pub- JJjg**^ licly announced in the bulletins, when intelligence of the Thiers,' vis. ill-judged invasion of the principalities arrived ; and yet, within six months afterwards, though Turkey had faith- fully and gallantly stood to the French alliance under circumstances of extreme peril, Napoleon, as will shortly appear, signed a treaty at Tilsit, by which not only were Wallachia and Moldavia ceded to Russia, but provision was made for the partition of the whole Turkish dominions in Europe ! While this great political question was under discus- sion, during the fortnight that the Emperor's stay con- His procia- ° i • • n i 1 .1.1 mation to tinued at Posen, the army m great force approached the his soldiers Vistula; but the severity of the weather, and the inces- ^L^of 1 " sant fatigue of the troops, in the long and dreary marches Austerhtz - through that monotonous country at so inclement a season, produced a general feeling of despondency among the soldiers, and gave rise to a fermentation which even Napoleon deemed alarming. To the intoxication con- sequent on the victory of Jena had succeeded a mortal disquietude, when, immediately after such glorious suc- cesses, instead of the cantonments and repose which they expected, they found themselves dragged on in the depth of winter to begin a new campaign, amidst pathless snows and gloomy forests. Even the heroic Lannes was so impressed with these difficulties, that he wrote to Napo- leon in the strongest terms, advising the cessation of hostilities, and describing the anarchy and confusion which prevailed in Poland, from which no efficient aid could be expected.* In order to dispel these sinister presenti- * " Apres le succes de la guerre de Prusse, Lannes aurait voulu qu'on s'arretat sur l'Oder, et ne s'etait pas impose la moindre contrainte dans l'expression de cette opinion. Parvenu a Bromberg a la suite d'une marche penible, il ecrivit a Napoleon qu'il venait de parcourir un pays 1806 Dec. 2. 298 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, merits, Napoleon took advantage of the anniversary of XLIV - the battle of Ansterlitz to address an animating procla- mation to his army. "Soldiers! this day year, at this very hour, you were on the memorable field of Austerlitz. The Russian battalions fled in terror before you, or, sur- rounded on all sides, laid down their arms to their con- querors. On the day following they read the words of peace, but they were deceitful. Hardly had they escaped, by the effects of a generosity perhaps blamable, from the disasters of the third coalition, than they set on foot a fourth ; but the new ally on whose skilful tactics they placed all their hopes is already destroyed. His strong- holds, his capital, his magazines, two hundred and eighty standards, seven hundred field-pieces, five first-rate for- tresses, are in our power. The Oder, the Wartha, the deserts of Poland, have been alike unable to restrain your steps. Even the storms of winter have not arrested you an instant; you have braved all, surmounted all. Everything has flown at your approach. In vain have the Russians endeavoured to defend the capital of the ancient and illustrious Poland. The French eagle hovers over the Vistula : the brave and unfortunate Poles, when they behold you, imagine that they see the soldiers of Sobieski returning from his memorable expedition! Sol- diers! we shall not again lay down our arms till a general peace has secured the power of our allies, and restored to our commerce liberty and its colonies. On the Elbe and the Oder we have conquered Pondicherry, our esta- blishments in the Eastern Seas, the Cape of Good Hope, sablonneux, sterile, sans habitants, comparable, sauf le ciel, au desert qu'on traverse pour aller d'Egypte- en Syrie ; que le soldat etait triste, atteint de la fievre, ce qui gtait du a l'humidite du sol et de la saison; que les Polonais gtaient peu disposes & s'insurger, et tremblants sous le joug de leurs maitres; qu'il ne fallait pas juger de leurs dispositions d'apres l'en- thousiasme factice de quelques nobles attires a Posen par l'amour du bruit et de la nouveaute ; qu'au fond ils etaient toujours legers, divises, anarchiques, et, qu'en voulant les reconstiteur en corps de nation, on epuiserait inutilement le sang de la France pour une ceuvre sans solidite et sans duree." — Thiers, Consulat et VEmpire, vii. 267. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 299 and the Spanish colonies. Who has given the Russians chap. right to hope that they can balance the weight of destiny? _1 1 Who has authorised them to overturn such great designs'? 1806 - Are not they and we the soldiers of Austerlitz?" Even in the forests of Poland,' and amidst ice and snow, the thoughts of Napoleon were incessantly fixed on England and the East ; and it was to overthrow her power on the ^yj^ banks of the Ganges that a campaign was undertaken in vii'251,252! the depth of winter on the shores of the Vistula. 1 This proclamation, dictated by a profound knowledge lg of the French character, produced an extraordinary effect ^ e g ie ^ or _ upon the soldiers. It was distributed with profusion mationof over all Germany, and none but an eyewitness could ofGi^yat credit the influence which it had in restoring the spirit of Pans ' the men. The veterans in the front line forgot their fatigues and privations, and thought only of soon termi- nating the war by a second Austerlitz on the banks of the Vistida ; those who were approaching by forced marches in the rear, redoubled their exertions to join their com- rades in the more forward stations, and counted the days till they gained sight of the eagles which appeared to be advancing to immortal renown. The better to improve upon these dispositions, and at the same time establish a durable record of the glorious achievements of his troops, Napoleon, by a decree published on the same day, gave orders for the erection of a splendid edifice on the site of the convent of the Madeleine, at the end of the Boule- vards Italiens at Paris, with the inscription — " The Emperor Napoleon to the soldiers of the Grand Army." In the interior were to be inscribed, on tablets of marble, the names of all those who had been present in the battles of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena; on tablets of gold, the names of all those who had fallen in these memorable conflicts. There also were to be deposited the arms, statues, standards, colours, and monuments of every description, taken during the two campaigns by the Grand Army. Every year a great solemnity was to . 300 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, commemorate, on the 2d December, the glory of these XLIV - memorable days ; but, in the discourses or odes made on 1806. tne occas i n, no mention was ever to be made of the 254. Las' Emperor : like the statues of Brutus and Cassius at the Bi^!'vi.77. funeral of Junia, his exploits, it was well known, would 213*21™' only be the more present to the mind from being with- drawn from the sight. 1 This project took a strong hold of the imagination of Napoleon's Napoleon : he gave immediate orders for the formation of con'stnT"* 8 plans for the edifice, and the purchase of all the buildings tIon * in the vicinity, in order to form a vast circular place of uniform buildings around it ; and, as a previous decree had directed the construction of the Bourse or public exchange on that situation, he shortly after directed the minister of the interior to look out for another isolated situation for that structure, " worthy of the grandeur of the capital, and the greatness of the business which will Letter, 7th one day be transacted within its walls." The Place which ' it fronted was to retain its title " de la Concorde," " for that it is," said Napoleon, " which renders France invin- cible." He was desirous that the monument should be an imitation of the Pantheon, or some other Grecian temple, and constructed entirely of the most durable and costly materials. The interior, in the form of an amphi- theatre, was to be arranged with seats of solid marble ; iron, bronze, and granite, intermingled with letters of gold, were alone to be employed in the inside. Among the designs presented, he at once fixed on that which has since been adopted for that exquisite structure.""" Such * " Je ne veux rien en bois. Les spectateurs doivent etre places, commc je l'ai dit, sur des gradins de mai-bre formant les amphitheatres destines au public. — Rien, dans ce temple, ne doit etre mobile et changeant ; tout, au contraire, doit y etre fixe a sa place. — II ne faut pas de bois dans la construction de ce temple. — Du granit et du fcr, tels doivent etre les materiaux de ce monument. — II faut chercher du granit pour d'autres monuments que j'ordonnerai, et qui, par leur nature, peuvent pennettre de donner trente, quarante, ou cinquante ans a leur construction. — J'ai entendu un monument tel qu'il y en avait a Athenes, et qu'il n'y en a pas a Paris. Toutes les sculptures interieures seront en marbre, et qu'on ne me propose pas des sculptures propres aux salons et aux sallesa- HISTORY OF EUROTE. 301 was the origin of those beautiful edifices, the Church of chap. the Madeleine and the Exchange at Paris ; and which, ____ carried on through other reigns, and completed under another dynasty, with that grandeur of conception and perseverance in execution by which the public edifices in Paris are distinguished, will for centuries attract the educated from all countries to Paris, as the centre of modern architectural beauty. To the world, at that time, Napoleon revealed no other design in the structure of the Madeleine than that of a monument to the Grand Army ; but, penetrated with the magnitude of the mission with which he was persuaded he was intrusted— that of closing the wounds of the Revolution— he in his secret heart destined for it another and a greater object. He intended to have made it an expiatory monument to Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, and the other victims of the Revolu- tion—a design which he did not propose to declare for ~ i • ■ l " Thiers vn ten years, when the fever of revolutionary ideas was in 213,215. a great measure exhausted j 1 and therefore it was, that he g^jg- directed its front to face the centre of the Place Louis W^tt XV., where those august martyrs had perished, and con- i. 370, 371. structed it on the site of the Madeleine, near which manner des femmes des banqiders a Paris. Tout ce qui est futile n'est pas simple et noble; tout ce qui n'est pas de longuo duree ne doit pas etre employe dans ce monument. Je repete qu'il n'y faut aucune espece de meubles, pas meme des rideaux."— Napoleon au Ministre de Flnteruure, Finkcnstem, 30 May 1807 ; Thiers' Consulat et V Empire.— Napoleon was endowed with the real soul of an artist; like Michael Angelo, he would have placed another Pantheon in the air. Had fortune not made him the first general, he was qualified to have become the greatest artist of modern times-another proof anion- the many which history affords of the truth of Johnson's observation, that « genius is nothing but strong natural parts accidentally turned in one direc- tion " Yet, strange mixture of the great and the little in that extraordinary mmd, even when en-aged with those lofty designs destined to perpetuate glorious deeds to remote ages, he could not forget the senseless jealousies of the moment. His observation as to the sculptures in the salons of the bankers wives at Paris was a hit at Madame Recamier, the object of his extreme jealousy on account of her beauty, which almost balanced his colossal fame, and whose suite of rooms had been richly ornamented in that style— another proof of the truth of the same great moralist's observation, " that no one ever raised himself from a private station to great eminence among men, who did not unite commanding qualities to meannesses which would be inconceivable in ordinary men." 302 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIV. 1806. 18. Vast efforts of Napoleon to recruit his army, and secure his flanks and rear. their uncoffined remains still lay in an undistinguished grave. * The commencement of a winter campaign, which would obviously be attended with no ordinary bloodshed, required unusual precautions for the protection of the long line of communication of the Grand Army, and the efforts of Napoleon were incessant to effect this object. The march of troops through Germany was urged forward with all possible rapidity ; some attempts at insurrection in Hesse were crushed with great severity ; the conscripts, as they arrived from the Rhine or Italy at the different stations in the Prussian states, were organised and sent into the field almost before they had acquired the rudi- ments of the military art ; and the subsidiary contingents of Saxony, Hesse-Cassel, and the states of the Rhenish confederacy, raised to double their fixed amount. By these means not only were the rear and communications of the Grand Army preserved from danger, but successive addi- tions to its active force were constantly obtained; while at the same time Austria, whose formidable armaments on the Bohemian frontier already excited the attention of the Emperor, and had given rise to pointed and acrimo- Napoleon's secret desisn in this edifice. * " No one but myself," said he, " could restore the memory of Louis XVI., arid wash from the nation the crimes with which a few galley-slaves and an unhappy fatality had stained it. The Bourbons being of his family, and resting on external succour, in striving to do so, would have been considered as only avenging their own cause, and have increased the public animosity. I, on the contrary, sprung from the people, would have purified their glory, by expelling from their ranks those who had disgraced them, and such was my intention ; but it was necessary to proceed with caution : the three expiatory altars at St Denis were only the commencement ; the Temple of Glory on the foundation of the Madeleine was destined to be consecrated to this purpose with a far greater eclat. It was there that, near their tomb, above their very bones, the monuments of men, and the ceremonies of religion, would have raised a memorial to the memory of the political victims of the Revolution. This was a secret which was not communicated to above ten persons ; but it was necessary to allow it to transpire in some degree to those who were intrusted with the preparation of designs for the edifice. I would not have revealed the design for ten years, and even then I would have employed every imagin- able precaution, and taken care to avoid every possibility of offence. All would have applauded it; and no one could have suffered from its effects. Everything, in such cases, depends on the mode and time of execution. Carnot HISTORY OF EUROPE. 303 nious remonstrances from his military envoy, General chap. Andreossi, to the cabinet of Vienna, was overawed."' How to maintain these vast and hourly increasing lg ' armaments was a more difficult question ; but here, too, e = o M the indefatigable activity of the Emperor, and his grind- tfeuimed ma svstem of making war support war, contrived to find conquered resources. Requisitions of enormous magnitude were made from all the cities in his rear, especially those which had been enriched by the commerce of England : Napo- leon seemed resolved that their ill-gotten wealth should, in the first instance, be devoted to the necessities of his troops. The decrees against English commerce were everywhere made a pretext for subjecting the mercantile cities to contributions of astounding amount. Fifty mil- lions of francs (£2,000,000) were, immediately upon its occupation, demanded from Hamburg as a ransom for its English merchandise, seized in virtue of the decree of 21st November ; and it only escaped by the immediate payment of sixteen millions, (£640,000.) In addition to this, that unhappy city, which had taken no part in hosti- lities against France, was ordered to furnish at once fifty thousand greatcoats for the use of the troops; while Liibeck, which had been successively pillaged by the would never have ventured under my government to write an apology for the death of the King, but he did so under the Bourbons. The difference lay here ; that I would have marched with public opinion to punish it, whilst public opinion marched with him, so as to render him unassailable."— Las Cases, i. 370, 371. , . , . . , * In an audience of the Emperor of Austria, which that general obtained, he said with more of military frankness than diplomatic ambiguity— " The Emperor Napoleon fears neither his avowed nor his secret enemies. Judging of intentions by public acts, he is too clear-sighted not to dive into hidden dispositions ; and in this view, he would infinitely regret if we were compelled to arrive at the conclusion, that the considerable armaments , which your Majesty has had on foot since the commencement of hostilities were intended to be directed, in certain events, against himself. Your Majesty appears to have assembled on the flank of the French army all your disposable forces, with magazines beyond all proportion to their amount. The Emperor asks what is the intention of this army while he is engaged with Russia on the banks of the Vistula? Ostensibly intended for the preservation of neutrality, how can such an object be its real destination, when there is not the slightest chance of its being threatened."— Bign on, vi. 88. 304 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, troops of Blucher and Bernadotte, was compelled to XLIV - yield up four hundred thousand lasts of corn,'" and 1806. w00( j t0 t j lc va i ue f s [ xt y thousand pounds; Leipsic redeemed its English merchandise for ten million of francs, (£400,000,) while all the other Hanse Towns were subjected to equally severe requisitions ; and the great impost of one hundred and sixty-nine millions of francs (£6,800,000,) imposed after the battle of Jena, was everywhere collected from the Prussian territories with a rigour which greatly added to its nominal amount. Under pretext of executing the decree against English commerce, pillage was exercised in so undisguised a manner by the French inferior agents, that it attracted in many places the severe animadversion of the chiefs of the army. Thus, while the decrees of the Emperor pro- fessed to be grounded on the great principle of compelling the English government, by the pressure of mercantile embarrassment, to accede to the liberty of the seas, in their execution he had already departed from their ostensible object ; and, while the merchandise seized was i Bour. vii. allowed to remain in the emporiums of British commerce, '247, 248. L . . Bign.vi.98, its confiscation was made a pretext for subjecting neutral ix."37i,382. states or towns to inordinate requisitions for the support of the Grand Army. 1 f By these different means Napoleon was enabled, before Positions the middle of December, not only to bring a very the d F°re C nch f great force to bear upon the Vistula, but to have the magazines and equipments necessary for enabling it to keep the field, during the rigours of a Polish winter, in a * Each Last weighs 2000 kilogrammes, or about half a ton. — Bour. vii. 249. + As an example at once of the enormous magnitude of these contributions, and the provident care of the Emperor for the health and comfort of his troops, reference may be made to his letter to the French governor of Stettin, from which contributions to the amount of twenty million francs (£800,000) were demanded, though the city only contained thirty-two thousand inhabi- tants. " You must seize goods to the amount of twenty millions, but do it by rule, and give receipts. Take payment as much as possible in kind ; the great stores of wine which its cellars contain would be of inestimable importance. It is wine which in winter can alone give the victory." — Bigxon, vi. 99. i the \ tula. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 305 complete state of preparation. He was particularly soli- chap. citous for the increase and remounting of his cavalry, L which had suffered extremely during the fatiguing marches 1806- of the preceding campaign. Four splendid regiments of Atlas, Plate cuirassiers, and live of light horse, formed by the sedulous care of Murat, were ordered up from Naples ; and an immense establishment for cavalry was organised at Spandau, where all the horses taken from the enemy, and all that could be purchased, were collected, and distributed among the different corps which required them. The army in Italy was put on the war footing, to overawe Austria, and raised to 52,000 men. Fifty thou- sand more were on their march from the interior for the Grand Army. In all 300,000 men, in Germany, Italy, and Poland, were assembled round the standards of Napoleon, which, after making all deductions, promised to afford 150,000 ready for active service in the field. To make room for this immense force, the front was advanced towards the enemy. Davoust and Murat had entered Warsaw at the end of November, which was Nov. 30. abandoned by the Prussians at their approach ; and two davs afterwards they crossed the Vistula, and occupied Dec. 2. the important lete-de-pont of Praga on its right bank, which was in like manner evacuated without a struggle. On the right Lannes supported them, and spread himself as far as the Bug ; while on the left, Ney had already made himself master of Thorn, and marched out of that fortress, supported by the cavalry of Bessieres and fol- lowed by the corps of Bernadotte. In the centre, Soult and Augereau were preparing with the utmost activity to surmount the difficulties of the passage of the Vistula at Plock and Modlin. Thus eight corps were assembled, ready for active service, on that river, which, even after taking into view all the losses of the campaign, and the iJ> lim j* vii - numerous detachments requisite to keep up the cominu- Jom.-ii.337, nications in the rear, could in all bring a hundred thou- vii.243.247! sand men into the field ; : while the powerful reinforcements VOL. VII. U 306 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIV. 1806. 21. And of the Russians. 1 Dum. xvii. 99, 105. Jom. ii. 338. Bign.vi.109. Positions of the troops, and their evacuation of Warsaw: Alexander's proclama- tion to his soldiers. on their march, through Prussia and Poland, promised to enable the Emperor to keep up the active force in front at that great numerical amount. The Emperor Alexander was far from having an equal force at his disposal. The first army, under Benniugsen, consisting of sixty-eight battalions and one hundred and twenty-five squadrons, could muster forty-five thousand men, organised into four divisions, under Ostermann Tolstoy, Sacken, Prince Gallitzin, and Sidmaratski. It arrived on the Vistula in the middle of November. The second, consisting also of sixty-eight battalions and one hundred squadrons, arranged in the divisions of Touchkoff, Doctoroff, Essen, and Aurepp, was about thirty thousand strong, its regiments having not yet filled up the chasms made by the rout of Austerlitz. The wreck of the Prus- sian forces, re-organised and directed under the able man- agement of General Lestocq, did not number more than fifteen thousand men, when the requisite garrisons for Dantzic and Graudenz were completed from its shattered ranks. Thus the total Allied forces were not above ninety thousand strong, and, for the actual shock of war in the field, not more than seventy-five thousand men could be relied on. This imposing array was under the command of Field-marshal Kamenskoi, a veteran of the school of Suwarroff, nearly eighty years of age, and little qualified to measure swords with the conqueror of Western Europe. But the known abilities of Benningsen and Buxhowden, the two next in command, would, it was hoped, compen- sate for his want of experience in the novel art of warfare which Napoleon had introduced. 1 Headquarters had been established at Pultusk since the 12th November : Warsaw, all the bridges of the Vistula, were in the hands of the Allies ; and the firmness of their countenance gave rise to a belief that they were disposed to dispute the passage of that river with the invaders. Until the arrival of the second army under Buxhowden, however, which was advancing by forced marches from HISTORY OF EUKOTE. 307 the Nieinen, they were in no condition to keep their chap. ground against the French ; and it was deemed better to 1 give them, the moral advantage arising from the occupation 180() - of the Polish capital, than to hazard a general engage- ment with so decided an 'inferiority of force. After some inconsiderable skirmishes, therefore, the Russians fell back at all points, their advanced posts were all withdrawn across the Vistula, and Warsaw, evacuated on the 28th, was occupied by Davoust on the 30th November. Pre- vious to the opening of the winter campaign, Alexander addressed the following proclamation to his soldiers : — " Prussia formerly was the barrier between France and Russia, when Napoleon's tyranny extended over all Ger- many. But now the flame of war has burst out also in the Prussian states, and after great misfortunes, that monarchy has been struck down, and the conflagration now menaces the frontiers of our territory. It would be useless to prove to the Russians, who love the glory of their country, and are ready to undergo every sacrifice to maintain it, how such events have contributed to render our present efforts inevitable. If honour alone compelled us to draw our sword for the protection of our allies, how much more are we now called upon to combat for our own safety \ We have in consequence taken all the measures which the national security requires — our army has received orders to advance beyond the frontier — Field- marshal Kamenskoi has been appointed to the command, with instructions to march vigorously against the enemy — all our faithful subjects will unite their prayers with ours Nov 30 to the Most High, who disposes of the fate of empires and gf u | n - xvii - battles, that he will protect our just cause, and that his Jom.ii.338, .r. . ' 339. Bign. victorious arm and blessing may direct the Russian army, vi.109, no. employed in the defence of European freedom." : Sensible of the inferiority of its forces to those which Napoleon had assembled on the Vistula from all the states of Western Europe, the Russian cabinet made an appli- cation to the British government for a portion of those . 308 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIV. 1806. 23. Application for assist- ance in money to England. Its impoli- tic refusal. 1 Hard. ix. 389, 400. Bign. vi. 107, 108. Letter to Marquis Douglas. Jan. 13, 1807. 24. The Rus- sians assume the offen- sive. Dec. 11. subsidies which she had so liberally granted on all former occasions to the powers who combated the common enemy of European independence; and, considering that the whole weight of the contest had now fallen on Russia, and the danger had now approached her own frontiers, they demanded, not without reason, a loan of six mil- lions sterling, of which one was to be paid down imme- diately for the indispensable expenses connected with the opening of the campaign. It was easy to see, however, from the answer to this demand now, that the spirit of Pitt no longer directed the British councils. The request was refused by the ministry on the part of government; but it was proposed that a loan should be contracted for in England for the service of Russia, and that, for the security of the lenders, the duties on English merchan- dise, at present levied in the Russian harbours, should be repealed, and in lieu thereof, the same duties should be levied at once in the British harbours, and applied to the payment of the interest of the loan to the British capital- ists. This strange proposition, which amounted to a declaration of want of confidence, both in the integrity of the Russian government and the solvency of the Rus- sian finances, was of course rejected, and the result was, that no assistance, either in men or money, was afforded by England to her gallant ally in this vital struggle. An instance of parsimony and blindness beyond all example calamitous and discreditable, when it is considered that Russia was at that moment bearing the whole weight of France on the Vistula, and that England had at her dis- posal twenty millions in subsidies, and a hundred thou- sand of the best soldiers in Europe. 1 No sooner had the advanced guards of Buxhowden's army begun to arrive in the neighbourhood of Pultusk, than Kamenskoi, whose great age had by no means extinguished the vigour by which he was formerly distinguished, made a forward movement. Headquarters were advanced to Nasielsk, and the four divisions of Benningsen's army lo. ileon advances to Warsaw. General en- H I STORY OF EUROPE. 309 cantoned between the Ukra, the Narow, and the Bug ; chap. while Buxhowden's divisions, as they successively arrived, -1 were stationed between Golymin and Makow ; and Les- tocq, on the extreme right of the Allies, encamped on the banks of the Drewehtz, on the great road leading to Thorn, was advanced almost up to the walls of that for- tress. The object of this general advance was to circum- scribe the French quarters on the right bank of the Vistula ; and as it was known that Napoleon with his Guards was still at Posen, hopes were entertained that his i^™^™" troops would be entirely driven from the right bank Joni.ii.m before his arrival, and the river interposed between the no." winter quarters of the two armies. 1 No sooner did Napoleon hear of this forward movement of the Russians, than he broke up from his quarters at Posen Napoie on 16th December, and arrived at Warsaw two clays after- to w" wards. No words can do justice to the warlike and patriotic SjJ^' enthusiasm which burst forth in that capital when they tllcr beheld the hero whom they hailed as their deliverer actually within their walls, and saw the ancient arms of Poland affixed to the door of the hotel where the pro- visional government of Prussian Poland was established. The nobility nocked into the capital from all quarters ; the peasantry everywhere assembled in the cities, demand- ing arms; the national dress was generally resumed; national airs were universally heard; several regiments of horse were speedily raised, and before the conclusion of the campaign, thirty thousand men were enrolled in dis- ciplined regiments, from the Prussian provinces alone of the ancient monarchy. To secure for themselves the powerful support of the French Emperor, the Polish leaders were desirous not only that the entire Sarmatian nation should be restored, but that a prince of his own family should be placed on its throne. With this view they suggested Murat, the Emperor's brother-in-law, whose great reputation, especially as a cavalry officer, and his chivalrous character, seemed to point him out as pecu- XLIV. 1806. 310 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, liarly adapted for a nation whose nobles had boasted, in the days of their glory, that if the heaven itself were to fall, they would support it on the points of their lances. But Napoleon knew both the Poles and Murat too well to go into any such proposal. " I have not here," said he, " to beg a throne for my family — I have thrones enough to bestow without asking. Tell the Poles it is not by means of precautions, and personal calcula- tions, that nations are delivered from a foreign yoke. I have come here for the general interest of Europe, to engage in one of the most difficult of enterprises, from which the Poles have more to gain than any other people. Their national existence is at stake, and not merely the general interests of Europe. If by unbounded devotion they second me sufficiently to secure success, I will award to them their independence. If not, I will do nothing, and leave them to the Russians and Prussians/' The general enthusiasm did not make Napoleon forget his policy : the provisional government was established by a decree of the Emperor, only " until the fate of Prussian Jan. 1, Poland was determined by a general peace;" and the prudent began to entertain melancholy presages in regard i sign vi to the future destiny of a realm thus agitated by the 9 2 - Camp, passion of independence, and the generous sentiments of 178, i?y. patriotic ardour, with only a quarter of its former inhabi- Thiers, vii. l . ' J l . 276,279. tants to maintain the struggle against its numerous and formidable enemies. 1 Having taken the precaution to establish strong tetes-de- And re'- pont at Praga the outwork of Warsaw, Modlin, Thorn, offensive 6 and all the bridges which he held over the Vistula, Napo- RusTianL ° l eon l° s t n °t an instant in resuming the offensive in order to repel this dangerous incursion of the enemy. Davoust, who formed the advanced guard of the army, was pushed forward from Praga on the road towards Pultusk, and soon arrived on the Bug; and, after having reconnoitred the whole left bank of that river, from its confluence with the Narew to its junction with the Vistula, inacle prepara- HISTORY OF EUROPE. 311 tious for effecting the passage at Okernin, a little below chap. the junction with the Ukra. The Cossacks and the Rus- sian outposts lined the opposite bank, and the difficulties D J 8 ^ 6, of the passage were considerable ; but they were not in sufficient force to dispute it in a serious manner ; and after some sharp skirmishing, the experienced talents of General D ec 12. Gauthier, who was intrusted with the enterprise, esta- blished the French on the right bank, where they soon after sustained a severe action with the Russian advanced guard at Pomichowo. The Muscovites, however, returned in greater force; and the result was, that the French advanced guards were cut off, and the detachment to which they belonged fell back to the tete-de-pont esta- blished at the river. Meanwhile Soult and Augereau in the centre advanced to Plonsk, and Ney and Bernadotte, with Bessieres' cavalry, moved forward on the left from {J°; ^ Thorn to Soldau and Biezun, in such a manner as to JJ^ijj^ threaten to interpose between the detached corps under g»- }%>> Lestocq and Benningsen's main body, which was concen- son, 73, 74. trated in the neighbourhood of Nasielsk. 1 This partisan warfare continued for ten days without any decisive result on either side ; but the arrival of Napo- Forcing of leon at Warsaw was the signal for the commencement of oftheUkra more important operations. On the 23d December, at French. daybreak, he set out from that capital for the army, with the Guards and Lannes' corps, and no sooner arrived at the advanced posts of Davoust, than he dictated on the spot directions for forcing the passage of the Ukra, which had hitherto bounded all their incursions.""" The opera- * " Napoleon," says Rapp, " no sooner arrived in sight of Okernin, than he reconnoitred the position of the Russians, and the plain which it was necessary to pass before arriving at the river. Covered with woods, intersected by marshes, it was almost as difficult to traverse as the fieldworks, which were bristling with Cossacks, were to carry on the opposite bank. The Emperor surveyed them long and with close attention ; but as the thickets of wood in some places intercepted his view, he caused a ladder to be brought, and ascended to the roof of a cottage where he completed his observations. He then said, ' It will do — send an officer,' and when he arrived, dictated on the spot the minute directions for the movement of all the corps during the opei'ation, which are preserved in Dumas, xvii. 137." — Rapp, 125. 312 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, tion was carried into effect with the happiest success at Czarnovo, and with that ardour with which the presence 1806. f t j ]e E m p eror never failed to animate the troops. After a severe action of fourteen hours, the passage was forced, and Count Ostermann, who commanded the Russian rear- guard, retreated upon Nasielsk. In this well-contested affair each party had to lament the loss of about a thou- sand men. Kamenskoi, finding the barrier which covered the front of his position forced, gave orders for concen- trating his forces towards Pultusk on the Narew, and the Allies accordingly fell back at all points. They were vigor- ously pursued by the French, and another desperate conflict took place next day in front of Nasielsk, between General Rapp and the Russians under Count Ostermann Tolstoy, in which the latter were worsted, but not without a severe loss to the assailants. In this warm conflict the opposite bodies had become so intermingled that Colonel Ouvaroff, an aide-de-camp of Alexander, was made prisoner by the French; while Count Philippe de Segur, destined for future celebrity as the historian of the still more memor- able campaign of 1812, and attached to Napoleon's house- hold, fell into the hands of the Russians. On the same Dec. 24. day Augereau fought from daybreak till sunset at Loch- oczyn on the Ukra, with the divisions opposed to him, which at length began to retire. Thus the Russians, pierced in the centre by the passage of the Ukra at Czarnovo and Lochoczyn, and the combat at Nasielsk, were everywhere in full retreat. No decisive advantage had been gained; but the initiative had been taken from ^Wilson, the enemy, and his divisions, separated from each other, ii/340. ' were thrown into eccentric lines of retreat, which promised 140, lS"" every moment to separate them more widely from each other. 1 Kamenskoi, though a gallant veteran, was altogether unequal to the perilous crisis which had now arrived. The army, separated into two parts, of which one was moving upon Golymin, the other falling back towards HISTORY OF EUROPE. 313 Pultusk, was traversing a continual forest, through roads chap. . . XLIV almost impassable from the mud occasioned by a long- 1806. 28. continued thaw, and the passage of innumerable carriages, which had broken it up in all parts. Overwhelmed by Kamenskoi these difficulties, he issued orders to sacrifice the artillery, presence of which impeded the retreat — gave directions to arrest the ^ftSe supplies destined for the army at Grodno, and himself ^ r ^f le of took the road of Lomza, Deeming such an order wholly unnecessary, and the result of that approaching insanity which soon after entirely overset the mind of the veteran marshal, Benningsen took the bold step of disobeying it ; and, in order to gain time for the artillery and equipages to defile in his rear, he resolved to hold fast in the position of Pultusk, with all the troops which he had at his disposal. Nothing could be more acceptable to the Russians, to whom the fatigues and privations of a retreat, at a season when sixteen hours out of the twenty- four were involved in total darkness, and the roads, bad at all times, were in many places several feet deep of mud, had been the severest trial of discipline and courage. No sooner, however, was it known that they were march- ing towards a chosen field of battle, than their hardships and difficulties were all forgotten, and the troops which, from mid-day on- the 25th, successively arrived at Pultusk, took up their ground in parade order, full of enthusiasm for the battle on the morrow. Before it was dark, sixty battalions and fifty-five squadrons, with one hundred and twenty pieces of cannon, in all about forty thousand men, were here assembled ; while the division of Doctoroff, with part of those of Sacken and Gallitziu, Mere opposed at Golymin to Augereau's corps, one division of Davoust's, and one of Murat's cavalry. Three Russian divisions, viz. those of Essen, Aurepp, and Touchkoff, were at such * J™ so , n a distance in the rear, both of Pultusk and Golymin, that <<• S4i. they could not be expected to take any part in the 159,-162. actions which were approaching. 1 The object of Napoleon in these complicated operations "in. 314 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, was in the highest degree important ; and the rigour of Benningsen and Prince Gallitzin, joined to the extreme 1806. s i 10r t n ess of the days and the horrible state of the roads, objecf'of alone saved the Allies from a repetition of the disasters £ a thl e r of Auerstadt and Jena. His right wing, under Lannes, movements. wag i^teiaclecl to cut Benningsen's army off from the great road through Pultusk ; his centre, under Davoust, Augereau, Soult, and Murat, was destined to penetrate by Golymin and Makow to Ostrolenka, directly in the rear of that town, and two marches between Benningsen and the Russian frontier; while the left wing, under Ney, Bernadotte, and Bessie-res, was to interpose between Lestocq and the Russian centre, and throw him back into Eastern Prussia, where, driven up to the sea, he would soon, if the Russians were disposed of, be com- pelled, like Blucher, to surrender. A more masterly project never was conceived ; it was almost a repe- tition of the semicircular march of the Grand Army round Mack at Ulm ; and the hesitation of Ka- menskoi between an advance and a retrograde move- ment, served to offer every facility for the success of the enterprise. The celerity of the Russian retreat, the sacrifice of seventy pieces of their heavy artillery, the dreadful state of the roads, which impeded the French advance, and the impervious intervening country, which separated their numerous corps from each other, alone defeated this profound combination, and prevented the arrival at Pultusk and Golymin, before the enemy, 34M41.' the corps which were there destined to fall upon their I62™i64."' retreating columns, or bar the road to the frontiers of Russia. 1 The position of Pultusk is the only one in that country Description where the ground is so far cleared of wood as to permit atPuiS, of any considerable armies combating each other in a poJtionhf proper field of battle. An open and cultivated plain on the two ho S - t h is side of the river Narew, there stretches out to the tile armies. , . south and east of that town, which lies on the banks 01 HISTORY OF EDEOTE. 315 its meandering stream. A succession of thickets surround chap xliv. this open space in all directions, excepting that on which the town lies ; and on the inside of them the ground rises 1806- to a semicircular ridge, from whence it gradually slopes down towards the town on one side, and the forest on the other ; so that it is impossible, till this barrier is sur- mounted, to get a glimpse even of the buildings. There the Russians were drawn up in admirable order in two li nes — their left resting on the town of Pultusk, their right on the wood of Moszyn, which skirted the little plain, the artillery in advance ; but a cloud of Cossacks swarmed in front of the array, and prevented either the force or composition of the enemy from being seen by the French as they advanced to the attack. Sacken had the command of the left ; Count Ostermann Tolstoy of the right ; Barclay de Tolly, with twelve battalions and ten squadrons, occupied a copsewood in front of the right ; while Bagavout, with twenty battalions and ten squadrons, was placed in front of the left, covering the town of Pultusk : Benningsen was- stationed in the centre ; — names destined to immortal celebrity in future wars, and l^f ^ which, even at this distant period, the historian can hardly gjjf 1 ^. enumerate without a feeling of exultation and the thrilling 162, m. interest of former days. 1 Lannes, with his own corps, and the division Gudin from that of Davoust — in all about thirty-five thousand Battle of men — resolved to force the enemy in this position, and Dec. 26.' for this purpose he, early on the morning of the 26th, Atl ^7~ advanced to the attack. The woods which skirted the Plate 4-J * little plain, occupied by the Russian light troops, in front of their position, were forced by the French voltigeurs after an obstinate resistance, and a battery which galled their advance, and which could not be withdrawn, was carried by assault. No sooner, however, had the French general, encouraged by this success, surmounted the crest of the ridge, and advanced into the open plain, than the cloud of Cossacks dispersed to the right and left, and 316 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, exposed to view the Russian army drawn up in two lines, in admirable order, with a hundred and twenty guns dis- 1806. posed along its front. Astonished, but not panic-struck by so formidable an apparition, Lannes still continued to press forward, and as his divisions successively cleared the thickets, and advanced to the crest of the hill, they deployed into line. This operation, performed under the fire of all the Russian cannon, to which the French had as yet none of equal weight to oppose, was executed with admirable discipline, but attended with a very heavy loss, and the ground was already strewed with dead bodies when the line was so far formed as to enable a general charge to take place. It was attended, however, with very little success. The soil, cut up by the passage of so many horses and carriages, was in many places knee-deep of mud ; heavy snow-showers at intervals obscured the heavens, and deprived the French gunners of the sight of the enemy ; while the Russian batteries, in position and served with admirable skill, alike in light and darkness sent their fatal storm of grape and round-shot through the ranks of the assailants. Notwithstanding these obstacles, however, the French advanced with their wonted intrepidity to the attack, and gradually the arrival of their successive batteries rendered the fire of cannon on the opposite sides more equal. Suchet, who commanded the first line, insensibly gained ground, especially on the French right, where the division of Bagavout was stationed; but Benningsen, seeing the danger, reinforced that gallant officer with fresh troops : a battalion of the French infantry was broken and cut to pieces by the Russian horse, and the rout in that quarter became so serious that Lannes was compelled to advance in person, with his reserve, to repair the disorder. By his efforts the forward movement 164, 168. of the Russians in that direction was arrested, and their wiijon, 7J>7 victorious columns, charged in flank, while disordered by 127. app ' the rapidity of their advance, were forced to give ground, and resume their former position in front of Pultusk. 1 1 Dum. xvii. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 317 Meanwhile another of Suchet's columns, on the left of the chap. French, had commenced a furious attack on the advanced XL1V ' post in the wood on the right of the Russians, occupied by 1806, Barclay de Tolly. After a violent struggle the Russians were which' driven back ; reinforced from the town, they again regained tothe°dis- their ground, and drove the French out of the wood in J? uU,*" 8 " disorder. Lannes, at the head of the 34th regiment, French - flew to the menaced point, and again in some degree restored the combat: but Barclay had regained his lost position and menaced the French extreme left. At this time, Gudin's division of Davoust's corps, coming up, began an unexpected attack on the Russian right; Ostermann Tolstoy upon this brought up the Russian reserve, and after a murderous conflict, which lasted till long after it was dark, a frightful storm separated the combatants. Neither party could boast of decisive success ; but the Russians remained masters of the field of battle till midnight, when they crossed the Narew by the bridge of Pultusk, and resumed their retreat in the most orderly manner ; while the French also retreated to sach a distance that next day the Cossacks, who patrolled eight miles from the field of battle towards Warsaw, could discover no traces of the enemy. The losses were severe on both sides : on that of the French they amounted to six thousand men ; on ! Wi ^on, that of the Russians to nearly five thousand; and the »-'34i,342! twelve guns which they lost in the morning were never i68,iS"' regained. 1 On the same day on which this bloody battle took place at Pultusk, a serious conflict also occurred at Goly- Combat of min, about thirty miles from the former field of battle. Golymin - Davoust and Augereau, supported by a large party of Murat's cavalry, there attacked Prince Gallitzin, who, with fifteen battalions and twenty squadrons, had taken post at the entrance of the town, to gain time for his artillery and carriages to defile through the forest in his rear. His force was successively augmented, however, in the course of the day, by the arrival of other troops from 318 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. Sacken's and Doctoroff's corps, and before nightfall twenty- eight battalions and forty squadrons were assembled in 180G. j me _ Operations in that quarter had begun at daylight Dec. 24. on the 24th, which in that inclement season was at eight in the morning ; the bridge of Kollosump, over the Ukra, was carried by a brilliant charge by Colonel Savary ; but that of Lochoczyn resisted all the efforts of the French, and it was only when it became no longer tenable, from the number who had crossed at Kollosump, that orders for the evacuation of the post were given. Continuing his march all the succeeding day, Augereau found himself, Dec. 26. on the morning of the 26th, in presence of Prince Gallitzin, who was advantageously posted on the right of Golymin. As the French battalions and squadrons successively arrived on the ground, and deployed to the right and left, they were severely galled by the Russian artillery sta- tioned in front of their positions ; but they bravely formed line, and advanced with their accustomed gallantry to the attack, though few of their guns could as yet be brought up to reply to the enemy. The resistance, however, was as obstinate as the assault was impetuous, and, despite all their efforts, the French, after several hours' hard fighting, had not gained any ground from the enemy. But while this severe conflict was going on in front, a division of Murat's cavalry, advancing on the road from Czarnovo, * was discerned driving before it a body of Cossacks who had been stationed in that village ; while a powerful mass of Davoust's infantry, which had broken up that morning iDum xvii. f rom Stretzeizoczin, ioined the horse in front of Czarnovo, 176, 182. o ' j wiison, 82. ail d their united mass, above fifteen thousand strong, bore Rapp, 127T down upon the troops of Gallitzin, already wearied by a severe combat of several hours' duration. 1 This great addition to the attacking force must have proved altogether fatal to the Russian troops, had they not shortly after received considerable reinforcements * A village on the road from Lochoczyn to Golymin, about a league distant from the latter town. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 319 from the corps of Doctoroff and Touchkoff, which in chap. some degree restored the equality of the combat. Davoust, with the divisions Morand and Friant, so well known JJ^ from their heroic conduct on the plateau of Auerstadt, its doubt- ful lS^UC charged vehemently through the woods which skirted the open space in front of Golymin ; throwing off their haver- sacks, the Russian infantry met them with the bayonet ; but after repulsing the French advance, they were them- selves arrested by the murderous fire of the tirailleurs in the wood. Nearly encircled, however, by hourly increasing enemies, Prince Gallitzin withdrew his troops towards evening into the village, but there maintained himself with heroic constancy till nightfall, vigorously repulsing the repeated attacks of the conquerors of Jena and Auer- stadt. Davoust, after occupying all the woods around the town, detached a brigade of horse to cut off the commu- nication by the great road with Pultusk ; and they suc- ceeded in clearing the causeway of the Cossacks and light horse who were posted on it. But the French dragoons, following up their success, were assailed by so murderous a fire from the Russian voltigeurs, standing up to the middle in the marshes on either side of the road, that half their number were slain ; General Rapp, while bravely heading the column, had his left arm broken, and the discomfited remnant sought refuge behind the ranks of their infantry. When night closed on this scene of blood, neither party had gained any decisive advantage ; for if the French had taken twenty-six pieces of cannon, and a large train of carriages which had stuck fast in the mud, the Russians still held the town of Golymin, and had 1Rapp ^ 2 ^ inflicted upon them a loss of above four thousand men, 1 '"" 128. Dum.' while they had not to lament the destruction of more 185. than half the number, in consequence chiefly of their great * The 47th Bulletin admits a loss of 800 killed and 2000 wounded on the part of the French at Golymin and Pultusk; and as their usual practice was to allow only a loss of a third to a fourth of its real amount, this would seem to imply that they lost on these occasions at least 10,000 or 12,000 men.— See 47th Bulletin in Camp, en Prusse, hi. 222. 320 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIV. 1806. 35. Napoleon stops his advance, and puts his army into winter quarters. Dec. 19 and 24. Dec. 28. 1 Dum. xvii, 18.5, 191. Jom.ii. 342 343. Wil- son, 82, 83. superiority in artillery to their assailants. As the order for retreat still held good, Prince Gallitzin, at midnight, resumed his march for Ostrolenka. Notwithstanding the obstinate resistance thus experi- enced by his lieutenants on both the roads on which his corps were advancing, and the unsatisfactory issue of the combats in which they had been engaged, Napoleon was still not without hopes of effecting the grand object of his designs — the isolating and surrounding the enemy's centre or left wing. On the extreme left of the French, Berna- dotte and Ney had succeeded, after several severe actions, particularly one at Soldau, which was taken and retaken several times, and where the Prussians behaved with the most heroic resolution, in interposing between Lestocq and the Russian forces on the Ukra, and throwing the Prussian general back towards Konigsberg. If Soult could have effected the movement on Makow which was prescribed to him, he would have been directly in the rear of the troops who had combated at Pultusk and Golymin, who must have been reduced to the necessity of laying down their arms, or cutting their way through against great odds. But the frightful state of the roads, which in many places were three feet deep of mud, and the rudeness of the season, which alternately deluged the marching columns with drenching rain, driving sleet, and melting snow, rendered it totally impossible for that enterprising officer to effect the forced marches necessary to outstrip and get into the rear of the enemy; and the Russians, retiring to Ostrolenka and Hohenstein, still found the line of their retreat open. On the 28th, Napo- leon advanced his headquarters to Golymin ; but having there received certain intelligence that the Russians must arrive at Makow before Soult could possibly get thither, he saw the object of the campaign was frustrated, and resolved to put his men into winter quarters. On that day, accordingly, he issued orders to stop the advance of the troops at all points ; 1 they were put into cantonments HISTORY OF EUROPE. 321 between the Narew and the Ukra, and the Emperor him- chap. self returned with the Guards to Warsaw. On the side of the Russians, repose had become nearly ^jj 6, as necessary ; the weather was as unfavourable to them as The Rus- „ , rm • n ii *ii ii } sians also to the French. Their infantry, equally with the enemy s, g0 into had shivered up to the knees in mud at Pultusk ; their ^ters. cavalry, equally with his, sank in the marshes of Golymin : the breaking up of the roads was more fatal to them than their opponents, as the guns or chariots, which were aban- doned, necessarily fell into hostile hands; and experience had already begun to evince, what more extended observa- tion has since abundantly confirmed, 1 that exposure to an \ Larrey's c l r 1 1 Surgical inclement season was more fatal to the troops ot the north Campaign. than those of the south of Europe. In these circum- ixxHi.§78. stances it was with the most lively satisfaction that they perceived that Napoleon was disposed to discontinue the contest during the remainder of the rigorous season ; and their troops, retiring from the theatre of this bloody strife, , Dum xvii were put into cantonments on the left bank of the Narew, \si, «*. after having evacuated the town and burned the bridge of 344. Ostrolenka. 2 This desperate struggle in the forests of Poland in the 3 _ depth of winter made the most lively impression in Results' of Europe. Independent of the interest excited by the campaign, extraordinary spectacle of two vast armies, numbering sL'XT between them a hundred and fifty thousand combatants, j^SSjI 1 prolonging their hostility in the most inclement season, and engaging in desperate conflicts amidst storms of snow, and when the soldiers on both sides were often sunk up to the middle in morasses, bivouacking for sixteen hours together without covering on the cold damp ground, or plunging fearlessly into streams swollen by the rains and charged with the ice of a Polish winter, there was something singularly calculated to awaken the passions in the result of this fearful contest. Both parties loudly claimed the victory : Te Deuin was sung at St Peters- burg ; the cannon of the Invalides roared at Paris ; and YOL. VII. x 322 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. Benniiigsen, imitating in his official despatches the exag- XLIV ' gerated accounts of the French bulletins, asserted a coin- 1806 ' plete victory at Pultusk, under circumstances where a more faithful chronicler would only have laid claim to the honour of a divided combat. The French indignantly repelled the aspersion on their arms, and pointed with decisive effect to the cantonments of their troops, for evidence that the general result of the struggle had been favourable to their arms. But though there was no deny- ing this, when the Russian troops, instead of having their advanced posts between the Ukra and the Vistula, had now retired behind the Narew at Ostrolenka, still enough was apparent on the face of the campaign to excite the most vivid hopes on the one side, and serious apprehen- sions on the other, throughout Europe. It was not to win merely eighty miles of forest, interspersed with the wretched hamlets or squalid towns of Poland, that the Em- peror had left Warsaw at the dead of winter, and put so vast an army in motion over a line thirty leagues in length. There was no claiming of the victory on both sides at Austerlitz or Jena ; the divided trophies of the late engagements indicated a struggle of a very different cha- racter from those which had preceded them; it was evident that the torrent of French conquest, if not perma- nently stemmed, had at least been checked. The interest excited by these events, accordingly, was intense over all the Continent, and still more so in England; and hopes beo-an to be entertained that the obstiuate valour of the north would at length arrest the calamities which had so long desolated Europe. Happy would it have been if the cabinets of Vienna and St James's had improved on these dispositions, and taken advantage of the pause in the career of universal conquest, to render effectual aid to the powers who now threw the last die for the inde- pendence of Europe on the shores of the Vistula. But recent calamities had prostrated the strength of the Aus- trian monarchy, and shaken the nerves of its rulers ; and HISTORY OF EUROPE. 323 the administration of affairs in Great Britain had fallen chap. into the hands of a party whose minds had been so per- J 1 verted by long and impassioned opposition to Mr Pitt's 1806 - policy, that they could not see that the time had now arrived when it was loudly called for, and might be fol- lowed out with a certainty of success. Hence the oppor- tunity of decisive interposition was allowed to pass over without anything being done by either power ; and to Austria was bequeathed, in consequence, the overthrow of J, Q vv g on ' Wagram — to England, the costly and bloody efforts of Dum. 206. the Peninsular campaigns. 1 The French army, which was now put into winter ' quarters, amounted to one hundred and sixty thousand Positions of men, including forty thousand horse : so wonderfully army in had the levies in France and the allied states com- J^ rqual pensated the consumption of human life during the bloody battles and wasteful inarches which had occurred since they arrived on the banks of the Saale. The cantonments, from the extreme right to left, extended over a space of fifty leagues, forming beyond the Vis- tula the chord of the arc which that river describes in its course from Warsaw to Dantzic. The left wing, under Bernadotte, was, from its position, most exposed to the incursions of the enemy ; but no apprehensions were entertained of its being disquieted, as that marshal, whose rallying point was Osterode, could speedily receive suc- cour, in case of need, from Marshal Ney, who lay next to his right, and would thus have fifty-five thousand men under his command. The centre and right wing, nearly a hundred thousand strong, were almost detached from the left wing, and lay more closely together on either side of Warsaw. To provide subsistence for so great a mul- titude amidst the forests and marshes of Poland was no easy matter; for its fertile plains, though the granary t - ^ { . of Western Europe, 2 raise their admirable wheat crops 198,208. only for exportation, and present, 111 proportion to their 344. extent of level surface, fewer resources for an army than . canton ments. 324 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, any country in Europe. But it was in such subordinate XLIV ' though, necessary cares, that the admirable organisation 1806 - and indefatigable activity of the Emperor shone most conspicuous. Innumerable orders, which for a long time back had Napoleon's periodically issued from headquarters, had brought all the tTprovide resources of Germany to the supply of the army in sec P ur e e his nd Poland. Convoys from all quarters were incessantly converging towards the Vistula, and supplies of every sort, not only for the maintenance of the soldiers, but for the sick and wounded, as well as the munitions of war, transported in many thousand carriages, were brought up from the Rhine and the Danube in abundance. So great was the activity in the rear of the army, that the roads through Prussia bore rather the appearance of a country enriched by the extended commerce of a profound peace, than of a district lately ravaged by the scourge of war. Great hospitals were established at Thorn, Posen, and Warsaw ; thirty thousand tents, taken from the Prussians, were cut down into bandages for the use of the wounded ; immense magazines formed all along the Vistula, and formidable intrenchments erected to protect the tetes-de- pont of Praga, Thorn, and Modlin on the Vistula, and Sierock on the Narew. Though the blockade of Dantzic was not yet formally commenced, yet it was necessary to neutralise the advantages which the enemy derived from the possession of so important a fortress on the right of their line ; and for this purpose a French division, united to the contingent of Baden and the Polish levies, was formed into the tenth corps, and placed under the com- mand of Marshal Lefebvre. It soon amounted to twenty- seven thousand men, and began to observe the fortresses of Dantzic and Colberg ; while Napoleon evinced his sense of u om, 11. 345. Dum. the dubious nature of the struggle in which he was engaged, 208." Ann. by sending for his experienced lieutenant, Massena, from 3. eg * ' the scene of his easy triumphs amidst the sunny hills of Calabria, to a sterner conflict on the frozen fields of Poland. 1 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 325 The repose of the army at Warsaw was no period of chap. xliv 1806. rest to the Emperor. Great care was taken to keep alive the spirits of the Poles, and conceal from them the dubious issue of the late conflict ; and for this purpose it Reduction was announced that almost all the prisoners taken from tresse/ST the Russians had either been marched off for France, or Sllesia - already entered the ranks of the Grand Army ; while the p^"^ eighty pieces of cannon, which they had been forced to leave behind them in their retreat, were ostentatiously placed before the palace of the republic. Orders were at the same time sent to Jerome to press the siege of the fortresses in Silesia which still remained in the hands of the Prussians. The pusillanimous and unaccountable surrenders of Stettin and Ciistrin have already been men- tioned ;"" and in the consequences which immediately flowed from those disgraceful derelictions of duty, was soon made manifest of what vast importance it is that all Dec. 2. officers, even in commands apparently not very consider- able, should, under all circumstances, adhere to the simple line of duty, instead of entering into capitulations from the supposed pressure of political considerations. The transport of artillery and a siege equipage from the Rhine or the Elbe to the Oder would have taken a very long period, and prolonged the reduction of the interior line of the Prussian fortresses ; but the surrender of Ciistrin to the summons of a regiment of infantry and two pieces of cannon, enabled Vandamme speedily to surround Glogau or^so*"' with a formidable battering-train, which, before the first. JonLii. 220. parallel was completed, induced its feeble governor to 1807,22." lower his colours. 1 From the vast military stores captured in that town, a battering-train for the reduction of Breslau was imme- siege and diately obtained, and forwarded along the Oder with such BresLu. rapidity that, on the 15th December, the trenches before Dec ' ' that place, the capital of Silesia, d cheval on the Oder, and a fortress of the first order, were opened, and a heavy * Ante, Chap, xliii. § 71. 326 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, bombardment kept up upon the town. The defence, how- XLn - ever, was somewhat more creditable to the Prussian cha- 180 J4° n ' suggested a hope, that by a rapid movement their corps 29^297"' might be isolated and destroyed before the bulk of the ^IffJ; Grand Army, grouped round Warsaw, could advance to 27. their relief. 1 Impressed with these ideas, the Russian army, seventy- 4g five thousand strong, with five hundred pieces of cannon, Rapid ad- • 1 1 AT 1 vance *" was everywhere put in motion, crossed the JNarew, and Benningsen marched upon the Bobr. The corps of Benningsen and Kig'sberg. Buxhowden, so long separated, effected a junction at At] ~ Bialla on the 14th January : and on the 15th headquarters £[* tes 39 ' were established at that place. Essen was left with two divisions on the Narew to mask this forward movement ; and there he was soon after joined by the divisions from Moldavia. This great assemblage of force was the more formidable, that it was entirely unknown to the enemy, . 334 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. chap, being completely concealed by the great forest of Johans- berg and the numerous chain of lakes, intersected by 18 °7- woods, which lie between Arys in East Prussia, and the banks of the Vistula. Rapidly advancing, after its columns were united, the Russian army moved forward between the lakes of Spirding and Lowentin ; and on Jan. 17. the 1 7th headquarters were established at Rhein in East Prussia. Meanwhile the cavalry, cousisting of forty squadrons under Prince Gallitzin, pushed on for the Alle, on the roads leading to Konigsberg and Bischofstein : and on the other side of that river surprised and defeated Jan. 19. the light horse of Marshal Ney, which had advanced in pursuit of Lestocq to Schippenbeil, within ten leagues of Jan. 20. Konigsberg. Thus on the 20th January, the Russian army, perfectly concentrated, and in admirable order, was grouped in the middle of East Prussia, and was 1 Wilson within six marches of the Lower Vistula, where it ? 3 > 85 - .. might either raise the blockade of Dantzic and Graudenz, Dum. xvii. <-> 295, 302. or fall with a vast superiority of force upon Bernadotte 352. or Ney, still slumbering in undisturbed security in their cantonments. 1 Had Bennino'sen been aware of the scattered condition 50. He surprises of Marshal Ney's corps, he might, by the admission of corpb ' the French military historians, have destroyed the whole before it could by possibility have been united and put in a condition to give battle. As it was, great numbers of his detached parties were made prisoners, and the conduct of the marshal in first, by his senseless incur- sions attracting the enemy, and then, by his undue dis- persion, exposing himself to their attacks, drew down a severe reproof from Napoleon. * But a glance at the map must be sufficient to show that great and decisive * He severely blamed the marshal " for having, by an inconsiderate move- ment, attracted the enemy, and even endeavoured to engage Marshal Soult, who declined to follow him, in the same expedition. Yon will immediately resume the winter quarters prescribed for your corps, and take advantage of them to give rest to your cavalry, and repair, the best way you can, the fault you have committed." — Dujias, xvii. 303. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 335 success was at this moment within the grasp of the Rus- chap. sian general; and that if, instead of making a long circuit to reach the head of Marshal Ney's corps, scat- 1807- tered over a space of eighteen leagues, and drive it back upon its line of retreat -towards Warsaw, he had boldly thrown himself, three days earlier, upon its flank, he would have separated it from the centre of the army, and driven both it and Bernadotte to a disastrous retreat into the angle formed by the Vistula and the Baltic Sea. The movement of Benningsen to the head of Ney's column, however, having prevented this, he turned his attention to Bernadotte, who had received intelligence of his approach, and had rapidly concentrated his corps from the neighbourhood of Elbiug at Mohrungen. Meanwhile the Russian army continued its advance ; on the 22d, Jan. 22. headquarters were established at Bischofstein, and the Cossacks pushed on to Heilsberg ; and on the same day, a severe action took place at Seeberg, from whence the French cavalry, under Colbert, were driven in the direc- tion of Allenstein. Ney, „now seriously alarmed, des- patched couriers in all directions to collect his scattered IDwn.xvii. ... . 297, 307. divisions, and on the 23d resumed his headquarters at Jom.ii.353. Neidenburg, extending his troops by the left towards Gil- 8.5. 1 b ° genburg to lend assistance to Bernadotte. 1 Bernadotte, informed by despatches from all quarters of this formidable irruption into his cantonments, was Bernadotte, rapidly concentrating his troops at Mohrungen, when nrawMoh- Benningsen, with greatly superior forces, fell upon him. ™£fpe S ' w ith The Russian troops, fifteen thousand strong, were posted difficult >'- in rugged ground at Georgenthal, two miles in front of that town. General Makow, with the advanced guard of the Russians, there engaged with the French before suffi- cient forces had come up; and after a sanguinary con- flict, in which the eagle of the 9th French regiment was taken and retaken several times, and finally remained in the hands of the Russians, suffered the penalty of his rashness by being repulsed towards Liebstadt. In this 336 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, bloodj affair botli parties had to lament the loss of two XLIV - thousand men, and the Russian general, Aurepp, was 1807> killed. It was the more to be regretted that this pre- mature attack had been made, as Lestocq was at the moment at Wormditt, or five leagues distant on the right ; Gallitzin, with five thousand horse, at Reichau, at the same distance on the left ; Ostermann Tolstoy at Heiligenbeil, and Sacken at Elditten, all in the imme- diate neighbourhood ; so that, by a concentration of these forces, the whole French corps might with ease have been made prisoners. As it was, Prince Michael Dolgo- rucki, who had been detached by Prince Gallitzin towards Mohrungen in consequence of the violent fire heard in that direction, fell upon the rear of Bernadotte's corps, penetrated into the town, made several hundred pri- soners, and captured all his private baggage, among which, to his eternal disgrace, were found, as in the den of a iBign.vi. common freebooter, silver plate, bearing the arms of S on,85.\' almost all the states in Germany, ten thousand ducats SSvsK"" recently levied for his own private use, and two thou- s8? iL sand five hundred for that of his staff, from the town of Elbing. 1 The narrow escape, both of Ney and Bernadotte, from Graudenz total destruction in consequence of this bold and vigorous and el the ed ' enterprise, excited the utmost alarm in the French army. French left Bernadotte fell back rapidly to Osterode, where he entered ■wing driven A J . back by the i nto communication with Ney, and from thence towards Thorn on the Lower Vistula, by Strassburg, severely pressed by the Cossacks, who almost totally destroyed his rearguard, aud made many thousand prisoners. Headquarters were advanced by Benningsen on the 26th to Mohrungen, where they remained, from the exhaustion of the troops, till the 2d February. Taking advantage of the aid thus obtained, the brave and active Lestocq succeeded in raising the blockade of Graudenz, the key to the Lower Vistula ; and throwing in supplies of ammu- nition and provisions, which enabled that important HISTORY OP EUROPE. 337 fortress to hold out through all the succeeding campaign, chap. The whole French left wing raised their cantonments, !_ and fell back in haste, and with great loss, towards the 1807- Lower Vistula ; and the alarm, spread as far as Warsaw, gave the most effectual - refutation to the false accounts published in the bulletins of the successive defeats of the Russian army."" At the same time intelligence was re- , w ., ceived of the arrival of the Russian divisions from the ®>> 87 - .. . -I1T-* i i Dum. xvii. army of Moldavia, on the Narew and the Bug, where they 307,322. effected their junction with General Essen, and raised the 115, ii6.' enemy's force in that quarter to thirty thousand men. 1 These untoward events made a great impression on the mind of Napoleon, who had never contemplated a Dangerous renewal of active operations till his reinforcements from Na^oieon^ the Rhine had arrived at headquarters, and the return of the mild season had enabled him to resume hostilities without the excessive hardships to which his troops during the later stages of the campaign had been exposed. The cold was still extreme : the Vistula and the Narew were charged with, enormous blocks of floating ice, which daily threatened to break down the bridges over them; the earth was covered with snow; the heavens exhibited that serene deep-blue aspect which indicated a long continuance of intense frost; magazines there were none in the country which was likely to become the theatre of war; and though the highly culti- vated territory of Old Prussia offered as great resources as any of its extent in Europe f for an invading army, yet it was impossible to expect that it could maintain, * " In Berriadotte's baggage, taken at Mohrungen, were fomid curious proofs of the arrangement for stage effect and false intelligence, made by all the officers of the French army, from the Emperor downwards. An order was there found, giving the most minute directions for the reception of Napoleon ' at Warsaw, with all the stations and crossings where ' Vive l'Empereur ! ' was to be shouted ; and official despatches of all the actions of the campaign in which Bernadotte had been engaged, for publication, and private despatches giving the facts as they really occurred, for the Emperor's secret perusal. These papers are still in the possession of General Benningsen's family." — Wilson's Polish Campaign, 86 — Note. t The territory of Old Prussia is not naturally more fertile than the adjoin- VOL. VII. Y 338 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, for any length of time, the enormous masses who would XLIV ' speedily be assembled on its surface. But there was no 1807, time for deliberation; matters were pressing; the right of Benningsen was now approaching the Lower Vistula, and in a few days the Russian army would raise the blockade of Dantzic, and, resting on that fortress as a 322, 3247"* base from whence inexhaustible supplies of all sorts 35™" "' might be obtained by sea, would bid defiance to all his efforts. 1 It was in such a crisis that the extraordinary activity vigouJ'of and indefatigable perseverance of Napoleon appeared Smbibg 11 most conspicuous. Instantly perceiving that active opera- hisarmy. t j ong mug {. ^ e resumec i eve n at that rude season, he despatched orders from the 23d to the 27th January, for the assembling of all his army ; and as, with the excep- Jan. 23. tion of Bernadotte and Ney, they all lay in contonments not extending over more than twenty leagues, this was neither a tedious nor a difficult operation. Bernadotte was enjoined to assemble around Osterode, Lefebvre at Thorn to observe Dantzic, Soult at Prasnycz, Davoust at Pultusk, Ney at Neidenburg, Bessieres and Murat at Warsaw with the Imperial Guard and cavalry. Though breathing only victory in his proclamations to his troops, he was in reality making every preparation for defeat; Lefebvre received orders to collect all the forces at his disposal, without any regard to the blockade at Dantzic, in order to secure the fortress and bridge of Thorn, the direct line of retreat across the Vistula from the theatre of war, while Lannes was disposed as a reserve on the right, and Auo;ereau on the left bank of that river. On the 27th, orders were given to all the columns to march, ing provinces of Poland, but nevertheless it is as rich and cultivated as they are sterile and neglected. On one side of the frontier line are to be seen numerous and opulent cities, smiling well-cultivated fields, comfortable hamlets, and an industrious and contented population ; on the other, endless forests of pine, wretched villages, a deplorable agriculture; squalid huts beside a few gorgeous palaces. Nothing can more clearly demonstrate the vicious and ruinous political institutions which have prevailed amidst the mingled anarchy, tyranny, and democracy of Old Poland. This difference, so well known to HISTORY OP EUROPE. 339 and early on the morning of the 30th the Emperor set chap, xliv. out from Warsaw.""" Soult was directed to march by Wittenberg and Passenheim on Allenstein: thither also 1807# Ney was to move, by Hohenstein, and Davoust from Pultusk by Ortelsburg ; Augereau, who had been brought over from the left to the right bank of the Vistula, was to advance to it from Plonsk, by Neidenburg and Hohen- stein ; Murat was to hasten up with his cavalry, so as to form the advanced guard of Soult ; while Bessieres, with the Imperial Guard, was to follow in reserve. On the left Bernadotte was to retreat in the direction of Thorn; while, on the extreme right, the corps of Lanues (under the command of Savary) was to take post at Sierock, between the Bug and the Narew, to observe Essen ; and Oudinot with his grenadiers was to push on through Warsaw to Ostrolenka, where he would be in a position either to assist Savary or the Grand Army. The object of Napoleon in these movements was, that while, by the retreat of his left wing under Bernadotte, he drew on the Russians towards Thorn and the lower Vistula, he should, by rapidly throwing forward his own right, con- , Dum xv .. sisting of four corps and the reserve cavalry, to Allenstein, 322, 325. turn their left flank, and cut off their retreat to the 354,355. Niemen. 1 Following thus his usual plan of marching with the 55 bulk of his forces, so as to get in the rear of the enemy Napoleon during his advance, Napoleon moved towards Allenstein, the^r of where he arrived on the 2d February with the corps of sen ? mns ~ Soult, Augereau, and Ney; while Davoust was at a short distance still further on his right, at Wartenburg. Already he had interposed between Benningsen and Russia ; the travellers, repeatedly attracted the attention even of the military followers of the French army. See Segur, Camp, de Russie, i. 127; and Jomini, ii. 354. * The orders given by Napoleon to all the marshals and chief officers of his army on this trying emergency, may be considered as a masterpiece of military skill and foresight, and deserve especial attention from all who desire to make themselves acquainted either with his extraordinary activity and resources, or with the multiplied cares which, on such an occasion, devolve on a commander- in-chief.— See the whole in Dumas, xvh. 330-374 ; Pieces Just. 340 HISTORY OP EUEOFE. chap, only line of retreat which lay open to that officer was to XLIV the north-east, in the direction of Konigsberg and the 1807# Niernen. The Russian army was stationed between the Passarge and the Alle, from Guttstadt and Heilsberg on the latter river, to Liebstadt and Wormditt in the neigh- bourhood of the former; but these movements of Napo- leon induced Benningsen to concentrate his divisions and move them to the eastward, in the direction of Spiegel- Feb.iand2. berg and the Alle, on the 1st and 2d of February, in order to preserve his communications with the Russian frontier. The whole troops assembled in order of Feb. 3. battle on the following day, in a strong position on the heights of Jonkowo, covering the great road from Allen- stein to Liebstadt, its left resting on the village of Mondtken. Napoleon instantly directed Davoust to march from Wartenburg to Spiegelberg with his whole corps, in order to get round the left flank of the Russians ; while Soult received orders to force the bridge of Berg- fried, over the Alle, in rear of their left flank, by which 89 V 90° n ' * ie wou ^ be enabled to debouch upon their line of retreat Jom.ii.35.5. and communications; and this attack was of such import- Dum. xvii. ,i , t\ i • "7> 1 • 330, 340. ance, that Davoust was to support him with two of his divisions. 1 It would have been all over with the Russians if these 56. who dis- orders had been carried into full execution without their covers his design, and being aware how completely they were in course of being encircled. But by a fortunate accident the despatches to Bernadotte, announcing the design, and enjoining him to draw Benningsen on towards the Lower Vistula, had pre- viously fallen into the hands of the Cossacks, and made that general aware of his danger. He immediately des- patched orders to the officer at Bergfried to hold the bridge to the last extremity, which was so gallantly obeyed, that though Soult assailed it with all his corps, and it was taken and retaken several times, yet it finally remained in the hands of the Russians. The situation of Benning- sen, however, was still very critical ; he was compelled to HISTORY OP EUROPE. 341 fall back to avoid being turned in presence of very chap superior forces, and by his lateral movement from Mobrungen he had become entirely separated from Lestocq, who was in the most imminent danger of being cut off and destroyed by the superior forces of Berna- dotte. Fortunately, however, from the despatches being intercepted, that marshal remained entirely ignorant, both of what was expected from him, and of the great advan- tages which remained in his power ; and Lestocq, without being disquieted, was enabled to check his advance and make preparations for a retreat, which lay open to him from Freistadt, where he had been covering the revictual- a wasonj ling of Graudenz, by Deutsch-Eylau, Osterode, and Moh- J^ff.;^ rungen to Liebstadt; while Benningsen himself, on the 356- Dum.' night of the 3d, broke up from Jonkowo, and retired m 349. the same direction. 1 By daybreak the French army, headed by Murat with his numerous and terrible dragoons, was in motion to The French pursue the enemy; and as the Russians had been much Russians, retarded during the night .by the passage of so many ^° g -Z° U pieces of cannon and waggons through the narrow streets battle - of Jonkowo, the enemy soon came up with their rear- guard. By overwhelming numbers the latter were at length forced froni the bridge of Bergfried by Soult; but they rallied in the villages behind it, and, forming barri- cades with tumbrils, waggons, and chariots, effectually checked the advance of the enemy until the carriages in the rear had got clear through. They then retired, obstinately contesting every inch of ground, which they did with such effect, that the French lost fifteen hundred men in the pursuit, without inflicting a greater loss on their adversaries. Nor were any cannon or chariots taken — a striking proof of the orderly nature of the retreat, and the heroism with which the rearguard per- formed its duty, when it is recollected that Napoleon, with eighty thousand men, thundered in close pursuit; and that, from the state of the roads, the march, which 342 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, had been ordered upon three lines, could take place on XLIV " two only. Soult and Davoust continued to manoeuvre, 18 ° 7, in order to turn the Russian left, while Murat and Ney Feb. 4. pressed their rearguard. On the night of the 4th, the Russians retired to Wolfsdorf, where they stood firm next day. But this continued retreat in presence of the enemy was now beginning to be attended with bad effects, both upon the health and spirits of the soldiers. The commissariat in their army was then wretched; magazines there were none in the country which was now the theatre of war; and the soldiers, when worn out with a night-march over frozen snow, had no means of obtaining subsistence but by prowling about to discover and dig up the little stores which the peasants had buried for the use of their families. The men everywhere lay on the bare ground in intense frost, with no other bed but the snow, and no covering but their great-coats, which were now little better than rags. They were not as yet inured to retire before the enemy ; and the murmur against any further retreat was so loud, that Benningsen resolved to fall back only to a chosen field of battle ; and, upon examining the map, that of Preussisch-Eylau was selected for this purpose. No sooner was this announced to the troops than their discontents were appeased ; the hardships of the night-marches were forgotten ; and from i Wilson, the joyful looks of the men, it would rather have been 9° 94 J J ., jom.ii'.356. supposed they were marching to tranquil winter quarters, 349™352. U than to the most desperate struggle which had occurred in modern times. 1 Severe actions, however, awaited these brave men ere combat of they reached the theatre of final conflict. On the night Landsberg. of tlie g^ the army moyec i to Landsberg, where the troops from Heilsberg joined them, notwithstanding a bloody combat with Marshal Davoust. On the following day, the rearguard, under Bagrathion, posted between Hoff and that town, was assailed with the utmost vehe- mence by Murat, at the head of the reserve cavalry ten HISTORY OP EUROPE. 343 thousand strong, and the principal part of the corps of chap. Soult and Augercau. The approach of these formidable XLIV ' masses, and the imposing appearance of their dragoons, 1807, as well as the balls which began to fall from the French batteries, occasioned great confusion among the cannon and carriages in the streets of the town. But with such resolution did the rearguard maintain their position, that, though they sustained a heavy loss, the enemy were kept at bay till night closed the carnage, and relieved the Russian general from the anxieties consequent on so critical a situation in presence of such enormous forces of the enemy. Two battalions of Russians were trampled under foot in the course of the day or cut down, chiefly by one of their own regiments of horse dashing over them, when broken and flying from Murat's dragoons. Benningsen upon this supported the rearguard by several brigades of fresh troops, and the combat continued with various suc- cess till night, when both armies bivouacked in presence of each other; that of the French on the heights of Hoff, that of the Russians on tho.se which lie in front of Lands- berg, and the little stream of the Stein separating their outposts from each other. In this untoward affair the Russians sustained a loss of two thousand five hundred men, among whom was Prince Gallitzin, whose chivalrous courage had already endeared him to the army; but the French were weakened by nearly as great a number. During the night the whole army again broke up, and Feb 7 without further molestation reached Eylau at seven the l D™».xvii. 354 355 next morning, when it passed through the town, and wiison,94, moved quietly to the appointed ground for the battle on 356. the other side, where it arrived by noonday. 1 This rapid concentration and retreat of the Russians isolated the Prussian corps of Lestocq, and gave too much Combat of reason to fear that it might be cut off by the superior and retreat forces of Bernadotte and Ney, who were now pressing on it of Lest0C( i- on all sides. But the skilful movements of the Prussian general extricated him from a most perilous situation. 344 HISTORY OP EUROPE. CHAP. XLIV. 1807. Feb. 5. Feb. 7. _ 1 Jom. ii. 356, 357. Dum. xvii. 352, 353. 60. Relative forces on both sides. On the 5th, he set out from Mohrungen, and his horse encountered the cavalry of Murat near Deppen, while the head of the column of infantry was at the same time charged by Ney, who had crossed the Passarge to intercept his progress near Waltersdorf. The heroic resistance of the advanced guard, only three thousand strong, gave time for the main body to change the line of its march, and escape in the direction of Schloditten ; but it proved fatal to itself, as almost the whole were slain or made prisoners, with twelve pieces of cannon. The firm coun- tenance of the cavalry, however, defeated all the efforts of Murat, who in vain charged them repeatedly with six thousand horse ; and after baffling all his attacks, they retired leisurely, and in the best order, covering the march of the infantry all the way; crossed the Passarge at Spanden, and arrived on the 7th in safety at Hussehnen in the neighbourhood of Eylau. 1 Thus, after sustaining incredible hardships, and under- going serious dangers, the whole Russian army was at length concentrated on one field of battle, and about to measure its strength with the enemy. It was reduced, by the fatigues and losses of this winter campaign, to sixty- five thousand men, assembled around Eylau, to which, if ten thousand be added as Lestocq's division, which might be expected to co-operate in the approaching action, the whole amount that could be relied on for the shock was seventy-five thousand, with four hundred and sixty pieces of cannon. The French, after deducting the losses of this dreadful warfare, exclusive of Bernadotte, who did not arrive on the ground for two days after, could still bring eighty thousand men into the field, including nearly sixteen thousand horse ; but they had not above three hundred and fifty pieces of artillery. Thus the two armies were nearly equal — the French superiority in num- bers, and especially in cavalry, being counterbalanced by the advantage which the Russians had in that important arm, the artillery. Their spirit and courage were at the HISTORY OF EUROPE. 345 same level ; for if the French could recall with deserved chap. pride the glorious achievements of the campaign, and a _^ ■ long course of almost unbroken victories, the Russians, on then- side, had the triumphs of Suwarroff in Turkey, Poland, and the Italian plains, to recall : and if the former were impelled by the ardour of a revolution, converted by consummate genius into that of military conquest, the latter were buoyant with the rising energy Jg-jgHj of an empire whose frontiers had never yet receded before 98, 99. the standards of an enemy. 1 " 1 ' The Russian rearguard, ten thousand strong, under G] Bagrathion, was leisurely retiring towards Eylau, and at g^»- the distance of about two miles from that village, when Eyiauthe it was attacked by the French infantry. The Russians the^ta™ were at first compelled to give way, but the St Petersburg dragoons, whose rout had occasioned such loss to their own comrades on the preceding day, emulous to wipe away their disgrace, assailed the enemy so opportunely in * The following is the account given by Dumas of the troops present in arms, in January 1807, under Napoleon on the Vistula Infar Imperial Guard under Bessieres, . — Oudinot, First Corps, Bernadotte, Second do. Augereau, . Third do. Davoust, Fourth do. Soult, Fifth do. Lannes, Sixth do. Ney, Cavalry do. Murat, Total on the Vistula, Detached, viz., Mortier, in Pomerania, — Jerome and Vandamme, in Silesia, Lefebvre, Dantzic, Dumonceau, Hanover, Total, 187,434 28,876 If from this mass of 113,000 infantry and 24,000 cavalry, there be deducted 19,000 absent, under Bernadotte, 18,000 under Lannes, 6,000 under Oudinot, and 14 000 lost or left behind during the march from Warsaw, there will remain, on their own showing, 90,000 in line at Eylau, and that agrees nearly with Sir Robert Wilson's estimate.— Dumas, vol. xviii. 592 ; Wilson, 99. Thiers makes the effective French force at Eylau 74,000 men— Consulat ct VEmpire, vu. 361. The medium of 80,000 is probably very near the mark. :ry and Artillery. 9,109 Cavalry 3,829 6,046 18,073 950 10,000 19,000 26,329 757 1,495 16,720 1,399 15,158 753 881 14,868 123,188 15,868 24,179 1,254 18,232 2,207 23,248 6,898 547 689 346 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, flank, when emerging from the tumult of the charge, 1 that they instantly cut to pieces two battalions, and 1807- made prize of their eagles. Disconcerted by this check, the Freuch gave no further molestation to the Russian Feb. 7. rearguard, which retired into Eylau. By a mistake, however, the division destined to occupy that important station evacuated it, along with the rest of the army ; and though Benningsen instantly ordered it to be reoccupied by fresh troops, the French had, meanwhile, entered in great numbers, and the assailing division, under Barclay de Tolly, had a rude contest to encounter in endeavouring to regain the lost ground. By vast exertions, however, they at length succeeded in expelling the enemy. The French again returned in greater force ; the combat con- tinued M T ith the utmost fury till long after sunset. Fresh reinforcements came up to the Russians : twice Barclay carried the village after dark, by the light of the burning houses, and he was as often expelled by the enthusiastic valour of the French. At length they were driven out of the town, which, from lying in a hollow, and being con- manded on the French side, was no longer tenable after the enemy had brought up their heavy artillery. But that gallant commander, with this heroic rearguard, intrenched himself in the church and churchyard, which stands on an eminence by the road on issuing from the town on the other side, and there maintained a sanguinary resis- tance till past ten at night, when he was severely wounded. Then the object of the strife having been gained by the heavy artillery having all arrived by the road of l^i 80 ^ Schloditten, and taken up its position on the field of y/, 9ii, Jul). - 1 *■ jom. ii. 357, battle behind the village, the unconquered Russians were xviii. c, 8." withdrawn from the churchyard, which, with its bloocl- 126."' stained graves and corpse-covered slopes, remained in the hands of Napoleon. 1 Never in the history of war did two armies pass a night under more awful aud impressive circumstances than the rival hosts that now lay, without tent or cover- 1807. 62. ixious situation of th am their ht ouac. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 347 ing, on the snowy expanse of the field of Eylau. The chap. close vicinity of the two armies ; the vast multitude assembled in so narrow a space, intent only on mutual destruction ; the vital interests to the lives and fortunes Anxious of all which were at stake; the wintry wildness of the jSwmS scene, cheered only by the watch-fires, which threw a jyjj partial glow on the snow-clad fields around ; the shiver- biv ing groups who in either army lay round the blazing fires, chilled by girdles of impenetrable ice ; the stern resolu- tion of the soldiers in the one array, and the enthusiastic ardour of those in the other ; the liberty of Europe now brought to the issue of one dread combat ; the glory of Russia and France dependent on the efforts of the mightiest armament that either had yet sent forth, all contributed to impress a feeling of extraordinary solemnity, which reached the most inconsiderate breast, oppressed the mind with a feeling of anxious thought, and kept unclosed many a wearied eyelid in both camps, notwith- standing the extraordinary fatigues of the preceding days. But no sooner did the dawn break, and the quick rattle of musketry from the outposts commence, than these gloomy feelings were dispelled, and all arose from their l Wilson, icy beds with no other feelings but those of joyous confi- h. 35b. dence and military ardour. 1 The evacuation of Eylau on the preceding night, had ••I . 65. led Napoleon to suppose that the enemy were not to give Description battle on the succeeding clay ; and, overwhelmed with the of battle, extraordinary fatigues he had undergone since leaving tu.nl of 31 " Warsaw, during which time he had been daily occupied either amy - in business or inarching twenty hours out of the twenty- £j^' 43 four, he retired to a house in the town, and there, amidst all the horrors of a place carried by assault, fell into a profound sleep. The two armies were within half cannon-shot of each other, and their immense masses disposed in close array on a space not exceeding a league in breadth. The field of battle consisted of an open expanse of unenclosed ground, rising into swells, or small 348 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. chap, hills, interspersed with many lakes : but as the whole sur- face was covered with snow, and the water so thoroughly I807. frozen as to bear any weight either of cavalry or artillery, it was everywhere accessible to military operations. The little town of Eylau, situated on a slight eminence and surmounted by a Gothic steeple, was the only salient point of the field. On the slope to its right, looking from the French position, was the churchyard, the scene of so desperate a strife on the preceding day. The ground rose gently in its front and was interspersed with some small hills, amidst which the dense masses of the Russians were barely visible through the twilight of a wintry day obscured by mist and driving snow. The Russian right, under Touchkoff, lay on either side of Schloditten ; the centre, under Sacken, occupied a cluster of little open hills, intercepted by lakes, in front of Kutsch- itten ; the left, under Ostermann Tolstoy, rested on Klein- Sausgarten and Serpalten ; the advanced-guard, ten thou- sand strong, with its outposts extending almost to the houses of Eylau, was under the command of Bagrathion ; the reserve, in two divisions, was led by Doctoroff. The whole army in front was drawn up in two lines with admirable precision : the reserve, in two close columns behind the centre ; the foot artillery, consisting of four hundred pieces, was disposed along the front of the lines; the horse artillery, embracing sixty guns, cavalry and Cossacks, under Platoff, in reserve behind the centre and wings, in order to support any point which might appear iDumxviii ^° reo i inre assistance. Lestocq, with his division, had not 12,13. jom. yet come up ; but he had lain at Hussehnen, the pre- u. 359, 360. J 1 *■ Wilson, ceding night, which was only three leagues on, and vii.376". ' might be expected to join before the battle was far advanced. 1 The French position, generally speaking, was more elevated than that of the Russians, with the exception of the right, where it was commanded by the heights of Klein-Sausgarten. The town of Eylau, however, occu- HISTORY OF EUROPE. 349 pied in force by their troops, was situated in a hollow, so chap. low that the roofs of the houses were below the range of 1 cannon-shot from the Russian position, and the summit ®° 7 ' of the church steeple, which stands on an eminence, alone Distribu- . , . -j-^ . tion of the was exposed to the destructive storm. Davoust was in French rear on the right, and received orders, as soon as he came up, to attack the villages of Klein-Sausgarten and Ser- palten, occupied by the enemy. The division St Hilaire of Soult's corps was at Rothenen ; between that village and Eylau, Augereau was established, and was destined to advance against the Russian main body and the strong batteries placed opposite : Soult, with his remaining two divisions, occupied Eylau on the left, and was to aid him when he moved forward ; the Imperial Guard and cavalry of Murat were in reserve behind the centre, ready to support any attack which might appear likely to prove unsuccessful. Orders had been despatched to Ney to attack the Russian right as soon as the action was warmly engaged ; and it was hoped he would arrive on the field at least as soon as Lestocq on the other side, upon whose traces he had so long been following. Lannes had been detained by sickness at Pultusk, and his corps, placed under the orders of S a vary, afterwards Duke of Rovigo, was observing the Russian forces left on the Bug and the Narew. Napoleon's design, when he saw that the Russians stood firm, and were resolved to give battle, was to turn their left by the corps of Marshal Davoust, and throw it back on the middle of the army ; but, the better to conceal this object, he commenced the action soon after daylight by a violent attack on their right and centre. The Russian cannon played heavily, but rather at hazard, on the hostile masses in front of Eylau ; while the French 1 whsod, guns replied with fatal effect from their elevated position aeo* 36i." ' 1 .i it in Dum. xviii. clown upon the enemy, whose lines were exposed from 915. head to foot to the range of their shot. 1 Presently the centre, under Augereau, advanced in massy columns, while St Hilaire's division of Soult's corps, 350 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIV. 1807. 65. Battle of Eylau. Defeat of Augereau. Feb. 8. 1 Wilson, 101, 102. Jom. ii. 361. Dum. xviii. 17,18. Bign. vi. 1-29, 130. Th ers, vii. 383. the whole preceded bj a hundred and fifty pieces of artillery, marched with an intrepid step against the Russian left-centre, so as to unite Augereau's with Davoust's attack, and forty guns of the Imperial Guard, posted on an eminence near the church of Eylau, to cover their attack, opened a heavy fire on the great central Russian battery. These troops had not advanced above three hundred yards, driving the Russian tirailleurs before them, when the Russian cannon-shot, from two hundred pieces, admirably directed, ploughed through the mass, and so shattered it, that the whole body of Augereau's corps inclined to the left towards Schloditten, to get under the shelter of a detached house which stood in the way. A snow-storm at the same time set in and darkened the atmosphere, so that neither army could see its opponent; but nevertheless, the deadly storm of bullets continued to tear the massy columns of the French, and the cannonade was so violent as to prevent Soult from rendering them any effectual support. A masked battery of seventy-two pieces opened on their front with a tremendous fire of grape. In a quarter of an hour, half of the corps were struck down. Augereau's divisions were already severely shaken by this murderous fire, when they were suddenly assailed on one side by the right wing of the Russians, under TouchkofF, and on the other by their reserve and a powerful body of cavalry, under DoctorofF. So thick was the snow-storm, so unexpected the onset, that the assailants were only a few yards distant, and the long lances of the Cossacks almost touching the French infantry, when they were first discerned. The combat was not of more than a few minutes' duration : the corps, charged at once by foot and horse with the utmost vigour, broke and fled in the wildest disorder back into Eylau, closely pur- sued by the Russian cavalry and Cossacks, who made such havoc, that the whole, above sixteen thousand strong, were, with the exception of fifteen hundred men, taken or destroyed; 1 and Augereau himself, with his two HISTORY OF EUROPE. 351 oenerals of divisions, Desgardens and Heudelet, was des- chap. perately wounded. Napoleon was apprised of tins disaster by the fugitives 1807. 66. who rushed into Eylau ; and the snow-storm clearing imminent away at the same time", showed him the Russian right Napdeon.. and centre far advanced, with their light troops almost at the edge of the town. He himself was stationed at the churchyard on its eastern side, which had been the scene of such a sanguinary conflict on the preceding night ; and already the crash of the enemy's balls on the steeple and walls of the church showed how near danger was approaching. The serried masses of the Old Guard stood firm in and around the cemetery, while the branches of the trees above their heads were con- stantly rent or falling from the enemy's cannon-balls. Presently one of the Russian divisions, following rapidly after the fugitives, entered Eylau by the eastern street, and charged, with loud hurrahs, to the foot of the mount where the Emperor was placed with a battery of the Imperial Guard and his personal escort of a hundred men. Had a regiment of horse been at hand to support the attack, Napoleon must have been made prisoner ; for though the last reserve, consisting of six battalions of the Old Guard, was at a short distance, he might have been enveloped before they could come up to his rescue. The fate of Europe then hung by a thread, but in that terrible moment the Emperor's presence of mind did not forsake him;* he instantly ordered his little body-guard, hardly more than a company, to form line, in order to i Bi vi check the enemy's advance, and despatched orders to the *JJ, }J U °* Old Guard to attack the column on one flank, while a J°™- »^, ooo. Wil- brigade of Murat's horse charged it on the other. 1 The son, 101, -r* • ti-it i • c ^ 102. Thiers, Russians, disordered by success, and ignorant ot the vii.379,38& inestimable prize which was almost within their grasp, * " Stetit aprprere fultus Csespitis, intrepidus vultu ; meruitque timeri, Non metuens." Lucan, Pharsalia, v. 316. 352 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, were arrested by the firm countenance of the little band YT TV J XLIV 1807. on the Rus sian centre. of heroes who formed Napoleon's last resource ; and before they could re-form their ranks for a regular con- flict, the enemy were upon them on either flank, and almost the whole division was cut to pieces on the spot.'" The disorder produced by the repulse of St Hilaire's Grand' division, and the almost total destruction of Augereau's the^vah-y corps, however, was such, that the French Emperor rial Guard was compelled to strain every nerve to repair it. For this purpose he prepared a grand charge by the whole cavalry and Imperial Guard, supported in rear by the divisions of Soult, which occupied Eylau and its vici- nity, now stripped of any other defenders. The onset of this enormous mass, mustering fourteen thousand cavalry and twenty-five thousand foot-soldiers, support- ed by two hundred pieces of cannon, was the more formidable, that the thick storm of snow, as favourable now to them as it had before been to the enemy, prevented them from being perceived till they were close upon the first line of the enemy. The shock was irresistible : the front line of the Russians was forced to give ground, and in some places thrown into disorder; their cavalry crushed by the enormous weight of the seventy squadrons which followed the white plume of Murat ; and a desperate melee ensued, in which prodi- gious losses were sustained on both sides. The Russian battalions, though broken, did not lay down their arms or fly, but, falling back on such as yet stood firm, or * "I never was so much struck with anything in ray life," said General Bertrand at St Helena, " as by the Emperor at Eylau at the moment when, alone with some officers of his staff, he was almost trodden under foot by a column of four or five thousand Russians. The Emperor was on foot, and Berthier gave orders instantly for the horses to be brought forward; the Emperor gave him a reproacbful look, and instead ordered a battalion of his Guard, which was at a little distance, to advance. He himself kept his ground as the Russians approached, repeating frequently the words, ' What boldness ! what boldness !' At the sight of the grenadiers of his Guard the Russians made a dead pause ; the Emperor did not stir, but all around him trembled." — Las Cases, ii. 151. See also Relation de la Bataille d 'Eylau, par un Temoin Oculaire. Camp, en Prusse et Pologne, iv. 45. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 353 uniting in little knots together, still maintained the combat chap. with the most dogged resolution. Instantly perceiving the extent of the clanger, Benningsen, with his whole 1807 - staff, galloped forward from his station in the rear to the front, and at the same time despatched orders to the whole infantry of the reserve to close their ranks, and advance to the support of their comrades engaged. These brave men, inclining inwards, pressed eagerly on, regard- less of the shower of grape and musketry which fell on their advancing ranks, and, uniting with the first line, charged home with loud hurrahs upon the enemy. But the onset of the French was at first irresistible. In the shock, the Russian division of Essen was broken, and Murat's horse, pursuing their advantage, swept through several openings, and got as far as the reserve cavalry of Ben- ningsen. Already the last reserve batteries of the centre were discharging grape with the utmost vehemence on the terrible assailants ; but no sooner did Platoff, who was in the rear of all, see them approaching with loud cries, and all the tumult of victory, than he gave orders to the Cossacks of the Don to advance. Regardless of danger, the children of the desert joyfully galloped forward to the charge, their long lances in rest, their blood-horses at speed : in an instant the French cuirassiers were broken, pierced through, and scattered. Retreat was impossible through the again closed ranks of the enemy, and eighteen only of the whole body regained their own lines by a long circuit ; while five hundred and thirty Cossacks returned, each cased in the shining armour which he had stripped from the dead body of an opponent. 3™^.™- At all other points the enemy were, after a desperate gjjj^jj^ struggle, driven back, and several eagles, with four- £;j 62 j Wil - teen pieces of cannon, remained in the hands of the 104. victors. 1 The battle appeared gained : the French left and centre had been defeated with extraordinary loss ; their last reserves, with the exception of part of the Guard, had YOL. VII. z 354 HISTORY OF EUROP-E. CHAP. XLIV. 1807. 68. Great suc- cess of Da- voust on the French right. 1 Wilson, 104. Dura, xvii. 20, 2.5. Jom. ii. 363, 69. Bagavout is defeated on the Russian left. been engaged, without success ; to the cries of Vive I'Empereur! and the shouts of enthusiasm with which they commenced the combat, had succeeded a sullen silence along the whole line in front of Eylau ; the Russians were several hundred paces in advance of the ground which they occupied in the morning; and a distant cannonade on both sides evinced the exhaustion and fatigue which was mutually felt. Lestocq had not yet arrived, but he was hourly and anxiously expected, and the addition of his fresh and gallant corps would, it was hoped, enable Benningsen to complete the victory. But while all eyes were eagerly turned to their right, where it was expected his standards would first appear, a terrible disaster, wellnigh attended with fatal consequences, took place on the left. Davoust, who was intrusted with the attack which was intended to be the decisive one in that quarter, had long been arrested by the firm countenance of Bagavout and Ostermann Tolstoy ; but at length the increasing numbers and vigorous attacks of the French prevailed. F riant, whose division headed the attack, carried Serpalten, and, pushing on beyond it, the village of Klein-Sausgarten fell into his hands. It was again reconquered by the Russians, but finally remained in the possession of their antagonists. 1 Nor was the action less warmly contested at Serpalten. Supported by a battery of thirty pieces of artillery and part of the reserve, Bagavout returned to the charge, and there for long made head against the superior forces of St Hilaire and Morancl at the head of one of Soult's and one of Davoust's best divisions. At length the two lines advanced to within pistol-shot, when the Russians gave way ; the cannoneers, bravely resisting, were bayoneted at their guns, and the pieces were taken. They were now reinforced by two regiments which Benningsen sent to their support, and the French, in their turn, were charged in flank by cavalry, broken, and driven back upwards of three hundred yards. But notwithstanding this success 1807. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 355 at Serpalten, the progress of the enemy at Klein-Saus- chap. garten was so alarming, that the Russians were unable to maintain themselves on the ground they had so gal- lantly regained. Friant debouched from it in their rear in great strength ; and, rapidly continuing his advance from left to right of the Russian position, he had soon passed, driving everything before him, the whole ground occupied by their left wing ; the guns so fiercely contested were abandoned by the Russians ; and, continuing his trium- phant course in their rear, he carried by assault the hamlet of Auklappen, and was making dispositions for the attack of Kutschittcn, which had been the head- quarters of Benningsen during the preceding night, and lay directly behind the Russian centre. Never was change more sudden ; the victorious centre, turned and attacked both in flank and rear, seemed on the point of being driven off the field of battle ; already the shouts of victory were heard from Davoust's divisions, and vast volumes of black smoke, blown along the whole Russian \™«g centre and right from the James of Serpalten, evinced nun, uxviii. ° r i i 21,-9. Join. in frightful colours the progress of the enemy on their a. 363, 364. left, 1 The firmness of Benningsen, however, was equal to the emergency. Orders were despatched to the whole left Bennin' K sen wing to fall back, so as to come nearly at right angles to Kft to° the centre and right ; and although this retrograde move- *™£ st the ment, performed in presence of a victorious enemy, was At j— " necessarily attended with some disorder, yet it was sue- Plate 44 - cessfully accomplished ; and after sustaining considerable loss, the Russian left wing was drawn up, facing out- wards, nearly at right angles to the centre, which still retained its advanced position, midway between the ground occupied by the two armies where the fight began a mhon ^ in the morning. As the Russian left drew back to the hm, ios. ° ., Jom. n olio, neighbourhood of the centre, it received the support of 364. r>um. the reserves, which Benningsen wheeled about to the 29. assistance of the discomfited wing ; 2 and although Friant restores the battle, 356 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, carried Kutscliitten, this was the last advantage he gained XT TV • 1 in that quarter, and the victorious columns of Davoust 180 '" were at length arrested. The battle was in this critical state, with the French 71. Lestocqat victorious on one wing and the Russians on the centre peaf! on tiie and the other, but without any decisive advantage to ri-ht'Tnd either side, when the corps of Lestocq, so long expected, at length appeared on the extreme Russian right, driving before him the French battalions which were stationed near the village of Altholf. Orders were immediately despatched to him to defile as quickly as possible in the rear of the Russian right, so as to assist in the recapture of Kutscliitten behind their centre, where St-Hilaire had established himself in so threatening a manner. These directions were rapidly and ably performed. Moving swiftly over the open ground in the rear of the Russian right in three columns, he arrived in the neighbourhood of Kutscliitten an hour before it was dark, with seven thousand men, having left two thousand to occupy Altholf, and lost nearly a thousand in the course of the march that morning, which had been a constant fight with Marshal Ney's corps. Dispositions for attacking the village and cutting off the retreat of the enemy were instantly made. A terrible cannonade was kept up on its houses, and the Prussians, under cover of the guns, charging in three columns, carried it with irresistible force, destroying or making prisoners the 51st and one battalion of the 108th regiments stationed there, with an eagle, and recovering the Russian guns which had been abandoned on the retreat from Serpalten. Not content with this great success, Lestocq immediately re-formed his divisions in line, with the cavalry and Cossacks in rear, and advanced against the hamlet of Auklappen and the wood adjoining. The division of Friant, wearied by eight hours' fighting, was little in a condition to withstand these fresh troops, flushed by so important an advantage. The combat, however, was HISTORY OF EUROPE. 357 terrible : Davoust was there ; his troops, though exhausted, chap. were more than double the numbers of the enemy ; and J 1 he made the utmost effort to maintain his ground — m '' " Here/' said the marshal, "is the place where the brave should find a glorious death ; the cowards will perish in the deserts of Siberia." Notwithstanding all his exer- tions, however, Friant was driven out of the wood, after an hour's combat, with the loss of three thousand men ; the Russians, by a bold attack of cavalry, regained the smoking walls of Auklappen, and the whole Allied line was pressing on in proud array, driving the enemy before jjj"^"''- them over the open ground between that ruin and Saus- whson,i05, • -lit ii i i • * 06 - J° m - garten, when night drew her sable mantle over this scene u. 364, 365. of blood. 1 The battle was over on the centre and left, and already the French lines were illuminated by the fire of innu- SchiodTtten merable bivouacks, when both armies were startled by a by C Ney%nd sharp fire, succeeded by loud shouts, on the extreme right Boning-* of the Russians, towards Schloditten. It was occasioned sen - by Marshal Ney's corps, which, following fast on the traces of Lestocq, had at nightfall entered Altholf, driving the Prussian detachments which occupied it before him, and had now carried Schloditten, and even pushed on to Schmoditten, so as to interrupt the Russian communica- tions with Konigsberg. Benningsen immediately ordered the Russian division of Kamenskoi, which had suffered least in the battle, to storm the village, which was executed at ten at night in the most gallant style. . The loud cheers of their victorious troops were heard at Eylau ; and Napoleon, supposing that a general attack was commencing, for which he was little pre- pared, gave orders for his heavy artillery and baggage to defile towards Landsberg, and ordered Davoust to ., ,„., draw back to the position which he had occupied in ioe, 107. , , . -1 • 1 Hum. win. front of the wood when the action commenced 111 the 35,37. Jom. morning, and this terminated the changes of this event- vi. 133, m. ful day. 2 358 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. From the mortification, however, of retiring before an enemy in an open field, Napoleon was relieved 1 f 07- by the measures adopted by the Russian general. At BennVng- eleven at night a council of war was held by the tery^tiie generals on horseback, as to the course which the Ws^ffici, army should pursue. It was strongly represented by resolves to Ostermann Tolstoy, the second in command, and rt treat. J ' ' Generals Knoring and Lestocq, that at last Buona- parte had been defeated in a pitched battle, and that it would be to the last degree impolitic to destroy the moral effect of such an advantage by retreating before him, and thus giving him a fair pretext for representing it as a victory ; that they were ready instantly or next day to follow up their success, and attack the enemy wherever they could find him ; and that, at all events, they would pledge their heads that, if the general-in- chief would only stand firm, Napoleon would be driven to a disastrous retreat. Strong as these considerations were, they were overbalanced, in Benningsen's estima- tion, by still stronger. He knew that his own loss was not less than twenty thousand men, and though he had every reason to believe that the enemy's was still heavier, yet the means of repairing the chasm existed to a greater degree in the hands of Napoleon than his own ; Ney, whose corps had suffered comparatively little, had just joined him ; Bernadotte, it was to be presumed, would instantly be summoned to headquarters ; and these fresh troops might give the enemy the means of cutting him off from Konigsberg, in which case, in the total destitution for provisions which prevailed, the most dreadful cala- mities might be apprehended. Influenced by these con- siderations, Benningsen, who was ignorant of the enor- mous magnitude of the losses which the French had i wiHon, sustained, and who, though a gallant veteran, had lost 108, 109. ' ' & i i -i -I i i • Jom.ii.365, somewhat of the vigour of youth, and had been thirty-six xvin.37,3!). hours on horseback with hardly any nourishment, per- severed in his opinion. 1 He accordingly directed the HISTORY OF EUROPE. 359 order of march, which began, at midnight, by Muhlhausen chap. . XLIV towards Konigsberg, without any molestation from the enemy. They took post at Wottemberg, three leagues 1807 - in front of that town, where the wearied soldiers, after a struggle of unexampled- severity, were at length enabled to taste a few hours of repose. Such was the terrible battle of Eylau, fought in the depth of winter, amidst ice and snow, under circumstances Results of of unexampled horror ; the most bloody and obstinately ^ C^ contested that had yet occurred during the war ; and in ^ e g, oth which, if Napoleon did not sustain a positive defeat, he underwent a disaster which had wellnigh proved his ruin. The loss on both sides was immense, and never in modern times had a field of battle been strewed with such a multitude of slain. On the side of the Russians twenty- five thousand had fallen, of whom above seven thousand were already no more : on that of the French upwards of thirty thousand were killed or wounded, and nearly ten thousand had left their colours, under pretence of attend- ing to the wounded, and did not make their appearance for several days afterwards. The other trophies of vic- tory were nearly equally balanced : the Russians had to boast of the unusual spectacle of twelve eagles taken from their antagonists ; while the French had captured sixteen of the Russian guns, and fourteen standards, x Jom H Hardly any prisoners were made on either side during ^.-. & u ™j the action ; but six thousand of the wounded, most of Jf^on ' them in a hopeless state, were left on the field of battle, in! and fell into the hands of the French. 1 * * The official accounts of this great battle on both sides are so much inter- woven with falsehood as to furnish no clue whatever to the truth. That of Napoleon is distinguished by more than his usual misrepresentation. He states his loss at 1900 killed and 5700 wounded, in all 7600. 2 Judging by his usual 3 58th Bulle- practice, which was to avow a loss about a fourth of its real amount, this woidd imply a loss of 30,000 men. At St Helena he admitted that he lost 18,000 ; 3 ^£* th ' and considering that the Russians acknowledge a loss of above 20,000, that 286. their artillery throughout the day was greatly superior to that of the French, and that they sustained no loss in any quarter comparable to that of Augereau's corps, which was so completely destroyed that its remains were immediately incorporated with the other corps, and itself disappeared 360 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. Never was spectacle so dreadful as that field presented — on the following morning. Above fifty thousand men lay in the space of two leagues, weltering in blood. The Aspect'of wounds were, for the most part, of the severest kind, from battle on the the extraordinary quantity of cannon-balls which had following k een discharged during the action, and the close proximity of the contending masses to the deadly batteries, which spread grape at half musket-shot through their ranks. Though stretched on the cold snow, and exposed to the severity of an Arctic winter, the sufferers were burning with thirst, and piteous cries were heard on all sides for water, or assistance to extricate the wounded men from beneath the heaps of slain, or load of horses by which they were crushed. Six thousand of these noble animals encum- bered the field, or, maddened with pain, were shrieking aloud amidst the stifled groans of the wounded. Broken gun-carriages, dismounted cannon, fragments of blown -up caissons, scattered balls, lay in wild confusion amidst casques, cuirassiers, and burning hamlets, casting a livid light over a field of snow. Subdued by loss of blood, tamed by cold, exhausted by hunger, the foemen lay side by side amidst the general wreck. The Cossack was to be seen beside the Italian ; the gay vine-dresser from the banks of the Garonne lay athwart the stern peasant from the plains of the Ukraine. The extremity of suffering had extinguished alike the fiercest and the most generous passions. According to his usual custom, Napoleon in the afternoon rode over this dreadful field, accompanied by his generals and staff, while the still burning piles of Serpalten and Sausgarten sent volumes of black smoke over the scene of death. But the men exhibited none of entirely from the Grand Army, it may safely be concluded that this estimate is not exaggerated. " Our loss," says the Duchess of Abrantes, " at Eylau was enormous — Why conceal the truth 1 The Emperor avowing the truth at Eylau would have appeared to me moi - e truly great than putting forth an official falsehood which no child could believe, more especially if he was nephew or son of Col. Semele of the 24th regiment of the line, one of the finest in the army, and itself equal almost to a brigade, which was to a man destroyed." — ■ D'AerantEs, ix. 367. Thiers makes the French loss 10,000 men, a number HISTORY OF EUROPE. 361 their wonted enthusiasm ; no cries of Vive VEmpereur ! chap. were heard ; the bloody surface echoed only with the _ 1 cries of suffering or the groans of woe. " The spectacle," said Napoleon in his bulletin, "was fitted to inspire princes with the love of peace, and a horror of war." It is this moment which the genius of Le Gros has selected for the finest and most inspired painting that exists of the ^/ wnl Emperor, in that noble work which, amidst the false ""V 1 ^ taste and artificial sentiment of Parisian society, has ggj^*- revived the severe simplicity and chastened feeling of 39I? ancient art. 1 * For nine days after the battle, the French remained at Eylau, unable to advance, unwilling to retreat, and appa- inactivity , .. . r. . c i-\ , r an< I losses of rently awaiting some pacific overture trom the eneni). the French The only movement of any consequence which was l^ le the attempted was by Murat, with twelve regiments of cui- A[ — rassiers, who approached the Russian position in front of Plate 44. Konigsberg; but he was defeated by the Allied horse, with the loss of four hundred killed and three hundred prisoners. Elated with this, success, the Cossacks became daily more enterprising in their incursions. Night and Feb. 1 day they gave the enemy no rest in their position ; the French foraging parties were cut off; and to such a length was this .partisan warfare carried, and so com- pletely did the superiority of the Cossacks in its conduct appear, that during the ten days the Emperor remained at Eylau, upwards of fifteen hundred of his cavalry were made prisoners, and brought into Konigsberg. Mean- while the relative situation of the two armies was rapidly changing : the Russians, with the great seaport of Konigs- berg in their rear, were amply supplied with every - ridiculously small ; the more especially as he admits that the reports of the different corps engaged presented a total of 13,000 or 14,000 wounded more or less severely. — Thiers, Consulat et V Empire, vii. 394, note. * This admirable painting, the masterpiece of modern French art, is to he seen in the Luxembourg at Paris, standing forth in dark simplicity amidst its meretricious compeers : it is worthy to be placed beside the finest battle-pieces of Le Brun or Tempesta, and in grandeur of thought and effect far excels any British work of art since the days of Reynolds. II. 362 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, thing, and their wounded carefully nursed in the great hospitals of that city; while the French, still starving J8 ° 7, on the snows of Eylau, and unable, from the superiority of the Russian horse, to levy requisitions in the surround- i wiis. lo.o, i n g country, were daily reduced to greater straits from xviii.49,51. want of provisions, and totally destitute of all the accom- modations requisite to withstand the rigour of the season. 1 Meanwhile Napoleon, however, was not idle. The day Napo'ieon after the battle he issued orders for all the troops in his his rein- rear to advance by forced marches to the scene of action. InT™!? 3 ' The cuirassiers of Nansouty, which had not been engaged, poses peace. arr iyed i n consequence two days after. Lefebvre received orders to suspend the blockade of Dantzic, and concen- trate his corps at Osterode, in order to form a reserve to the army, and co-operate with Savary, who had the com- mand of Lannes' corps on the Narew. All the bridges on the Lower Vistula were put in a posture of defence, and Bernadotte was brought up to Eylau. Such, how- ever, had been the havoc in the army, that the Emperor, notwithstanding these great reinforcements, did not ven- ture to renew hostilities, or advance against Konigsberg, the prize of victory, where he would have found the best possible winter-quarters, and the steeples of which were visible from the heights occupied by his army.""" Even the critical position of the Russian army, with its back to the sea and the river Pregel, where defeat would neces- sarily prove ruin, could not induce Napoleon to hazard another encounter ; and finding that the Russians were not disposed to propose an armistice, he determined him- Feb. 15. self to take that step. For this purpose, General Bertram was sent to Benningsen's outposts with proposals of peace * When Napoleon began the battle of Eylau, be never doubted he would be in Konigsberg next day. In his proclamation to his soldiers, before the action commenced, he said, " In two days the enemy will cease to exist, and your fatigues will be compensated by a luxurious and honourable repose." And on the same day Berthier wrote to Josephine — " The Russians have fled to Gum- binnen on the road to Russia; to-morrow Konigsberg will receive the Empe- ror." — Wilson, 113. 1807. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 3G3 to the King of Prussia. The Russian general sent chap. him on to Memel, where the latter was, with a letter strongly advising him not to treat, and representing that die fact of Napoleon proposing an armistice after so doubtful a battle, was the best evidence that it was not for the interest of the Allies to grant it. The terms proposed were very different from those offered after the triumph of Jena; there were no more declara- Feb> 17> tions that the house of Brandenburg must resign half 1 8 g«J ! | /• its dominions, or that he would make the Prussian LuccIh*. nobles so poor that they should be reduced to beg their 154, 155. bread. 1 * Frederick- William, however, was not led to swerve 78 from the path of honour even by this tempting offer. Jgjjuj Widely as the language of the French Emperor differed Prussia, from that which he had formerly employed, and clearly as his present moderation evinced the extent of the losses he had sustained at Eylau, still the existing situation and recent engagements of the Prussian monarch pre- cluded his entering, consistently with national faith, into a separate negotiation. The Emperor of Russia had just given the clearest indication of the heroic firmness with which he was disposed to maintain the contest, by the vigorous campaign which he had commenced in the depth of winter, and the resolution with which he had sustained a sanguinary battle of unexampled severity. The conduct of England, it is true, had been very dif- ferent from what it had hitherto been during the Revolu- tionary war, and hardly any assistance had been received either from its arms or its treasures by the Allies, engaged in a contest of life and death on the shores of the Vistula. * Napoleon's letter to the King of Prussia was in these terms—" I desire to put a period to the misfortunes of your family, and organise as speedily as pos- sible the Prussian monarchy, whose intermediate power is necessary for the tranquillity of Europe. I desire peace with Russia— and, provided the cabinet of St Petersburg has no designs on the Turkish Empire, I see no difficulty in obtaining it. Peace with England is not less essential to all nations; and I shall have no hesitation in sending a minister to Memel to take part in a con- 364 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. But this disgraceful aud parsimonious disposition had _ L recently relented, and some trifling succours had just I8 ° 7, been obtained from the British government, which, although unworthy for England to offer, were yet grate- fully received, as indicating a disposition on the part of its cabinet to take a more active part in the future stages of the struggle.* Under the influence of these feelings BO O and expectations, the Prussian government, notwithstand- ing the almost desperate situation of their affairs, and the occupation of nine -tenths of their territories by the enemy's forces, refused to engage in any separate nego- ].^' gn plri. tiation, — an instance of magnanimous firmness in the H eb d X ix 87 ' ex ^ r emity of danger which is worthy of the highest 8 i! 8, L o" C f" admiration, and which went far to wipe away the stain 291. that their former vacillating conduct towards Napoleon had affixed on the Prussian ministers. 1 Foiled in his endeavours to seduce Prussia into a 79- Napoleon separate accommodation, Napoleon was driven to the goeTinto" painful alternative of a retreat. Orders were given on the 17th for all the corps to fall back, the advanced posts being strengthened, in order to prevent the enemy from becoming aware of what was going forward, or commencing a pursuit. Eylau was evacuated ; six hundred wounded were abandoned to the humanity of the enemy; and the army, retiring by the great road through Lands- berg, spread itself into cantonments on the banks of the Passarge, from Hohenstein, where it takes its rise, to gress of France, Sweden, England, Russia, Prussia, and Turkey. But as such a congress may last many years, which would not suit the present condition of Prussia, your Majesty therefore will, I am persuaded, be of opinion that I have taken the simplest method, and the one which is most likely to secure the prosperity of your subjects. At all events, I entreat your Majesty to believe in my sincere desire to re-establish amicable relations with so friendly a power as Prussia, and that I wish to do the same with Russia and England." — Hard. ix. 396; Schoell, viii. 37-405. * They consisted only of £80,000 in money. A further subsidy of £100,000, and £200,000 worth of arms and ammunition, with the promise of future suc- cours, was furnished by the British government in May following, in return for a solemn renunciation, on the part of the cabinet of Berlin, of all claim to the Electorate of Hanover.— Hard. ix. 397 ; Ann, Rey. 1807, 23 : Pari. Deb. ix. 987. canton ments on the Pas- sarge. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 3G5 Braunsberg, where it falls into the Baltic sea. Berna- chat. dotte was on the left on the Passarge, between Brauns- — 1 berg and Spanden ; Soult in the centre, from Zeildorst to 180/ ' Mohrungcn ; Davonst on the right, between Allenstein and Hohenstein, at the point where the Alle and the Pas- sarge approach most nearly to each other : Ney formed the advanced-guard at Guttstadt between the Passarge and the Alle. Headquarters were established at Oste- rode in the centre of the line, along with the guard and the grenadiers of Oudinot, who had been brought up ; the bulk of the army being thus quartered between that place and Wormditt. Lefebvre received orders to return to Thorn, unite with the Polish and Saxon contingents, . . • * Wilson, and resume the siege of Dantzic, the preparations for H5,ii6. which had been entirely suspended since the general 56"™4. v ' consternation which followed the battle of Eylau. 1 Benningsen hastened to occupy the country which the enemy had evacuated, and on the 25 th February The Rus- his headquarters were advanced to Landsberg. As the vancefand Russian army passed over .the bloody fields of Eylau f^° m{0 and Hoif, still encumbered with dead, and strewed men . ts - Both parties claim with the remains of the desperate contest of which the victory they had recently been the theatre, they felt that they had some reason to claim the advantage in those well-fought fields ; and Benningsen issued a procla- mation to his troops, in which he now openly claimed the victory.'"" Napoleon also addressed his soldiers ; but though it was with his usual confidence, yet it was impos- * Benningsen said — " Soldiers ! As the enemy was manoeuvring to cut us off from our frontiers, I made my army change its position in order to defeat his projects. The French, deceived by that movement, have fallen into the snare laid for them. The roads by which they followed us are strewed with their dead. They have been led on to the field of Eylau, where your incomparable valour has shown of what Russian heroism is capable. In that battle more than thirty thousand French have found their graves. They have been forced to retire at all points, and to abandon to vis their wounded, their standards, and their baggage. Warriors ! you have now reposed from your fatigues ; forward ! let us pursue the enemy, put the finishing-stroke to our glorious deeds, and after having, by fresh victories, given peace to the world, we will ro-enter our beloved country." — Dumas, xviii. G7. 366 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, sible to conceal from the men, or from Europe, that the J L Grand Army had now for the first time retreated, and 1807 ' that the remains of their comrades on the field of battle had to trust to the humanity of an enemy for their sepul- ture.""" In truth, however, not only the battle, but the objects of the winter campaign, had been equally divided. It was not to draw the French army from the Vistula to the Passarge, a distance of above a hundred miles, that Benningsen had concentrated his troops, and resumed offensive operations in the depth of winter ; and it was not to retire from within sight of the steeples of Konigs- berg to the wretched villages on the latter stream, that Napoleon had fought so desperate a battle at Eylau. The one struck for Dantzic, the other for Konigsberg, iDum.xviii. and both were foiled in their respective objects : fifty son, 116. thousand men had perished without giving a decisive advantage to either of the combatants. 1 To this period of the Polish war belong the operations Operations of Essen and Savary on the Narew and the neighbour- againsT" 1 hood of Ostrolenka. Savary had occupied that town with combat of a large part of Lannes' corps, who, as already mentioned, Ostrolenka. wag s - c ], . anc [ ]7 ssen haying received considerable acces- £, tlas ' „ sions of force from the army of Moldavia, which raised rlate 69. J . his disposable numbers to twenty thousand men, received orders, early in February, to attack the French in that quarter. The object was to engage their attention, in order to prevent any reinforcements being drawn from that corps to the main army, then advancing to the deci- sive battle of Eylau. Essen advanced with his corps on each side of the river Narew. That commanded by the Russian general in person on the right bank encountered Savary, who was supported by Suchet with his brilliant * Napoleon's address was as follows : — " Soldiers ! we were beginning to taste the sweets of repose in our winter quarters, when the enemy attacked the first corps on the Lower Vistula : we flew to meet him ; pursued him, sword in hand, for eighty leagues ; he was driven for shelter beneath the cannons of his for- tresses, and beyond the Pregel. In the combats of Bergfried, Deppen, Hoff, and the battle of Eylau, we have taken sixty pieces of cannon, sixteen standards ; killed, wounded, or taken more than 40,000 Russians ; the brave who have HISTORY OF EUROTE. 367 division ; a rude conflict ensued, in which the Russians chap. were finally worsted. Greater success, however, attended their efforts on the left bank : supported by the fire of 1B ° 7 - fifty pieces of artillery, they drove back the French to the walls of Ostrolenka, -and, entering pell-mell with the fugitives, penetrated into the principal square, and were on the point of obtaining decisive success. At this critical moment, Oudinot, who was marching from Warsaw with his division of grenadiers, six thousand strong, to join the Grand Army, arrived with his division of fresh troops, and, uniting with Sachet, who halted in the midst of his pursuit on the right bank to fly to the scene of danger, succeeded, after a bloody encounter in the streets, in driving them into the sand-hills behind the town, where a destructive cannonade was kept up till nightfall. In this affair the Russians lost seven guns JSg >& and fifteen hundred men, and the French as many ; but son, 1*19. , . . ■,. ,. • i r t 1 Jom. ii.3(>7, having succeeded in their object in defending the town, 368. lw and keeping the communication of the Grand Army open 75. 111 ' with Warsaw, the latter with reason claimed the victory. 1 The battle of Eylau excited a prodigious sensation in Europe, and brought Napoleon to the very verge of immense destruction. Had a ministry of more capacity in mili- exdtecTby tary combination been then at the head of affairs in EyituS ° f England, there cannot be the smallest doubt that the Eur °P e - triumphs of 1813 might have been anticipated by seven years, and the calamities of Europe at once arrested. The first accounts of the battle received through the French bulletins rendered it evident that some disaster had been incurred, and the anxious expectation every- where excited by this unsatisfactory communication was increased by the long interval which ensued before the fallen on our side have fallen nobly, like true soldiers. Their families shall receive our protection. Having thus defeated the whole projects of the enemy, we will draw near to the Vistula, and re-enter our winter quarters : whoever ventures to disturb our repose shall repent of it — for beyond the Vistula, as beyond the Danube, in the depth of winter as in the heat of summer, we shall always be the soldiers of the Grand Army." — Dumas, xviii. 63. 368 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. Russian accounts arrived. At length, when, from Ben- XLIV - ningsen's report, it appeared that he claimed the victory, 1807 - and, from the stationary condition of the Russian army in front of Konigsberg, and the ultimate retreat of the French to the banks of the Passarge, that these preten- sions were not devoid of foundation, the public transport rose to the highest pitch. It was confidently expected that, now that Napoleon had for once been decisively foiled, the Austrians would instantly declare themselves, and their sixty thousand men in observation in Bohemia, be converted into a hundred thousand in activity on the Elbe.* To stimulate and support such a combination, the public voice in England loudly demanded the imme- diate despatch of a powerful British force to the mouth of the Elbe ; and, recollecting the universal exasperation which prevailed in the north of Germany at the French in consequence of the enormous requisitions which they had everywhere levied from the inhabitants, whether warlike or neutral, there cannot be a doubt that the appearance of fifty thousand English soldiers would have been attended with decisive effects both upon the conduct of Austria and the future issue of the war. Nothing, however, was done ; the English ministry, under the direction of Lord Howick, notwithstanding the most urgent entreaties from Russia and Prussia, sent no sue- cours in men or money. The decisive period was allowed to pass by without anything being attempted in support of the common cause, and the British nation, in con- sequence, had the Peninsular war to go through to * " I trembled," says Jomini, speaking in the person of Napoleon, " lest 150,000 of those mediators had appeared on the Elbe, which would have plunged rne into the greatest difficulties. I there saw that I had placed myself at the mercy of my enemies. More than once I then regretted having suffered myself to be di-awn on into those remote and inhospitable countries, and having received with so much asperity all who sought to portray its danger. The cabinet of Vienna had then a safer and more honourable opportunity of re-establishing its preponderance than that which it chose in 1813, but it had not resolution enough to profit by it, and my firm countenance proved my salvation."— Jomesi, ii. 369. HISTORY OF EUROTE. 369 regain the vantage-ground which was then within their chap. grasp * It is the most signal proof of the obstinacy with which 18 ° 7 - the British government, under the direction of Lord Unwise Howick, afterwards Earl" Grey, adhered to their ill-timed miiitar^ system of withdrawing altogether from Continental affairs, EJJjJJj/ that they clung to it even after the account of the battle of Eylau had arrived in London, and it was universally seen over Europe that a crisis in Napoleon's fate was at hand. In the end of February 1807, earnest applications were made by the cabinets of St Petersburg and Berlin for the aid of a British auxiliary force to menace the coasts of France and Holland, and land on the shores of Pomerania. The advantage was pointed out of " des- patching, without a moment's delay, on board the swiftest ships of Great Britain, a strong British auxiliary land force to co-operate with the army of Gustavus Adolphus, and thereby compel the French to retreat. They were engaged in the siege of Stralsund, and in laying waste that province ; and if the British force did not arrive in sufficient time to dislodge them, they might steer for some harbour in the Baltic, from whence their junction with the Allied armies could certainly be effected." Lord iL! 295,2k. Howick replied on the 10th March— "The approach of S n j£ g . spring is doubtless the most favourable period of military JgJ?^ operations ; but in the present juncture the Allies must J|06 and not look for any considerable aid from the land force of v&\ Great Britain " l In proportion to the sanguine hopes which this bloody contest excited in Germany and England, was the gloom and depression which it diffused through all ranks in France. The Parisians were engaged in a vortex of * (C Repeated and urgent applications were made in February and March 1807 for an English army, consisting of cavalry, infantry, and artillery, to co-operate with the Swedish forces in Pomerania, but in vain. Some subsidies were granted in April, but no troops sailed from England tdl July, when they consisted only of 8000 men, who were sent to the island of Rugen."-— Ann. Beg. 1807, p. 23 ; Lucchesini, ii. 290, 296. VOL. VII. 2 A 370 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLIV. 1807. 84. Universal consterna- tion at Pari s ceived of Evlau. unusual gaiety ; balls, theatres, and parties succeeded one another in endless succession, when the news of the battle of Eylau fell at once on their festivities like a thunderbolt. They had learned to distrust the bulletins ; they saw clearly that Augereau's divergence had been Ebj^xJf" occasioned by something more than the snow-storm. The funds rapidly fell, and private letters soon circulated, and were eagerly sought after, which gave a true and even exaggerated account of the calamity. Hardly a family in Paris but had to lament the loss of some near relation or intimate friend : the multitude of mourners cast a gloom over the streets ; the general consternation suspended all the amusements of the capital. The most exaggerated reports were spread, and found a ready reception by the excited population. One day it was generally credited that Napoleon had fallen back behind the Vistula; the next that a dreadful engagement had taken place, in which he himself, with half his army, had fallen. So far did the universal consternation proceed, that the mem- bers of the government began to look after their own interests in the approaching shipwreck; and even the imperial family itself was divided into factions, Josephine openly supporting the pretensions of her son, Eugene, to succeed to the throne, and the Princess Caroline employ- ing all the influence of her charms to secure Junot, gover- nor of Paris, whom she held in silken chains, in the interest of her husband Murat. 1 The general gloom was sensibly increased when the message of Napoleon, dated March 26, to the conservative senate, announced that a fresh conscription was to be raised of eighty thousand men, in March 1807, for Sep- 1808. This was the third levy which had been called for since the Prussian war began; the first when the contest commenced, the second during the triumph and exultation which followed the victory of Jena, the third amidst the gloom and despondency which suc- ceeded the carnage of Eylau. No words can do justice to i Sav. iii. 42, 43. D'Abr. ix. 356, 364. 85. Napoleon demands a third con- scription since the beginning of teinber the war. HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 371 the consternation which this third requisition excited chap. amongst all classes, especially those whose children were likely to be reached by the destructive scourge. In vain 1807- the bulletins announced that victories were gained witli hardly any loss. The terrific demand of three different conscriptions, amounting to no less than hvo hundred and forty thousand men, in seven months, too clearly demonstrated the fearful chasms which sickness and the sword of the enemy had made in their ranks. The number of young men who annually attained the age of eighteen in France, which was the period selected for the conscription, was about two hundred thousand. Thus, in half a year, more than a whole annual generation had been required for a service which experience had now proved to be almost certain destruction. So great was the general apprehension, that the government did not venture to promulgate the order until, by emissaries and articles in the public journals, the public mind had been in some degree prepared for the shock. When it was announced, Regnault St Jean d'Angely, the orator intrusted with the task, shed tears ; and even the obsequious senate could not express their acquiescence by any of the accla- mations with which they usually received the imperial mandates. So powerful was the public feeling, so visible and universal the expression of terror in the capital, that it was found necessary to assuage the general grief by a clause, declaring that the new levy was at first to be merely organised as an army of reserve for the defence of the frontier, under veteran generals, members of the conservative senate. These promises, however, proved entirely elusory. The victory of Friedland saved the new l Re ^ conscripts from the slaughter of the Russian bayonets, 1806,107," r & ; ,lffl, Bign. only to reserve them for the Caudine forks, or the murder vi. 239. of the guerillas in the fields of Spain. 1 Meanwhile the prodigious activity of the Emperor was employed, during the cessation of hostilities in Poland, in the most active measures to repair his losses, organise 372 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, the new levies, wring the sinews of war out of the con- - quered provinces, and hasten forward the conscripts as fast 1 !| 07, as they joined their depots on all the roads leading to the immense theatre of war. All the highways converging from France NapoEon to and Italy to the Vistula were covered with troops, artil- w s r . hls lery, ammunition, and stores of all sorts, for the use of the army. Extensive purchases of horses in Holstein, Flanders, and Saxony, provided for the remounting of the cavalry and the artillery-drivers ; while enormous requisitions everywhere in Germany,* furnished the means of subsistence to the unwieldy multitude who were now assembled on the shores of the Vistula. Nay, so far did the provident care of the Emperor go, and so strongly did he feel the imminent danger of his present situation, that, while his proclamations breathed only the language of confidence, and spoke of carrying the French standards across the Niemen, he was in fact making the most exten- sive preparations for a defensive warfare, and anticipating a struggle for life or death on the banks of the Rhine. CO By indefatigable exertions, and forcing up every sabre and bayonet from the rear, he was ere long enabled to calculate on eighty thousand combatants ready for action on every point which might be threatened on the Pas- sarge : but this was all he could rely on out of three hundred and thirty thousand French and their allies, who formed, or were marching to reinforce, the Grand Army. No less than sixty thousand were in hospital, or had become marauders, and had never rejoined their colours since the desperate shock at Eylau. All the fortresses * The requisitions from the city of Hamburg and the Hanse Towns will give an idea of the almost incredible extent to which these exactions were carried by Napoleon at this time ; and of the blind violence with which he pursued the English commerce at the very time that it had become, from his own acts, indispensable for the equipment of his troops. By an imperial decree, in March 1807, Hamburg was ordered to furnish — 200,000 pairs of shoes ; 50,000 great-coats; 16,000 coats; 37,000 waistcoats. M. Bourrienne, the resident at Hamburg, who was chai'gcd with the execu- HISTORY OF EUROPE. 373 on the Rhine and on the Flemish frontier were armed, chap. and put in a posture of defence. The new levy was XLIV ' directed to be placed in five camps, to cover the most 1807, unprotected points of the territory of the empire ; while the whole veterans in the interior were called out and organised into battalions with the coast-guard, to protect the coasts of Flanders and the Channel, and overawe the discontented in Brittany and la Vendee. " It is neces- sary," said he, " that at the sight of the triple barrier of camps which surround our territory, as at the aspect of the triple line of fortresses which cover our frontier, the 1 enemy should be undeceived in their extravagant expec- 238,239.' tations, and see the necessity of returning, from the 1807, 3. eg " impossibility of success, to sentiments of moderation." 1 Neither Napoleon nor his enemies were mistaken in the estimate which they formed of the perilous nature Extreme of the crisis which succeeded the battle of Eylau. No- NajfoWs thing can be more certain than that a second dubious jjjfjJJ^' encounter on the Vistula would have been immediately ture - followed by a disastrous retreat beyond the Rhine. Metternich afterwards said to the ministers of the French Emperor, " We can afford to lose many battles, but a single defeat will destroy your master ;" and such, in truth, was the situation of France during the whole reign of Napoleon. It is the precarious tenure by which power is held by all those who rest for their support upon the prestige of opinion or the fervour of passion, whether democratic or military, which is the secret cause of their ultimate fall. Constant success, fresh victories, an un- tion of this order, bad no alternative but to contract with English houses for these enormous supplies, which all the industry of the north of Germany could not furnish within the prescribed time ; and as the same necessity was felt universally, the result was, that when the Grand Army took the field in June, it was almost all equipped in the cloth of Leeds and Halifax, and that too at a time when the penalty of death was affixed to the importation of English manu- factures of any sort ! A full enumeration of all the contributions levied on Germany during the war of 1807 will be given in a succeeding chapter, drawn from official sources: the magnitude of them almost exceeds belief. — See Bour- rienne, vii. 293, 294. 374 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, broken series of triumphs, are indispensable to the exist- ence of such an authority. It has no middle ground to 18 ° 7, retire to, no durable interests to rouse for its support ; it has perilled all upon a single throw; the alternative is always universal empire or total ruin. This was not the case in a greater degree with Napoleon than any other conqueror in similar circumstances. It obtained equally with Caesar, Alexander, and Tamerlane; it is to be seen in the British empire in India ; it is the invariable atten- dant of power in all ages, founded on the triumphs of passion over the durable and persevering exertions of reason and interest.* It is a constant sense of this truth which is the true key to the character of Napoleon, which explains alike what the world erroneously called his insa- tiable ambition and his obstinate retention of the vantage- ground which he had gained ; which was at once the secret reason of his advance to the Kremlin, and of his otherwise inexplicable stay at Moscow and Dresden. He knew that, throughout his whole career, he could not retain except by constantly advancing, and that the first step in retreat was the commencement of ruin. The Polish winter campaign demonstrates, in the most Ruinous striking manner, the ruinous effects to the common cause, surrender of and in an especial manner to the interests of their own for 3 tfe r sses 1 . an monarchy, which resulted from the disgraceful capitula- tions of the Prussian fortresses in the preceding autumn. When the balance quivered at Eylau, the arrival of Lestocq would have given the Russians a decisive victory, had it not been for the great successes of Davoust on the left, and the tardy appearance of Ney on the right. Whereas, if the governors of the Prussian fortresses on the Elbe and the Oder had done their duty, these two corps would have been engaged far in the rear — Ney around the walls of Magdeburg, Davoust before Stettin, * When Lord Ellenborough gave his consent to the second advance of the British to Cabul, in 1841, under Generals Nott and Pollock, he said in his despatches to these generals, " Recollect, a second disaster like that of the Coord-Cabul Pass will lose us our Indian Empire." HISTORY OF EUROPE. 375 Ciistrin, and Glogau. Saragossa, with no defence but an chap. old wall and the heroism of its inhabitants, held out after J 1 fifty days of open trenches against two French corps ; 1807, Tarragona fell after as many. If the French marshals had, in like manner, been detained two months, or even six weeks, before each of the great fortresses of Prussia, time would have been gained to organise the resources of the eastern provinces of the monarchy, and Russia would have gained a decisive victory at Eylau, or driven Napo- leon to a disastrous retreat from the Vistula — a striking proof of the danger of military men mingling political with warlike considerations, or adopting any other line, when charged with the interests of their country, than the simple course of military duty. Bennin«;sen's assembling of his army in silence behind ° J 89. the dark screen of the Johansberg forest ; the hardi- observa- hood and resolution of his winter march across Poland ; movements and his bold stroke at the left wing of the French army °^ t \^ when reposing in its cantonments, were entitled to the very highest praise, and, if executed with more vigour at the moment of attack, would have led to the most impor- tant results. His subsequent retreat in presence of the Grand Army, without any serious loss, and the desperate stand he made at Eylau, as well as the skill with which the attacks of Napoleon were baffled on that memorable field, deservedly place him in a very high rank among the commanders of that age of glory. Napoleon's advance to Pultusk and Golymin, and subsequently his march from Warsaw towards Konigsberg, in the depth of winter, were distinguished by all his usual skill in com- bination and vigour in execution ; but the results were very different from what had attended the turning of the Austrian and Prussian armies at Ulm and Jena. Columns were here cut off, communications threatened, corps planted in the rear, but no tremendous disasters such as had previously been experienced were sustained; the Russians fronted quickly and fought desperately on 1807. 376 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, every side, and from the hazardous game the assailant suffered nearly as much as the retiring party. A striking proof of what so many other events during the war con- spired to demonstrate, that a certain degree of native resolution will often succeed in foiling the greatest mili- tary genius, and that it was as much to the want of that essential quality in his opponents, as to his own talents, that the previous triumphs of, Napoleon had been owing. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 377 CHAPTER XLV. DOMESTIC AND. FOREIGN MEASURES OF MR FOX'S ADMINIS- TRATION. FEB. 180G — MARCH 1807. If history were composed merely of the narrative of chap. wars and campaigns, it would, how interesting soever to — the lovers of adventure, or important to those intrusted with the national defence, be justly subject to the reproach important . , t .-i-i • i i v civil changes of beino- occupied only with the passions and calamities which on- of mankind. But even in the periods when military £££, *Z'. exploit appears to be most .conspicuous, and battles and sieges seem to occupy exclusively the attention of the historian, great and important civil changes are going forward; and the activity of the human mind, aroused by the perils which prevail, and the forcible collision of interests and passions which is induced, is driven into new channels, and tinned to the investigation of fresh objects of thought. It is the tendency of those periods of tranquillity, when no serious concerns, whether of nations or individuals, are at stake, to induce a state of torpor and inactivity in the national dispositions. Man- kind repose after their struggles and their dangers ; the arts of peace, social interests, the abstract sciences, are cultivated ; the violent passions, the warm enthusiasm, the enduring fortitude of former days, pass into the page of history, and excite the astonishment or provoke the ridicule of their pacific successors. Such a period is, of all others, the most conducive to general happiness ; but 378 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, it is far from being that in which the greatest and most XLY . . '— original eiforts of human thought are made. Selfishness, like a gangrene, then comes to overspread the state, and generosity of feeling, equally with elevation of thought, are lost in the pursuit of private interest. The age of the Antomnes in ancient, the era of the Georges in modern times, were unquestionably those when the greatest sum of general happiness prevailed in the Roman and British empires ; but we shall look in vain in the authors or statesmen of either for the original thought, vigorous expression, or disinterested feeling, which charac- terised the stormy periods of Caesar and Pompey, of Cromwell and Napoleon. The accession of the Whig ministry to the direction Effects of the of affairs was an event eminently calculated to afford full the e wh? g s° scope for the practical application, to the measures of the to power, legislature, of those ideas of social improvement which the agitation and excitement of the preceding fifteen years had caused to take deep root among a large propor- tion of the thinking part of the people. The men who had now succeeded to the helm embraced a considerable part of the aristocracy, much of the talent, and still more of the philanthropy of the state. For a long course of years they had been excluded from power; and during that time they had been led, both by principle and interest, to turn their attention to those projects of social amelioration which the French Revolution had rendered generally prevalent among the democratic classes, and which were in an eminent degree calculated to win the affections of the popular party throughout the kingdom. The period, therefore, when the leaders, by their instal- lation in power, obtained the means of carrying their projected changes into effect, is of importance, not merely as evincing the character and objects of a party justly celebrated in English history both for their talents and achievements, but as illustrating the modification which revolutionary principles receive when adopted by the HISTORY OF EUROPE. 379 highest class of persons, long trained to the habits and chap speculations of a free country. The composition of the army was the first matter which 180G. underwent a thorough discussion, and was subjected to a Their plan ° f i . f. , i for a new- different system, in consequence ot the accession ot tne system f or new administration. Notwithstanding the uniform oppo- ^JSE" sition which the Whigs had offered to the war, and the arm y- censures which they had in general bestowed upon all Mr Pitt's measures for increasing the naval and military establishments of the country, it had now become painfully evident, even to themselves, that the nation was involved in a contest, which might be of very long duration, with a gigantic foe, and that the whole resources of the country might be speedily required to combat for the national existence with the veteran legions of Napoleon on the shores of Britain. The means of recruiting which can exist in a free country are altogether unequal to those which are at the command of a despotic one, whether monarchical or democratic, unless in those rare periods of public excitement.when the intensity of patri- otic feeling supplies the want of powers of compulsion on the part of the executive. Accordingly, throughout the whole war, great difficulty had been experienced by the British government in providing a proper supply of soldiers for the regular army. The only method pursued was voluntary enlistment — the jealousy of a free constitution not permitting a conscription, except for the militia, which could not legally be sent out of the king- dom — and the success of the attempt to extend this system to the raising of troops of the line by balloting for fifty thousand men to compose the army of reserve, in 1803, had not been such as to hold out any induce- ment for a repetition of the attempt. It had not pro- duced thirty -five thousand effective soldiers, though fifty thousand had been the number voted by parliament, and ordered to be raised. Enlistment for life was the system universally pursued — it being thought that in a country 380 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLV. 180C. 4, Great change in the com- position of the army. Arguments in support of it by Mr AYindham. where the pay of the soldier was necessarily, from the expense of the establishment, less than the wages of ordinary workmen, to alloAV a power of retiring after a stated period of service was over might endanger the state, by thinning the ranks of the army at the most critical periods. To this point the attention of former administrations had frequently been directed, and a recent change had been made by Mr Pitt, which had consider- ably increased the annual supply of recruits by enlist- ment. But the neAv ministry introduced at once a total change of system, by the introduction of enlistments for a limited period of service. It Avas argued in parliament by the supporters of this change, and especially by Mr Windham — " The fate of nations at all times, when contending with one another, has been determined chiefly by the composition of their armies. The times are past, if they ever existed, when one country contended against another by the general strength of its population, when the strength of the army was the mere amount of the physical force and courage of the individuals who composed it. Armies are now the champions on either side to which the countries engaged commit their quarrel, and when the champion falls the cause is lost. The notion of a levy en masse or voluntary force, therefore, would seem to be one to which it -would be wholly unsafe to trust. In how many instances has it ever happened that, when the army was defeated, the contest has been restored by the efforts of the people at large 1 The people in mass are like metal in the ore ; and as all the iron that ever came from a Swedish mine would never hew a block or divide a plank till it was wrought and fashioned into the shape of a hatchet or a saw, so the strength of a people can never, perhaps, be made capable of producing much effect in war till it is extracted partially, and moulded into that factitious and highly polished instrument called an army. What are the two events which more than any other two have HISTORY OF EUROPE". 381 decided the present fate of the world % The battles of chap. • XLV Marengo and Austerlitz. Yet what were the numbers !_ there employed, the space occupied, or the lives lost, compared to the states and kingdoms whose fate was then decided 1 Yet such was the fact; millions hung upon thousands; the battles were lost, and Europe submitted to the conqueror. It was not because there did not exist in those countries, then irretrievably worsted, a brave and warlike people, animated by the strongest feelings of devotion to their sovereign, and abhorring the idea of a foreign yoke. All these were there ; twenty- five millions of men burning with patriotic ardour were around the Emperor ; but the regular armies were defeated, and submission was a matter of necessity. " Assuming, then, the importance of regular armies, which no one denies, but every one seems disposed to impracti- forget, the question is, how are they to be obtained 1 forceli'Vm- above all, how are we to insure to this country, what Bcnp 10 unquestionably it has never had, a never-failing and adequate supply of regular soldiers \ The nature of things here yields us but the option of two things — choice or force. In the Continental monarchies recourse is usually had to the latter of these modes ; and undoubt- edly, wherever the power of government is such that it has nothing to do but send its officers forth to seize the peasantry and force them to become soldiers, there can be no process so easy, effectual, and certain. But every one must be conscious that this is a mode of proceeding impracticable, except in extreme emergencies, in this country. Not that the power is wanting in government of ordering such a levy, but that the measures of force we can employ are so abhorrent to public feeling, so restricted and confined by legal forms, that their effect is almost reduced to nothing. Even if it could be enforced, the real character of such a compulsory service is only that of a tax, and of the worst of all taxes — a tax by lot. We hear every day that half measures will no longer suffice, 382 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, that something effectual must be done ; but if from these -1 !_ generalities you descend to particulars, and propose to 1806, renew the act for the army of reserve, the feeling is immediately changed, and all declare they are decidedly against any measure of the sort. It is impossible to say to what the exigencies and necessities of the times may drive us ; but unless a more urgent necessity is generally felt than exists at this moment, measures so oppressive in their immediate effects, so injurious in their ultimate results, should not be resorted to till it is proved by expe- rience that all others have failed. " Voluntary enlistment, therefore, is the only resource inefficiency which remains to us, and yet the experience of thirteen enifetaeX 7 years' warfare has now sufficiently demonstrated that from this source, in the present state and habits of our population, it is in vain to expect a sufficient supply of soldiers. If, however, you cannot change the habits or occupations of your people, what remains to be done but to increase the inducements to enter the army 1 Without this, our means of recruiting must be little better than deception and artifice. We are in the state of men selling wares inferior in value to the price they ask for them ; and, accordingly, none but the ignorant and thoughtless will ever be tempted to become buyers. To such a height has this arisen, that of late years our only resource has been recruiting boys. Men grown up, even with all the grossness, ignorance, and improvidence inci- dent to the lower orders, are too wary to accept our offers ; we must add to the thoughtlessness arising from situation the weakness and improvidence of youth. The practice of giving bounties is decisive proof of this ; whatever is bestowed in that way shows that the service does not stand upon its true footing. Men require no temptation to engage in a profession which has sufficient inducements of its own. Never can the system of supplying the army be considered as resting upon its proper basis till the necessity of bounties shall have HISTORY OF EUROPE. 383 ceased, and the calling of a soldier shall be brought to chap. XLV the level with other trades and professions, for entering into which no man receives a premium, but where, on the 180C ' contrary, a premium is frequently paid for permission to enter. " The great change by which this might, at first sight, appear likely to be effected, is by raising the pay. But Means' by independently of the financial embarrassments which any proposed to considerable alteration in that respect would produce, "J^. there is an invincible objection to such a change in the Cleut - licentious habits, inconsistent with military discipline, which an undue command of money would generate among the soldiers. Provisions in sickness and old age ; pensions for the wounded ; honorary distinctions suited to the rank, situation, and condition of the party, are much safer recommendations ; but, above all, a change in the period of enlistment from life to a limited time, is the great alteration to which we must look for elevating the attractions of the army. This is the system of service in all the states of Europe except our own, and it is the condition of entering that lar^e and efficient part of our own forces, now a hundred thousand strong, which is composed of the regular militia. That this system will have the effect of inducing men to enter, is so clear, so certain, so totally. incontrovertible, that it is unnecessary to urge it. There is no man who would not prefer having an option to having none. Our immense armies in India are all raised, and that too without the slightest difficulty, for limited service. A system of rewards for the regular and faithful soldier should also be established ; and that severity of discipline which is at present so much an object of terror to all persons of regular habits, should be materially softened. Not that it will, in all probability, ever be possible to dispense entirely with corporal punishment in the army ; for there are some turbulent spirits who can only be repressed by the fear of it. But the discipline may be rendered infinitely less 384 HISTORY OP EUROPE. chap, rigorous. By this means a better description of men will be induced to enter the army ; and the better men mti ' you get, the less necessity there will be for severe punish- ment. By these changes, also, the temptation to desertion will be greatly diminished, the great and alarming fre- quency of which, of late years, has been mainly owing to high bounties and bad regulations ; and in legislating for this matter, it is material to invest courts-martial with a discretionary power to modify the penalty of desertion most materially, or take it away altogether, if it has been committed only in a moment of intoxication, or from the influence of bad example, or the soldier has made amends by returning to his colours. " It is a mistake to argue that the benefits I have Advantages proposed to introduce, being for the most part prospec- perfodsof tive, and to be reaped only at the end of seven or four- a" seeing a teen years, will not influence the inconsiderate description trfsoidfera. 8 °f men wno f° rm * ue g rea t bulk of our common soldiers. That may be true as it relates to the description of men who, under the combined influence of bounties and intoxi- cation on the one hand, and service for life and floggiDg on the other, almost exclusively enter our service. But the great benefit which may fairly be expected to result from a measure of the sort now proposed is, that it will introduce a new and better description of persons into the army, not altogether so thoughtless or inconsiderate, but who are attracted by the advantages which the mili- tary service holds out. Such considerations may fre- quently, indeed, have little weight with the young man himself, but will they prove equally unavailing with his relations, arrived at a more advanced period of life, and familiar, from experience, with the difficulty of getting on in every profession 1 What attracts young men of family into the East India Company's service, notwith- standing all the disadvantages of a lifetime spent in exile, and a climate so deadly that not one in ten sur- vives it 1 Not present advantages ; for the pay, for the HISTORY OF EUROPE. 385 first ten years, barely equals the young man's expenses, chap. It is ultimate benefits : the spectacle of nabobs frequently — — — returning with fortunes ; the certainty that all who sur- vive will become entitled, after a specified period of service, to pensions, considerable with reference to the rank of life to which they belong. Such considerations may not be so decisive with the lower orders as they are with the higher ; but there is no rank to whom the sight of the actual enjoyment of the advantages of a particular profession will not speedily prove an attraction. " To effect these objects, I propose that the term of g military service should be divided into three periods — viz. Proposed J c ,1 • n . limitation ol seven, fourteen, and twenty-one years lor the intantry, that period, but ten, sixteen, and twenty-five for the artillery and cavalry, in consideration of the additional time requisite to render men efficient in those branches of service. At the end of each of these periods, the soldier is to have right to his discharge. If discharged at the close of the first, he is to have right to exercise his trade or calling in any town of the kingdom ; at the end of the second, besides that advantage, to be* entitled to a pension for life ; at the end of the third, to the full allowance of Chelsea, which should be raised to 9d., and in some cases to Is. a-day. If wounded or disabled in the service, to receive the same pension as if he had served out his full time. Desertion to be punished, in the first instance, by the loss of so many years' service ; in very aggravated cases only, by corporal infliction. Great exaggeration appears to have prevailed as to the benefits to be derived from the volunteer system. It is impossible, in the nature of things, that such a force can be brought to such a state of efficiency as to be able to cope with regular forces. Essential service may be derived from such a force, but not in the line to which they have at present been directed. With a view to bring them back to their proper sphere, as they were originally constituted in 1798, it would be advisable to reduce their allowances and relax their dis- VOL. VII. 2 B 386 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, cipline. Those corps only which are in a rank of life to equip themselves, and are willing to serve without pay, 1806, should be retained ; the remainder of the population should be loosely trained, under regular officers, to act as irregular troops. It is not by vainly imitating the dress, air, and movements of regular troops, that a volunteer force can ever be brought to render effectual service. These are my fixed ideas ; but as I find a volunteer force already existing, it would not be politic at once to reduce it. All I propose, in the mean time, is to reduce the period of drilling from eighty-five days to twenty-six, and make other reductions which will save the nation £857,000 a-year ; all future volunteers to receive their pay only, and the trained bands to receive a shilling a-day for i pari. Deb. fourteen days a-year, but not to be dressed as soldiers, Aun. Reg. ' nor drilled and exercised as such. Rank should be 50. ' 4 " taken from the volunteer officers ; their holding it is a monstrous injustice to the regular army/' * To these arguments it was answered by Lord Reply o'f the Castlereagh and Mr Canning — "At no period of our iste^orTthe" history has the science, uniformity, and discipline of the Bubject. British troops been comparable to what it is at this mo- ment ; and for these immense benefits the profession at large are aware we are more indebted to the improvements of the present commander-in-chief, (the Duke of York,) than to any other individual in existence. Under his able administration, the army is considerably superior in num- ber to what it ever was at any former period."" The recruiting, as it now exists, is steadily producing sixteen thousand soldiers a-year ; and when the act for its future regulation is generally enforced, which is not yet the case, this number may be expected to be greatly increased. Is this a crisis to break up a system producing, and likely to produce, such results \ The average tear and wear of * Regulars and Militia, 1st January 1802, . 242,440 1st January 1804, . 234,005 1st March 1806, . 267,554 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 387 the army is about fifteen thousand a-year ; so that the chap. present system is not only adequate to the maintenance of its numbers, but likely to lead to its increase. The 180b - proposed alteration on the term of service in the army is one of the most momentous that parliament can be called on to discuss ; and for this above all other reasons, that the change, once introduced, is irreparable. Be it good or be it bad in its results, it cannot be departed from ; for when the soldiers have once tasted the sweets of limited, they will never submit to the restraints of unlimited, service. Surely, on so vital a subject, and where a false step once taken is irretrievable, it is expe- dient to proceed with caution, and make the experiment on a small scale, before we organise all our defenders on the new system. "The system of enlisting for a limited period is no novelty ; its application on a great and universal scale The limited J ■»-. i i ' t ^ 1 enlistment alone is so. For the three last years our endeavours nave already par- been directed, while a superior encouragement was held 5jwJt£L out to persons entering for general service, to obtain at the same time the utmost possible number of men for limited service in the army — both in the army of reserve, and latterly under the Additional Force Act. If, then, we have failed in obtaining an adequate supply of men even under a limited scale, both in time and space, how can we expect to obtain that advantage by taking away one of these limitations % If, indeed, we could not, under the present system, obtain an adequate force liable to be detached abroad, there might be a necessity for some change in our system ; but when we have one hundred and sixty-five thousand men liable to be sent abroad, and the only check upon so employing them is the necessity of not weakening ourselves too much at home, why should we preclude ourselves from raising, by the present method, such a description of force as experience has proved, in this country at least, is most easily obtained'? The expiry of the soldier's term of service must, independent 388 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, of any casualties, produce a large chasm in the army ; XLV ' and what security have we, that if the whole or the greater 1806, part of the army is raised in that way, a great, it may be a fatal, breach may not at some future period occur in our ranks at the very time when their services are most re- quired 1 What the inconvenience of the soldiers being entitled to their discharge at the end of each period during a war is likely to prove upon experience, may be judged of by recollecting how embarrassing this system some years back was found to be in the militia, notwithstand- ing the great comparative facility of replacing men when serving at home — an embarrassment so great, that it led as a matter of necessity to the extension of the term of service in that branch of our military system. What reason is there to suppose that the soldiers in the regular army will not be as prone as their brethren in the militia to take advantage of the option of a discharge when their title to demand it arrives ? And if so, and this heavy periodical drain be added to the existing casualties of the troops, what chance have we of keeping up a force which even now wants twenty-five thousand men to complete its ranks 1 " It is in vain to refer to foreign states as affording 12. . . . . r . . The circum- precedents in point ; their situation is totally different GreatBri- from ours. In Russia unlimited service prevails, and the Har, p a e nd" same was the case in Austria during the best days of the ^reSnt monarchy. In 1797 a similar regulation to the one under in those of discussion was passed prospectively for the future, to take any foreign ..„ . state. effect at the expiration of a certain number of years, but it has not yet, I believe, been acted upon ; and if it has, the disasters of Hohenlinden and Ulm afford but little reason to recommend its adoption. Napoleon's soldiers are all raised by the conscription for unlimited service ; and although, in the old French monarchy, troops in sufficient numbers were certainly obtained by voluntary enlistment for limited periods, yet the period of service was more extended than that now proposed; and the circum- HISTORY OP EUROPE. 389 stances of that country, abounding in men, with few chap. colonies to protect, and still fewer manufactories to draw -1 — !_ off its superfluous hands, and a strong military spirit in all 1806, classes, can afford no precedent for this country, where employment from the prevalence of manufactures is so much more frequent — whose population is by nearly a half less — which is burdened with a vast colonial empire, all parts of which require defence — and where the natural bent of the people is rather to the sea than the land service. Nor is the reference to our East India posses- sions more fortunate ; for the enlistment for a limited period prevailed in the Company's European regiments for a number of years, yet the battalions raised in this way were always weak in numbers and inefficient, and were all reduced on that very account during Lord Corn- wallis's first government of India. All the prepossessions of Mr Pitt were in favour of limited service — his opinions on this subject were repeatedly stated to the house. The opinions of a great variety of military men were taken on the subject ; but these opinions were so much divided, that he arrived at the conclusion that the inconveniences and risks with which the change would be attended more than counterbalanced its probable advantages. " The proposed changes on the volunteer force appear lg to be still more objectionable. Admitting that it is Ax f^^ desirable to reduce the great expense of that part of our reduction of establishment ; allowing that, now that the corps have teerw" attained a considerable degree of efficiency, it may be advisable to diminish considerably the number of days in which they are to serve at the public expense, is that any reason for substituting a tumultuary array, without the dress, discipline, or habits of soldiers, for a body of men qualified not only to act together, but capable, if drafted into the militia or the line, of at once acting with regular soldiers % Will the volunteer corps exist for any length of time under so marked a system of discouragement as it is proposed to impose upon them, without pay, without 390 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, rank, without public favour ? And is this the moment, when the whole military force of the Continent, with the 1806. J Pari. Deb. 14. exception of Russia, is in the hands of our enemies, to incur the hazard of substituting, for a voluntary disciplined, a motley array of undisciplined forces, and run the risk of exciting the disaffection of the powerful bands who, at vi! 652, 706! the call of their sovereign, have so nobly come forward for the public defence 1 1 " At the commencement of the present war we raised And in eighty thousand men for the militia, and fifty thousand raising the for the regular army, by the operation of the ballot. That force'rc- 8, system has its evils ; but when it is indispensable in a SaUot. by given time to raise a large force for the public service, there is no alternative. In recognising this right, how- ever, which flows necessarily from the acknowledged title of the sovereign power to call for the assistance, in times of public danger, of all its subjects, parliament has been careful to fence it round with all the safeguards which the exercise of a prerogative so liable to abuse will admit of. It is determined by lot ; the person drawn has the option to provide a substitute ; and this is the footing upon which the militia stands. A still further limitation exists where the call is made, not upon the individual, but the district ; and the district is allowed the option, instead of providing the man, to pay a fine ; and this is the principle on which the Additional Force Bill, at pre- sent in operation, which we are now called on to repeal, is founded. But the ballot for the militia is, by the pro- posed change, to cease on the termination of the war ; it then ceases to be a militia, and becomes a part of the regular force raised by the crown. The act proposed to be repealed is producing at the rate of eighteen thousand recruits a-year, besides the men raised by ballot for the militia. Proposing, as the ministers now do, to abandon at once both these resources, are they prepared to show that the new measures will supply this great deficiency ? Would it not be expedient first to try the experiment on HISTORY OF EUROPE. 391 a small scale, to be assured of its success, before we com- chap. mit the fortunes of the state to the result of the experi- XLV> ment % It is au old military maxim, not to manoeuvre in 1806# presence of an enemy ; but the measures now in agitation do a great deal worse, for they not only change the com- position of your force, but shake the loyalty and sub- mission of the soldiers, in presence of the most formidable vi. 967, m military power Europe has ever witnessed." 1 The bill met with a most strenuous opposition, although the early divisions which took place upon it evinced a The bui preponderance in favour of ministers ; '" but it at length passes ' passed both houses by a decided majority, the number in the peers being ninety -seven to forty — giving a major- ity to ministers of fifty-seven. The clauses regarding the volunteer force, however, were abandoned or modified in the ultimate stages of the discussion, the effect of the bill as to them being limited to a proper restriction of the period of permanent duty. But the great principle of enlisting for a limited service was by its passing intro- duced into the British army, and has never since been totally abandoned ; and, considering the great achieve- ments which it subsequently wrought, and the vast con- sumption of life which the new system adequately , supplied, its introduction is to be regarded as a memor- 1806,62; able era in the history of the war. 2 If called upon to decide in favour of one or other of the able arguments urged on the opposite sides of this Reflections important question, it might perhaps be no easy matter to °ure. emea " say on which the weight of authority and reason prepon- derated. But experience, the great resolver of political difficulties, has now settled the matter, and proved that Mr Windham rightly appreciated the principles of human nature on this subject, and was warranted in his belief that, without any increase of pay, limited service, with * The division which decided the principle of the bill took place on March 14,1806, when the numbers were — Ayes, 2-35; Noes, 119: Majority, 116. — Ann. Reg. 1806, p. 54. 392 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, additional encouragements in the way of retiring allow- XLV " ances and privileges, would provide a force perfectly 1806, adequate even to the most extensive military operations of Great Britain. From the official returns, it appears that the rate of recruiting rose in a rapid and striking manner after the system of limited service was adopted, and, before the expiration of a year from the time it was first put in force, had largely increased the annual supply of soldiers for the army.* Though variously modified, the same system prevailed during the remainder of the war, at least to a certain extent, with perfect success in every branch of the service ; and to its influence, com- bined with the improved regulations for discipline, pay, and retiring allowances, great part of the glories of the Peninsular campaigns is to be ascribed. On examining the confident opinions expressed by many eminent and respectable military men on the impossibility of providing an adequate supply of force for the English army by such a method, it is difficult to avoid the inference, that implicit reliance is not always to be placed on the views of practical men in legislative improvements ; that their tenacity to existing institutions is often as great as the proneness of theoretical innovators to perilous change. Little credit is to be given to the most eminent profes- sional persons when they claim for the people of a par- ticular country an exemption from the ordinary principles of human nature ; and true political wisdom is to be * OLD SYSTEM. RECRUITS. January 1 to July 1, 1805, ..... 10,923 July 1, 1805, to January 1, 1806, .... 9,042 January 1 to July 1, 1806, ..... 10,783 July 1, 1806, to January 1, 1807, .... 6,276 (New system in operation on January 1, 1807.) NEW SYSTEM. RECRUITS. January 1 to July 1, 1807, . . ... . 11,412 July 1, 1807, to January 1, 1808, .... 7,734 Rate of recruiting from January 1 to April 1, 1808, . 21,000 Ditto from April 1 to July 1, 1808, . . . 24,000 — Ann. Reg. 1806, 40, 41. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 393 gathered, not by discarding the lessons of experience, but chap. by extending the basis on which they are founded, and L_ drawing conclusions rather from a general deduction of 1800 ' the history of mankind, than from the limited views, how- ever respectably supported, of particular individuals. To these observations on Mr Windham's military sys- tem, however, one exception must be made in regard to Error of the that part of his plan which related to the volunteers, piaasofor There can be no doubt that in this particular he did not ^"Sun- display the same knowledge of human nature which was teers - elsewhere conspicuous in his designs. Admitting that the volunteers were very far indeed from being equal to the regular forces — that their cost was exceedingly bur- densome, and that they could not be relied on as more than auxiliaries to the army — still in that capacity they were most valuable, and were not only qualified to ren- der some service by themselves, but of incalculable impor- tance as forming a reserve to replenish the ranks of the regular forces. The campaigns of 1812 and 1813 in Rus- sia and Germany demonstrate of what vast service such a force, progressively incorporated with the battalions of the regular army, comes to be in real warfare, when the ranks of the latter are thinned, and how rapidly they acquire the discipline and efficiency of veteran troops. In this view the tumultuary array of Mr Windham, without the clothing, discipline, or organisation of sol- diers, could have been of little or no utility. Nor is it of less moment that the volunteer system, by interesting vast multitudes in the occupations, feelings, and honour of soldiers, powerfully contributes to nourish and expand that military ardour in all ranks which is indispensable to great martial achievements. Veteran troops, indeed, may smile when they behold novices in the military art imitating the dress, manners, and habits of soldiers ; but the experienced commander, versed in the regulating principles of human exertion, will not deem such aids to patriotic ardour of little importance, and will willingly 394 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, fan the harmless vanity which makes the young aspirant imagine that his corps has in a few weeks acquired the 1806 ' efficiency of regular forces. Imitation even of the uni form, air, and habit of soldiers, is a powerful principle in transferring the military ardour to the breasts of civilians. Philopcemen judged wisely when he recommended his officers to be sedulously elegant in their habiliments, arms, and appointments. He was well acquainted with human nature who said, that to women and soldiers dress is a matter of no ordinary importance. Many nations have been saved from slavery by the passion for what an inexperienced observer would call mere foppery. In later times, the system of temporary service has Temporary been in a great degree superseded in the British army, hTTgreaT and nearly all recruits are now enlisted for life. And dofed e . aban " in weighing the comparative merit of these two opposite systems, it will probably be found that the plan of enlisting men for limited periods is the most advisable in nations in whom the military spirit runs high, or the advantages of the military service are such as to secure at all times an ample supply of young men for the army, and where it is of importance to train as large a portion as possible of the population to the skilful use of arms, in order to form a reserve for the regular force in periods of danger ; and that enlistment for life is more appli- cable to those nations or situations where no national danger is apprehended, and it is the object of government rather to secure a permanent body of disciplined men, subject to no cause of decrease but the ordinary casualties of the service, in the ordinary pacific duties, than spread far and wide through the nation the passion for glory or the use of arms. A provident administration will always have a system established, capable either of contraction or expansion, which embraces both methods of raising soldiers ; and this, for nearly thirty years, has been the case with the British army. Important as the matter thus submitted to parliament HISTORY OF EUROPE. 395 in its ultimate consequences undoubtedly was, when it is chap. recollected what a great and glorious part the British — — 1_ arniy bore in the close of the struggle, it yet yielded in ] ^ 6 - magnitude to the next great subject which the new min- Abolition of isters brought forward for consideration. This was the trade?" Abolition of the Slave Trade — a measure which, in its remote effects, seems destined to affect the fortunes of half the human race. This great change was not finally completed till the following session of parliament ; but the preparatory steps were taken in this, and it belongs properly to the present period of English history, which treats of the measures of the Whig administration. It was urged by Mr Hibbert and the advocates of the 9Q West India interest, both in and out of parliament, " The Arguments British West India islands were settled, and have ever Sgl by been cultivated, under the solemn faith of those charters i n ai a inter- and proclamations, and those acts of parliament, which est> have confirmed these plantations in the most perfect assurance that they should continue to receive supplies of negroes from Africa. The agriculture of these colonies cannot be carried on except by means of slave labour ; and the cultivation of their interior, which is indispensable to their security, cannot be promoted if the slave trade be abolished. If this bill shall pass into a law, the very worst effects may be anticipated from the change, not only to the colonies themselves, but to the general interests of the empire. The commerce which the West Indies maintain is the most important of the whole British dominions. It pays annually in duties to the public treasury upwards of £3,000,000 ; employs more than sixteen thousand seamen ; contributes one-third to the whole exports, and one-third to the imports ; takes off £6,000,000 a-year worth of domestic manufactures ; and is pre-eminently distin- guished above all others by this important feature, that it is all within ourselves, and not liable, like other foreign trade, to be turned to our disadvantage on a rupture with the power with whom it is conducted. This measure, 1806. 396 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, however, if carried into effect, must in a few years diminish the property vested in the British West India islands, and open the means of rapidly advancing the progress of rival colonies, to whom the advantages of a full supply of negroes will still remain open. It must forbid the supply of losses to the negro population, which originate in accident or diseases peculiar to the climate, and which the most humane and provident management is unable altogether to prevent ; stop the completion of establish- ments already begun ; and altogether prevent the exten- sion of cultivation into the interior of the islands, without which they can never either attain a state of security, or reach the degree of wealth and splendour of which they are susceptible. " The most disastrous effects, both to individuals and Alleged evil the public, may be anticipated from the ultimate conse- aboiitionof quences of the measure under consideration. Not to mention the confusion and ruin which it must occasion to families ; the capital now sunk in cultivation which it must destroy ; the calamities attendant on revolt and insurrec- tion which it will in all probability occasion ; the emigra- tion it will induce in all who have the means of extricating themselves or their capital from so precarious a situation ; the despair and apathy which it will spread through those who have not means of escape ; what incalculable evils must it produce among the black population ! The abolition of the slave trade is a question which it is at all times perilous to agitate, from the intimate connexion which it has in the minds of the negroes with the abolition of slavery itself, and the necessary effect which it must have in perpetuating the discussion of that subject in the mother country, to the total destruction of all security in the planters, or repose in the minds of the slave popu- lation. From the moment that this bill passes, every white man in the West Indies is sleeping on the edge of a volcano, which may at any moment explode and shiver him to atoms. Throwing out of view altogether all HISTORY OF EUROPE. 397 considerations of interest, and viewing this merely as a chap. question of humanity, it is impossible to contemplate XLV " without the utmost alarm the perils with which it is 1806 - fraught. The existence of a Black power in the neigh- bourhood of the most important island of the British West Indies, affords a memorable and dreadful lesson, recorded in characters of blood, of the issue of doctrines intimately, constantly, and inseparably connected with the abolition of the slave trade. It is impossible to contem- plate that volcano without the deepest alarm, nor forget that its horrors were produced by well-meant but ill- judged philanthropy, similar to that which is the prime vi, 831. mover in the present question. 1 " It is a total mistake to suppose that the evils, enor- mous and deplorable as they are, of Central Africa arise The slave from the slave trade. Those evils are the consequence of e d ^fto'be the cruel habits and barbarous manners of its inhabitants ; SedTgra'de'd they existed for thousands of years before the slave trade Jg? of was heard of, and will continue for thousands of years after it is extinct. Civilise the interior of that vast con- tinent — humanise the manners of its inhabitants — abolish the savage practice of selling or putting to death captives made in war, and you indeed make a mighty step towards extirpating the evils which we all lament. But as long as these savage customs prevail ; as long as the torrid zone is inhabited by a thousand tribes engaged in contests with each other, and with all of whom slavery to prisoners made in war is the only alternative for death, it is hope- less to expect that the stoppage even of the whole vent which the purchase of negroes by Europeans affords, would sensibly affect the general prevalence of the slave traffic. What are the fifty thousand whom they annually transport across the Atlantic, to the innumerable multi- tudes who are driven across the Sahara desert, or descend to Egypt for the vast markets of the Mussulman world % But to suppose that the partial stoppage of it in the British dominions, that the prohibition to transport the 398 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, fifteen thousand negroes who are annually brought to our XLV ' shores, could have a beneficial effect, is ridiculous. So far 1806. f rom producing such a result, its tendency will be diame- trically the reverse : it will drive the slave trade from the superior to the inferior channel : from the great merchants of Liverpool, who have done so much — for their own interest, perhaps, but still done so much — to diminish its horrors, to the Spaniards and Portuguese, who are as yet totally unskilled in its management, and treat the captives with the utmost barbarity. As our own colonies decline from the stoppage of this supply of labourers, those of the other nations who have not fettered themselves in the same way will augment ; the cultivation of sugar for the European market will ultimately pass into other hands, and we shall in the end find that we have cut off the right arm of our commerce and naval strength only to augment vi. 979,993! the extent and increase the horrors of the slave trade throughout the world." 1 On the other hand, it was argued by Mr Wilberforce, Arguments Lord Howick, and Lord Grenville — " A higher principle bLforcTand than considerations of mere expedience — the dictates of thetboH- 1 justice — require that this infamous traffic should be tion - abolished. Were it merely a question of humanity, we might consider how far we should carry our interference ; were the interests of the British empire alone involved, it might possibly be a matter of expedience to stop a little short of total abolition. But in this instance, imperious justice requires us to abolish the slave trade. Is it to be endured that robbery is to be permitted on account of its profits % Justice is still the same ; and you are called upon in this measure, not only to do justice to the oppressed and injured natives of Africa, but to your own planters ; to interfere between them and their otherwise certain destruction ; and, despite their fears, despite their passions, despite their prejudices, rescue them from im- pending ruin. This trade is the most criminal that any country can be engaged in. When it is recollected what HISTORY OF EUROPE. 399 guilt lias been incurred in tearing the Africans, by thou- chap. sands and tens of thousands, from their families, their XLV " friends, their social ties, their country, and dooming them 180G - to a life of slavery and misery ; when it is considered also that the continuance of this atrocious traffic must inevit- ably terminate in the ruin of the planters engaged in it, surely no doubt can remain that its instant abolition is called for by every motive of justice and expedience. " Much is said of the impossibility of maintaining the supply of negroes in the West Indies, if the slave trade Their" a'..- is abolished. Are we, then, to believe that the Divine IStatf precept, ' Increase and multiply/ does not extend to those 5^*3; islands 1 that the fires of youth, adequate to the main- trade t0 * ' * maintain tenance and growth of the human species in all other the ^pp^ . , r i it i i °f negroes. countries and ages ot the world, are there alone, in the midst of plenty, unequal to their destined end \ But the fact is adverse to this monstrous supposition ; and it is now distinctly proved that the slave colonies are perfectly adequate to maintain their own numbers."'" The excess of deaths above births in Jamaica is now only l-25th per cent ; and when it is recollected that the registers of mor- tality include the deaths among the negroes who are newly arrived and set to work, which always amounts, between those who perish in the harbours and shortly after being set to work, to at least 10 per cent, it is evident that the numbers of settled Africans are more than maintained by their own increase. Nor is the argu- ment that the importation of negroes is requisite to culti- vate the waste lands in the interior of the islands better founded. If the numbers of the Africans increase, it is altogether incredible that their labours should not be adequate to clear the wastes of those diminutive islands. * Excess of deaths above ) - aaa . - ,.„_ „, , births in Jamaica from J 1698 to J ' 30 ' 3 * P cr cent - 1730 to 1755, 24 percent. 1755 to 1769, 1 3 per cent. 1769 to 1780, 3-5th per cent. 1780 to 1800, 1 -25th per cent. —Pari. Deb. viii. 658. XLV 1800". of the race should the trade be abolished. 400 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. According to the most moderate computation, it would require the slave trade to be continued for two centuries to cultivate the whole interior of Jamaica and Trinidad ; and can it be endured that so frightful a traffic as this, fraught as it must be with the tearing of above two mil- lions of Africans from their families and country, should be continued for such a period, for an object which, in one-fourth of the time, might, by the native increase of their numbers in those islands, be attained ? * " Let us, then, instantly abolish this infamous traffic ; Alleged and we may then with confidence look forward to the proveme'nT period when the slaves, become in a great degree the natives of the islands, will feel the benefits of the protec- tion afforded them : and they may gradually be prepared for that character, when the blessings of freedom may be securely extended to them. Throughout all history we shall find that slavery has been eradicated by means of the captives being first transformed into predial labourers, attached to the soil, and from that gradually ascending to real freedom. We look forward to the period when the negroes of the West India islands, become labourers rather than slaves, will feel an interest in the welfare and prosperity of the country which has extended to them these benefits, and when they may be securely called on to share largely in the defence of those islands, in which at present they are only a source of weakness. The grand, the decisive advantage which recommends the abolition of the slave trade is, that by closing that supply of foreign negroes to which the planters have hitherto been accus- tomed to trust for all their undertakings, we shall compel them to promote the multiplication of the slaves on their * It is now completely demonstrated, by an experiment on the greatest scale, that the African race, even when in a state of slavery, is not only able to main- tain its own numbers, but rapidly to increase them. In the slave states of America there are 2,200,000 negroes ; and from 1790 to 1S30, the whites have augmented in the proportion of 80 to a hundred ; but the blacks in that of 112 to 100. The proportion since that time has been rather, though but little, in favour of the increase of the white race. — Tocqtjeville's Democracy in A merica, iL 345, 346, note; and Census 1841, America. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 401 own estates; and it is obvious that this cannot be done chap. without improving their physical and moral condition. 1_ Thus, not only will the inhuman traffic itself be prevented, 18Ql in so far at least as the inhabitants of this country are concerned, but a provision will be made for the progres- sive amelioration of the black population in the West Indies, and that, too, on the securest of all foundations — the interests and selfish desires of the masters in whose hands they are placed. " It is in vain to argue, that, according to the barbarous 26 customs of Africa, captives made in war are put to death, J ts d «™££ and that if the outlet of the slave trade is closed, the JnAfrica. reproach to humanity arising from the sale of captives will be prevented from taking place. The most recent and intelligent travellers, on the contrary, have informed us, what every consideration on the subject a priori would lead us to expect, that the existence of the slave trade is itself, and ever has been, the great bar to the civilisation of the interior of Africa, by the temptation held out to the chiefs on the coast to engage in the traffic of negroes, and the continual encouragement thus afforded to the princes in the interior to carry on constant wars, from the vast profit with which the sale of their captives is attended. It forms, in fact, with a great many of these robber chieftains, a chief branch of revenue. If we would promote, therefore, the great and truly Christian work of civilising Central Africa, we must first commence with abolishing the slave trade ; for as long as it continues, the selfishness and rapacity of the native chiefs will never cease to chain its unhappy inhabitants to a life of violence and rapacity in the powerful, of misery and degradation in the poor. The argument that, if we do not carry on the slave trade, some other nations will, possibly with less commiseration for the sufferings of the captives, if admitted, would shake to their foundation every principle of public and private morality. At that rate every band of robbers might plead in their justification, that if they VOL. VII. 2 C 402 HISTOKY OF EUROPE. chap, did not knock down and plunder travellers, other banditti . * might do the same, and possibly superadd murder to their 1806, other atrocities, and therefore the lucrative rapine should not be discontinued. This argument, however, bad as it is, has not even the merit of being founded on fact. If we abolish the slave trade, who is to take it up 1 The Americans have already preceded us in the race of humanity, and fixed a period in 1808 when the traffic is immediately to cease ; and a bill is at present in progress through their legislature, to affix the penalty of death to a violation of this enactment. How are France and Spain to carry it on, when they have hardly a ship on the ocean % Sweden never engaged in it. There remains only Portugal, and where is she to get capital to carry it on? " The dangers, so powerfully drawn, as likely to result Abolition from this measure, are really to be apprehended, not from promote the it, but from another, with which it has no connexion, viz., fbrogation the immediate emancipation of the negroes. This, it is Hseif ve ' y sa ^' fl° ws necessarily from the step now about to be taken ; if you do not follow it up in this manner, you stop short half-way in your own principles ; in fact, the ulterior measure, if the first be adopted, cannot be averted. It is to be hoped, indeed, that this great step will, in the end, lead to the abolition of slavery in all our colonies ; but not in the way or with the dangers which are anticipated. On the contrary, it is here that another of the great benefits of the measure under consideration is to be found. By the effects of this measure it is to be hoped slavery will gradually tuear out without the intervention of any positive law, in like manner as it did in a certain degree in the states of Greece and Rome, and some parts of the states of modern Europe, where slaves have been permitted to work out and purchase their own freedom ; and as has been permitted with the happiest effects in the colonies of Spain and Portugal. In America, measures for the gradual emancipation of the negroes have been adopted, and nothing could conduce more powerfully to insubordina- HISTORY OF EUEOPE. 403 tion, than if, by the continuance of the trade, similar steps chap. were not to be induced in the West India islands, and the _I _ slaves there were perpetually tantalised by the sight of 1806, the superior comforts of their brethren on the mainland. Thedangers apprehended would indeed be real, 'if immediate emancipation were to be proposed, for that would produce horrors similar to those which have happened in St Domingo. But nothing of that kind is in contemplation ; on the contrary, it is expressly to exclude them, and to induce that gradual emancipation which is called for, x ■* alike by justice to the planters and the interests of the «k. 65-2, slaves themselves, that the measure under discussion is 955' proposed." 1 The latter arguments, enforced with much eloquence, and supported by the great principles of Christian Theaboii- charity, prevailed with the legislature. By a series of carried. enactments, passed in the course of the session of 1806, the slave trade was restrained within very narrow limits; and at length, in the succeeding session, it was entirely abolished, and the penalty of transportation affixed to Feb. 23, every British subject engaged in it. The numbers were, in the Commons, 283 to 16 — majority, 267; in the Peers, 100 to 36 — majority, 64: and thus was the stain of trafficking in human flesh for ever removed from the British name. 2 Lord Grenville concluded his speech "Pari. Deb. with these eloquent words: "I cannot conceive any 995*. ' consciousness more truly gratifying than must be enjoyed by that eminent person, (Mr Wilber force,) on finding a measure to which he has devoted the labour of his life carried into effect — a measure so truly benevolent, so admirably conducive to the virtuous prosperity of his country and the welfare of mankind — a measure which will diffuse happiness among millions now in existence, mi i 1 -lv 3 Pari. Deb. and for which his memory will be blessed by millions via. 664. yet unborn." 3 There can be no question that this great step was recommended by every consideration of justice and 404 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, humanity ; nevertheless its effects hitherto have been in XLV " the highest degree deplorable. Never was there a more 1806. striking example than this subject has afforded in its Deplorable later stages of the important truth, that mere purity of thechange intention is not sufficient in legislative measures, and fhenSo' 1 that unless human designs are carried into execution race - with the requisite degree of foresight and wisdom, they often become the sources of the most heart-rending and irremediable calamities. The prophecy of Mr Hibbert and the opponents of the abolition, that the slave trade, instead of ceasing, would only change hands, and at length fall into the management of desperate wretches who would double its horrors, has been too fatally veri- fied, and to an extent even greater than they anticipated. From the returns laid before parliament, it appears that the slave trade is now four times as extensive as it was in 1789. when European philanthropy first interfered in St Domingo in favour of the African race, and twice as great as it was when the efforts of Mr Wilberforce pro- cured its abolition in the British dominions. Great and deplorable as were the sufferings of the captives in cross- ing the Atlantic, in the large and capacious Liverpool slave ships, they are as nothing compared to those which have since been, and are still, endured by the negroes in the hands of the Spanisli and Portuguese traders, where several hundred wretches are stowed between decks in a space not three feet high; and in addition to the anguish inseparable from a state of captivity, they are made to endure, for weeks together, horrors like those of the Black-hole of Calcutta. Nearly two hundred thousand captives, chained together in this frightful manner, now annually cross the Atlantic; and they are brought, not to the comparatively easy life of the British West India islands, but to the desperate servitude of Cuba or Brazil ; i Walsh's in the latter of which several hundred negroes are 474,485.' worked like animals, in droves together, without a single female among them ; 1 and, without any attempt to perpe- HISTORY OF EUROFE. 405 tuate their race, they are worn down by their cruel task- chap. masters to the grave by a lingering process, which on an 1806. average terminates their existence in seven years I* This lamentable and heart-rending result of such per- 3Q> severing and enlightened benevolence, however, must not Bat&7£» lead us to doubt the soundness or humanity of the prin- ■Mj»««* t ciples which Mr Wilberforce so eloquently advocated, subsequent or to imagine that the general rules of morality are «* inapplicable to this question, and that here alone in human affairs it is lawful to do evil that good may come of it. The observation, that it was our duty to clear our hands of the iniquity, leaving it to Providence to eradicate the evil in others at the appointed time, was decisive of the justice of the measure; the evident neces- sity which it imposed on the planters of attending, for their own sakes, to the comforts of the negroes, and providing means for the multiplication of their numbers, was conclusive as to its expedience. It is not the abolition of the slave trade, but the subsequent continuance of * The number of slaves annually imported into the slave countries of the New World from Africa in 1789, was somewhat under 50,000, of whom about 15,000 M crossed in English vessels — now the number is at least 200,000. It appears tent and from the Consular Returns to parliament, that in 1829, 74,653 slaves were M embarked for Brazil alone from the African coast, of whom 4579 died in the trade _ short passage of one month ; and in the first half of 1830 the numbers were no less than 47,258, of whom 8 per cent died on the passage. At the same period 13,000 were annually imported into the Havannah, and at least an equal num- ber into the other slave colonies, making in the year 1830 about 130,000.* But J*"*^ these numbers, great as they are, have now received a vast increase from the g9] 138 . effects of the British slave emancipation act, passed in 1833. In fifteen months, ending January 1835, there sailed from the single port of Havannah 1-0 slave ships, each capable of containing, on an average, at least 400 persons; the importation of slaves into Cuba is now above 55,000 a-year, while the numbers imported into Brazil, from the stimulus given to slave labour by the anticipated decline of produce in the British islands consequent on that measure, have increased in nearly the same proportion. Nor is it surprising that, in spite of all the efforts of the British government, and all the vigilance of the British cruisers, this infernal traffic should now advance at this accelerated pace ; for such is the demand for slaves, occasioned by the continual decline in the culti- vation of sugar in the British West India islands, under the combined influence of heavy taxation and the emancipation act, that the profit on a single cargo ot slaves imported into the Havannah is 180 per cent, and the adventurers cannot be considered as losers if one vessel arrives safe out of three despatched from the coast of Africa.— Pari. Pap. 1830, A. 115, 110. 406 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, ruinous fiscal exactions, and at last the irretrievable step XLV ' of unqualified emancipation, which have given this cleplor- 1806 ' able activity to the foreign slave trade. The increase in the foreign slave colonies for the last twenty years, at a time when the British West India islands were com- paratively stationary, has been so rapid, that it is evident some powerful and lasting causes have been at work to occasion it.* These causes are to be found, in a great measure, in the heavy duties on British colonial produce, amounting at first to 30s., then to 27s., and latterly to 24s., on each hundredweight of sugar, from which the foreign growers were exempted in the supply of foreign markets. This enormous burden, which, on an average of prices since 1820, has been very nearly seventy -five per cent on that species of produce, has, notwithstanding all their efforts, for the most part, if not entirely, fallen on the producers. f The disastrous effects of these combined * Twelve years ago, the only exports of Puerto-Rico were cattle and coffee, Immense in- and the only sugar she received was from importation. In 1833 she exported crease of pro- 33 750 tons — more than a sixth of the whole British consumption. The export UUCG 111 tllG slave colonies of the sugar from Cuba was, on an average of 1814, 1815, and 1816, 51,000 of late years. tons . i n J833 it had risen to 120,000 tons. In 1814, 1815, and 1816, the aver- ts lysta- a S e exports of sugar from Brazil were 26,250 tons; in 1833, though a bad year, tionary con- the exports were 70,970 tons. The increase, since the Emancipation Act passed, British has been still greater ; but no official accounts of these years have yet been islands. made public. — See Pari. Report " On the Commercial State of the West Indies," p. 286. On the other hand, the produce of the British West India islands, during the same period, has been comparatively stationary. The colonial produce exported from those islands to Great Britain in the year 1812, was 154,200 tons of sugar, and 6,290,000 gallons of rum; in 1830, 185,000; and in 1833, 205,000 tons of sugar, and 7,892,000 gallons of rum : the shipping in the first period was 180,000 ; in the last, 263,330 tons. The total value of the produce of the islands in the first period was £18,516,000; in the last, including all the colonies gained by the peace of Paris in 1814, only £22,496,000. — Pebeer, 399 ; Colqchoux, 378-381; Porter's Pari. Tables, 124-126. •f* There is no opinion more erroneous than that commonly entertained, that Enormous the import duties on sugar, like other taxes on consumption, fall on the pur- tice to* which chaser. There is always, indeed, a struggle between the producer and eon- they have sumer, as to who should bear the burden— but it is not always in the power of posiTd" ^ ie f° vmer to throw it on the latter. In this instance the attempt has almost totally failed. It appears from the curious table of prices compiled by Mr Colquhoun, that even during the high prices of the years from 1807 to 1812, the West India proprietors paid from a third to a half of the duties on sugar, without being able to lay it on the consumers ; the average of what they paid for those years being £1,115,251 per annum. The estimated revenue of these HISTORY OF EUROPE. 407 measures cannot be better stated than in the words of chap. Lord Sidmouth: " Much good might have been done by _— regulations on the coast of Africa, in the middle passage, and in the West Indies. But now we have rashly taken the bull by the horns, and while the consequences have been most injurious to our colonies and ourselves, they have in the same degree been beneficial to the maritime strength, commerce, and navigation of other nations, our rivals in peace and enemies in war; and the mass of human wretchedness, so far as the slave trade itself is , PelWs concerned, is not only not diminished, but augmented, in ijfcrf^ its amount, and frightfully aggravated in its degree and -430. character." 1 " Inani sapiens nomen ferat, sequus uniqui, Ultra quam satis est, virtutem qui petat ipsam." Nor is this all— the precipitate and irretrievable step of emancipation, forced on the legislature by benevolent proprietors, during these years, was under £4,000,000; so that atthat period they paid nearly thirty per cent on their incomes to government. In addition to t is it was proved by the documents laid before the committee of the House of Comn oTsixi F bruary 1831, that an annual burden of £1,023,299 was laid on the SI West India islands, in consequence of the enhancement of the price of ne s™4les to which they were exposed under the restrictive system In th s wa " even under the high prices from 1807 to 1812 they -ere paying ^ least fifty per cent on their incomes in taxation ; and as the price, since that tune of the!r produce, has fallen at least t.o-tJnrds, with a redv ict ion of only Trinth (3s) on the import duty, it may be safely concluded, that since 1820 thW st India proprietors have paid, directly and indirectly, at least seventy- Z pe cent on their income to government ; and in the years when prices were low a least a hundred per cent! Nothing more is required to explain the dra- ^condition of these colonies, even before the emancipation bdl was passed :ihS at once, without any equivalent, confiscated at U£ «* ^cent t their remaining property. The value of slaves was estimated by Lolquhoun in 1819 ,£55 a liead : but in 1833, when the act passed, it had risen to at least 2E\££* rnoTwith S tandi,g the change in the value of -ney^and *e compensation-money (£20,000,000 on 634,000 slaves) wi not fte^ ^a 1 deduc tions are made yield £25 a-head, or more than thirty-three pel cent to tne proprSor" F^w Lh instances of the destruction of property by fiscal and EtfS2£e enactments are to be found in the history ?£%*%*£ pSrek, 394 and 397; Colquhoun, 59, 325; and Commons Reports on West India Affairs, 7th February 1831. -ninnies since It is frequently said that the increase in the produce of these colonics since the neace is a proof that their alleged distresses are either unfounded or exag derated This is a complete mistake; the planters had no other way to meet fhe etrmous fiscal burdens laid upon them, since a — ^° £ * production was out of the question, after the abolition of the slave trade, but o> 408 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLV. 180S. 31. Ruinous effects of emancipa- tion of but incautious and mistaken feeling, has already occa- sioned so great a decline in the produce of the British West Indies, and excited such general expectations of a still greater and increasing deficiency, that the impulse thereby given to the foreign slave trade to fill up the gap has been unbounded, and, it is to be feared, almost irremediable."" Since the disastrous measure of emanci- pation, the agricultural produce of the British West Indies has declined fully a half; in some branches of produce, fallen to a third of its former amount ; and such is the indolence of the black population, and their general disinclination to steady and combined industry, that cultivation is in general carried on in these islands at a loss; and the time is, it is to be feared, not far distant, making the iitmost exertions to augment its quantity ; and thence the increase of colonial produce, which, by perpetuating the lowness of price, rendered it totally impossible for them to lay the enormous import duty, now one hundred per cent, on the consumers. Like a man sunk in a bottomless bog, all the efforts they could make for their extrication, tended only to land them deeper and more irretrievably in the mire. * The following table shows the decline of colonial produce exported from Kapid decline Jamaica under the first year of the emancipation act : — of West In- dia produce since eman- cipation. Sugar. Rum. Coffee. Years. Cwts. Hogsheads. 1834 1,525,154 79,465 1835 1,319,023 68,087 Puncheons. Gallons. 30,676 3,189,949 27,038 2,660,687 Casks. lbs. 22,384 17,8.59,277 13,495 10,489,292 Decrease, 206,131 11,378 3,638 529,262 8,889 7,369,985 Taking an average of these various sorts of produce, it is evident that, not- withstanding an uncommonly fine season, and the vigorous exertions of the stipendiary magistrates, the produce of the island fell off in one year nearly a fourth of its total amount ! The parliament of Jamaica, in their address to the governor of the island on August 10, 1835, observed — " There never was a finer season or more promising appearance of canes; but, nevertheless, the crop is greatly deficient, and many British ships have in consequence returned with half cargoes, some with none at all. Our decided opinion is, that each succeeding crop will progressively become worse. In a few cases the apprentices do work for wages ; but the opposite disposition so immeasurably preponderates, that no dependence whatever can be placed on voluntary labour. Knowing, as we do, the prevailing reluctance of the negroes to work of any kind, the thefts, negligences, and outrages of every sort which are becoming of frequent occurrence ; seeing large portions of our neglected cane-fields overrun with weeds, and a still larger extent of our pasture -lands returning to a state of nature ; seeing, in fact, desolation already overspreading the very face of the land, it is impossible for us, without abandoning the evidence of our senses, to HISTORY OF EUROPE. 409 when it will be totally abandoned, and these noble colonies be consigned to total ruin. It is in these measures that the real cause of the lamentable increase in the foreign slave trade is to be found ; it is the multitude who forced on these measures, who have frustrated all the benevolent efforts of Mr Wilberforce and Mr Fox, and rendered the abolition of the slave trade in the British dominions the remote and innocent cause of boundless misfortunes to the negro race. The British slaves, since the slave trade was abolished, had become fully equal to the wants of the colonies ; their numbers, without any extraneous addition, were on the increase ; their condition was comfortable and prosperous beyond that of any peasantry in Europe ; and large numbers were annually purchasing their freedom from the CHAP. XLV. 1806. 32. Which are to be ascrib- ed to the emancipa- tion of the negroes, not to the aboli- tion of the slave trade. entertain favourable anticipations, or divest ourselves of the painful convic- tion, that the progressive and rapid deterioration of property will continue to keep pace with the apprenticeship, and that the termination thereof must, unless strong preventive measures are applied, complete the ruin of the colony." Making every allowance for the passions and exaggerations of a tropical climate, the statement here made is too strongly borne out by the decrease in the official returns, and the example of the result of corresponding measures in St Domingo, to leave a doubt that they are, in the main at least, founded in truth. The following table exhibits the official returns of the exports of the West India islands for the last fifteen years : — ■ Years. Sugar. Molasses. Rum. Coffee. Cocoa. Pimento. Shipping. Ships. Cwts. Cwts. Gallons. lbs. lbs. lbs. Tons. 1827 3,551,218 392,441 5,620,174 29,419,598 549,688 2,225,943 243,731 872 1828 4,313,63'i 508,095 6,307,294 29,987,078 454,909 2,247,893 272,800 1,013 1829 4,152,614 390,626 6,634,759 26,911.785 684,917 3,585,694 263,328 958 1830 3,912,628 249,420 6,752.799 27,460,421 711,913 3,489,318 253,872 911 1831 4,103,800 323,306 7,844,157 20,030,802 1,491,947 4,801,3. r )5 249,079 904 1832 3,773,456 558,664 4,713,809 | 24,678,920 618,215 1,366,183 229,117 828 1833 3,646,204 686,793 5,109,975 1 19,008,575 2,134,809 4,470,255 248,378 911 1834* 3,343,976 650,366 5,112,399 22,081.489 1,360,325 1,389,402 246,695 918 1835 3,524,209 507,495 5,458,317 14,855,470 439,467 2,536,358 235,179 878 1836 1 3,601,791 526,535 4,868,168 18,903,426 1,612,304 3,320,978 237,922 900 1837 ' 3,306,775 575,657 4,418.319 15,577,888 1,847,145 2,02,1,129 226,468 855 1838t 3, 521), 676 638,007 4,641,210 17,538,655 2,149,637 892,974 235,195 878 1839 2,824,372 474,307 4,021 ,820 11,485,675 959,641 1,071,570 196,715 748 1840 ! 2,214,764 421,141 3,780,979 12,797,039 2,374,301 999,068 181,731 697 1841 2,151,217 430,221 2,770,161 1 9,927,689 2,920,298 797,758 174,975 677 • Emancipation Act. t Termination of Apprenticeship. — Porters Progress of the Nation, hi. 424, 425. Nor has the effect of this most disastrous measure been less detrimental on the exports of Great Britain to the West Indies. These, as a matter of course, have declined with the falling off in the produce of the West Indies, and tie 410 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLV. 1806. produce of their own industry. Here, then, was a station- ary negro population, rapidly approaching the condition of the most opulent feudal serfs of Europe, and from which they might, in like manner, have been emancipated singly, as they acquired property, which all had the means of earning, without either risk to themselves, injury to their masters, or increase to the demand for foreign slave labour. But now all these admirable effects of the abolition of the slave trade have been completely frus- trated, and the humane but deluded inhabitants of Great Britain are burdened with twenty millions, to ruin, in the end, their own planters, consign to barbarism their own negroes, cut off a principal branch of their naval strength, and double the slave trade in extent," and quadruple it in horrors, throughout the world. A more striking in- stance never was exhibited of the necessity of attending, in political changes, not only to benevolent intentions, but diminished ability of its inhabitants to pay for the produce of this country, as the following table demonstrates : — BRITISH EXPORTS TO WEST INDIES IN 1829, . £3,612,085 1837, £3,456,745 1830, 2,838,448 1838, 3,393,441 1831, 2,581,959 1839, 3,986,598 1832, 2,439,808 1840, 3,574,970 1833, 2,597,589 1841, 2,504,004 1834, 2,680,024 1842, 2,591,425 1835, 3,187,540 1843, 2,497,671 1836, 3,786,453 1844, 2,451,471 — Porters Pari. Tables, xii. 102. Such has been the effect upon the prices of all sorts of colonial produce, of this great decline in the production of the British West India islands, that the annual consumption of sugar in Great Britain has declined since 1832 from 24 lbs. a-head to 16 lbs. ; while, for this diminished quantity of 16 lbs., the price paid by the nation has been £8,000,000 annually more than it formerly was for the larger quantity of 24 lbs., — that is, the nation pays annually ticice the amount nearly of the income-tax more than it formerly did for two-thirds only of the former supply ! At the same time, the effect of the measure, on the admission of its warmest advocates, has been to double the slave trade over the globe, and increase its horrors in a still greater proportion ! The history of mankind fortunately affords few similar examples of the disastrous effects of ignorant zeal and misguided philanthropy.— See Pari. Deb. June 9, 1843. See Customs Return, Kingston, Jamaica, 22d August 1835 ; and Address of Assembly, August 10, 1835. * The number of slaves now annually carried across the Atlantic, is double what it was when Wilberforce and Clarkson commenced their philanthropic labours." — Fowell Buxton on the Foreign Slave Trade, p. 72. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 411 to prudent conduct ; and of the fatal effect of those institu- chap. tions which, by giving the inhabitants of a particular part of the empire an undue share in the general administra- 18 ° 7 - tion, or admitting the torrent of public feeling to sway directly the measures of government, too often destroy prosperity the most extensive, and occasion calamities the most unbounded." An important change in the British system of finance was also made by the same administration, which, although not brought forward till the spring of 1807, may be fitly considered now, in order not to interrupt the narrative of the important military events which at that period occurred on the continent of Europe. The foundation of this plan, which was brought forward by Lord Henry Petty, t on the 29th January 1807, was, Lord Henry that the time had now arrived when it had become expe- oHinance."* 11 client to make a provision for a permanent state of war- Ma ren \ and fare; that the bad success of all former coalitions had 1BU7 - demonstrated the slender foundation on which any hopes of overthrowing the military power of France on the continent of Europe must rest, while the hostile disposi- tion and immense power of Napoleon gave little hope that any durable accommodation could be entered into with him. " All nations," said his lordship, " that still preserve the shadow even of their independence, have their * The British ministry who, in 1834, passed the measures of slave emanci- pation, are noways answerable for these consequences ; on the contrary, they deserve the highest credit for the courage they displayed, in opposition to the wishes of many of their supporters, in carrying through the great grant of twenty millions to the planters — a relief so seasonable and extensive, that hitherto, at least, it has almost entirely, to the persons who received it, prevented the natural consequences of the emancipation from being fully felt. The torrent of public feeling was irresistible ; all they could do was to moderate its effects, which, by the protracted period of apprenticeship, and the grant to the slave- owners, was done to a very great degree. The English people must answer for the measure, be its ultimate effects on themselves and the negro race good or bad. The reflection suggested is : — What is the character of national institutions which permit a measure, likely to be attended with such cruel and disastrous consequences, to be forced against their will on a reluctaut govern- ment 1 f Afterwards Lord Lansdowne, a distinguished member of the Whig cabinet of 1830. 1807. 412 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, eyes fixed on us as the only means of regaining the freedom they have lost. It becomes the government of Great Britain, seeing the proud eminence on which they are placed, to take an enlarged view of their whole situa- tion, and to direct their attention to that future which, notwithstanding the signal deliverance they have hitherto obtained, seems still pregnant with evil. Our present permanent revenue is above £32,000,000 a-year, being more than three times what it was at the close of the American war; and there can be no doubt that means might be found in additional taxes to pay the interest of loans for several years to come. But looking, as it is now our duty to do, to a protracted contest, it has become indispensable to combine present measures with such a regard for the future, as may give us a reasonable pros- pect of being enabled to maintain it for a very long period. " In considering our resources, the two great objects of Argument attention are the sinking-fund and the system of raising it. Advan- the supplies as much as possible within the year, which SkL° g - the has given rise to the present amount of war taxes. The fun(L first of these is a durable monument of Mr Pitt's wisdom : it had the support of his illustrious political opponent, Mr Fox ; and, however widely these two great men were divided on most other subjects, it at least received that weight of authority which arises from their entire coinci- dence of approbation. When this system was commenced in 1786, the sinking-fund was only l-238th part of the debt; whereas it is now l-63d of the whole debt, and 1-4 2d of the unredeemed portion : a result at once striking and satisfactory, more especially when it is recol- lected that it has been obtained in twenty years, whereof fourteen have been years of war. The war taxes, which have been raised to their present amount chiefly by the operation of the heavy direct taxes, were, first, the treble assessed taxes introduced by Mr Pitt, and more lately the property tax, which has been substituted in its room. The 1807 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 413 experience of the last year has amply demonstrated the chap. expedience of the augmentation of that impost to ten per cent, which it was our painful duty to propose last year; for under its operation the war taxes have now reached £21,000,000 a-year, and the sinking-fund amounts to £8,300,000 annually. " In the present state of the country, our war expenses cannot be calculated at less than thirty-two millions Proposed annually. To provide for this, independent of additional ^Tredcm^- war taxes, which are now so heavy that we are not JUSi^ 8 warranted in calculating on any considerable addition to loans - their amount as likely to prove permanently productive, is the problem we have now to solve. To effect this, it is proposed in this and the three following years to raise a loan of £12,000,000; for the fourth year, or 1810, £14,000,000; and for the .ten succeeding years, if the war should last so long, £16,000,000 annually. In each successive year in which these loans shall be raised, it is proposed to appropriate so much of the war taxes as will amount to ten per cent on the sum so raised. Out of this ten per cent the interest and charges of management are first to be defrayed, and the remainder is to constitute a sinking-fund to provide for the redemption of the capital. When the funds are at 60, or interest at three per cent, such a system will extinguish each loan in fourteen years after it was contracted. The moment this is done, the war taxes unpledged for the redemption of that loan should be repealed. Thus, as the loan of £12,000,000 will, on this supposition, be paid off by 1821, the £1,200,000 a-year of war taxes now pledged to its redemption, will in that year be remitted. Upon examin- ing this system, it will be found that it may be carried on for seven years, viz., from 1807 to 1814, without impledg- ing any part of the income-tax ; so that, if peace is then concluded, the whole income-tax may, without violating any part of the present system, be at once remitted — a most desirable object, as that is a burden which nothing 414 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, but the last necessity should induce us to perpetuate beyond the continuance of hostilities. 1807. u ^ however, the ten per cent on the loan annually And for pro- contracted is in this manner to be taken from the war charges on taxes, means must be provided to supply that deficiency, which, if the war continues for a long tract of years, will, from the progressive growth of those burdens on the war taxes, become very considerable. To provide for this deficiency, it is proposed to raise in each year a small supplementary loan, intended to meet the sum abstracted for the charges of the principal loan from the public treasury ; and this supplementary loan is to be borrowed on Mr Pitt's principle of providing by fresh taxes, laid on in the indirect form, or by the falling in of annuities, for the interest of the debt, and one per cent more to create a fund for its redemption. The loan so required this year will, from the excess of the war taxes above the war expenditure, be only £200,000; the annual charges of which on this principle will be only £13,333 : and as annuities to the amount of £15,000 will fall in this year, it will not be necessary, either for the principal or supple- mentary loan, to lay on any new taxes at present. Tak- ing an average so as to diffuse the burden created by these supplementary loans as equally as possible over future years, and setting off against them the sums which will be gained annually by the falling in of annuities, the result is, that it will only be necessary to raise, in the seven years immediately subsequent to 1810, £293,000 annually by new taxes; a sum incredibly small, when it is recollected that we are now in the fifth year of a renewed war, the most costly and momentous in which the country ever was engaged. " Under the present system, with regard to the public Advantages debt framed upon the acts of 1786, 1792, and 1802, no posed S ys°- relief whatever will be experienced from the public bur- dens till a very distant period, probably from 1834 to 1844 ; and during the later years of the operation of the HISTORY OF EUROPE. 415 sinking-fund, it will throw such immense sums, not less chap. ■i v I y than forty millions annually, loose upon the country, as cannot fail to produce a most prejudicial effect upon the 18(J7 " money market, while the sudden remission of taxes to the amount of £30,000,000 a-year, would produce effects upon artisans, manufacturers, and holders of property of every description, which it is impossible to contemplate without the most serious alarm. In every point of view, therefore, it seems to be highly desirable to render the sinking-fund more equal in its progress, by increasing its present power, and diffusing over a greater number of years those extensive effects, which would, according to the present system, be confined to the very last year of its operation. The arrangements prepared with this view are founded on the superior advantage of applying to the redemption of debt a sinking-fund of five per cent on the actual money capital, instead of one per cent on the nominal capital or amount of stock. This is to be the system applied to the loans of the first ten years ; and in return for this advantage, it is proposed that when the present sinking-fund shall have so far increased as to exceed in its amount the interest of the debt then unre- deemed, such surplus shall be at the disposal of parlia- ment. By this means a larger sum will be annually applied to the sinking-fund from henceforward than could have been obtained under the old system; the whole loans contracted in future during the war will be redeemed within forty-five years from the date of their creation; and this without violating any of the provisions of the act 1 792, establishing the present sinking-fund. Parlia- ment, during the years of its final and greatest operation, will be enabled to administer a very great relief to the public necessities, and obviate all the clangers with which * Pari. Deb. an undue rapidity in the defrayment of the debt would 594'. otherwise be attended." 1 * * The speech of Lord Henry Petty on this occasion is well worthy of the attention of all who wish to make themselves masters of the subject of tho Perceval. 416 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. In opposition to these able arguments, it was urged by '— Lord Castlereagh, Mr Canning, and Mr Perceval — " This 38 7- plan of finance proposes gradually to mortgage for four- Argument teen years the whole of the war taxes for the interest of against it , . by Lord loans in war — a decided departure from all our former and M r eag principles, which were to preserve religiously the distinc- tion between war and permanent taxes, and which would, if carried into effect for any considerable time, deprive the nation of almost all the benefit to which it is entitled to look upon the termination of hostilities. The new plan, moreover, will require loans to a greater amount to be raised in each year than would be required if the usual system of borrowing were adhered to. At the end of twenty years it appears, from the calculations laid before parliament, that this excess will amount to the enormous sum of £193,000,000. The whole machinery of the new plan is cumbersome and complicated : the additional charges arising from that circumstance will amount to a very considerable sum. The ways and means intended to prevent the imposition of new taxes in future, viz. — the expired annuities, together with the excess of the sinking-fund above the interest of the unredeemed debt — ■ are equally applicable pro tanto to mitigate their increase, under any other mode of raising loans that may be decided on; and their application in this way would be more advantageous than in the other, inasmuch as it is better to avoid contracting debt than to gain relief by a remis- sion of taxation. " It is futile to say that the public necessities compel Counter us to have recourse to the perilous system of inort; * l,l ~ wars with Russia had afforded repeated and fatal expe- 432 HISTOKY OF EUROPE. chap, rience, and of which a detailed account will be given in a XLV 1807. future chapter, 1 had become embarrassed with very serious difficulties. He found himself obstinately resisted not 1 bee infra, . J chap. lxix. only by the proud and disorderly bands of the Janizaries, but by that powerful party in all the Ottoman provinces who were attached to their national and religious insti- tutions, and regarded the introduction of European cus- toms, whether into the army or the state, as the first step to national ruin. In this extremity, he gladly embraced the proffered council and assistance of the French ambas- sador, who represented a power which naturally connected itself with the innovating party in every other state, and whose powerful armaments, already stationed in Dalmatia, promised the only effectual aid which could be looked for from the European nations against the Turkish malcon- tents, whom it was well known Russia was disposed to support. The difficulty arising from the necessity, in terms of the treaty, of consulting Russia in regard to the removal of the obnoxious hospodars, was strongly felt ; but the art of Sebastiani prevailed over every difficulty. At a private conference with the Sultaun in person, he succeeded in persuading that unsuspecting sovereign that the clause in the convention of 1802 applied only to the removal of the waiwodes on the ground of maladministra- tion in their respective provinces, but could not extend to a case where it was called for by the general interests of the empire ; and that the present was an instance of the Aug. 30, latter description, from the notorious intrigues of those sDum.xvii. princes with the hereditary enemies of the Ottoman faith : Bimftt an ^> m Pursuance of these representations, a hatti-scherifF 177, 179. appeared on the 30th August, dismissing the reigning 364, 365. hospodars, and appointing Princes Suzzo and Callimachi in their room. 2 This decisive step was taken by the Sublime Porte not only without the concurrence of Russia, but without the knowledge of any members of the diplomatic body at Constantinople ; and as its immediate effect in producing HISTORY OF EUROPE. 433 a rupture between the Divan and the court of St Peters- chap. • XLV burg was distinctly foreseen, the effect produced by its _1 — !_ promulgation was very great. The Russian ambassador, ™J' M. Italinski, loudly complained of the infraction of the Energetic treaty, in which he was powerfully supported by Mr ^Russia Arbuthnot, the minister of Great Britain, who openly ^Xh threatened an immediate attack on the Turkish capital £J^ f a from the fleets of their respective sovereigns. Sebastiani, the mea- however, skilfully availed himself of the advantages which the course of events gave him, to secure and increase the French influence with the Divan. No sooner, therefore, did intelligence arrive of the refusal of the Russian government to ratify the treaty concluded by d'Oubril at Paris, than he renewed his efforts, and, representing the cause of France as now identified with that of the Sublime Porte, loudly demanded that the Bosphorus should be closed to Russian vessels of war or transports, and announced that any continuation or renewal of alliance with England or Russia would be considered as a declaration of war against the French Emperor. 1 x Note of These remonstrances proved successful ; and a few days 1806. afterwards a Russian brig, which presented itself at the mouth of the Bosphorus, was denied admission. These measures irritated so violently the Russian ambassador, that he embarked on board the English frigate Canopus, Sept. 21. and threatened instantly to leave the harbour, if the dismissed hospodars were not forthwith reinstated in their possessions. In these efforts he was powerfully seconded by Mr Wellesley Pole, who, in the absence of Mr Arbuthnot, detained by fever at Buyuckdere, presented himself before the Divan in his riding-dress, with a whip in his hand, and peremptorily announced, that if the demands of Russia were not instantly acceded to, a British fleet would enter the Dardanelles and lay the capital in ashes. Intimidated by this bold language, as well as the haughty air of the person who used it, and secretly aware of the weakness of the defences of the capital on that VOL. VII. 2 E 434 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, side, the counsellors of Selim recommended a temporary concession to the demands of the Allied powers ; the 1 Ann. Re". 1807 ' hospodars were reinstated in their governments, and ample promises made to the Russian ambassador of satisfaction for all his demands. But these conciliatory measures were only intended to gain time ; and in a secret confer- 1806, 208,° ence yfifa Sebastiani, the Sultaun informed that minister 209. Bign. vi. 182, 184. that he had only yielded to the storm till he was in a con- 364, 365! dition to brave it, and that his policy, as well as his inclina- tions, inseparably united him with the Emperor Napoleon. 1 Matters were now, to all appearance, accommodated Meawhiie between the Divan and the cabinet of St Petersburg ; SriSrS" hut the great distance between the two capitals brought pScipdi- on a rupture when all cases of irritation had ceased, at ties - the point where their interests came into collision. As soon as intelligence of the dismissal of the hospodars reached the Russian cabinet, they despatched orders to General Michelson, whenever his preparations were com- pleted, to enter the Turkish territory ; and when intelli- gence was received of their being reinstated on the 1 5th October, which did not arrive at the Russian capital till the beginning of November, it was too late to prevent the fulfilment of the previous orders and the commence- ment of hostilities. Michelson accordingly entered Mol- Nov. 23, davia on the 23d November, and having once drawn the sword, the cabinet of St Petersburg had not sufficient confidence in the sincerity of this forced submission on the part of the Sublime Porte, to restore it to its sheath ; or possibly they were not sorry of an opportunity of extending themselves towards the Danube, and advancing their permanent schemes of conquest towards Constanti- nople. Notwithstanding the restoration of the hospodars, therefore, their armies continued to advance, driving the Turks before them, to the no small confusion of M. Italin- 2 Hard. ix. ski, who had uniformly declared, both in public and private, vi. 184. ,g1, that, as soon as that event was known at St Petersburg, their march would be countermanded. 2 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 435 Sebastiani, meanwhile, made the best use of this now chap. unjustifiable invasion, as well as of the consternation pro- '— duced by the victories of Napoleon in Prussia, to increase I8 ° 7 ' the French influence with the Divan. He strongly repre- And war is sented that this was the time, when Russia was already hard pressed by the victorious arms of the French Emperor on the Vistula, to throw their weight into the scale, and regain, in a single successful campaign, the influence and possessions which had been wrested from them by their inveterate enemies during more than a century of previous misfortunes. Persuaded by such plausible arguments, and irritated at the continued stay of the Russian troops in the principalities, after the causes which had justified their entrance into them had ceased, the hesitation of the Divan was at length over- come, and war was formally declared against Russia in the end of the year. To protect the Muscovite ambas- Dec. 30, sador from the fury of the Mussulmans, which was now fully aroused, the Sultaun stationed a guard of janizaries over his palace. Mr Arbuthnot strongly remonstrated against his being sent, according to previous custom, to the Seven Towers-. General Sebastiani had the generosity to employ his powerful influence for the same purpose; and, by their united influence, this barbarous practice was discontinued, and M. Italinski was permitted to embark on board the English frigate Canopus, by which he was soon after conveyed into Italy. Less humane, however, towards his own satraps than towards the ambassadors of his enemies, the Sultaun despatched his messengers with the bowstring to Prince Ipsilanti; but that nobleman, x Hard . in whom energy of mind supplied the want of bodily ^-J 8 ^ strength, succeeded in throwing down the executioners Ann. r^. ~ ~ L806 ''Hi! after they had got hold of his person, and had the good 211. fortune to escape into Russia. 1 Though war was thus resolved on, the Porte was far from being in a condition at the moment to oppose any effectual resistance to the powerful army of General 436 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. Michelson, which had entered the principalities of Wal- lachia and Moldavia. Forty thousand Russian troops, 1807. 59. amply provided with every necessary, were irresistible. Ra P id J pro- Moldavia was speedily overrun ; the victorious bands, KiS following up their success, entered Wallachia ; a tumul- |Sit£ ci " tuary force which the Pasha of Roudchouck had raised to arrest their progress was defeated ; and Bucharest, the capital of the latter province, and a city containing eighty thousand inhabitants, fell into their hands. Before the end of the year, and before war had been formally declared on either side, they were already Dec. 27. masters of all the territory to the north of the Danube ; and their outposts, preparing to cross that river, were in communication with Czerni George, the chief of Servia, who had revolted from the Grand Seignior, defeated his forces in several encounters, and was at this time i8u6,2n. ' engaged in the siege of the important fortress of Bel- grade. 1 The rapidity and magnitude of these successes, how- The RuV ever, was the occasion of no small disquietude to the tLTaidTf !T court of St Petersburg. They had now felt the weight by'Engknd of the French troops on the Vistula; their arms had t^ef" 1 " retired from doubtful and well-debated fields at Golymin which is an( j Pultusk: and they had become sensible of the agreed to. J imprudence of engaging at the same time in another con- test, and dispersing on the banks of the Danube the troops so imperiously required for the defence of their own frontier. Already an order had been despatched to recall four divisions to support the extreme left of the army in Poland, whose arrival and operations under Essen, against Savary at Ostrolenka, have already *A?de,cha, v . been noticed. 2 But this was not sufficient; their dimi- nished forces on the Danube might be exposed to serious danger from the efforts, and now fully aroused national spirit, of the Turks ; and as the duration of the contest with France could not be foreseen, it was of the utmost moment to deprive the Emperor Napoleon of that power- HISTORY OF EUROPE. 437 ful co-operation which he was likely to derive from the chap. war so imprudently lighted up on the southern frontier L_ of the empire. The naval forces of England appeared 1807 - to be precisely calculated to effect this object ; and as they were cruising at no great distance in the iEgean sea, it was hoped that a vigorous demonstration against Constantinople might at once terminate the contest in that quarter. Application was made to the British government for this purpose; and the cabinet of St James's, however unwilling, under the direction of Mr Fox's successors, to engage in any military enterprises in conjunction with the Continental powers, was not averse to the employment of its naval forces in support of the common cause. They felt the necessity of doing some- thing, after the refusal of both subsidies and land forces to Russia, to convince that power of the sincerity of its desire with its appropriate weapons to maintain the con- test. Instructions, therefore, were given to Sir John Duckworth, who at the close of the year was cruising off Ferrol with four ships of the line, to proceed forthwith to the mouth of the Dardanelles, where Admiral Louis was already stationed with three line-of-battle ships and four frigates ; and his orders were to force the passage of these celebrated straits, and compel the Turks, bythe 1 ^^^ threat of an immediate bombardment, into a relinquish- Jom.ii.372. . 1 n Mil. iv6£f« ment of the French and adoption of the Russian and 1807, 195. English alliance. 1 The Hellespont or Dardanelles, which, from the days of fii Homer and the war of Troy to these times, has been the Description ^ . . t . 1 i-i r , of the Dar- theatre of the most important operations 111 which the rates daneiies. of Europe and Asia were concerned, is formed by the nar- row strait through which the waters of the Black Sea discharge themselves from the lesser expanse of Marmora into the Mediterranean. Its breadth varies from one to three miles : but its course, which is very winding, amounts to nearly thirty ; and the many projecting headlands which advance into the stream, afford the most 438 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. chap, favourable stations for the erection of batteries. Its L_ banks are less precipitous and beautiful than those of the 18 ° 7, Bosphorus — which is the appellation bestowed on the still more bold and romantic channel which unites the Sea of Marmora to the Euxine — but they possess, both from historical association and natural variety, the highest interest ; and few persons who have received even the rudi- ments of education can thread their devious way through the winding channel and smiling steeps, which resemble the shores of an inland lake rather than the boundary of two continents, without recurring in imagination to the exploits of Ajax and Achilles, whose tombs still stand at the entrance of the strait ; the loves of Hero and Leander, yet fresh in the songs of the boatmen ; the memorable contests of which it was the theatre during the Byzantine empire, the glowing picture by Gibbon of the Latin Crusade, the inimitable pictures by Lamartine of its romantic scenes, and the thrilling verses of Lord Byron on its classic shores. The fortifications of these important straits, the real ultimatum gates of Constantinople, had been allowed to fall into Britafn, and disrepair. The Castles of Europe and Asia, indeed, still of w by 11 stood in frowning majesty to assert the dominion of the Turkey. Crescent at the narrowest part of the passage ; but their ramparts were antiquated, their guns in part dismounted, and such as remained, though of enormous calibre, little calculated to answer the rapidity and precision of an English broadside. The efforts of Sebastiani, seconded by the spirit of the Turks, whose religious enthusiasm was now fully awakened, had endeavoured in vain to attract the attention of the Divan to the danger which threatened them in this quarter. True to the Mussulman principle of foreseeing nothing, and judging only of the future by the past, they bent their whole attention to the war on the Danube, and despatched all their disposable forces to arrest the progress of the Servians and Czerni George, when a redoubtable enemy threatened them with destruc- HISTORY OF EUROTE. 439 tion at the mouth of the Dardanelles. Duly informed chap. of these circumstances, Mr Arbutlmot was no sooner L_ apprised of the arrival of Sir John Duckworth off 1807- Tenedos, than he delivered the ultimatum of Great Britain, which was the immediate dismissal of M. Jan. 26, Sebastiani, the accession of Turkey to the alliance of Russia and Great Britain, and the opening of the Dar- danelles to the vessels of Russia. These offers were peremptorily declined, and their refusal accompanied by a significant hint from General Sebastiani, that the Berlin decree, recently received at the Turkish capital, required the immediate arrest of all British subjects in all the territories of the allies of France, and that Turkey was one of these allies. Deeming his stay at Constan- tinople no longer secure, Mr Arbutlmot, under colour of going to dine with Admiral Louis, who in the Endy- mion frigate lay off Seraglio Point, withdrew from Con- stantinople, having first recemmended his family to the care of General Sebastiani. That general honourably f g^f' vit discharged the trust, but he was too skilful not to turn to J? 1 - 192 -.. ° t JJum. XYll. the best advantage so unlooked-for an occurrence in his 271,273. favour, and war was immediately declared by the Divan 1807, \M. against Great Britain. 1 Hitherto everything had seconded beyond his most sanguine expectations the efforts of the French ambassa- sir John dor, but he was unable to persuade the Turkish govern- JJoh-esTo ment to take the requisite measures of precaution against D^dmeUes. this new enemy who had arisen. In vain he urged them instantly to put in repair the fortifications of the Dardanelles ; in vain he predicted an immediate formi- dable attack from the fleet of England. Nothing was done to give additional security to the strait, and the Divan, persuaded that the only serious danger lay on the side of the Danube, continued to send all their disposable troops in that direction. Meanwhile the squadrons of Sir John Duckworth and Admiral Louis having effected a junction off Tenedos, their united forces amounted to eight ships 440 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLV. 1807. Feb. 19. 1 Dum. xvii, 275, 277. Bign. vi. 194. Jom. ii. 374. Ann, Keg. 1807, 196. 64. The straits are forced, after much resistance. 3 Ann. Reg. 1807, 196. Dum. xvii. 275, 278. Binn. vi. 194, 195. Jom. ii. 374. of the line, two frigates, and two bonib-vessels ; but, the Ajax of seventy-four guns having unfortunately been destroyed by fire at this critical time, the squadron was reduced to seven line-of-battle ships. With these, how- ever, the British admiral resolved to force the passage. Having taken his measures with much skill, he advanced with his ships in single file at moderate intervals, and with a fair wind, on the morning of the 19th Februaiy, entered the straits. 1 So completely were the Turks taken by surprise, that a feeble desultory fire alone was opened upon the ships as they passed the first batteries, to which the English did not deign to reply. But when they reached the Castles of Europe and Asia, where the straits are little more than a mile broad, a tremendous cannonade assailed them on both sides, and enormous balls, weighing seven and eight hundredweight, began to pass through the rigging. The British sailors, however, meanwhile were not idle ; deli- berately aiming their guns, as the ships slowly and majestically moved through the narrow channel, they kept up an incessant discharge to the right and left, with such eiFect that the Turkish cannoneers, little accustomed to the rapid fire and accurate aim of modern times, and terrified at the crash of the shot on the battlements around them, took to flight. Following up his trium- phant course, the English admiral attacked and burnt the line-of-battle ship bearing the flag of the Capitan Pasha, lying at anchor in the straits ; Sir Sidney Smith, the second in command, compelled four frigates to surrender, which were immediately after committed to the flames ; a fifth, after an obstinate resistance, shared the same fate ; and a brig, which with difficulty escaped from the conflagration, had scarcely announced the alarming tidings at Constantinople, when the British fleet, with all sails set, was seen proudly advancing, and cast anchor off the Isle of Princes, within three leagues of Seraglio Point. 2 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 441 No words can adequately paint the terror which pre- chap. Tailed in Constantinople, when the increasing sound of _J — L_ the approaching cannonade too surely announced that ] ™ 7 - the defences of the straits had been forced ; and shortly The DiVan after, the distant light of the conflagration gave token mission, of the rapid destruction of the fleet. This was much Z^i^Z increased when a message was received from Admiral defenceless. Duckworth, half an hour after his arrival, which, after recapitulating all the instances of fidelity to the Turkish alliance which England had so long afforded, concluded by the declaration that if, in twenty-four hours, the demands of Great Britain were not acceded to, he would be reduced to the painful necessity of commencing hosti- lities. The capital was totally defenceless, not ten guns being mounted on the sea batteries ; and a furious crowd was already assembled in the streets, demanding the heads of the Reis EfFendi and General Sebastiaui, the authors of all the public calamities. The consternation was universal ; the danger, from having been never anticipated, was now felt with stunning force ; and the Divan, having been assembled in the first moments of alarm, sent an intimation to General Sebastiaui that no defence remained to the capital ; that submission was a , Ann Reg matter of necessity ; and that, as the people regarded him JW, i.^ ; as the author of all their misfortunes, his life was no gii. 278, longer in safety, and he would do well instantly to leave vi. 197,198 the capital. 1 * But his answer was worthy of the great and gallant gg nation which he represented. Receiving the messenger intrepid of the Sultaun in full dress, surrounded by all his suite, Sebastians, he immediately replied — " My personal danger cannot for an instant occupy my attention, when the maintenance of the French alliance and the independence of the Ottoman * The author has been informed by Sir Stratford Canning, the well-known and able British diplomatist at Constantinople, that it is currently stated in the East that Sebastiaui was at first disposed to submit, and that it was the Spanish ambassador's remonstrances which awakened him to the energetic conduct which has shed such a lustre around his name. 442 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, empire are at stake. I will not quit Constantinople, and XLV I confidently expect a new decision, more worthy of 1807, Sultaun Selim and the Turkish nation. Tell your power- ful monarch, that he should not for a moment think of descending from the high rank where the glorious deeds of his ancestors have placed him, by surrendering to a few English vessels a city containing nine hundred thou- sand souls, and abundantly provided with magazines and ammunition. Your ramparts are not yet armed, but that may soon be done ; you have weapons enough — use them with courage, and victory is secure. The cannon of the English fleet may set fire to a part of the town — granted ; but without the assistance of a land army, it could not take possession of the capital, even if you were to open !>78 U 28o vu ' your gates. You sustain every year the ravages of acci- ?97 n 'i98 dental conflagration, and the more serious calamities of Ann. Reg. the plague ; and do you now scruple at incurring the risk 197. ' of inferior losses in defence of your capital, your country, your holy religion I" 1 This noble reply produced a great effect upon the The Turks Divan ; and it was resolved that, before submitting, they gam time, should at least try whether, by gaining time in parleying, J?ete C °beIi f ne y could not in some degree complete their preparations. prepara- Sebastiani accordingly dictated a note in answer to the tions. ~ J communication from the English admiral, in which the Sultaun professed an anxious desire to re-establish amicable relations with the British government, and announced his appointment of Allett-Effendi for the pur- pose of conducting the negotiation. The unsuspecting English admiral, who, from the illness of Mr Arbuthnot, was intrusted with the negotiation, was no match for the wily French general in the arts of diplomacy, and fell into the snare. The British ultimatum was sent ashore Feb. 21. the following morning, which consisted in the provisional cession of their fleet to England, the dismissal of Sebas- tiani, and the re-establishment of amicable relations with Russia and the British government. Half an hour only HISTORY OF EUROTE. 443 was allowed to the Divan, after the receipt and translation chap. of this note, to deliberate and reply. Had this vigorous _J — L_ resolution been acted upon, it must have led to immediate 180 '" submission : for the batteries were not yet armed ; the fleet, the arsenal, the Seraglio, and great part of the town, , Ann Re? lay exposed to the fire of the English squadron; and [^^ during the terror produced by a bombardment, the greater xvn. 280, part of the capital, which is chiefly built of wood, must vi. ios^'ob. have been reduced to ashes. 1 Unfortunately, instead of doing this, Sir John Duck- - worth, impressed with the belief that the Sultaun was vast energy sincerely desirous of an accommodation, and that the IKului^ desired objects might be obtained without the horrors of jjjjjjj. a conflagration, or an irreparable breach with the Ottoman fence - empire, imprudently gave time, and suffered himself to be drawn into a negotiation. Day after day elapsed in the mere exchange of notes and diplomatic communications ; and meanwhile the spirit of "the Mussulmans, now raised to the highest pitch, was indefatigably employed in organising the means of defence. The direction of the whole was intrusted to General Sebastiani, for whom a magnificent tent* was erected in the gardens of the Seraglio, and who communicated to the ardent multitude the organisation and arrangement which long warlike experience had given to the officers of Napoleon. Men and women, gray hairs, young hands, the Turks, the Greeks, the Armenians, were to be seen promiscuously labouring together at the fortifications. Forgetting, in the general transport, the time-worn lines of religious distinc- tion, the Greek and Armenian patriarchs set the first example of cordial acquiescence in the orders of govern- ment. Selim himself repeatedly visited the works ; his commands were obeyed by two hundred thousand men, animated by religious and patriotic ardour to the greatest degree ; while the French engineers, who had been sent by Marmont to aid in the war with the Russians, com- municated to the busy multitude the inestimable advan- 444 history of Europe: chap, tages of scientific direction and experienced skill. Under XLV such auspices, the defences of the harbour were speedily 1807. arme d and strengthened ; the naval arsenal furnished inexhaustible resources ; in three days three hundred pieces of cannon were mounted on the batteries — ■ at the end of a week their number was increased to a thousand ; temporary parapets were everywhere formed with gabions and fascines, where regular defences were wanting ; the tower of Leander was armed with heavy artillery ; a g75™377; hundred gunboats were drawn across the mouth of the aE'aa? 1 ' Golden Horn; twelve line-of-battle ships within stood Kign.vi. apparently ready for action; fire-ships were prepared, Am.. Reg. and numerous furnaces with red-hot shot kept constantly ] 807 1 9H 199." heated to carry into the British fleet the conflagration with which it menaced the Turkish capital. 1 "* Although the English officers perceived, by means of The English their telescopes, the preparations which were going forward, theater- an d though the peril to the fleet was hourly increasing pnse. from the long continuance of a south-west wind, which rendered it impossible to pass the straits, yet nothing was done adequate to the emergency. The ships, indeed, were brought nearer to the Seraglio, and every effort made to bring the enemy, by negotiation, to an accommodation : but the pride of the Mussulmans, now fully aroused, would not have permitted the government to come to terms, even if they had been so inclined ; and the influence of Sebastiani was successfully exerted to protract the conferences till the preparations were so far completed as to enable them to bid defiance to the enemy. The time when decisive success might have been attained had been allowed to pass away. Four days after the English fleet appeared off Constantinople, the coasts were so completely armed with artillery, as to render an attack eminently hazardous ; in a week it was totally hopeless. The object * The number of guns mounted on the batteries in six days was 917 pieces of cannon and 200 mortars — an instance of vigour and rapidity in preparing the means of defence perhaps unparalleled in the history of the world. — See Hard. xi. 486 ; Pieces Just. HISTORY OP EUROPE. 445 of the expedition having failed, nothing remained but to chap provide for the safety of the fleet : but this was now no XLV, easy matter; for, during the week lost in negotiation, the 1807- batteries of the Dardanelles had all been armed, and the Castles of Europe and Asia so strengthened as to render it an extremely hazardous matter to attempt the passage. Duck" 1 ' To complete the difficulties of the English admiral, the 5£Si wind, which generally blows at Constantinople from the ^" n _- ^|- north-east, continued, ever after his arrival, fixed in the Jom.'ii. 376. south-west, so as to render it totally impossible for him to 281,282. retrace his steps. 1 At length on the 1st March, a breeze having sprung up from the Black Sea, all sails were spread, and the fleet The British re-entered the perilous straits. But it was not without the stilts! difficulty, and with considerable hazard, that the passage March was effected. A heavy fire was kept up from all the bat- teries; the headlands on either side presented a continued line of smoke; the roar of artillery was incessant; and enormous stone balls, some of them weighing seven or eight hundred pounds, threatened at one stroke to sink the largest ships. One of these massy projectiles carried away the main-mast of the Windsor Castle, which bore the admiral's flag ; another penetrated the poop of the Standard, and killed and wounded sixty men. At length March 2. the fleet cleared the straits, and cast anchor off Tenedos, in such a situation as to blockade the Dardanelles, having sustained a loss of two hundred and fifty men in this audacious expedition, which, though it proved unsuccess- ful from the errors attending its execution in the depart- ment of diplomacy, was both boldly conceived and ably executed, so far as the forcing the passage was concerned. 2 lsozfbo^" It produced a very great impression in Europe, by reveal- ^o r th?D«- ing the secret weakness of the Ottoman empire, and f.f? h > \ b - ± fob-l. Join. demonstrating how easily an adequate maritime force, by «• 3 <" 6 ' 377. ■ ' 1 • 1 p t i num. xvii. thus bursting through its defences, and aiming a stroke 281,293. at once at the vitals of the state, could subdue the strength 2^207. of Islamism, and compel the submission of a power before 446 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, which, in former times, all the monarchies of Europe had 1_ trembled. 1807. After the departure of the English fleet, all amicable Blockade of relations were, of course, suspended with the Turkish neiies!" ' government; the preparations of the Sultaun to strengthen the batteries both of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles continued with undiminished activity ; and the influence of General Sebastiani with the Divan became unbounded. The ease, however, with which the British fleet had sur- mounted all the defences of Constantinople, and the immi- nent risk which he had run of being deprived, by one blow, of the powerful aid of Turkey, gave the utmost uneasiness to Napoleon ; and he despatched, without delay, orders both to Marmont in Illyria, and Eugene in Italy, to forward instantly a number of able officers, among whom were Colonel Haxo of the engineers, and Colonel Foy of the artillery, to co-operate in the strength- ening of the defences of Constantinople. Six hundred men were directed to be forthwith put at the disposal of the Grand Seignior, and authority given for the transmis- sion of five thousand, with abundant supplies in money and ammunition, if required. These reinforcements, however, were not required; for though the English fleet was shortly after joined by the Russian squadron, under Admiral Siniavin, yet they had too recently experienced the dangers of the straits to venture a second time into them, more especially after their defences had been so materially strengthened, as they soon were, by the opera- tions of the French engineers. Contenting themselves, therefore, with taking possession of Lemnos and Tenedos for the service of their fleet, they established a close 1T > .. blockade of the entrance to the straits from the Arclii- 1 l)um, xvn. j'om "'376 P e ^ a S° > an d as a similar precaution was adopted at the .•577. Ann.' mouth of the Bosphorus, the supply of the capital by 201.' ' water-carriage on both sides was interrupted, and before long a very great dearth of provisions was experienced. 1 The Turkish government made the utmost efforts to HISTORY OF EUROPE. 447 man their squadron, but this was no easy matter, as chap the blockade deprived them of all intercourse with the Greeks, who constituted almost exclusively the nautical 1 ^ 7 ' portion of their population. At length, however, the NavaUc- scarcity became so great that serious commotions took Teuedos. place in the capital; and the government having, by extraordinary severity, forced an adequate number of hands on board the fleet, the Capitan Pasha ventured to leave the protection of the forts in the Dardanelles, and give battle to the Russian fleet. But the result was what might have been expected from a contest between an inexperienced body of men, for the most part unac- quainted with naval affairs, and recently torn from civil occupations, and a squadron manned by seamen who yield to none in Europe in the resolution with which they stand to their guns.* Though the Turks fought with July 1. great gallantry, they could not withstand the superior skill and more rapid fire of their antagonists: four of their ships were early in the day drifted out of the line, and the unskilful crews were unable, or unwilling, to bring them again into fire; the remainder, after this great loss, were surrounded, • and in great part destroyed. Four ships of the line were taken with the vice-admiral, three were burned, and the shattered remnant driven for shelter under the cannon of the Dardanelles. So overbearing did the pressure of the Russians at sea now become, that it threatened the utmost dangers to the Ottoman govern- a Ann . Reg . ment; when the blockade of the capital was raised, and ^'£ # a temporary respite obtained by the treaty of Tilsit, gg- ^ which, as will immediately appear, established a short a. 376, 379. and fallacious truce between these irreconcilable enemies. 1 Not content with this attack on the Turkish capital, the British government at the same time effected a descent on the coasts of Egypt. Deeming the opportunity favourable for regaining possession of that important * " Lay your ship alongside a Frenchman," said Nelson, " hut try to out- manoeuvre a Russian or a Dane." 448 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, country, which was still warmly coveted by Napoleon, '— and the cession of which into the feeble hands of the ^ 7 ' Mussulmans had been long a subject of regret, the British Descent by government resolved to send an expedition to the shores on the coast of the Nile, at the same time that it threatened with MacWde- bombardment the Turkish capital. The land troops, Hamled. E1 under the command of General Mackenzie, set sail from March 6. Messina on the 6th of March, and landed near Rosetta on the 18 th. Alexandria speedily capitulated ; Damiettawas also occupied without resistance ; and General Fraser was detached with two thousand five hundred men to effect the reduction of Rosetta, which commands one of the mouths of the Nile, and the possession of which was deemed essential to the regular supply of Alexandria with provisions. This place, however, held out ; and as immediate succour was expected from the Mamelukes, Colonel Macleocl was stationed with seven hundred men at El Hammed, in order to facilitate their junction with the besieging force. This detachment was speedily sur- Aprii 22. rounded by an overwhelming body of Turkish horse, and after a gallant resistance, which repelled the attacks of their numerous squadrons till the whole ammunition was exhausted, entirely cut off. The promised Mamelukes never made their appearance; and General Stewart, » Ann R e severe ly weakened by so great a loss, with difficulty made 1807,203,' good his retreat, fighting all the way, to Alexandria, vi. 215, 217. where he arrived with a thousand fewer men than he had set out. 1 74 The fortifications of that place, however, enabled the Evacuation British to bid defiance to their desultory opponents ; and d.ia. ' it was soon found that the apprehensions of scarcity which had prompted this ill-fated expedition to Rosetta were entirely chimerical, as provisions speedily became more abundant than ever. But the British government, in which an important change at this time took place, became sensible of the impolicy of longer retaining this acquisition at a crisis when every nerve required to be HISTORY OF EUROPE. 449 exerted to protect their shores from the forces of Napo- chap. leon. It was with lively satisfaction, therefore, that they heard of the conclusion of a convention in autumn, by 180/ ' which it was stipulated that all the British prisoners in the hands of the Turks should be released, and Alex- s ep t. 23. andria surrendered to the latter ; in virtue of which arrangement the English troops set sail from the mouth of the Nile in the end of September, and were brought to Gibraltar, where they were statioued, ere long co-opera- x ting in covering the retreat of the royal family of Por- i807,203, 5 tugal from the Tagus, and ultimately taking a share in w. 21.5,219. the glories of the Peninsular campaigns. 1 The public dissatisfaction arising from these repeated defeats was so strong, that it seriously shook the stability Great T aud power, to redeem the pledges which they had so freely J ro V ght d in given when on the Opposition benches. Lord Grenville, Howick* * Ante, Chap, xxxix. §16. VOL. VII. 2 P 450 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, in particular, 'who had formed part of the administration XLV 1807. which resigned in 1801, in consequence of the declared repugnance of the sovereign to those concessions to the Catholics which Mr Pitt then deemed essential to the security of the country, considered himself called upon by every consideration, both of public policy and private honour, again to press them upon the legislature. In consequence of these impressions, Lord Howick (after- March 5. wards Earl Grey) moved, on the 5th of March, for leave to bring in a bill which should enable persons of every religious persuasion to serve in the army and navy, without any other condition but that of taking an oath specified in the bill, which was repugnant to no religious opinions. By the existing law, a Catholic in Great Britain could not rise to the rank even of a subaltern, in consequence of the necessity of officers of every grade taking the Test Oath ; wdiile in Ireland, under an act passed in the Irish parliament in 1793, persons of that religious persuasion were permitted to rise to any situation in the army, excepting commander-in-chief of 1 Pari. Deb. i 7. i -, , r. ix. i, 5. the forces, master-general of the ordnance, or general of the staff. 1 " Was it prudent," said Lord Howick, " w r hen we were Arguments contending with so powerful an enemy, to prevent, in u by Lord this manner, a large portion of the population of the Howick. country from concurring in the common defence % What can be more anomalous than that in one united empire so great a discrepancy should prevail, as that on one side of St George's Channel a Catholic may rise to the highest rank in the army, but on the other he cannot hold even an ensign's commission % It was declared in 1793, when this restriction was removed by the Irish parliament, by his Majesty's ministers in both houses, that in two months they would grant a similar indulgence to persons of the Romish persuasion in Great Britain ; but this had never yet been done, and this monstrous inconsistency continued to disgrace the laws of the United Kingdom. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 451 It may fairly be admitted that the principle of this chap. relaxation applies equally to dissenters of every descrip- _ — 1_ tion, and that it must lead to a general admission of 18 ° persons of every religious persuasion to the army and navy ; but where is the danger of such liberality % The proposed measure only enables the sovereign to appoint such persons to offices of high importance. It does not compel him to do so ; their appointment would still depend on the executive government, which would natu- rally avoid any dangerous or improper exercise of its authority ; and would, on the contrary, be enabled to take advantage, in the common defence, of the whole popu- lation of the country, without any of those restrictions 1 ^ h which now, with a large proportion, damped the spirit or ix. 1,7. soured the affections." 1 On the other hand, it was strongly contended by Mr Perceval, — " The objections to this measure, strong as Arguments they are, are not so insuperable as to the system of which MrPercevaL it forms a part, which originates in a laxity of principle on matters of religion, which is daily increasing, and threatens in its ultimate results to involve all our insti- tutions in destruction. If it is desirable to preserve any- thing in our ancient and venerable establishments, it is indispensable to make a stand at the outset against any innovations in so essential a particular. This measure is, in truth, a partial repeal of the Test Act ; if passed, it must at no distant period lead to the total repeal of that act, and with it to the downfall of the Protestant ascen- dency in Ireland. The advocates of the Catholics argue as if their measures were calculated to support toleration, whereas, in reality, and in their ultimate effects, they are calculated to destroy that great national blessing, by sub- verting the Protestant establishment, by which toleration has been always both professed and practised, and rein- stating the Romish, by which it has been as uniformly repudiated. From the arguments that are advanced at the present day, one would be inclined to imagine that 452 HISTORY OF EUROTE. chap, there was no sucli thing as truth or falsehood in religion ; XLY • that all creeds were equally conducive to the temporal 1807. 70. and eternal interests of mankind ; and that, provided only the existing heats and dissensions on the subject could be allayed, it mattered not to what religious tenets either a government or a people inclined. True toleration is indeed an inestimable blessing, but it consists in per- mitting to every man the free exercise of his religion, not in putting into the hands of the professors of a hostile creed the means of overturning what they will never cease to regard as a pestilent heresy, and resuming from its present Protestant possessors the lost patrimony of St Peter in these islands. " In point of law, it is incorrect to say, that a Catholic The lii'eged who has obtained a commission in Ireland is liable to any themeafure. penalties : the Mutiny Act authorises the King to require in any part of his dominions the services of every man in his army, and this is of itself a practical repeal of the disability affecting Catholics ; for no man can be compelled to do what would subject him to a penalty. The argu- ment that all offices should be thrown open to persons of all religious persuasions, is inconsistent with the British constitution as settled in 1688, which is root and branch a Protestant establishment. If pushed to its legitimate length, it would throw open all offices, even the crown itself, to Catholic aspirants : what then becomes of the Act of Settlement, or the right of the house of Hanover to the throne \ If this is to be the policy of our country, there is but one thing to be done — to do everything to transfer the church lands in Ireland to the Catholics, re- establish the Catholic faith, and call over the Pretender to the throne of these realms. These are the great and dazzling objects which the Romish party have in view ; it was to exclude them that all the restrictions were imposed by our ancestors on the persons professing that faith ; it is to gain them that all these minor concessions are demanded by their adherents ; their advances are only March 24. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 453 the more dangerous that they are gradual, unperceived, chap. and veiled under the colour of philanthropy. The Catholics XLV ' already enjoy everything which toleration can demand ; 180L to ask more is to demand weapons to be used against ourselves. The consequences of a storm are little to be apprehended ; it is the gradual approaches which are really dangerous. If parliament goes on allowing this accumulation, it will ultimately have that extorted from its weakness which its wisdom would be desirous to with- ix.9,ii. hold." 1 * The second reading of this interesting bill was . . . . 80. adjourned from time to time, without the nation being Repugnance either alive to its importance, or aware of the quarter in to the bmf which obstacles to its progress existed. But on the 24th ^thdraw. March, it was suddenly announced in the newspapers that ministers had been dismissed ; and two nights after, Lord Grenville in the House of Lords, and Lord Howick in the House of Commons, gave a full statement of the circum- stances which had led to so unlooked-for a change. The draft of the bill, as usual in all matters of importance, had been submitted to his Majesty for his consideration ; and it contained a recital of the Irish Act, which opened the army to Catholics for every grade, with the exception of the offices of master-general of the ordnance, com- * Subsequent events, more particularly the fierce agitation for repeal in 1843, after Catholic emancipation had been conceded, and the miserable attempt at rebellion in 1848, have rendered these early debates and predictions on the effects of concession to the Catholics in the highest degree curious and interest- ing. Without pronouncing any decided opinion on a subject on which the light of experience is only now beginning to shine upon the world, it is the duty of the historian to urge the discussions on this subject on the attentive consideration of every candid inquirer, either into political wisdom or historic truth. So far back as 1803, Lord Redesdale wrote to government from Dublin : — ■" The present rebellion is a beginning only, that I cannot doubt. All the actors have been puppets worked by persons behind the scenes. You must immediately arm us with a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. But you must do more ; you must renew the martial law, or pass some other bill to enable the military to act with greater promptitude if the Lord-lieutenant shall see fit. We have done all we can, but armed rebellion must be met by arms. It is as necessary to destroy the influence of the terror of the rebels over the people's minds, as to meet them in the field." — Lord Redesdale tu Mr Addington, July 25, 1803. Pellew's Sidmouth, ii. 209. 454 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLV. 1807. 81. The King requires a written pledge that no further concessions should be made to the Catholics. Change of ministry. mander-in-chief of the forces, and general of the staff ; and then provided that the services of the Catholics should be received without any restriction, and on the condition only of taking the oath of allegiance. On this bill being proposed, the King manifested considerable objections to it ; but these were at length so far overcome by the repre- sentation that the measure was a necessary consequence of the acts of 1793 and the union, so far as Ireland was concerned, that ministers were authorised to bring in the bill, and communications were made to the heads of the Catholics in Ireland, that they were to be admitted to every situation in the army, without exception. The King, however, had laboured under some misapprehension as to the extent and tendency of the measure which was to be brought forward, and believed that it was not intended to enlarge the facilities of admission created by the act 1 793 for Ireland, but only to make that act the general law of the empire ; for no sooner was its import explained in the debate which occurred on the first readins; in the House of Commons, of which an abstract has already been given, than he intimated to the government that he had invincible objections to the proposed change.""" After some ineffectual attempts at a compromise, ministers, finding the King resolute, determined to with- draw the bill altogether, and intimated this decision to his Majesty, accompanied, however, with the conditions, that they should not be precluded from stating their opinions on the general policy of the measure in parlia- ment, and that they should be at liberty, from time to * Lord Sidmouth stated in the House of Lords, " That he (Lord Sidmouth) had stated to his Majesty, that he had been induced to concur in the proposed measure, as a necessary consequence of the Irish Act of 1793; from the consi- deration of which, combined with the act of union, it appeared to him there was no alternative but either the repeal of the Irish Act, or the adoption of the measure. His Majesty then declared that he would not consent to any new con- cession, but that iu consequence of the Irish Act, and of it alone, he would take the proposition of the cabinet into further consideration. The answer stated was, that " however painful his Majesty had found it to reconcile to his feel- ings, the removal of objections which might have the most distant reference to a question which had already been the subject of such frequent and distressing HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 455 time, to bring the matter again under his Majesty's con- chap. sideration. The answer of the King, after expressing L, regret at the difference of opinion which had arisen, 180 rejected these conditions as inconsistent with the funda- mental principle of the constitution, that the acts of government are to be held as those of the responsible ministers, and that the adoption or rejection of no measure is to be laid upon his Majesty ; and as not less at variance with the fundamental basis of the Act of Settlement, which is rested on the exclusion of Catholics from the highest office in the realm. His Majesty therefore required a written pledge from ministers that they would propose no further concessions to the Catholics. This pledge ministers, on their side, considered as inconsistent with the fundamental principle of a free constitution, which is, that the king can do no wrong, and that the responsibility of all public measures must rest with his advisers, and equally repugnant to that progressive change in human affairs which might at no distant period render a repetition of the proposal a matter of necessity. They therefore declined, though in the most respectful terms, to give the proposed pledge, and the consequence was, that the King, 1LordGren _ in gracious terms, sent them an intimation that their file's, ^ services were no longer required ; and on the same day H awk e3 - ' the Duke of Portland, Lord Hawkesbury, and Mr Per- S r r ft r _ and ceval, received the royal commands to form a new admin- gjjjj^ istration. The King was perfectly firm on this occasion : g^^ he himself said he regarded his crown at stake in the 261,278. question at issue. 1 * discussion, lie would not, under the circumstances so earnestly pressed, prevent his ministers from submitting to the consideration of parliament the propriety of inserting the proposed clauses in the Mutiny Bill." While, however, the King so far reluctantly conceded, he thought it necessary to declare that he could not (jo one step further : and he trusted this proof of his forbearance would secure him from being at a future period distressed by any further proposal connected with the question."— Pellew's Life of Sidmouth, ii. 455, 456. * " The King considers the struggle as for his throne ; and he told me but yesterday, when I took the great seal, that he did so consider it, that he must be the Protestant king of a Protestant country, or no king. He is remarkably well, firm as a lion, placid, and quick beyond example in any moment of his 456 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLV. 1807. Parliament, after this unexpected event, was adjourned till the 8th April, and on that day the new ministers took their seats.'"* The change of administration, of course, formed the first and most anxious subject of debate ; and the interest of the country was excited to the highest degree, by the arguments which were urged for and against that important and unwonted exercise of the royal prerogative. On the side of the former ministers, it was urged by Sir Samuel Romilly and Lord Howick : — " The true question at issue is, whether or not it would have been constitutionally justifiable, or rather would not have been a high crime and misdemeanour, for any minister to have subscribed a written pledge that he would never in future bring a particular measure or set of measures under his Majesty's consideration. If any statesman could be found base enough to give such a pledge, he would deserve to lose his head, and the House would be guilty of a dereliction of its duty, if it did not impeach a minister who so far forgot his duty to the life. The late ministers are satisfied that the King, whose state of mind they were always doubting, has more sense and understanding than all the ministers put together : they leave him with a full conviction of that fact." — Lord Eldon to Rev. Dr Swire, April 1, 1807; Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, vii. 207. * The new cabinet stood thus : — CABINET. Earl Camden, President of the Council. Lord Eldon, Chancellor. Earl of Westmoreland, Lord Privy Seal. Duke of Portland, First Lord of the Treasury. Lord Mulgrave, First Lord of the Admiralty. Earl of Chatham, Master-General of the Ordnance. Earl Bathurst, President of the Board of Trade. Lord Hawkesbury, Home Secretary. Mr Canning, Foreign Secretary. Lord Castlereagh, War and Colonial Secretary. Mr Perceval, Chancellor of the Ex- chequer and Duchy of Lancaster, —See Pari. Deb. ix. 111. NOT IN THE CABINET. Mr Robert Dundas, President of the Board of Control. Mr George Rose, President of the Board of Trade. Sir James Pulteney, Secretary at War. Sir Vicary Gibbs, Attorney-General. Sir Thomas Plummer, Solicitor-Gene- ral. Duke of Richmond, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 457 country. This is a matter in which the interests of the chap. crown were more at stake than even those of the people : __— for if the precedent is once to be allowed, that a minister is at liberty to surrender his own private judgment to the will of the reigning sovereign, it is impossible that the legal fiction, that the king can do no wrong, can any longer be maintained, and the great constitutional prin- ciple, that the acts of the king are those of his respon- sible advisers, will be at an end. Who could, in such a view, set bounds to the dangerous encroachments of unknown and irresponsible advisers upon the deliberations of oovernment, or say how far the ostensible ministers might be thwarted and overruled by unknown and secret influence, which might totally stop the action of a con- stitutional government? The danger of the measure which has been adopted is only rendered the greater by the announcement now openly made, that in this, the most important step perhaps taken in his whole reign, his Majesty had no advised. The constitution recognises no such doctrine ; the advisers of the King throughout must be held to be those who have succeeded to his coun- cils. There is no desire to bring the sovereign to the bar of the House of Commons ; it is the new ministers who are really the objects of deliberation. The late adminis- tration was dismissed because they refused to bind them- selves by a specific pledge never to renew the subject of Catholic concession; a new ministry have succeeded them ; they must be held therefore to have given that pledge ; and it is for the house to say, whether such a | ™ ™; dereliction of public duty is not utterly at variance with 338,341. every principle of constitutional freedom/' 1 On the other hand, it was argued by Lord Eldon, Mr g;j Perceval, and Mr Canning:—" The question on which Andinsup- the imprudent zeal of the late administration has brought fegggnd them into collision with the religious scruples and political ning . wisdom of the sovereign is not one of trivial moment, in which the monarch may be expected to abide by the 1807. 458 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, judgment of his constitutional advisers. It lies, on the contrary, at the foot of the whole constitution ; it consti- tutes one of the foundations non tangenda non movenda, on which the entire fabric of our Protestant liberties has been reared. The present question regards the trans- ference of the sword to Catholic hands ; the same question on which Charles I. erected his standard at Northampton ■ — the intrusting the direction of the military force to a party necessarily and permanently inimical to our Pro- testant constitution, both in church and state. It is absurd to suppose this cou cession would do anything towards satisfying the Catholics — it would only lead them to make fresh demands, and empower them to urge them with additional weight ; and the consequence of the measure could be nothing else, in the end, but to bring Catholic bishops into the House of Lords. Was it surprising that the Kiug paused on the threshold of such a question, striking, as it evidently did, at the root of the tenure by which his own family held their right to the throne 1 " In demanding a pledge that such a proposal should The sove- not be renewed, he acted without any adviser, upon the bee n niefc unaided dictates of his own masculine understanding, asto e the r aided by the conscientious scruples of his unsophisti- thfmeasure. cate d heart. All the talent of the cabinet could not blind him to the evident and inevitable, though possibly remote, consequences of such a fatal precedent as was now sought to be forced upon him. It is a palpable mistake to say he drew back in the later stages of the negotiation from what he had previously agreed to ; lie first gave a reluctant consent to the extension of the Irish Act of 1793 to Great Britain, in the firm belief that this was all that was required of him ; so the proposed measure was explained to and understood by him ; and that he was not singular in this belief is proved by the fact, that the Irish Secretary had his doubts upon it, and that the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer, in answer to a question 84. 1807. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 459 as to the second reading of the bill, said there was no chap. particular reason for the Irish members being present on that occasion, as they were already acquainted with the measure. Three cabinet ministers, viz., the Lord Chan- cellor, Lord Sidmouth, and Lord Ellenborough, refused to concur in the measure, when they understood how far it was to be carried ; the Chancellor was not even sum- moned to the council at which it was to be discussed, though he was in a peculiar manner the keeper of the King's conscience ; and even the person who was com- missioned to procure the King's consent to the measure did not understand the extent to which it was to be carried. " Having thus been misled, whether designedly or in- advertently it mattered not, in so vital a particular by Defence of his ministers, was it surprising that the King should have in B requiring required from them a pledge that they would not again fK^nis- harass him on the same subject % Undoubtedly no minis- ters - ter should give a pledge to- fetter the exercise of his own judgment on future occasions ; but that was not here required ; for if circumstances in future might render a renewal of the measure necessary, they might at once resign. The King regarded this measure as a violation of his coronation oath, as destructive to the Protestant church in Ireland, and as likely in its ultimate effects to endanger our whole Protestant constitution. Unquestion- ably it was to be regretted that on any occasion the pri- vate opinion of the sovereign should be brought forward apart from that of his constitutional advisers ; but for this evil those must answer who, by forcing on a rash and unnecessary measure, compelled him to rely on his own judgment alone. And it is some consolation to reflect, that, in proportion as the sovereign has been made more constitutionally responsible in his own person, he must become better known to his people ; and the soundness of judgment, promptness and vivacity of intellect, which have enabled him to bear up alone against the united 460 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLV. 1807. 1 Pari. Deb. ix. 314,321, 342, 346. 2 Ibid. ix. 348. 86. Dissolution of parlia- ment, and great majo- rity for the new minis- ters. weight of the cabinet, have only evinced, in the more striking manner, how worthy he is to fill the throne which his family attained by the principle he has now so man- fully defended." 1 Upon a division, there appeared two hundred and fifty-eight for the new ministers, and two hundred and twenty-six for the old — leaving a majority of thirty-two for the existing government. 2 % This majority, though sufficient to enable ministers to conduct the public business during the remainder of that session, was not adequate to carry on the government during the arduous crisis which awaited them in the administration of foreign affairs. They resolved, there- fore, to strengthen themselves by a dissolution of parlia- ment; and the event decisively proved that the King had not miscalculated the loyalty and religious feeling of the English people in this trying emergency. Parliament was prorogued on the 27th April, and soon after dissolved by royal proclamation. The utmost efforts were made by both parties on this occasion to augment their respective forces ; to the usual heats and excitement of a general election were superadded the extraordinary passions aris- ing from the recent dismissal of an administration from office, and consequent elevation of another in their stead. All the usual means of exciting popular enthusiasm were resorted to without scruple on both sides. The venality and corruption of the Tories, alleged to be so strikingly evinced in their recent elevation of Lord Melville, after the stain consequent on the tenth report of the commis- sioners, were the subject of loud declamation from the Whigs ; the scandalous attempt to force the King's con- * In 1829, when the Catholic Relief Bill was introduced by Sir Robert Peel, Lord Eldon said in parliament — " If I had a voice that would resound to the remotest corner of the empire, I would re-echo the principle, that if ever a Roman Catholic is permitted to form part of the legislature of this country, or to hold any of the great offices of government, from that moment the sun of Great Britain is set for ever. (A laugh.) My opinions may be received with con- tempt and derision ; opprobrium may be heaped upon their author ; but they shall not be stifled ; and whatever calamities may befall the nation, it shall be known that there was one Englishman who boldly strove to avert them." HISTORY OF EUROPE. 4G1 science, and induce a popish tyranny on the land, yet chap. wet with the blood of the Protestant martyrs, was as XLV ' vehemently re-echoed from the other. " No Peculation," 1807, " No Popery," were the'war-cries of the respective parties; and amidst banners, shouts, and universal excitement, the people were called on to exercise the most important rights of free citizens. To the honour of the empire, however, this great contest was conducted without bloodshed or disorder in any quarter ; and the result decisively proved that, in taking his stand upon the inviolate maintenance of the Protestant constitution, the King had a great majority of all classes throughout the empire on his side. Almost all the counties and chief cities of Great Britain returned members in the interest of the new ministry ; defeat after defeat, in every quarter, told the Whigs how far they had miscalculated the spirit of the age ; and on the first division in the ensuing parliament they were T ...... June 26. overthrown by a great majority in both houses — that in x Ann. Rc ? . the Peers being ninety-seven, in the Commons no less 239. ' than one hundred and ninety -five. 1 * Though this important step of the King in dismissing the ministry was adopted on his own private judgment, Biography and from the strength of his native resolution alone, yet Eido°n. it had the effect of bringing into a prominent place in his councils a man of great capacity, who held for nearly twenty years afterwards the important situation of chan- cellor, and whose powerful mind communicated its impress to the policy of government during the most momentous period of British history. John Scott, afterwards Lord Eldon, was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne, on 4th June 1751. He was the eighth son of William Scott, a respectable trader engaged in the coal business in that city : and his * The numbers were — In the Peers, for the Whigs, 67 In the Commons, for the Whigs, 155 for the Tories, 164 ... for the Tories, 350 Majority, 97 Majority, 195 — Ann. Reg. 1307, 238-239. 462 I1IST0RY OF EUROTE. CHAP. XLV. 1807. elder brother William, afterwards Lord Stowell, had been born on 17th September 1745, at Haworth, near the same town. Thus the same family had the singular good fortune of giving birth to the two greatest lawyers in their respective departments, and not the least remarkable men of their day. Their father not having been in affluent circumstances, they were sent to the Royal Grammar- school, a charitable establishment in Newcastle, to which the sons of burgesses in that town were entitled, free of cost. John Scott there met a boy of equally obscure parentage — Cuthbert Collingwood, afterwards Lord Col- lingwood, the worthy companion of Nelson and St Vincent in the brightest days of England's glory. From such humble origin did the future rulers and statesmen of England at that period take their rise I 1 William Scott, the elder brother, early evinced such His rise at extraordinary abilities, that, at the age of sixteen, his the.office°of parents were induced to put him forward as a candidate for a scholarship at Oxford, for the diocese of Durham, which he obtained in 1761. This laid the foundation of the fortunes both of himself and his younger brother John, who at the age of sixteen followed him to that celebrated seat of learning in 1766. William Scott soon obtained a fellowship, and gave lectures, which were much admired, on public law. John Scott took his degree in 1772, made a runaway marriage in the same year, which imposed on him the necessity of exertion, and in 1774 and 1775 gave lectures on law as deputy for Robert Chambers, professor of law, for which he was glad to receive £60 a-year. In 1775 he was called to the bar ; and although he experienced the usual amount of disappointment which almost invariably, in that profession, precedes eminence, yet such was the vigour of his mind, and the unconquerable perseverance of his character, that it soon became evident to his friends that opportunity only was wanting to make him rise to the highest eminence. The opportunity came earlier to him than it 1 Twiss's Life of El don, i. 5, 44. 88. chancellor. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 4G3 does to many others "with equal powers and anxiety to do chap. well. After four years of severe labour and no progress, — he fortunately obtained an opportunity of being heard in 180 '' a question of disputed succession,""" in which his learning ultimately prevailed with Lord Chancellor Thurlow, though the decision had been adverse in the court below. That case made his fortune. He was soon after taken into the great case of the Clitheroe election, before a committee of the House of Commons, and, from the admirable appearance he made there, rapidly rose to the head of his profession. His secret for doing so was ener- getically expressed by himself in a few words, " To live like a hermit, and work like a horse,'' — a rule which will probably insure success, even to ordinary abilities, in other professions besides the bar. In 1783 he received a silk gown from the coalition administration, and in the same year was elected member of parliament for Weobly. In 1788 he was appointed solicitor-general, and knighted. In 1793 he was elevated to the rank of attorney-general, and in that capacity conducted the memorable treason trials of Hardy and Home Tooke in the succeeding year. 1 . , Finally, in 1801, on the resignation of Lord Lough- Life of El- borough, he was. appointed Lord Chancellor by the title 3G4.' ' of Lord Eldon. 1 Lord Eldon eni'oved a larger share of the confidence of .89. George III. and the great majority of the royal family, HischaVac- than any other minister after the death of Mr Pitt ; and ia^er a and his views influenced in a material degree the conduct of statesmau - that monarch on many important occasions, and on none more than in the stand he made against the Catholic claims in 1806. Similarity of character, identity of principles, was the cause of this strong prepossession and daily increasing influence. Lord Eldon was in the cabinet what the king was on the throne. Both were thoroughly English in their ideas and character. They had the virtues equally with the failings, the excellencies and the * Achroyd v. Smithson ; Brown's Cliancery Cases, i. 505. 4G4 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, defects of that temperament. Moral courage, fearless XLV ' determination in council, was the grand characteristic of 1807, both. Neither had very extensive information out of the circle of their professional habits, (if such a word can fitly be applied to a sovereign,) but both had a large share of that strong good sense, practical sagacity, and clear perception, which so often, in the real business of life, obtain the mastery both of knowledge, genius, and accomplishments. "Church and King" was Eldon's motto, and adherence to the constitution in all points his ruling principle. He was the last of the sturdy old patriots of former and more quiescent days, and stands forth in history as the " ultimus Romanorum" — the latest relic of a race which, by their firmness and resolution, created the British empire. As a lawyer, his learning was unbounded, his understanding sound, his memory pro- digious : and although the strength of his conscientious feelings in deciding cases in the court of last resort often led to distressing delays, yet his judgments, when they were pronounced, were almost always right, and have attained a weight which belongs to none others in West- minster Hall. On reviewing the external measures of the Whig cwter administration, it is impossible to deny that their removal m?r!istr7, hig from office at that period was a fortunate event for the British empire in its ultimate results, and proved emi- nently favourable to the cause of freedom throughout the world. Notwithstanding all their talent — and they had a splendid array of it in their ranks, — notwithstanding all their philanthropy — and their domestic measures were generally dictated by its spirit ; — they could not at that period have long maintained the confidence of the English people ; and their unfortunate shipwreck on the Catholic question only accelerated a catastrophe already prepared by many concurrent causes. External disaster, the reproaches of our allies, the unbroken progress of our enemies, must ere long have occasioned their fall. The and effects of their fall HISTORY OF EUROPE. 4G5 time was not suited, the national temper not then adapted, chap. for those domestic reforms on which the wishes of their XLV " partisans had long been set, and which in pacific times 1807 - were calculated to have excited so powerful a popular feeling in their favour. The active and ruling portion of the nation had grown up to manhood during the war with France ; the perils, the glories, the necessities of that struggle were universally felt ; the military spirit had spread, with the general arming of the people, to a degree hitherto unparalleled in the British islands. Vigour in the prosecution of the contest was then indispensably neces- sary to obtain general support; capacity for warlike com- bination the one thing needful for lasting popularity. In these particulars the Whig ministry, notwithstanding all their talents, were eminently deficient ; and the part they had taken throughout the contest disqualified them from conducting it to a successful issue. They had so uni- formly opposed the war with France, that they were by no means equally impressed, as the nation was, either with its dangers or its inevitable character : they had so strenuously on every occasion deprecated the system of coalitions, that they could hardly, in consistency with their former principles, take a suitable part in that great confederacy by which alone its overgrowm strength could be reduced. Their system of warfare, accordingly, was in every respect adverse to that which the nation then desired, — founded upon a secession from all alliances, when the people passionately desired to share in the dangers and glories of a Continental struggle ; calculated upon a defensive system for a long course of years, when the now aroused spirit of the empire deemed it practicable, by a vigorous and concentrated effort, to bring the contest at once to a successful termination. The foreign disasters, which attended their military and naval enterprises in all parts of the world, profoundly Reflection affected the British people, more impatient than any in foreignmea- Europe both of the expense of warlike preparation, and VOL. vii. 2 a Burei. 1807. 466 HISTORY OF EURORE. chap, of defeat in warlike adventure. The capitulation at Buenos Ayres, the flight from Constantinople, the catas- trophe in Egypt, succeeding one another in rapid succes- sion, were felt the more keenly that they occurred on the theatres of our greatest triumphs by land and sea, or blasted hopes the most extravagant of commercial advan- tage. And yet it is now abundantly evident that defeat on the shores of the La Plata and the banks of the Nile was more to be desired than victory ; and that no calamity could have been so great as the successful issue of these expeditions. They were conceived in the most inconsiderate manner, and aimed at objects which, if gained, must have paralysed the strength of the empire. At the moment when the armies of Napoleon were cross- ing the Thuringian forests, ten thousand English soldiers embarked for South America : when the scales of war hung even on the fields of Poland, five thousand men were sent to certain destruction amidst the cavalry of Egypt. Their united force, if thrown into the scale at Eylau, might have driven the French Emperor to a disastrous retreat across the Rhine, and induced, seven years before they occurred, the glories of Leipsic and Waterloo. What could be more impolitic than, after Russia had given such decisive proof of its extraordinary resolution and devotion to the cause of Europe, in February 1807, to send out a miserable little expedition to Alexandria in March following, too large for piracy, too small for conquest, and the success of which could have no other effect but that of riveting the hostility of Turkey to Russia and its allies, and thereby securing to Napoleon the inestimable advantage of a powerful diver- sion on the side of the Danube % What more impolitic than, when the finances of that great power were exhausted by the extraordinary expenses of the contest, to refuse to the Emperor not only a subsidy, but even the British guarantee to a loan which he was desirous of contracting in the British dominions, unless accompanied by the HISTORY OF EUROPE. 467 cession of customhouse duties in Russia in security 1 chap. — dealing thus with the greatest potentate in Europe, XLV - at the yery moment when he was perilling his very crown 1807 - in what was our cause, as well as his own, in the same manner as a Jewish pawnbroker does with a suspicious applicant for relief. The battle of Eylau should have been the signal for contracting the closest alliance with the Russian govern- And Sir ment— for the instant advance of loans to any amount, SJSSJ; and the marching of sixty thousand English soldiers to ^f an the nearest points of embarkation. This was the crisis of the war : the imprudent confidence of Napoleon had drawn him into a situation full of peril. For the first time in his life he had been overmatched in a pitched battle ; and hostile nations, besetting three hundred leagues of communication in his rear, were ready to inter- cept his retreat. No effort on the part of England could have been too great in order to turn to the best account so extraordinary a combination of favourable circumstances ; no demonstration of confidence too unre- served to an ally capable of such sacrifices. Can there be a doubt that such a vigorous demonstration would at once have terminated the hesitation of Austria, revived the spirit of Prussia, and, by throwing a hundred thousand men on each flank of his line of communication, driven the French Emperor to a ruinous retreat % Is it sur- prising that when, instead of such co-operation, Alex- ander, after the sacrifices he had made, met with nothing but refusals to his repeated and most earnest applications for assistance, and saw the land force of England wasted on useless distant expeditions, when every bayonet and sabre was of value on the banks of the Alle, he should have conceived a distrust of the English alliance, and formed the resolution of extricating himself as soon as possible from the hazardous conflict in which he was now exclusively engaged 1* * " In the foreign office," said Mr Canning, when minister of foreign their foreign policy 468 nrsTORY of Europe. chap. To these general censures on the foreign policj of '— England at this juncture, an exception must be made in the case of the expedition to the Dardanelles. It was The Dank- ably conceived and vigorously entered upon. The stroke ditionisan there aimed by England was truly at the heart of her the general adversary ; the fire of Duckworth's broadsides was con- dien^of centric with that of the batteries of Eylau ; if successful, they would have added forty thousand men to the Russian standards. This object was so important that it com- pletely vindicates the expedition ; the only thing to be regretted is, that the force put at the disposal of the British admiral was not such as to have rendered victory a matter of certainty. As it was, however, it was ade- affairs in 1807, " are to be found not one but twenty lettei's from the Marquis Repeated or " Douglas, ambassador at St Petersburg, intimating, in the strongest terms, and ineffee- that unless effectual aid was sent to the Emperor of Russia, be would abandon tionswhich the contest." Ample proof of this exists in the correspondence relating to Alexander that subject wbich was laid before parliament. On 28th November 1806, ai^duHng' ' the Marquis wrote to Lord Howick, afterwards Earl Grey, from St Peters- the Polish burg — " General Budberg lately told me that his imperial majesty had expressly directed him to urge the expediency of partial expeditions on the coast of France and Holland, for the purpose of distracting the attention of the enemy, and impeding the march of the French reserves. The extraordinary expenses arising from the disasters of Prussia have rendered a loan of six millions sterling indispensable, which his imperial majesty is exceedingly desirous should be negotiated in England." On 18th December 1806, he again wrote — " At court this morning his imperial majesty again urged, in the strongest terms, the expedience of a diversion on the enemy in the north of Europe by a powerful expedition to the coasts of France or Holland." On 2d January 1807 — " I have again heard the strongest complaints that the whole of the enemy's forces are directed against Russia, at a moment when Great Britain does not show any disposition to diminish the danger by a diversion against France and Holland." On January 14th — "I must not conceal from your lordships that the silence of his majesty's government respecting a mili- taiy diversion on the coast of France, has not produced a favourable impres- sion either on the ministi-y or people of this country." On January 26th — "Baron Budberg has again complained of the situation in which Russia has now been placed, having been left alone against France, without either support on one side or diversion on the other." On February 4th — "During this interview, General Budberg seized every opportunity of complaining that the Russians were left without any military assistance on the part of Great Britain." On February 15th — "I cannot sufficiently express the extreme anxiety felt here that some expedition should be undertaken by Great Britain, to divert the general concentration of the enemy's forces on the banks of the Vistula." Notwithstanding these and numberless similar i-emonstrances, and urgent calls for aid, the British government did nothing; they declined to guarantee the loan of six millions, which was indispensable to the equipment Total, 180,876 Total in arms in British isles— of whom 81,488 were regulars, 448,784 But of this immense force, lying within a day's sail of France and Holland, and including eighty thousand regulars, certainly seventy or eighty thousand might without difficulty have been sent to the Continent. In fact, in 1809, England had above seventy thousand regular soldiers at one time in Spain and Holland. Little more than half this force conquered Napoleon at Waterloo. Thrown into the scale in March or April 1807, it would at once have decided the contest.— See Pari. Paper, July 18, 1807; Pari. Deb. ix. Ill; Appendix. 1807. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 469 quate to the object ; and this bold and well-conceived chap. enterprise would certainly have been crowned with deserved success, but for the extraordinary talents and energy of General Sebastiani, and the unfortunate illness of Mr Arbuthnot, which threw the conduct of the nego- tiation into the hands of the British admiral, who, how- ever gallant in action, was no match for his adversary in that species of contest, and wasted in fruitless efforts for an accommodation those precious moments which should have been devoted to the most vigorous warlike demon- strations. After all, the unsuccessful issue of these expeditions, and the severe mortification which their failure occasioned of the Russian militia and reserves; they sent neither succours in men, money, nor arms, grounding their refusal on the necessity of husbanding their resources for a protracted contest, or a struggle on their own shores. On January 13th, Lord Howick wrote—" In looking forward to a protracted contest, for which the successes and inveterate hostility of the enemy must oblige this country to provide, his majesty feels it to be his duty to preserve as much as possible the resources to be derived from the affections of his people." It is difficult to find in history an example of a more ill-judged and discredi- table parsimony ; " husbanding/' as Mr Canning afterwards said, " your muscles till you lose the use of them." The infatuation of this conduct appears in still more striking colours, when the vast amount of the military then lying idle in the British islands is taken into account. Notwithstanding the useless or pernicious expeditions to Buenos Ayres and Alexandria, England had still a disposable regular force of eighty thousand men in the British islands. Her military force, Jan. 1807, was as follows : — REGULARS. MILITIA. VOLUNTEERS. Cavalry at home, 20,041 In Great Britain, 53,810 Infantry, 254,544 Infantry ditto, 61,447 In Ireland, 24,180 Cavalry, 25,342 Artillery, 9,420 Total ditto, 81,488 77,990 Infantry abroad, 93,114 289,306 Cavalry ditto, 6,274 470 HISTORY OP EUROPE. CHAP. XLV. 1807. 94. These fail- ures were ultimately beneficial. to the British people, had a favourable effect on the future stages of the contest. It is by experience only that truth is brought home to the masses of mankind. Mr Pitt's external policy had been distracted by the number and eccentric characters of his maritime expe- ditions ; but they were important in some degree, as wresting their colonial possessions from the enemy, and overshadowed by the grandeur and extent of his Conti- nental confederacies. Now, however, the same system was pursued when hardly any colonies remained to be conquered, and Continental combination was abandoned at the very time when sound policy counselled the vigo- rous and simultaneous direction of all the national and European resources against the heart of the enemy's power. The absurdity and impolicy of this system, glaring as they were, might have long failed in bringing it into general discredit ; but this was at once effected by the disasters and disgrace with which its last exertions were attended. The opinion, in consequence, became universal, that it was impolitic, as well as unworthy of its resources, for so great a nation to waste its strength in subordinate and detached operations : England, it was felt, must be brought to wrestle hand to hand with France before the struggle could be brought to a successful issue : the conquerors of Alexandria and Maida had no reason to fear a more extended conflict with land forces ; greater and more glorious fields of fame were passionately desired, and that general longing after military renown was felt which prepared the nation to support the burdens of the Peninsular war, and share in the glories of Wel- lington's campaigns. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 471 CHAPTER XLVI. CAMPAIGN OF FRIEDLAND AND PEACE OF TILSIT. APRIL — JULY, 1807. The change of ministry in England was attended with chap. an immediate alteration in the policy pursued by that XLVL power with respect to Continental affairs. The men 1807, who now succeeded to the direction of its foreign relations Negotia- had been educated in the school of Mr Pitt, and had ?2li™L early imbibed the ardent feelings of hostility with which %£?* f™ he was animated towards the French Revolution. They thevi g°r° us n 11 V i prosecution were fully alive to the insatiable spirit of foreign aggran- of the war. disement to which the passions springing from its con- vulsions had led. Mr Canning and Lord Castlereash were strongly impressed with the disastrous effects which had resulted from the economical system of their pre- decessors, and the ill-judged parsimony which had led them to starve the war at the decisive moment, and hold back at a time when, by a vigorous application of their resources, it might at once have been brought to a tri- umphant conclusion. No sooner, therefore, were they in possession of the reins of power than they hastened to supply the defect, and take measures for bringing the might of England to bear on the contest in a manner A .. 2 worthy of its present greatness and ancient renown. An 1 l««*«uH. immediate advance of £100,000 was made to the King ^,297,298. of Prussia ; arms and military stores were furnished for the x a03, lVi. use of the troops to the amount of £200,000 j 1 and nego- 472 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, tiations were set on foot for concluding, with the cabinets of XLVL St Petersburg, Berlin, and Stockholm, conventions for con- 1807- certed operations and a vigorous prosecution of the war. In April, the cabinet of Vienna interposed its good Austria offices to effect an adjustment of the differences of the medStebe- Allied powers ; but Mr Canning, while he accepted the Seeding offer of a mediation, did so under the express condition of JrifJ its being communicated to the other belligerent powers, Treaty be- auc i f their accession to its conditions. But as they had tween rrus- . * siaandRus- already concluded engagements for the active prosecution sia at Bar- _ . i i , • i • 1 tenstein. of the contest, the proposed negotiations never took place ; and England, under the guidance of its new administration, instead of entering into terms with France, reverted, in the most decided manner, to Mr Pitt's system of uncompromising hostility to its ambition. A treaty was signed at Bartenstein, in East Prussia, in the end of the same month, between Russia and Prussia, for the April 25. future prosecution of the war. By this convention it was stipulated that neither of the contracting parties should make peace without the concurrence of the other ; that the Confederation of the Rhine, which had proved so fatal to the liberties of Germany, should be dissolved, and a new confederacy, for the protection of its interests, formed, under the auspices of its natural protectors, Austria and Prussia ; that the latter power should recover the dominions which it had held in September 1805, and that Austria should be requested to accede to this treaty in order to regain its possessions in the Tyrol and the Vene- tian provinces, and to extend its frontier to the Mincio. Finally, Great Britain was formally invited to unite with iLucches.ii. the contracting powers, by furnishing succours in arms, Pari 3 Deb. ammunition, and money to them, and by the debarkation Hald 3 'i.\-° 4 ' °^ a s ^ rori g auxiliary force at the mouth of the Elbe, to 401,402. co-operate with the Swedes in the rear of the enemy, 234. Mar- while Austria should menace his communications, and the 603,' 604.' combined Russian and Prussian armies should attack him in front. 1 1807. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 473 To this convention Sweden had already given its adhe- sion by the signature of a treaty, six days before, for the employment of an auxiliary force of twelve thousand men in Pomerania ; and England hastened to unite itself to To which the confederacy. By a convention signed at London Jisledm on the 1 7th June, England gave in its accession to the * c u c n e e d< y 7> treaty of Bartenstein, and engaged to support the Swedish force in Pomerania by a corps of twenty thousand British soldiers, to act against the rear and left flank of the French army ; while, by a relative agreement on the 23d, the June 23. Swedish auxiliary force in British pay was to be raised to eighteen thousand men, and the provisions of the fundamental treaty of alliance in April 1805, were again declared in force against the common enemy. Shortly after, a treaty was signed at London between Great Britain and Prussia, by which a subsidy of a million sterling was promised to the latter power for the cam- paign of 1807; and a secret article stipulated for succours yet more considerable, if necessary, to carry into full effect the purposes of the convention of Bartenstein. Thus, by the return of England to the principles of Mr Pitt's foreign policy, were the provisions of the great *Sdjodi, ° *■. J . , 1 p 1 ix. 141. Luc- confederacy of 1805 again revived on the part ot the dies. ii. 302, northern powers ; and to Great Britain it is not the least vi.234/ honourable part of these transactions, as Mr Canning Se^ff"' justly observed, that the treaty with Prussia was signed ^2, d 405. when that power was almost entirely bereft of its posses- f x a, l; 7 J e ^ d sions, and agreed to by Frederick- William in the only *: 102 >' 103 - ' © J pi' • Martens, large town that remained to him of his once extensive viii. 603. dominions. 1 But it was all in vain : the succours of England came too late to counterbalance the disasters which had been But too late incurred ; the change of system was too tardy to assuage tLin-itation the irritation which had been produced. By withholding of Russia - these succours at an earlier period, the former ministry had not only seriously weakened the strength of the Russian forces, by preventing the arming of the numerous militia 474 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, corps which were crowding to the Imperial standards, _^ 1_ but left the seeds of intense dissatisfaction in the breast 1807- of the Czar, who, not aware of the total change of policy which the accession of the Whig ministry had pro- duced in the cabinet of St James's, and the complete revolution in that policy which had resulted from their dismissal, was actuated by the strongest resentment against the British government, and loudly complained that he was deserted by the ancient ally of Russia at the very moment when, for its interests even more than his own, he was risking his empire in a mortal struggle with the French Emperor.""" Such was the state of destitution to which the ill-judged parsimony of the late administra- tion had reduced the British arsenals, and such the effect of their total dismissal of transports from the royal service, that it was found impossible by their successors to fit out * These angry feelings are very cleai'ly evinced in General Budberg's answer to Lord Leveson Gower's (the British ambassador at St Petersburg) remon- strance on the conclusion at Tilsit of a separate peace by Russia with France. " The firmness and perseverance with which his majesty, during eight months, maintained and defended a cause common to all sovereigns, are the most certain pledges of the intentions which animated him, as well as of the loyalty and purity of his principles. Never would his imperial majesty have thought of deviating from that system which he has hitherto pursued, if he had been sup- ported by a real assistance on the part of his allies. But having, from the separation of Austria and England, found himself reduced to his own resources, having to combat with his own means the immense military forces which France had at her disposal, he was authorised in believing that, in continuing to sacrifice himself for others, he might ultimately come to compromise the fate of his own empire. The conduct of the British government in later times has been of a kind completely to justify the determination which his majesty has now taken. The diversion on the Continent which England so long promised, has not to this day taken place ; and even if, as the latest advices from London show, the British government has at length resolved on sending ten thousand men to Pomerania, that succour is noways proportioned either to the hopes we were authorised to entertain, or the importance of the object to which these troops were destined. Pecuniary succours might, in some degree, have compensated the want of English troops ; but not only did the British government decline facilitating the loan the imperial court had intended to negotiate in London, but when it did at length resolve upon making some advances, it appeared that the sum destined for this purpose, so far from meeting the exigencies of the Allies, would not even have covered the indispensable expenses of Prussia. In fine, the use which, instead of co-operating in the common cause, the British government, during this period, has made of its forces in South America and in Egypt, the latter of which was not even communicated to the imperial cabinet, and was entirely at variance with its interests, at a time when, by giving them HISTORY OF EUROPE. 475 an expedition for tlie shores of the Baltic for several chap. months after their accession to office; and, in consequence, _— the formidable armament under Lord Cathcart, which afterwards achieved the conquest of Copenhagen and might have appeared with decisive effect on the shores ^ ^ of the Elbe or the Vistula at the opening of the «W ^103^ was not able to leave the shores of Britain till the end of July-a fortnight after the treaty of Tilsit had been Ann. Reg. signed, and the subjugation of the Continent, to all 23. appearance, irrevocably effected. 1 * While the Allies were thus drawing closer the bonds g which united their confederacy, and England, rousing Neg^ from its unworthy slumber, was preparing to resume is gg- place at the head of the alliance, Napoleon on his side ^^d. was not idle, and from his camp at Fmkenstein carried , on an active negotiation with all the powers in Europe, g^ D from Spain. a different destination, the necessity of maintaining a Russian army on the D tube milt have b en prevented, and the disposable force on the Vistula C virtually released from his engagements, and had no course left J** to Tt nd to the security of his own dominions." It is m ^ *^g^ justice of these observations. -Note, General Budberg to Lord LE^E S o N wneuLuei, «thev found the transport department foreign minister, on July ol, *-W> Lue J' i" u " u r ^ tntnllv dismantled This originated in the economical system of Lord H. Petty" btTwas a false parsimony, evidently calculated, at no distant period, toltevnleZj a profuse expenditure. The mandate of dismissal came rom the tielsury, andwas applicable to all transports but those necessary to maintain the communication with Ireland, Jersey, and Guernsey. The saving Zduced oy this order did not amount to more than £4000 a-month and Sspersecl 60,000 tons of shipping which was left to the *£*£** **£ predecessors. Ministers thus, in the beginning of April last, had not a tians ^ortTtheir disposal; and from the active state of trade at the^ same time it recpiired several months before they could be collected. If they had existed a military force would in that very month have been sent out, a nd ^ thousand British troops would have turned the scale at Friedland. This 11 indeed economy was the more criminal, that, by havmg a fleet of transports fon tan% atco'mmand, and threatening various points, 20,000 men ^ easdy paralyse three times that force on the part of the enemy. The Whigs had apparently parted with this transport force for no other purpose but that o reSs tei-mg their abandonment of the Continent." The facts here alleged Mr wfndham! on the part of the late government, did not deny, alleging only the absurdity of sending British forces to the Continent; which required no reply.- A ^ u trirgument from so able a man, when it is recollected that .the nation was on the verge of Wellington's carcer.-See Pari. Deb. ix. 1035-1038. 476 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. In his addresses to the French senate, .calling out the XLVI . . . 1 1 additional conscription of eighty thousand men, which 1807# has been already mentioned, he publicly held out the olive branch ; the surest proof of the magnitude of the disaster sustained at Eylau, and the critical situation in which he felt himself placed, with Austria hanging in dubious strength in his rear on one side, and Great Britain preparing to organise a formidable force on the other. " Our policy is fixed," said he : " we have offered to England peace before the fourth coalition ; we repeat the offer ; we are ready to conclude a treaty with Russia on the terms which her ambassador subscribed at Paris : we are prepared to restore its eight millions of inhabi- tants, and its capital, conquered by our arms, to Prussia." There was nothing said now about making the Prussian nobility so poor that they should have to beg their bread ; nor of the Queen, like another Helen, having lighted the fires of another Troy. But amidst these tardy and extorted expressions of moderation, the Emperor had nothing less at his heart than to come to an accommoda- tion ; and his indefatigable activity was incessantly engaged in strengthening his hands by fresh alliances, and collecting from all quarters additional troops to over- whelm his enemies. The imprudent and premature pro- clamation has been already mentioned/"" by which the Prince of the Peace announced, on the eve of the battle of Jena, his preparations to combat an enemy which no one could doubt was France. Napoleon dissembled for a while his resentment, but resolved to make this hostile demonstration the ground for demanding fresh supplies from Spain ; and accordingly great numbers of the Prus- sian prisoners were sent into the Peninsula to be fed and clothed at the expense of the court of Madrid, while an auxiliary force was peremptorily demanded from that power to co-operate in the contest in the north of Europe. Trembling for its existence, the Spanish government had * Ante, Chap, xliii. § 19. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 477 no alternative but submission; and accordingly sixteen chap. thousand of the best troops of the monarchy, under a leader destined to future celebrity, the Marquis de 1807> Romana, crossed the Pyrenees early in March, and arrived on the banks of the Elbe in the middle of May. Thus was the double object gained of obtaining an impor- tant auxiliary force for the Grand Army, and of securing, as hostages for the fidelity of the court of Madrid, the n 1> • • •• --.i 1 Bi g n - vi - flower ol its troops in a remote situation, entirely at the 239,242. mercy of his forces. 1 Sweden was another power which Napoleon was not without hopes, notwithstanding the hostile disposition of operations its sovereign, of detaching, through dread of Russia, from r Lia, n a n"d the coalition. Immediately after the battle of Eylau, he Napoleon began to take measures to excite the court of Stockholm regarding o _ Sweden. against the alliance.* " Should Swedish blood," said he, in the bulletin on the 23d April, ;c flow for the defence of Atlas < ,„ . --0111-! 11 Plate 3 °- the Ottoman empire, or its ruin { should it be shed to establish the freedom of the seas, or to subvert itl What has Sweden to fear from France % Nothing. What from Russia % Everything. A peace, or even a truce with Sweden, would accomplish the dearest wish of his Majesty's heart, who has always beheld with pain the hostilities in which he was engaged with a nation generous and brave, linked alike by its historic recollections and geographical position to the alliance with France." In pursuance of instructions framed on these principles, Mortier inclined with the bulk of his forces towards Colberg, to prosecute the siege of that town, leaving only * In furtherance of this design, early in March he explained 1 to Marshal Mortier, who was intrusted with the prosecution of the war in Pomerania, that March 5. the real object of hostilities in that quarter was not to take Stralsund, nor inflict any serious injury on Sweden, but to observe Hamburg and Berlin, and defend the mouths of the Oder. " I regret much what has already happened," said he, " and most of all that the fine suburbs of Stralsund have been burned. It is not our interest to inflict injury on Sweden, but to protect that power from it. Hasten to propose an armistice to the governor of Stralsund, or even a suspen- sion of arms, in order to lighten the sufferings of a war which I regard as criminal, because it is contraiy to the real interests of that monarchy." — 72d Bulletin, Camp, en Saxe et Pologne, iv. 243-246. 478 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. General Grandjean with a weak division before Stralsund. XLVL Informed of that circumstance, General Essen, the 1807. governor of the fortress, conceived hopes of capturing or destroying the presumptuous commander who main- tained a sort of blockade with a force inferior to that April -6. which was assembled within its walls. Early in April, accordingly, he issued from the fortress, and attacked the French with such superior numbers, that they were com- pelled to retire, first to Anclam, where they sustained a severe defeat, and ultimately to Stettin, with the loss of above two thousand men. No sooner did he hear of this check, than Mortier assembled the bulk of his troops, about fourteen thousand strong, under the cannon of that fortress, and prepared for a serious attack upon the enemy. The Swedes, though nearly equal in number, were not prepared for a conflict with forces so formidable, and retired to Stralsund with the loss of above a thousand HiCii?! 111 ' prisoners, and three hundred killed and wounded ; among 24C2I5. the latter of whom was General Arnfeldt, the most uncompromising enemy of France in their councils. 1 After this repulse, Mortier renewed his secret proposals ArrJstice for a separate accommodation to the Swedish generals ; sSeTand and on this occasion he found them more inclined to enter French. j nto ^ v i ews> The Swedish government at this period was actuated by a strong feeling of irritation towards Great Britain for the long delay which had occurred, under the administration of the Whigs, in the remittance of the stipulated subsidies ; and its generals at Stralsund were ignorant of the steps which were in progress, since the change of ministry in England, to remedy the defect. Deeming themselves, therefore, deserted by their natural allies, and left alone to sustain a contest in which they had only a subordinate interest, they lent a willing ear to April 18. Mortier's proposals, and concluded an armistice, by which it was stipulated that hostilities should cease between the two armies — that the islands of Usedom and Wollin should be occupied by the French troops — the lines of the Peene HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 479 and the Trebel separate the two armies — no succours, chap. ■ XLVI direct or indirect, should be forwarded through the Swedish lines either to Dantzic or Colberg — and no debarkation 1807- of troops hostile to France take place at Stralsund.* The armistice was not to be broken without ten days' previous notice, which period was, by a supplementary convention on the 29th April, extended to a month. No sooner was April 19. this last agreement signed, than Mortier in person resumed the blockade of Colberg, while a large part of his forces was despatched to aid Lefebvre in the opera- tions against Dantzic, and took an important part in the siege of that fortress, and the brief but decisive campaign which immediately ensued. The conditions of the new treaty between England and Sweden, signed at London on the 1 7th June, came too late to remedy these serious evils. And thus, while the previous ill-timed defection of the cabinet of London from the great confederacy for the deliverance of Europe, had sown the seeds of irrecon- cilable enmity in the breast of the Emperor Alexander, i Du m.xviii. it entirely paralysed the valuable array in the rear of {JJ*^- Napoleon, which, if thrown into the scale at the decisive 245, 246. t-» • • Join. 11. moment, and with the support of a powerful British 3jjh, 392. auxiliary force, 1 could hardly have failed to have had the * In the letter of Napoleon, which. Mortier despatched to Essen on that occasion, he said, — "I have nothing more at heart than to re-establish peace with Sweden. Political passion may have divided us; but state interest, which ought to rule the determinations of sovereigns, should reunite our policy. Sweden cannot be ignorant that, in the present contest, she is as much interested in the success of our arms as France itself. She will speedily feel the consequence of Russian aggrandisement, Is it for the destruction of the empire of Constantinople that the Swedes are fighting 1 Sweden is not less interested than France in the diminution of the enormous maritime power of England. Accustomed by the traditions of our fathers to regard each other as friends, our bonds are drawn closer together by the partition of Poland and the dangers of the Ottoman empire ; our political interests are the same; why, then, are we at variance !" And in the event of the Swedish general acceding to these propositions, the instructions of Mortier were — " instantly to send to Dantzic and Thorn all the regiments of foot and horse which can be spared ; to resume without delay the siege of Colberg, and at the same time to hold himself in readiness to start with the whole blockading force, at a moment's warning, either for the Vistula or the Elbe."— Jomini, 389, 391. 480 HISTORY OF EUROTE. CHAP. XLVI. 1807. 8. Sweden again re- verts to the alliance. Formation of an army of reserve on the Elbe, most important effects, both upon the movements of Austria and the general issue of the campaign. In justice to the Swedish monarch, however, who, though eccentric and rash, was animated with the highest and most romantic principles of honour, it must be noticed, that no sooner was he informed of the change of policy on the part of the cabinet of London, consequent on the accession of the new administration, and even before the conclusion of the treaty of 1 7th June, by which efficacious succours were at length promised on the part of Great Britain, than he manifested the firm resolution to abide by the confederacy, and even pointed to the restoration of the Bourbons as the condition on which alone peace appeared practicable to Europe, or a curb could be imposed on the ambition of France. Early in June he wrote to the King of Prussia with these views, and soon after refused to ratify the convention of 29th April for the extension of the period allowed for the denouncing the armistice with France, in a conversation with Marshal Brune, successor to Mortier, so curious and characteristic as to deserve a place in general history."" Not content with thus drawing to the northern contest the troops of the monarchy of Charles V., and neutralis- ing the whole forces of Sweden and the important point cVappui for British co-operation in his rear, Napoleon at the same time directed the formation of a new and respectable army on the banks of the Elbe. The change of ministry in England had led him to expect a much more vigorous prosecution of the war by that power ; * " Nothing," said he, in his letter of 2d June to the King of Prussia, " would gratify me more than to be able to contribute with you to the establishment of general order and the independence of Europe ; but to attain that end, I think a public declaration should be made in favour of the legitimate cause of the Bourbons, by openly espousing their interest, which is plainly that of all established governments. My opinion on this point is fixed and unalterable, as well as on the events which are passing before our eyes." And two days after- wards, the following conversation passed between the King of Sweden and Marshal Brune : — "Do you forget, Marshal, that you have a lawful sovereign, though he is now in misfortune]" — "I know that he exists," replied the HISTORY OF EUROPE. 481 the descent of a large body of English troops in the north chap. of Germany was known to be in contemplation ; and with XLVL his advanced and critical position in Poland, the preserva- i807- tion of his long line of communication with France was an object of vital importance. To counteract any such attempt as might threaten it, two French divisions, under Boudet and Molitor, were summoned from Italy; and, united with Roman a's corps of Spaniards and the Dutch troops with which Louis Buonaparte had effected the reduction of the fortresses of Hanover, formed an army of observation on the Elbe, which it was hoped would be sufficient at once to avert any danger in that quarter, overawe Hamburg and Berlin, and keep up the important communications of the Grand Army with the banks of 39^394 the Rhine. 1 With a view still further to strengthen himself in the 10 formidable contest which he foresaw was approaching, Negotia- Napoleon, from his headquarters at Finkenstein, opened TurLy'and negotiations both with Turkey and Persia, in the hope ^poieon of rousing these irreconcilable enemies of the Muscovite empire to powerful diversions in his favour on the Danube and the Caucasus. Early in March, magnificent embassies were received by the Emperor at Warsaw from the Sublime Porte and the King of Persia. A treaty, offensive and defensive, was speedily concluded May?, between the courts of Paris and Teheran, by which mutual aid and succour was stipulated by the two con- tracting parties ; and the better to consolidate their rela- tions, and turn to useful account the military resources of the Persian monarchy, it was agreed that a Persian lega- Marshal. — " He is exiled," rejoined the King ; " he is unfortunate; his rights are sacred ; he desires only to see Frenchmen around that standard." — "Where is that standard 1" — "You will find it wherever mine is raised."— " Your Majesty then regards the Pretender as your brother"?" — " The French should know their duties without waiting till I set them an example." — " Will your Majesty then consent to the notification of ten days before breaking the armis- tice'?" — "Yes." — " But if a month should be secretly agreed on] " — "You know me little, if you deem me capable of such a deception." — See Hard. ix. 411, 412; and Dumas, xix. 139. VOL. VII. 2 H 482 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, tion should reside at Paris : and General Gardanne, XI VI accompanied by a body of skilful engineers, set out for the distant capital of Teheran. Napoleon received the Turkish ambassador, who represented a power whose forces might more immediately affect the issue of the combat, with the utmost distinction, and lavished on him the most flattering expressions of regard. In a public audience given to that functionary at Warsaw on the 28th May, he said, " that his right hand was not more inseparable from his left than the Sultaun Selim should ever be to him." Memorable words ! and highly cha- racteristic of the Emperor, when his total desertion of that potentate two months afterwards, by the treaty of Tilsit, is taken into consideration. In pursuance, how- ever, of his design, at that time at least sincerely con- ceived, of engaging Turkey and Persia in active hostilities with Russia, he wrote to the minister of marine : — " The Emperor of Persia has requested four thousand men, ten thousand muskets, and fifty pieces of cannon — when can they be embarked, and from whence % They would form a rallying point, give consistency to eighty thousand horse, and would force the Russians to a considerable diversion. Send me without delay a memoir on the best means of fitting out an expedition to Persia." At the same time he conceived the idea of maritime operations i con-. Nav. m the Black Sea, in conjunction with the Ottoman fleet ; deNapo- anc j m a } 011 o. i e tter to the minister of marine enumerated leon, ii.ll/. O Sr^f?* a ^ *^ e nava l f° rces at his disposal and on the stocks, in Ann. Reg. order to impress him with the facility with which a 1807. Bign. „. l - •-,, i-r^i vi. 246,251. powerful squadron might be sent to the Bosphorus, in order to co-operate in an attack upon Sebastopol. 1 Still more extensive operations were in contemplation Prepara- with land forces. Orders were sent to Marmont to pre- aldingThese pare for the transmission of twenty-five thousand men E™ by across the northern provinces of Turkey to the Danube ; and a formal application was made at Constantinople for liberty to march them through Bosnia, Macedonia, and HISTORY OF EUROPE. 483 Bulgaria. In these great designs, especially the mission chap. of General Gardanne to the court of Teheran, more L important objects than even a diversion to the war in 1807, Poland, vital as it was to his interests, were in the con- templation of the Emperor. The appearance of the ambassadors of Turkey and Persia at his headquarters, when five hundred leagues from Paris, on the road to Asia, had strongly excited his imagination; his early visions of Oriental conquest were revived, and the project was already far advanced to maturity, of striking, through Persia, a mortal stroke at England in her Indian posses- sions. These extensive projects, however, which the rapid succession of events on the Vistula prevented from being Jeaiouty carried into execution, were wellnigh interrupted by a theDivan precipitate and ill-timed step on the part of the governor moni^oT" of the Ionian Islands, Caesar Berthier. The consent of Parga - the Divan had just been given to the march of the French troops across the northern provinces of the empire, when intelligence was received that the towns of Parga, Previso, and Butrin, on the coast of the Adriatic, though then in the possession of the Turks, had been summoned in the most peremptory manner by that officer as dependencies of the Venetian States, out of which the modern republic of the Seven Islands had been framed, with the threat to employ force if they were not immediately surrendered. This intelligence excited the utmost alarm at Constan- May 29. tinople. The Turks recollected the perfidious attack which, under the mask of friendship, the French had made on their valuable possessions in Egypt, and anticipated a similar seizure of their European dominions from the force for which entrance was sought on the footing of forward- ing succours to the Danube. Napoleon, though this step was taken in pursuance of orders emanating from himself, expressed the utmost dissatisfaction at their literal exe- cution at so untimely a crisis; the governor was recalled, and the utmost protestations of friendship for the Sultaun 484 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLVI. 1807. 1 Bign. vi. 248, 250. 13. Measures to organise the military strength of Poland. March 12. April 6. May 16. were made. But the evil was done, and was irreparable : Turkish honesty had conceived serious suspicions of French fidelity; the passage of the troops was refused, and the foundation laid of that well-founded distrust which, confirmed by Napoleon's desertion of their inte- rests in the treaty of Tilsit, subsequently led to the con- clusion of a separate peace by the Osmanlis with Russia in 1812, and the horrors of the Beresina to the Grand Army. 1 A nearer and more efficacious ally was presented to Napoleon in the Polish provinces. The continuance of the war in their neighbourhood, the sight of the Russian prisoners, the certainty of the advance of the French troops, and the exaggerated reports everywhere diffused of their successes, had, notwithstanding the measured reserve of his language, excited the utmost enthusiasm for the French Emperor in the gallant inhabitants of that ill-fated monarchy. Of this disposition, so far as it could be done without embroiling him with Austria, he resolved to take advantage. His policy towards that country uniformly had been, to derive the utmost aid from the military spirit of its subjects which could be obtained, without openly proclaiming its independence, and thereby irrevocably embroiling him with the partitioning powers. In addition to the Polish forces organised under former decrees, and which now amounted to abo^e twenty thou- sand men, he took into his pay a regiment of light horse raised by Prince John Sulkowski; subsequently decreed the formation of a Polish-Italian legion, and the incorpo- ration of one of their regiments of hussars with his Guards; and authorised the provisional government at Warsaw to dispose of royal domains in Polish Prussia to the extent of eighteen millions of francs, and Prussian stock to the extent of six millions. His cautious policy, however, shortly after appeared in a decree, by which the commissary-general at Warsaw was enjoined to limit his requisitions to the territory described by the original HISTORY OF EUROPE. 485 decree establishing his powers, which confined them to chap Prussian Poland. By these means, though he avoided giving any direct encouragement to rebellion in the Russian and Austrian provinces of the partitioned terri- tory, he succeeded in generally diffusing an enthusiastic spirit, which, before the campaign opened, had brought above thirty thousand gallant recruits to his standards. This disposition was strongly increased by two decrees June 4. which appeared early in June, on the eve of the resump- tion of hostilities —by the first of which Prince Poma- towski was reinstated in a starosty, or government, of which he had been dispossessed by the Prussian cabinet; while, by the second, the provisional government at Warsaw was directed to set apart twenty millions of francs (£800,000) as a fund to recompense those who^ v . should distinguish themselves in the approaching cam- 252, 253. paign. 1 The headquarters of Napoleon, in the first instance, u _ had been fixed at Osterode, on the margin of one of the Wmt^ lakes which form the feeders of the Drewenz ; but, on ^French the representations of the learned and humane Larrey, aim L_ that that situation was low and unhealthy for the troops, Plate M< he moved to Finkenstein, where all the important nego- tiations which ensued during the cessation of active hos- tilities were conducted. The Guard were disposed around the Emperor's residence; and not only that select corps, but the whole army, were lodged in a more comfortable manner than could have been anticipated 111 that severe climate. After a sharp conflict in the end of February, the important fortified post of Braunsberg, at the entrance of the river Passarge into the Frische-Haff, was wrested from the Prussians by Bernadotte, and the tete- de-pont there established secured all the left of the army from the incursions of the enemy. On the left bank of that river no less than four corps of the army were cantoned, while all the points of passage over it were occupied in such strength as to render any attempt at a surprise 486 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, impossible. Secure behind this protecting screen, the L French anny constructed comfortable huts for their 1807, winter quarters, and all the admirable arrangements of the camp at Boulogne were again put in force amidst the severity of a Polish winter. The streets, in which they were disposed, resembled in regularity and cleanliness those of a metropolis. Constant exercises, rural labours, warlike games, and reviews, both confirmed the health and diverted the minds of the soldiers ; while the inex- haustible agricultural riches of Old Prussia kept even the enormous multitude, which was concentrated within a space of twenty leagues, amply supplied with provisions. Immense convoys constantly defiling on all the roads from the Rhine, Silesia, and the Elbe, provided all that was necessary for warlike operations ; while the numer- ous conscripts, both from France and the allied states, and the great numbers of wounded and sick who on the return of spring were discharged from the hospitals, both swelled the ranks and reassured the minds of the soldiers. The magnitude of the requisitions by which these ample supplies were obtained, and the inflexible severity with which they were levied from the conquered states, were indeed spreading the seeds of inextinguishable animosity in his rear. But the effects of that feeling were remote and contingent, the present benefits certain and imme- diate ; and the Russians had too much reason to feel their importance in the numbers and incomparable disci- pline of the troops by whom they were assailed upon the opening of the campaign. The marauders, still above fifty thousand in number, whom the excessive severity of the preceding campaign had caused to leave their colours, in an especial manner fixed the attention of the Empe- ror, the more especially as they lived at free quarters on the inhabitants, and caused unbounded exasperation, by the magnitude and rapacity of their exactions. To repress this enormous evil, he employed at first the whole Polish gendarmerie, and ultimately that of the Imperial HISTORY OF EUROPE. 487 Guard, as the only one whose uniform commanded general chap. respect. By their exertions the number of these strag- XLIV - glers was greatly diminished ; but the evil could never be 1807 - entirely eradicated while the war lasted, and was at length suppressed only during the tranquillity which followed the peace of Tilsit. The comforts of the common soldiers were tolerably provided for by the incessant 1Dum xviii efforts of the Emperor, but the labours of the officers &k 8S » 2 , 06 > 1 _ 20/; and were overwhelming : and Napoleon with reason com- xix - 4 ^\ T . , , . 442. Wil- pared the warfare in which he had been engaged during son, na the last winter, to that waged by the legions with the 408,4i7. u * barbarians who overthrew the Roman empire. 1 * The Russian army was far from being equally well situated, and the resources at its disposal were by no winter means commensurate to those which were in possession & e Ru7-° of the French Emperor. The bulk of the Allied army {""j g°™: was cantoned between the Sense and the Alle, around !*L adt : „ ' March 3. Heilsberg, where a formidable intrenched camp had been constructed. The only contest of any moment which took place while the army occupied this position, was in the beginning of March at Guttstaclt, which was attacked and carried by Marshal Ney, with the magazines which it contained ; but the French troops having imprudently advanced into the plain beyond that town, several regi- ments were surrounded by the Cossacks, pierced through, and broken; so that both parties were glad to resume their quarters without boasting of any considerable * "Les officiers d'etat-niajor ne so sont pas deshabilles depuis deux mois, et quelques-uns depuis quatre ; j'ai moi-meme ete' quiuze jours sans oter mes bottes. Nous sommes au milieu de la ueige et de la boue, sans vin, sans eau- de-vie, sans pain, mangeant des pommes de terre et de la viande, faisaut de longues marches et contre-marches, sans aucune espece de douceurs, et nous battant ordinairement a la baionnette et sous la mitraille, les blesses obliges de se retirer en traineau, en plein air, pendant cinquante lieues. Apres avoir detruit la lnonarchie Prussienne, nous nous battons contre le reste de la Prusse, contre les Russes, les Calmouks, les Cosaques, et les peuplades du Nord, qui envahirent jadis l'empire Romain. Nous faisons la guerre dans toute son energie et son horreur. Au milieu de ces grandes fatigues, tout le monde a ete plus ou moins malade: pour moi je ne me suis jamais trouve' plus fort, et j'ai engraisse." — Napoleon to King Joseph: Osterode, 1st March 1807. Thiers, Consulat et VEmpire, vii. 417. 488 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLVI. 1807. advantage. Headquarters were at Bartenstein, and the advanced posts approached to those of Marshal Ney, on the right bank of the Passarge. Their cantonments, with the great commercial city of Konigsberg in their rear, were very comfortable, and the army was daily receiving important accessions of strength from the sick and wounded who were leaving the hospitals. Thirty thousand fresh troops also, including the Grand-duke Constantine, with the remainder of the Guard, and several batteries of light artillery, joined the army while they lay in their winter quarters ; and in the end of March 28. March the Emperor Alexander left St Petersburg and arrived at Bartenstein, where the King of Prussia had already taken up his headquarters, and where the impe- rial and royal courts were established. But although the Russian and Prussian governments both made the utmost efforts to recruit their forces and bring up supplies from their rear, yet the succour which they were enabled to draw from their exhausted provinces was very dif- ferent from what Napoleon extracted from the opulent German states which he held in subjection; and the additions to the respective forces which the cessation of hostilities secured, were in consequence widely different. Now was seen how immense was the advantage which the French Emperor had gained by having overrun and turned to his own account the richest part of Europe ; as well as the magnitude of the error which the British government had committed, in refusing to the northern JDum.xviii. powers, now reduced to their own resources, and with 8(5 91 203 *■ . 207. Vii-' nine-tenths of Prussia in the hands of the enemy, the 133'. ' supplies by which alone they could be expected to main- tain the contest. 1 * * While occupying these cantonments, a truce in hostilities, as usual in such cases, took place between the advanced posts of the two armies, and this led to an incident equally characteristic of the gallantry and honourable feelings of both. The Russian and French outposts being stationed on the opposite banks of a river, some firing, contrary to the usual custom, took place, and a French officer advancing, reproached the Russians with the discharge, and a Russian officer approaching him, requested him to stop the filing of his people, in HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 489 During the pause in military operations which took chap. place for the three succeeding months, the active mind of _ 1 Napoleon resumed the projects which he had formed for 1 ^' the internal amelioration of his immense empire. Early great^e- in March he wrote to the minister of the interior as to Napoleon the expedience of granting a loan, without interest, to for the iyit e- the mercantile classes who were labouring under distress, ™% h ™ on the footing of advancing one half of the value of the March 7 - goods they could give security over ; and he announced his design of establishing a great bank in connexion with the state for the purpose of lending sums to manufac- turers or merchants in difficulties, on the security of their unsold property. The utmost pains were at the same time taken to neutralise the effect of the gloomy reports sent to Paris from the army as to the losses and disasters of the campaign ; and Napoleon wrote to the minister of police that they were all exaggerations or falsehoods, and that the position of France was never more prosperous/"" But although he made these representations to his minis- ters, Napoleon was not the less aware himself of the imminence of the clanger. Orders were given to put all the fortresses on .the Rhine in a posture of defence, and " train battalions" as he called them — that is, battalions of waggoners — were organised in Paris, and forwarded to the army, which it was calculated they would reach in two months. Nor were diplomatic efforts overlooked. order that, if necessary, they might determine by single combat who was most courageous. The officer assented, and was in the act of commanding his men to cease firing, when a ball pierced him to the heart. The Russian officer instantly rushed forward, and cried out to the French soldiers— " My life shall make reparation for this accident— let three marksmen fire at me as I stand here ;" and turning to his own soldiers, ordered them " to cease firing upon the enemy, whatever might be his fate, unless they attempted to cross the river." Already a Frenchman had levelled his piece, when the subaltern next in com- mand struck it down with his sword, and, running to the Russian, took him by the hand, declaring that no man worthy of the name of Frenchman would be the executioner of so brave a man. His soldiers felt the justice of the senti- ment, and confirmed the feeling by a general acclamation.— See Wilson, 120. With truth did Montesquieu say, that honour was, under a monarchical govern- ment, the prevailing feeling of mankind. * " Mes officiers, disait-il, savent ce qui se passe dans mon armee, comme les 490 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. Orders were sent to the French ambassadors at the courts XLV1, of Madrid and Constantinople, to use their endeavours 1807- to obtain the removal of certain restrictions which existed on French manufactures, and which, in the mortal com- mercial struggle between France and England, it might April 14. be of importance to have recalled. The bridge recently built in front of the Champ-de-Mars received the name of Jena — an appellation destined to bring that beautiful structure to the verge of destruction in future times ; a statue was ordered to be erected to d'Alembert, in the hall of the Institute ; the prize formerly promised to the ablest treatise on galvanism was directed to be paid to the March 17. au thor who had deserved it ; the important and difficult April 19. subject of the liberty of the press occupied his serious 257, 264. ' thoughts, and engrossed much of his correspondence with the minister of the interior. 1 * His projects for political improvements were still more oisifs qui se promenent dans le jardin des Tuileries, savent ce qui se delibere dans le cabinet. D'aUleurs, l'exageration plait a l'esprit humain. Les pein- tures rembrunies qu'on vous a tracees de notre situation ont pour auteurs des bavards de Paris, qui sont des tetes a tableaux. Jamais la -position de la France n'a ete ni plus grande ni plus belle. Quant a Eylau, j'ai dit et redit que le bulletin avait exagere la perte ; et qu'est-ce que deux ou trois mille bommes tues dans une grande bataille ? Quand je ranienerai rnon armge en France et sur le Rhin, on Terra qu'il n'en manque pas beaucoup a l'appel." — Napoleon to Fouche: 13th April 1807. Thiers' Consulatet V Empire, vii. 420. * " An effective mode of encouraging literature," said Napoleon, " would be to establish a journal, of which the criticism is enlightened, actuated by good intentions, and free of that coarse brutality which characterises the existing newspapers, and is so contrary to the true interests of the nation. Journals now never criticise with the intention of repressing mediocrity, guiding inex- perience, or encouraging rising merit; all then- endeavour is to wither, to destroy. I am not insensible to the danger, that in avoiding one rock you may strike upon another. It may doubtless happen, that if they dare not criticise, they may fall into the still greater abuse of indiscriminate panegyric; and that the authors of those books with which the world is inundated, seeing them- selves praised in journals which all are obliged to read, should believe them- selves heaven-born geniuses, and, by the facility of their triumphs, encourage still more despicable imitation. Articles should be selected for the journals where reasoning is mingled with eloquence ; where praise for deserved merit is tempered with censure for faults. Merit, however inconsiderable, should be sought for and rewarded. A young man who has written an ode worthy of praise, and which has attracted the notice of the minister, has already emerged from obscurity ; the public is fixed ; it is his part to do the rest." — Napoleon to the Minister of the Interior: l§th April 1807. Bignon, vi. 262, 264. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 491 important. The project for establishing a university for chap. literary and political information was discussed ;* a prize J 1, of twelve thousand francs (£480) was announced for the m J" best treatise on the means of curing the croup, which at that And for . . i . c political im- penod was committing very serious ravages on the miants pavements. of France, and of which the child of the Queen of Hol- land had recently died ; a daily correspondence was car- ried on with the minister of finance, and long calcula- June 4. tions, often erroneous, but always intended to support an ingenious opinion, were transmitted to test the accuracy and March .m. stimulate the activity of the functionaries in that impor- tant department.! In that department the great improve- ment of keeping accounts by double entry was adopted from the example of commerce, first by the recommenda- tion of the Emperor, and, after its advantages had been fully demonstrated by experience, formally enforced by a Jan g decree of the government. Nor, amidst weightier cares, 1808. ' * " You should occupy yourself wrbfe the project of establishing a univer- sity for literature, understanding by that word, not merely the belles-lettres, but history and geography. It should consist of at least thirty chairs, so linked together as to exhibit a living picture of instruction and direction, where every one who wishes to study a particular age should know at once whom to consult, what books, monuments, or chronicles to examine ; where every one who wishes to travel should know where to receive positive instruc- tions, both as to the government, literature, and physical productions of the country which he is about to visit. It is a lamentable truth, that in this great country a young man who wishes to study, or is desirous of signalising him- self in any department, is obliged for long to grope in the dark, and literally lose years in fruitless researches before he discovers the true repositories of the information for which he seeks. It is a lamentable fact, that in this great country we have no depot for the preservation of knowledge, on the situation, government, and present state of different portions of the globe; but the student must have recourse either to the office of foreign affairs, where the collections are far from complete, or to the office of the minister of marine, where he will with difficulty find any one who knows anything, of what is asked. I desire such institutions; they have long formed the subject of my meditation, because in the course of my various labours I have repeatedly experienced their want." — Napoleon to the Minister of the Interior: 19th April 1807. Bignon, vi. 267, 269. * " The good order which you have established in the affairs of the treasury, and the emancipation which you have effected of its operations from the con- trol of bankers, is an advantage of the most important kind, which will eminently redound to the benefit of our commerce and manufactures." — Napoleon to the Minister of Finance: Osterode, lith March 1807. In truth, however, what the Emperor here called the emancipation of the treasury from the bankers, arose not so much from the regulations of the minister of that IB 492 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, were the fine arts neglected. The designs for the Temple XLVI 1 1 of Glory, ordered by the decree of 9th November from 1807. Po S en, were submitted to the Emperor's consideration, and that one selected which has since been realised in the beautiful peristyle of the Madeleine ; while all the departments of France were ordered to be searched for quarries of granite and marble capable of furnishing materials of durability and elegance for its interior deco- 2777278.' rations, worthy of a monument designed for immortal duration. 1 * The official exposition of the finances of France during Finance of this year exhibited the most flattering prospect in the ingthisyear. accounts published ; but the picture was entirely falla- cious, so far as the total expenditure was concerned, because a large portion of the supplies were drawn by war contributions from foreign states, and more than half the army was quartered for all its expenses on the vanquished territories. The revenue of the empire as presented in the budget, amounted to 683,057,933 francs, or £27,318,000, and its expenditure to 777,850,000 francs » Gaeta, i. or £31, 106, 000. 2 But the Emperor did not reveal to the public what was nevertheless true, that the contributions levied on the countries lying between the Rhine and the department, as from the extraneous sources from whence the chief supplies for the army were now derived, and which rendered the anticipation of i - evenue by discounting long-dated treasury bills at the bank of France unnecessary. He admitted this himself in the same letter — "I am now discharging the arrears of the ariny from the beginning of October 1806, to the end of Feb- ruary 1807; we shall see hereafter how this will be arranged with the treasury: in the mean time, the payment comes from Prussia, and that will put us greatly at ease." The pay thus extracted from the conquered states amounted to the enormous sum of 3,300,000 francs, or £132,000 a-month, supposing 150,000 men only so maintained, which for these five months alone was no less than 16,500,000 francs, or £660,000 sterling.— See Bignon, iv. 274, 276. * " After having attentively considered," said Napoleon, " the different plans Napoleon submitted to my examination, I have not felt the smallest doubt on that which fixes on a j should adopt. That of M. Viguon alone fulfils my wishes. It is a temple Madeleine which I desire, and not a church. What could you erect as a church which at Paris. could keep its ground against the Pantheon, Notre-Danie, or, above all, St Petei-'s at Rome ? Everything in the temple should be in a chaste, severe, and durable style ; it should be fitted for solemnities at all times, at all hours ; the imperial throne should be a curule chair of marble, seats of marble for the persons invited, an amphitheatre of marble for the performers. No furniture 1807. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 493 Vistula, between the 14th October 1806, when the war chap. commenced, and the 14th June 1807, when it termi- nated, amounted to the enormous, and, if not proved by authentic documents, incredible sum of 604,227,922 francs, or £24,220,000 ; that above a million annually was extracted from the kingdom of Italy j 1 that the 1 Dam's arrears paid up by Austria for the great war contribution Dum. xix. of 1805 were double that sum ; that the war subsidies j us t. extracted from Spain and Portugal, in virtue of the treaty of St Ildefonso, were above £3,500,000 yearly ; finally, that the Grand Army, two hundred thousand strong, had, since it broke up from the heights of Boulogne, in Sep- tember 1805, been exclusively fed, clothed, lodged, and paid at the expense of the German states. 2 Napoleon 2 Jom. a. made it an invariable rule, when application was made to him for money for any other purpose but those of bene- ficence, to say he had got none — a system which had the effect of habituating his lieutenants to extracting all the supplies they required out of the country they occupied — the thing of all others which he most ardently desired.* The revenues of France, therefore, did not furnish more than half the total sum required by the expensive and gigantic military establishment of the Emperor ; while its should be admitted but cushions for the seats; all should be of granite, of marble, and of iron. With this view, searches should be made in all the pro- vinces for quarries of marble and granite. They will be useful, not merely for this monument, but for others, which I have it in view to construct at future times, and which by their nature will require thirty, forty, or fifty years for their construction. Not more than 3,000,000 of francs (£120,000) should be required, the temples of Athens having not cost much more than the half of that sum; fifteen millions have been absorbed, I know not how, in the Pantheon, but I should not object to an expenditure of five or six millions for the con- struction of a temple worthy of the first city of the world." — Napoleon to the Minister of the Interior: Finkenstein,18th April 1807. Bignon, vi. 270, 272. It was from this determination of the Emperor that the present exquisite structure of the Madeleine took its rise ; but his real design in the formation, on so durable and gigantic a scale, of this noble monument, was, as already mentioned, still more extensive than the honour of the Gi'and Army ; and he in secret intended it as an expiatory monument to Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, and the other victims of the Revolution. — See Ante, Chap. xliv. § 17, note; and Las Cases, i. 370, 371. * Thiers, Consulat et V Empire, viii. 633. 494 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLVI. 1807. inhabitants received almost the whole benefit from its expenditure — a state of things which at once explains the necessity under which he lay of continually advancing to fresh conquests ; the extraordinary attachment which the French so long felt to his government ; the vast internal prosperity with which it was attended, and the grinding misery, as well as the inextinguishable hatred, with which it soon came to be regarded in foreign states.* Early in March, a grand convocation of the Jews Meeting of assembled in Paris, in pursuance of the commands of stSrl Napoleon, issued in the July preceding. Seventy-one atPari!r vs doctors and chiefs of that ancient nation attended this March 9. g rea t assembly — the first meeting of the kind which had occurred since the dispersion of the Israelites on the in * The receipts and expenditure of France, as exhibited in the budget of the Minister of Finance for this year, were as follows : — Receipts. Receipts and expenditure of the year. Direct taxes, . 311,840,685 francs, or £12,500,000 Register and crown lands, 172,227,000 6,900,000 Customs, .... 90,115,726 3,600,000 Lotteiy, 12,233,837 480,000 Post-Office, . 9,968,134 400,000 Excise, . 75,808,358 3,032,000 Salt and tobacco, 6,900,000 276,000 Salt mines of government, 3,230,000 130,000 682,323,740 £27,318,000 Expenditure. Public debt, .... 105,959,000 francs, or £4,240,000 Civil list, 28,000,000 1,120,000 Public justice, 22,042,000 880,000 Foreign ministers, 10,379,000 420,000 Interior, do. 54,902,000 2,200,000 Finance, do. 25,624,000 1,025,000 Public treasury, 8,571,000 343,000 War, 195,895,000 7,850,000 Ordnance, 147,654,000 5,900,000 Marine, . 117,307,000 4,700,000 Public worship, 12,342,000 490,000 General police, 708,000 28,000 Roads and bridges, 38,215,000 1,500,000 Incidental charges, 10,252,000 410,000 777,850,000 ... £31,106,000 But as the Grand Army, 200,000 strong, was solely maintained, paid, and 1807. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 495 capture of Jerusalem. For seventeen hundred years the chap. children of Israel had sojourned as strangers in foreign realms ; reviled, oppressed, persecuted, without a capital, without a government, without a home ; far from the tombs of their forefathers, banished from the land of their ancestors; but preserving unimpaired, amidst all their calamities, their traditions, their usages, their faith ; exhibiting in every nation of the earth a lasting miracle to attest the verity of the Christian prophecies. On this occasion the great Sanhedrim, or assembly, published the result of their deliberations in a variety of statutes and declarations, calculated to remove from the Israelites a portion of that odium under which they had so long laboured in all the nations of Christendom ; and Napo- leon, in return, took them under his protection, and, under ^£ A1 gjJ; certain modifications, admitted them to the privileges of vi. 269, 270. his empire. 1 This first approach to a reunion and settlement of the equipped at the expense of Germany, this table exhibited a most fallacious view of the real expenditure and receipts of Napoleon during the year. With- out mentioning lesser contributions, the following table exhibits the enormous sums which, by public or private plunder — for it deserves no better name— he was enabled, during the same period, to extract from the tributary or con- quered states, and their application to the expenses of the war or otherwise : — Foreign Receipts. War contribution levied on Germany from October 1806 to July 1807, . 604,227,922 francs, or £24,200,000 Tribiite from Italy, .... 30,000,000 ... 1,200,000 from Spain, .... 72,000,000 ... 2,880,000 from Portugal, . . . 16,000,000 ... 640,000 War contributions from Austria, arrears of 1805, 50,000,000 ... 2,000,000 772,227,922 ... £30,920,000 Expenditure. Cost of the Grand Army from October 1806 to July 1807, .... 228,944,363 francs, or £9,160,000 Leaving of plunder levied to be applied to the internal service of France in this or succeeding years, . . 543,282,559 ... 21,760,000 772,226,922 ... £30,920,000 — Daeu's Report of the Finances of 1806 ; Dumas, xix. 464, 465 ; Bkunon, vii. 279, 280 ; Gaeta, i. 305. 496 HISTORY OP EUROPE. CHAP. XL VI. 1807. 20. Reflections on this event. Napoleon's efforts to feud his troops. Sieges in Silesia dur- ing the in- terval of hostilities. Jews, impossible under any other circumstances but the rule of so great a conqueror as Napoleon, is very remark- able. The immediate cause of it, doubtless, was the desire of the Emperor to secure the support of so numerous and opulent a body as the Jews of Old Prussia, Poland, and the southern provinces of Russia, which was of great importance in the contest in which he was engaged ; but it is impossible not to see in its result a step in the development of Christian prophecy. And thus, from the mysterious manner in which the wisdom of Providence makes the wickedness and passions of men to work out its great designs for the government of human affairs, did the French Revolution, which, nursed in infidelity and crime, set out with the abolition of Christian worship, and the open denial of God by a whole nation, in its secondary results lead to the first great step which had occurred in modern Europe to the reassembling of the Jews, so early foretold by our Saviour. And it will appear in the sequel that in its ultimate effects it is des- tined, to all human appearance, by the irresistible strength which it has given to the British navy, and the vast impulse which it has communicated to the Russian army, to lead to the wresting of Jerusalem from the hands of the infidels, and the spread of the Christian faith alike over the forests of the New and the deserts of the Old World. The two grand armies, in their respective positions on the Passarge and the Alle, remained for nearly four months after the sanguinary fight at Eylau in a state of tranquillity, interrupted only by skirmishes at the out- posts, followed by no material results, and too inconsi- derable to deserve the attention of the general historian. Both parties were actively engaged in measures to repair the wide chasms which that conflict had occasioned in their ranks, and preparing for the coming struggle which was to decide the great contest for the empire of Europe. Napoleon, during this respite from active operations, was IIISTOEY OF EUEOPE. 497 indefatigable in his endeavours to provide for the vast mul- chap. titude which was assembled round his standards. He soon J !_ had three hundred thousand rations of biscuit at Warsaw; but he ordered fifty thousand additional to be forwarded daily to Osterode from that capital, and two thousand pints of brandy. " The fate of Europe," said he, "now depends on procuring subsistence. To beat the Russians, if I have bread enough, is mere child's play. Biscuit and brandy are all I require : they will defeat all the efforts of our enemies." * But in addition to these preparations for the use of the troops under his immediate command, Napoleon felt too strongly the imminent risk which he had run of total ruin by a defeat on the frontiers of Russia, before the fortresses in his rear were all subdued, to incur it a second time— until his right flank was secured by the reduction of the remainder of the power- ful chain of strongholds in Silesia, which still hoisted the Prussian colours, and his left by the surrender of the great fortified emporium of Dantzic. To these two objects accordingly his attention was directed during the 1 Jom- iL cessation of active hostilities in the front of the Grand f y %^- Army ; and his operations in these quarters were not 87. Thiers, only great in themselves, but had the most important 443. effect upon the future fortunes of the campaign. 1 Schweidnitz and Neisse were invested about the same * " J'ai 300,000 rations de biscuit a Varsovie. II faut huit jours pour venir de Varsovie a Osterode ; faites des miracles, mais qu'on m'en expedie par jour 50,000 rations. Tacbez aussi de me faire expedier par jour 2000 pintes d'eau-de-vie. Aujourd'hui le sort de l'Europe et les plus grands calculs depen- dent des subsistances. Battre les Russes, si j'ai du pain, est un enfantdlage. J'ai des millions, je ne me refuse pas d'en donner. Tout ce que vous ferez sera bien fait, mais il faut qu'au recu de cette lettre on m'expedie 50,000 rations de biscuit et 2000 pintes. C'est l'affaire de 80 voitures par jour en les payant au poids de l'or. Si le patriotisme des Polonais ne pent pas faire cet effort, ils ne sont pas bons a grand'ehose. L'importance de ce dont je vous cbarge la est plus considerable que toutes les negociations du monde. Donnez de l'argent ; j'approuve tout ce que vous ferez. Du biscuit et de l'eau- de-vie, c'est tout ce qu'il nous faut. Ces 300,000 rations de biscuit et ces 1 8,000 ou 20,000 pintes d'eau-de-vie qui peuvent nous arriver dans quelques jours, voila ce qui dejouera les combinaisons de toutes les puissances."— Napoleon to Talleyrand: March 12, 1807. Thiers, Consulat et VEmpire, vn. 412, 413. VOL. VII. 2 l 498 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLVI. 1807. 22. Fall of Schweid- nitz. Atlas, Plate 39. Feb. 17. 1 Martens, Sup. 417. _ Dum. xviii. 98,99. Jom. ii. 399. 23. Of Neisse. time, in the end of January ; but serious operations were not attempted against the latter fortress, which was the chief stronghold of the province, till the former was reduced. The siege of Schweidnitz accordingly was car- ried on with great activity, and with such success, that it capitulated, after a feeble resistance, in the middle of February. This reduction of the capital of Silesia was of the highest importance, not merely as putting at the dis- posal of Napoleon a powerful fortress, commanding a rich territory, but giving him a supply of extensive stores in ammunition and artillery, which were forthwith for- warded to Dantzic and Neisse, and proved of the utmost service in the sieges of both these towns. The resources of the province, now almost entirely in the hands of Vandamme, were turned to the very best account by that indefatigable and rapacious commander. Heavy requisi- tions for horses, provisions, and forage, followed each other in rapid succession ; besides grievous contributions in money, which were so considerable, and levied with such severity on that opulent province, that before the end of March 1,500,000 francs (£60,000) were regularly transmitted once a-weeh to the headquarters of Napoleon, and this plentiful supply continued undiminished till the end of the war. 1 No sooner was the besieging force before Neisse strengthened by the artillery and reinforcements which were forwarded from Schweidnitz, than the operations of the French for its reduction were conducted with more activity. This fortress, originally situated exclusively on the right bank of the river which bears the same name, was extended by Frederick the Great to the left bank, where the principal arsenals and military establishments were placed. The works surrounding the whole were extensive, though, in some places not entirely armed or clothed with masonry ; but a garrison of six thousand men, great part of which occupied an intrenched camp without the fortress, promised to present a formidable HISTORY OF EUROPE. 499 resistance. Finding, however, that the trenches had chap. been opened, and that the place was hard pressed, an J_ attempt to relieve it was. made by General Kleist with 1!! j 26, 129. siege, thirty thousand, under the most experienced mar- 1807,23." shals of France, were stationed so as to protect the opera- tions against any incursions of the enemy. 1 So early as the middle of February, the advanced posts Capture of of the besiegers had begun to invest the place, and, on the Nehrang . 22d of that month, a sanguinary conflict ensued between the Polish hussars, who composed their vanguard, and a body of fifteen hundred Prussians, at Dirschau, which terminated, after a severe loss on both sides, in the retreat of the latter under the cannon of the ramparts. After this check, General Manstein no longer endeavoured to maintain himself on the outside of the walls ; and as the French troops successively came up, the investment of the fortress was completed. The first serious conflict took HISTORY OF EUROPE. 503 place on tlie island or peninsula of Nchiimg, the well- chap. known tongue of land which separates the waters of the J 1 salt lake, called the Frische-hafF, and of the Vistula, from 1807- the Baltic sea. It is twelve leagues in length, but seldom more than a mile or two in breadth, composed of sand- hills thrown up by the meeting of the river with the ocean, in one part of which the waves have broken in and overflowed the level space in its rear, which now forms the Frische-hafF. As it communicates with Dantzic, which stands on the other side of the Vis- tula, opposite its western extremity, the approaches to the town on that side could not be effected until it was cleared of the enemy. Sensible of its value, the besieged had spared no pains to strengthen themselves on this important neck of land; and the besiegers were equally resolute to dislodge them from it, and thereby complete the investment of the fortress. Early in the morning of the 20th March, a French detachment crossed the Frische- March 20. naff in boats, and surprised the Prussian posts on the opposite shore; fresh troops were ferried over in rapid succession, and the besiegers, before evening, established themselves in such force in the island, that though Kal- kreuth despatched a body of four thousand men out of the place to reinforce his posts in that quarter, they were unable to dislodge the enemy. On the contrary, they not only kept their ground, but, progressively advancing two days afterwards, entirely cleared the peninsula of the March 22. Prussians, and completed the investment of the town on that side. By this success the communication of Dantzic with the land was entirely cut off; but the besieged, by 1Dum xviii means of the island of Holm and fort of Weichselmtinde, J;' ,;i > in - with the intrenched camp of Neufahrwasser, which com- 284, 285. mands the entrance of the Vistula into the Baltic, had 129. still the means of receiving succour by sea. 1 After full deliberation among the French engineers, it was determined to commence the siege by an attack on Progress of the fort of Haaelsbcrg, which stands on an eminence e SK ' ge ' 504 HISTOEY OF EUKOPE. chap, without the ramparts on the western side of the town, which was the only one entirely free from inundation. 1807. Xhe first parallel having been completed, a heavy fire was opened on the works in that quarter on the night of April 2. the 1st of April, though at the distance of eight hundred April [6. toises. A fortnight after, the second parallel was also finished, notwithstanding several vigorous sorties from the April 23. garrison ; and by the 23d, amidst snow and sleet, the bat- teries were all armed and ready to play on the ramparts at the distance only of sixty toises. On the following night, a tremendous fire was opened from fifty-six pieces of heavy cannon and twelve mortars, which, notwithstand- ing the utmost efforts on the part of the garrison, soon acquired a marked superiority over the batteries of the besieged. For a week together this cannonade continued, without intermission, night and day; a brave sortie was unable to arrest it more than a few hours ; but although the city was already on fire in several places, and the April 26. artillery on the ramparts in part dismounted, yet, as the exterior works were faced with earth, not masonry, little progress was made in injuring them, and no practicable May 2. breach had been as yet effected. Finding themselves foiled in this species of attack, the French engineers had recourse to the more certain, but tedious method of approach by sap; the besieged countermined with inde- fatigable perseverance, but notwithstanding their utmost efforts, the mines of the French were pushed to within eighteen yards of the salient angle of the outermost works May 5. of Hagelsberg. At the same time a separate expedition against the island of Holm, which formed the western extremity of the peninsula of Nehrung, from whence it 'Dum.'xviii. was separated only by one of the arms of the Vistula, Bign!vi!' proved successful : the garrison, consisting of five hundred wn'son 6 ' men w ^ n fifteen pieces of cannon, were made prisoners, and 129, 130. the city was by that means deprived of all the succour which it had hitherto obtained by the mouths of that river. 1 * * A remarkable incident occurred on this occasion, highly characteristic of HISTORY OF EUROPE. 505 Invested now on all sides, with its garrison weakened chap. by the casualties of the siege, and the enemy s mines ready to blow its outworks on the side assailed into the 1 ® 07, 30. air, Dantzic could not be expected to hold out for any Attempt of length of time. Not deeming himself in sufficient strength to^aiseThe to attempt the raising of the siege by a direct attack upon siege# the enemy's cantonments on the Passarge, Benningsen, with the concurrence of the Emperor Alexander, had resolved to attempt the relief of the fortress by a com- bined attack by land and sea from the peninsula of Net- rung and the mouths of the Vistula. The preparations May 7. made with this view were of the most formidable kind, and had wellnigh been crowned with success. General Kamenskoi, with five thousand men, was embarked at Pillau, under convoy of a Swedish and an English man-of- war, and landed at Neufahrwasser, the fortified port at the mouth of the Vistula, distant four miles from Dantzic; while two thousand PrussiaMs were to co-operate in the attack, by advancing along the peninsula of Nehrung, and the Grand Army was to be disquieted and hindered from sending succours by a feigned attack on Marshal Ney's corps. At the same time General TouchkofF, who had succeeded Essen in the command of the troops on the Narew and the Bug, was to engage the attention of Massena's corps in that quarter. All these operations May 14. took place, and, but for an accidental circumstance, would, to all appearance, have proved successful. The proposed feints were made with the desired effects on the side of Guttstadt and the Narew ; but unfortunately the delay of the Swedish man-of-war, which had twelve hundred the heroic spirit with which both parties were animated. A chasseur of the 12th regiment of French light infantry, named Fortunas, transported by the ardour of the attack, fell in the dark into the midst of a Russian detachment, and in a few minutes that detachment itself was surprised by the company to which the French soldier belonged. The Russian officers exclaimed, " Do not fire, we are French !" and threatened the chasseur with instant death if he betrayed them. " Fire instantly !" exclaimed the brave Fortunas, " they are Russians !" and fell pierced by the balls of his comrades.— Dumas, xviii. 169. 506 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLVI. 1807. 1 Wilson, 131, 132. Dum. xviii. 173, 180. 31. Which proves un- successful. men on board, rendered it impossible for Kamenskoi to commence his attack before the 15th instant. In the meanwhile Napoleon, who had received intelligence of what was in preparation, and was fully aware of the imminent danger to which Lefebvre was exposed, had time to draw a large body of troops from Lannes' cover- ing corps by the bridge of Marienwerder to the scene of danger. 1 This great reinforcement, comprising among other troops the grenadiers of the Guard under Oudinot, turned the scale, which at that period quivered on the beam. Early on the morning of the 15th, Kamenskoi marched out of the trenches of Neufahrwasser, and, after defiling over the bridge of the Vistula into the peninsula of Nehrung, advanced with the utmost intrepidity to the attack of the strong fortifications which the enemy had erected to bar their advance among the hills and copse- woods of that sandy peninsula. The first onset was irresistible. The intrenchments were carried in the most gallant style, and all their cannon taken : success appeared certain, as the defeated Saxons and Poles were flying in great disorder out of the woods into the sandy hills which lay between them and the town of Dantzic, when the victors were suddenly assailed in flank, when disordered by success, by Marshal Lannes, at the head of Oudinot's formidable grenadiers of the Guard. Unable to resist so vehement an onset, the Russians were in their turn driven back, and lost the intrenchments ; but rallying again with admirable discipline, they renewed the assault and re- gained the works. Again they were expelled with great slaughter. A third time, stimulated by desperation, thej r returned to the charge, and routed the French grenadiers with such vigour, that Oudinot had a horse shot under him, and fell upon Marshal Lannes, and both these valiant chiefs thereafter combated on foot in the midst of their faithful grenadiers. But fresh reinforcements from the left bank were every moment received by the enemy : HISTORY OF EUROPE. 507 Kalkreuth, confining himself to a heavy cannonade, had chap. made no sortie to aid this gallant effort to cut through the lines ; and to complete Kamenskoi's misfortune, he received intelligence, during the action, that the Prussian corps of two thousand men, which was advancing along the Nehrung to co-operate in the attack, had been assailed by superior forces at Kahlberg, and routed with the loss of six hundred men and two pieces of cannon. Finding the undertaking, in these circumstances, hopeless, the brave Russian, at eight at night, ordered his heroic troops to retire, and they regained the shelter of the cannon of , WiIgon> Weichselmunde without being pursued, but after sustain- gM» ing a loss of seventeen hundred soldiers; while the French JJM^ had to lament nearly as great a number of brave men who 173, 183. had fallen in this desperate conflict. 1 No other serious effort was made by the Allies for the ^ relief of Dantzic. The besieged had provisions enough, Growing ... , dirhculties but it was well known that jtneir ammunition was almost ofthebe- exhausted, and that, without a speedy supply of that Ei'the indispensable article, the place must ere long capitulate. P lace - An English brig of twenty-two guns, under Captain Strachey, with one hundred and fifty barrels of powder on board, made a brave attempt to force its way up the river, though the Vistula is a rapid stream, not more in general than sixty yards broad, and the passage was both defended by numerous batteries and a boom thrown across the channel. She made her way up the river for a con- siderable way, with surprising success ; but at length a cannon-shot having struck the rudder, and her rigging being almost entirely cut to pieces by the French fire, she was forced to surrender. Meanwhile the operations against the Hagelsberg were continued without intermis- sion. The springing of several mines, though not attended with all the damage which was expected by the besiegers, had the effect of ruining and laying open the outworks, and preparations were already made for blowing the counterscarp into the ditch. In vain a sortie from the May 20. 508 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, ramparts was made, and at first attended with some suc- cess, to destroy these threatening advanced works of the enemy ; the besieged were at length driven back, and on May 21. the next day the arrival of Marshal Mortier with a large part of his corps from the neighbourhood of Stralsund and Colberg, nearly doubled the effective strength of the enemy. Kalkreuth, however, was still unsubdued, and the most vigorous preparations had been made on the breaches of the ramparts to repel the assault which was hourly expected, when a summons from Lefebvre offered him honourable terms of capitulation. The situation of the brave veteran left him no alternative ; though his courage was unsubdued, his ammunition was exhausted, and no- thing remained but submission. The terms of capitulation were without difficulty arranged ; the garrison was per- May24. mitted to retire with their arms and the honours of war, on condition of not serving against France or its allies May 27. for a year, or till regularly exchanged ; and on the 27th this great fortress, containing nine hundred pieces of can- non, but hardly any ammunition, was taken possession of by the French troops. The garrison, now reduced to seven thousand men, was marched through the peninsula of Nehrung to Konigsberg. No less than 2700 had perished during the siege, and 3400 been wounded. Eight hundred had been made prisoners, and 4300 deserted. These figures are sufficient to demonstrate iDum.xviii. the gallant nature of the defence, and how worthy the Bi^vi!' governor, Kalkreuth, was of the school of the Great wu'son 9 ' Frederick, in which he had been brought up. After the 134, 135. fall of the place, Kamenskoi, unable to render any assis- Martens, ■*■ ' , J Sup. iv. 420. tance, set sail from Fort Weichselmiinde with his own 543. ' ' division, and its original garrison and a few invalids only remained on the 26th to open its gates to the enemy. 1 While this desperate struggle was going on round Dantzic, the Russians were making the utmost efforts to reinforce their principal army ; but the time which they had was not sufficient to bring up from its immense extent HISTORY OF EUROPE. 509 the distant resources of their empire, and though men chap. were in abundance in the nearer provinces, both money XLVL and arms were wanting to equip them for the field. In 1807 ' the end of March and beginning of April, however, rein- Reinforce- forcements to a considerable amount arrived on the Alle, SSato among which, the most important were the superb corps J^?™ 8 ^" of the Guards under the Grand-duke Constantine, con- streii s th a » J 3 positions. sisting of thirty battalions and thirty -four squadrons, full twenty thousand men, the flower of the Imperial army. A powerful reserve, drawn from the depots in the inte- rior of the empire, of thirty thousand men, was also advancing under Prince Labanoff; but it was so far in the rear that it could not arrive at the scene of action before the end of June, and was therefore not to be relied on for the early operations of the campaign. The whole army which Benningsen had at his command, on the re- sumption of hostilities, was only one hundred and twenty thousand men, including in that force the detached corps of eighteen thousand Prussians and Russians in front of Konigsberg under Lestocq, and the left wing on the Narew under Tolstoy, which was fifteen thousand strong;' 55 ' so that the force to be trusted to for the immediate shock 1 A Dum r ; x , v 1 ii; - on the Alle or the Passarge was scarcely ninety thousand, i«-andr> P . These were, however, all veterans inured to war, and ani- Jom.ii.400. mated in the highest degree both by their recent success us^ilh. at Eylau, and by the presence of their beloved Emperor, 1 * The Russian army, when the campaign opened, was as follows : — Centre under Benningsen on the Alle, at Arensdorf, Neuhoff, Bergfried, and Bevern, '88,000 Right wing under Lestocq, near Konigsberg and at Pillau, 1S,000 Left wing on the Narew under Tolstoy, .... 15,000 —See Dumas, xviii. 220, 221; and Wilson, 13G. 121,000 The militia, which the patriotic ardour of the Russians led them to raise, were unable to march from want of arms and ammunition, which the ill-timed parsimony of England withheld. One hundred and sixty thousand muskets, sent out in haste by the British government after the change of ministry, arrived at Konigsberg in the end of June, after the contest had been termi- nated in the field of Friedland, and escaped seizure by the French only by not being landed. — Hard. iv. 417. 510 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLVI. 1807. 34. Strength and posi- tion of the French armv. who, since the end of March, had been at the headquar- ters of the army. By incredible exertions Napoleon had succeeded in assembling a much greater force. Notwithstanding the immense losses of his bloody winter campaign in Poland, such had been the vigour of his measures for recruiting his army, and such the efficacy of the combined influence of terror, coercion, military ardour, and patriotic spirit, which he had contrived to bring to bear upon the warlike rjopulation of France, Germany, and Poland, that a greater host than had ever yet been witnessed together in modern Europe was now assembled round his eagles. Exclusive of the army of observation on the Elbe, and the garrisons and blockading corps in his rear, no less than a hundred and fifty thousand infantry, and thirty- five thousand horse, were ready for immediate action on the Passarge and the Narew.* Immense efforts had been made by the Emperor to augment, by every possible means, his cavalry, an arm on which he always so much relied in war. His orders were to raise this force with the Grand Army to eighty thousand men. For this * The composition and distribution of this force, previous to the resumption of hostilities, was as follows : — ■ Present. Present. Infantry. Cavalry. Stationed at First corps, Bernadotte, 23,547 3,744 Braunsberg and Spanden. Fourth do. Soult, 30,199 1,366 Liebstadt and Alkin. Sixth do. Ney, 15,883 1,117 Guttstadt and the right of the Passarge. Third do. Davoust, 28,445 1,125 Osterode and Allenstein. Imperial Guard, Bessieres, 7,319 1,808 Finkenstein. Reserve cavalry, Murat, 21,428 Passarge and Lower Vistula. Reserve corps, Lannes, 15,090 250 Marienburg. Eighth corps, Mortier, 14,000 1,000 Lower Vistula. Second corps, Massena, 17,580 2,604 Narew. 152,063 34,442 Exclusive of officers, which made the force at least 155,000 infantry and 35,000 cavalry. The corps of Lefebvre, after the capture of Dantzic, was broken up and divided between those of Lannes and Mortier and the garrison of the place ; another was in Dalmatia, under Marmont ; the ninth in Silesia, under Vandamme. Augereau's corps was divided among the others after its terrific losses in the battle of Eylau. — Dumas, xviii. 222, 223; Pieces Just. No. 3; and Jomini, ii. 403. HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 511 purpose, besides the liorses which he had seized in Prussia chap. and the north of Germany, and those taken in battle, he XLVI ' bought, during the cessation of hostilities, seventeen thou- 18 ° 7 - sand horses in Germany, and twelve thousand in France, all of which were, without a moment's delay, hurried off to the Vistula. In addition to this, the fortifications of Praga, Modlin, and Sierock, had been put in the best possible state of defence, and even the cantonments on the Passarge strengthened with tetes-de-pont and stout palisades. Nor was it merely from its nominal strength that this immense force was formidable ; its discipline and equipment had attained the very highest perfection. The requisitions enforced by the terrors of military execu- tion, had extorted from Germany all the supplies of which it stood in need. The cavalry were remounted, the artillery waggons and carriages repaired and in the best condition ; the reserve parks and pontoon trains fully supplied ; the return of spring had restored numbers of the veterans to their ranks — the never-failing conscription filled up the chasms produced by Pultusk and Eylau ; while the recent successes in Silesia and at Dantzic had revived in the warlike multitude that confidence in them- selves and in their renowned leader which the disasters of the winter campaign had much impaired, but which has ever been found, even more than numbers or skill, to contribute to military success. Nor were the rear and the communications forgotten ; on the contrary, it was in them that the provident care and enormous resources of the Emperor shone most conspicuous. Marshal Brune had an army of eighty thousand men in the north of Germany, composed of fifteen thousand Dutch, a like number of Spaniards, sixteen thousand Wiirtembergers, sixteen thousand French of Boudet's and Molitor's divi- sions, and the reserve contingents of the Confederation of the Rhine — in all, nearly four hundred thousand men were collected between the Rhine and the Niemen. But of this immense force, only one hundred and sixty thousand could 512 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, be relied on for the actual shock of war on the Passarge. XLVI .... . Such is the dilapidation of armies occasioned by distant M;m- 8 7 ' offensive war ! Such as it was, however, it was much greater than Alexander could collect to resist it. Vast as the resources of Russia undoubtedly are when time has been afforded to collect into one focus its unwieldy 22M21?"" strength, it was now fairly overmatched by the banded i36. s °jom. strength of western Europe on its own frontier ; and vi 4 294 Bigu " though the Czar might possibly have combated on equal 476 er 553"' terms w ^ tn Napoleon on the Wolga or the Dniester, 557! he was inadequate to the encounter on the Alle or the Narew. 1 The Emperor Alexander had arrived at the head- Defensive quarters of his army on the 28th March, and resided measures of , . , , T7 - . r> -rt • i-» the Rus- since that time with the King of Prussia at Partenstein, a little in the rear of the cantonments of the soldiers. There they had, for two months, carried on a sort of negotiation with the French Emperor by means of con- fidential agents ; but this show of pacific overtures, which were only intended on either side to give time and pro- pitiate Austria, by seeming to listen to her offers of mediation, was abandoned in the middle of May, and both parties prepared to determine the contest by the sword. To compensate for his inferiority of force, and provide a point of support for his troops, even in the first line, Benningsen had, with great care, constructed a for- midable intrenched camp, composed of six great works regularly fortified, and sixteen lunettes or armed ravelins, astride on the opposite banks of the river Alle. Thither he proposed to retire, in the event of the enemy bringing an overwhelming force to bear against his columns ; but he did not conceive himself sufficiently strong until the rein- forcements under Prince Labanoff arrived, to commence any serious offensive movement against the French army, and in consequence allowed the siege of Dantzic, as already mentioned, to be brought to a successful issue, without any other demonstration for its relief than the HISTORY OF EUROPE. 513 cannonade against Nej's corps, intended as a diversion chap. in favour of Kamenskoi's attack. The army, though so — 1 much inferior in numerical strength to the French, was 180 '* animated with the best spirit, and the great magazines and harbour of Konigsberg supplied it with every neces- sary. But the situation of that city, without fortifications, , Jom .. and with its back to the Curische-haff, from whence retreat £& 402 - . " uson, was impossible, rendered it a situation extremely ill 1S6 > W- i i • r> i Dum. xviii. adapted, as the event proved, for the security or the 211,217. stores on which the operations of the army depended. 1 After the fall of Dantzic, and when the French army was reinforced by full thirty thousand men from the Designs of 1 1 • • r xt i l i • 1 tne Russians covering and besieging force, JNapoleon drew his troops on Ney's from their cantonments into camps, which were strength- corps ' ened with palisades to guard against surprise, and he had a grand review of his reserve cavalry in the plains of Elbing. They presented a most magnificent spectacle. Eighteen thousand horsemen; admirably mounted and perfectly disciplined, there obeyed, with parade precision, the orders of Murat. Accustomed as Napoleon was to military spectacles, his eyes were almost dazzled by the splendour of this-; and he wrote an hour after to his ministers, that he could not but feel proud of the sight he had just witnessed. Meanwhile Benningsen was seduced, by the exposed situation of Marshal Ney's corps at Guttstadt, midway between the two armies, to hazard an attack on that insulated body. He had been sta- tioned there by Napoleon expressly in order to serve as a bait to draw the Russian generals into that perilous encounter ; and, as the event proved, with perfect success. Early in June all the corps of their army were put in motion, in order to envelop the French marshal. For this purpose, Benningsen proposed to make a feint of forcing the passage of the Passarge at the two points of Spanden and Lomitten, and at the same time assail Ney in his advanced position at Gutt- stadt, in front and both flanks — the front by Altkirch, VOL. VII. 2 K 514 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, and the flanks by Wolfsclorf and Guttstadt. If, by _1 1 these means, the corps which he commanded could be 1S07 ' destroyed, it was intended on the following day to renew the attack on the bridges in good earnest, and fall with the whole centre of the Russian army on the corps of Soult, cantoned behind the Passarge, and at such a dis- tance from that of Davoust, as to afford some ground for hope that it, too, might be seriously injured before the remainder of the French troops could advance to its relief. Should this daring attack fail, it was always in their power to retire to the fortified central position of 1 Jom. li. x 403. wii- Heilsbcrg, and there endeavour to arrest the enemy, as D°m. xviH. Kray had done with Moreau at Ulm, till the great rein- vii.558,564! forcements, under Labanoff, should enable them to resume the offensive. 1 Early on the morning of the 5th June, the whole Rus- Feigned sian army was put in motion for the execution of this tSridoes well-conceived enterprise. The feigned attacks, intended of the pas- to distract the enemy's attention on the two fortified sarge, and J real attack bridges of Spanden and Lomitten, took place at the pre- ou Marshal ° . l \ . . * Ney. scribed time, and perfectly answered the object in view. The Prussians at the former point, and the Russians at the latter, pressed the enemy so severely, and with forces so considerable, that they supposed the forcing of the bridges was really intended, and in consequence, when the enemy drew off in the evening, with the loss of several hundred killed and wounded, from each of these places, represented their retreat as evidence of a repulse. Berna- dotte, who commanded at Spanden, and had collected his whole corps to defend that important passage, was wounded by a musket-ball on the head, during the heat of the action, and was replaced in command by General Dupont. Meanwhile the real attack was directed against Ney's corps in its advanced position at Guttstadt on the Alle, full seven miles to the right of the Passarge, and so completely in the midst of the Russian army, now that their advanced columns were assailing the bridges over HISTORY OF EUROPE. 515 that river, that its capture appeared inevitable. In effect, chap. the marshal was taken so completely by surprise, that if * Benningsen had pressed" the retiring columns with any- 1B ° 7- thing like the vigour which Napoleon would have exerted 55)™^"" on a similar occasion, they must inevitably have been J°™ : »^j3, destroyed. He had thirty thousand infantry and fifteen son,i36. tJt i it iip "new, «i thousand horse against Ney, who could not muster halt 571. that force. 1 But, unfortunately, orders had been issued for the different corps to delay the onset till they were in a con- its success dition to render assistance to each other; and as some Suifiuim were impeded in the march by unforeseen accidents, the serious attack on Guttstadt did not take place till two o'clock in the afternoon. It was then carried by assault, and four hundred prisoners, with considerable magazines and several guns, were taken ; but after having thus made themselves masters of his headquarters, the Russians, though more than double in number to the enemy, exerted so little activity in following up their success, that Ney, who displayed on this trying occasion all his wonted skill and firmness, was enabled to effect his retreat, with comparatively little loss, to Ankcndorf, where he passed the night. On the following morning he resumed June g. his march, though pressed on all sides by greatly superior forces. It was only by prodigies of discipline and valour, however, that his retreat was effected. Sur- rounded and repeatedly charged by the immense masses of the enemy's horse, his troops retired over a level plain in echelons of squares, each delivering its fire, opening out and retiring on either side of the square in rear, which stood firm and performed a similar evolution, while the entire formation of the first was again effected. In this way they retired for several miles with parade precision, repeatedly charged, but never broken. In the course of the retreat, he boldly imposed on the enemy, when their forces were divided by a lake, by a bold and well-con- ceived advance, which gave time for his artillery and horse 516 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, to defile over the bridge in his rear ; and at length passed J L the Passarge at Deppen, with the loss, in the whole of m7 - his retreat, of only a thousand killed and wounded, and an equal number made prisoners. On arriving at the heights of Deppen, as the rearguard of Nej was defiling over, the Russians had the mortification of dis- covering that the bridge was not only altogether unpro- tected by a tete-de-pont, but completely commanded i3 compact order, yet with such vigour, that the leading divisions of Ney's corps, assailed in front and flank, were pierced through, trodden down, and driven back with prodigious slaughter. Such was the change produced by this vehement onset, that the day seemed all but regained ; * the French were repulsed to a considerable distance, and the Russian left wing in its turn became the assailants. Then it was that the six thousand men detached in the forenoon to Wehlau might have changed the destinies of Europe. But the Russian Guards, being unsupported by any further reserve, could not singly maintain the contest for a length of time, with the overwhelming odds which were speedily directed against them. As they hurried on in pursuit of Ney, they came upon the reserve under Victor, which had advanced to his support ; and one of his divisions, under Dupont, charged them so opportunely in flank, while disordered by the vehemence of their pur- suit, that they were in their turn repulsed to the edge of the town. Encouraged by this change of fortune, Ney's soldiers now returned to the charge. Dupont's division, 538 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, emulating the deeds of its old comrades in the camp of Boulogne, pressed on in hot pursuit ; Senarmont's terrific 1807# battery advanced, playing without intermission on the crowded ranks of the retiring Russians ; and soon the confusion and press in Friedland appeared so great, that Gesch.'der the leading French divisions were tempted to hazard an NapfL™ assault. After an obstinate resistance, the streets were son 7 i59 711 forced ; some of the principal buildings in the town took -■°ko s c a n v * fire : in the first moments of consternation the fugitives 111. 58, .59. m ° jom.ii.4i8. applied the torch to the bridges over the river — in a few 19,21. minutes they were wrapped in flames, and the volumes of 6\2. Ti " ' smoke which rolled over the whole field of battle, spread a dismal feeling through the breasts of the soldiers. 1 """ While this decisive success was gaining on the left, the Progres's of centre and right of the Russians kept their ground with on\hecen- undaunted firmness under a dreadful cannonade, which JFShS* told with fatal effect on the dense masses which, from the sians. limited extent of the ground, were there accumulated between the front and the river. They had even gained considerable success; for some French battalions, having broken their array in crossing the deep ravine of the Mill Stream, with which they were unacquainted, were charged before they could re-form by the Russian cavalry, and cut to pieces. But when the retreat of the left wing and the Guards had uncovered their flank, the infantry in the centre were exposed to the most serious danger, and must have given way, had not the Russian cavalry galloped forward at full speed and charged the corps who threatened them, who were the left of Oudinot's grenadiers, now forming part of Lannes' corps, with such vigour that they were in a few minutes trampled under foot and destroyed. Encouraged by this success, the infantry of the centre also moved forward, and threw in so destructive a flanking * As Napoleon, in the rear, eagerly watched these triumphant movements, a shell whirled over his head at the height of the top of the soldiers' bayonets, and a soldier instinctively cowered his head. " If that bomb had been destined for you," said he, smiling, " it would have found you, were you buried a hundred feet below the earth."— Thiers, Consulat et V Empire, vii. 612. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 539 fire, as effectually covered the retreat of their horse ; but chap. at this moment the flames of Friedlancl and the bridges 1 were seen to arise, and the vast clouds of black smoke 1807- which darkened the atmosphere told too plainly that their retreat was cut off, and that success was hopeless. Then indeed their hopes fell, and despair took possession of every heart. Still, however, their courage was unshaken : uniting the fronts of battalions, closing the ranks of the soldiers, they presented, in circumstances which seemed wellnigh desperate, an unbroken front to the enemy. In vain the artillery, approaching to half cannon-shot distance, ploughed through their dense array — in vain the French infantry threw in a destructive fire with ceaseless vigour — in vain the grenadiers of their Guard charged repeat- edly with the shouts and confidence of victory ; not one square was broken — not one gun was taken. Slowly and in solid order they retired, leisurely retracing their steps towards the river, keeping up an incessant rolling fire from the rear, which faced the enemy, and charging with the bayonet whenever hard pressed by their pursuers.'" J^gf Whoever witnessed the conduct of that devoted host f av - iv- f '• J om. 11.4I0, during these trving hours, must have felt that Russia, if 419. pum. o »/ o xix. 20 "JI. adequately directed, was destined in the end to take the Saaki.W lead in the deliverance of Europe. 1 Benningsen, meanwhile, without losing his presence of mind in the general wreck, did all that prudence could suggest to repair the consequences of the error into which * "But yet, though thick the shafts as snow, Though charging knights like whirlwinds go, Though billmeii ply the ghastly blow, Unbroken was the ring ; * * * * Each stepping where his comrade stood, The instant that he fell. No thought was there of dastard flight ; Link'd in the serried phalanx tight, Groom fought like noble, squire like knight, As fearlessly and well ; Till utter darkness closed her wing O'er their thin host and wounded king. 540 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLVI. he had been drawn in the earlier part of the day. His first care was to discover a ford for the cannon, as Fried- land was in the hands of the enemy, and the bridges were no longer passable by friend or foe. Happily some peasants pointed out one, where the great park of artil- lery might be got across. It was at once withdrawn, with the exception of a few pieces which fell into the enemy's hands, while the firm countenance of the infantry warded off the assault of his impetuous columns ; but the water came up to the horses' middles, and what remained of the ammunition was utterly spoiled. A hundred guns were immediately after the passage planted on the right bank to retard the enemy ; but so closely were the columns on the opposite sides intermingled, that it was dangerous to fire lest the balls should fall in the Russian lines. Mean- while two of their divisions, impatient of the slow progress at the ford, and unable to endure any longer the inces- sant showers of musketry and grape, threw themselves, sword in hand, into Friedland, and endeavoured to open a passage with fixed bayonets to the bridges. A desperate struggle ensued with the troops of Ney and Victor in the streets ; but the despair of the Russians prevailed over the enthusiasm of the French, and they made their way through the burning houses to the water's edge. There, however, they found the bridges destroyed ; and these brave men, after having so heroically cut their way through Then skill'd Napoleon's sage commands Led back from strife his shatter'd bands ; And from the charge they drew, As mountain-waves from wasted lands Sweep back to ocean blue. Then did their loss his foemen know ; Their chiefs, their lords, their mightiest low, They melted from the field as snow, When streams are swoln and south winds blow, Dissolves in silent dew. A lie's echoes heard the ceaseless plash, While many a broken band Disorder' d through her current dash, To gain the Russian land." Marmion, Canto vi. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 541 the hostile ranks, found themselves stopped by an impass- chap. able barrier, while the increasing masses of the enemy _1 1 now enclosed them, amidst fire and darkness, on every 18 ° 7 - side. Still, however, no one thought, even in circum- stances all but desperate, of surrender ; with heroic cour- age they fought their way back, though with prodigious slaughter, to the ford, and during the darkness of the night plunged into the stream. The water was breast- high, and many, missing the fords, were drowned ; several gim3 were abandoned, from the impossibility of dragging 647-8. -wa- them through the press ; but such was the unconquerable 5S Jom# valour of the rearguard to the very last, that not one %^'J^' battalion capitulated, and, with the exception of five yf'f 9 3 ' B ^ av ' thousand wounded, few prisoners fell into the enemy's vi. 304,305. hands. 1 * Such was the disastrous battle of Friedland, which at 60 one blow dissolved the great confederacy which the genius immense results of and foresight of Mr Pitt had formed for the coercion of the battle. Napoleon's ambition, and left Great Britain alone to main- tain the contest with nearly the whole forces of the Conti- nent arrayed under his banners. Grievously, then, was felt the want of British aid, and woful were the conse- quences of the ill-timed parsimony which had withheld all subsidies from Russia during this desperate struggle. Thirty thousand of the militia, whom even a small loan would have clothed and armed, might have averted the catastrophe ; twenty thousand British auxiliaries would have converted it into a glorious victory, and thrown Napoleon back upon the Vistula and the Elbe. The losses of the Russians, though nothing like what they had experienced in the decisive overthrow of Austerlitz, were * In describing this battle, Lord Hutchinson, who witnessed it, stated, in his official despatches to the British government :— " I want words sufficiently strong to describe the valour of the Russians, and which alone would have ren- dered their success undoubted, if corn-age alone could secure victory ; but what- ever may be the event, the officers and men of the Russian army have done their duty in the noblest manner, and are justly entitled to the praise and admiration of every person who was witness of their conduct." — Lord Hutchin- son's Despatch, June 15, 1807; Sir Robert Wilson, 162. 542 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, still very severe. Seventeen thousand men had fallen, XL L either killed or wounded, and five thousand of the latter I807. ^d b een mac [ e prisoners ; but of those unhurt not more than five hundred had become captives ; no colours were taken, and only seventeen guns remained in the enemy's l^Dum. power. The French had lost ten thousand men, and ^•^ two eagles wrested from them in fair combat. Nothing Jom. 11. 420, O ^ o 421. 79th can illustrate more clearly the desperate resistance made deSaxe,iv." by the Russians than the small number of guns taken, iii. 59, 60. under circumstances when, with less steady troops, the whole artillery would have been abandoned. 1 "" During the evening, the extreme right of the Russians TheRu's- and part of the cavalry retired by the left bank of the wtth 0U e t treat Alle, and crossed without molestation at the bridge of to°Aneni° n Allenburg. Thither, on the morning after the battle, the Wehiau d remainder of the army retired by the other bank, without June 15. being at all harassed on the march : indeed, it is a Atlas, remarkable and unaccountable circumstance, that though ' fifteen thousand French horse were in the field, they were little engaged in the action after Napoleon arrived on the spot, nor once let loose in the pursuit, t On the day following they reached Wehlau, where the Alle and the Pregel unite in the midst of a marshy plain, traversed by June 16. a single chaussee. By that defile, not only the artillery and carriages of the main army, but the immense baggage and ammunition-train, which had evacuated Konigsberg, had to pass. Although no serious attack was made, yet such was the confusion produced by the enormous accu- mulation of cannon and chariots on a single chaussee, and * The French Bay in the bulletins, that they took eighty pieces of cannon ; that the Russians had 18,000 killed, and that they lost on their own side only 500 killed and 3000 wounded. Berthier estimated the real loss at Tilsit to Sir R. Wilson at more than 8000 ; and that officer makes the Russian loss only 12,000 men. The latter estimate, however, is obviously too low, as the peace which immediately followed demonstrated ; the account of the French loss in the bulletin was, as usual, from a third to a fourth of its real amount. — 79 Bulletin, Camp, de Saxe, iv. 334 ; and Wilson, 163. f " The Russians had on their right twenty-two squadrons of cavalry, who covered their retreat ; we had more than forty, with which we should have charged them, but, by a fatality without example, these forty squadrons received HISTORY OF EUROPE. 543 such the apprehensions inspired by the evident dangers chap. which would ensue if the rearguard were attacked, that, XLXL on a few muskets being accidentally discharged, a general 1807, panic took place, and horse, foot, and cannon rushed tumultuously together to the bridge, and the strongest, throwing down and trampling under foot the weaker, broke through and spread in the wildest disorder into the town. Such was the uproar and consternation which ensued, that it was with the utmost difficulty that order could be restored by the personal efforts of Sir Robert Wilson and a few Russian officers who happened to be on the spot ; and it inspired these gallant chiefs with the melancholy conviction, that if Napoleon had followed up his success with his wonted vigour, the Russian host would have been utterly annihilated.""" But on this occa- sion, as on many others in the memorable campaign of 1812, it was apparent that the vigour of the Emperor in following up his victories was by no means equal either to what it had been in the German or Italian wars, or to the successes which he claimed at the moment — a circumstance for which his panegyrists find it impossible to offer any explanation, but which, in truth, is susceptible of a very easy solution, when the desperate nature of the l resistance opposed to him in these northern latitudes, and 164, 165.' the consequent magnitude of his losses, is taken into con- 34, 35.' ' sideration. 1 The catastrophe at Friedland, and subsequent retreat of the Allies behind the Pregel, rendered the city of Konigsberg, which was situated considerably in advance, no orders, and never so much as mounted tlieir horses ; they remained during all the battle on foot behind our left. On seeing that, I lamented the Grand- duke of Berg had not been there : if he had, these forty squadrons would cer- tainly have been employed, and not a Russian would have escaped." — Savauy, iii. 60. * " Et si continue victorem ea cura subisset, Ultimus ille dies bello gentique fuisset." In the first alarm, the Cossacks crowded down to the right bank of the Alle, and swimming the river, advanced on tbe opposite side and discharged a volley of arrows with considerable effect at tbe enemy. — Wilson, 163, 165. 544 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, near the mouth of that river, no longer tenable. General X T V T • ■ Lestocq had, with his wonted ability, conducted the I807. retreat of his little array with very trifliug loss, till he Capture of was joined on the 12th, in front of Konigsberg, by the Ju°r!e lg i6. erg ' corps of Kamenskoi. Even their united forces, however, not more than twenty-four thousand strong, could hardly hope to save that town without the assistance of the main army, when they were attacked by the corps of Soult and Davoust, and the greater part of the cavalry under Murat, amounting to full fifty thousand men, of whom about twelve thousand were horse, in the finest condition. Notwithstanding this overwhelming odds, however, the Prussian general made the attempt, and by the firm countenance which he assumed, and the devoted heroism of his rearguard in the retreat from the lower Passarge, succeeded in so far retarding the enemy as to gain time for the evacuation of almost all the maga- zines and stores in the city, even by the narrow and crowded defile of Wehlau. But this great object was not gained without sustaining a considerable loss. A June 14. battalion was surrounded and made prisoners, which had been left to defend the passage of the Frisching ; and on June 1.5. the following day a column of twelve hundred men, which was enveloped by St-Cyr's division and Murat's cavalry, was, after a gallant resistance, compelled to surrender. Weakened by these losses, Lestocq, how- ever, still maintained his ground in Konigsberg, repeat- edly repulsed the attempts to storm it which were made by the Brandenburg gate, and remained there all the day, putting the mouldering fortifications in a respectable posture of defence, and pressing the evacuation of the June ig. magazines. But on the following morning, having received accounts of the battle of Frieclland, he ordered the garrison to be under arms, under pretence of making a sally; and when evening approached, the whole took the direction of Labiau, leaving General Sutterheim with two battalions of light infantry to man Plate 3<>. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 545 the walls. He also evacuated the place at midnight, chap. and on the following day the magistrates sent the keys _1_ of the city to Marshal Soult. Three thousand sick or wounded fell into the hands of the enemy; but such was the activity of General Lestocq, and the skill with which Suttcrheim conducted his measures, that no magazines or stores of any importance were taken, and the rearguard, 1 w - ho ^ though frequently molested, effected their retreat without j^ 1 *'- any serious loss to Wehlau, where they joined the main 33,36. army as it was defiling over the bridge. 1 " Meanwhile Napoleon, after his usual custom, rode on 63 the followine; morning over the field of battle. It pre- Measures <>f i i i ,i •£• Napoleon, scnted a ghastly spectacle, second only to the terrinc and retreat plain of Eylau in circumstances of horror. Then might ° ail ' s e t o the be seen evident proofs of the stern and unconquerable Nie ^ valour with which the Russians had combated. The v *±% position of the squares of infantry could be distinctly traced by the dead bodies jof the men, which, lying on their backs facing outwards, still preserved their regular array; the station of the cavalry was seen by the multitude of horses, which lay dead as they had stood in squadrons on the field. In the pursuit, how- ever, he exerted none of his usual vigour, and threw away, in the prosecution of a minor object, the fairest opportunity he had ever enjoyed of destroying the Rus- * Napoleon, with his usual mendacious policy, gave out, in his 79th bulletin, that he had taken in Konigsberg, not only twenty thousand prisoners and immense public magazines, but 160,000 stand of British arms ! It appeared a happy stroke to make the Parisians believe that the tardy succours of Great Britain had arrived just in time to arm the French troops. " This assertion/' Sir R. Wilson justly observes, " is a falsehood of the most extravagant character, and which finds no parallel but in the catalogue of their own compositions." In truth, the British arms escaped by a circumstance more discreditable to England than the falsehood which Napoleon asserted— they had not yet arrived. The cannon, ammunition, and arms for Prussia were sent by Lord Hutchinson, after the armistice, to a Swedish port; those for Russia were landed at Riga, an. 1 delivered to the Russian troops— PaH. Returns, 1807 ; Pari. Hist. ix. App. ; and Wilson, 167. The falsehood in regard to the stores taken at Konigsberg appeared in the bulletin giving the details of the battle of Friedland, dated Wehlau, June 17, the very day on which that town was taken by the French troops. He there said :— " Marshal Soult has entered Konigsberg, where we found many hundred thousand quintals of wheat, more than twenty thousand VOL. VII. - >L 546 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, si an army. Intent only on cutting the enemy off from XLVI 1807. Konigsberg, and securing to himself that noble prize of victory, he totally neglected to follow up with suffi- cient rapidity his success on the right bank of the Alle, and suffered the disorganised and shattered Russian army to retire without molestation through the narrow defile that traversed the marshes of Wehlau and over the single bridge of the Pregel, when a little additional vigour in the pursuit would at least have compelled them to abandon, at the entrance of these passes, the greater part of their baggage and artillery. On the evening of June is. the 18th, the Allied army, which had united at Wehlau with the troops under Kamenskoi and Lestocq, falling back from Konigsberg, reached Tilsit on the Niemen, and early on the following morning the mighty array began to defile over the bridge. For forty hours suc- cessively the passage continued without intermission ; horse, foot, cannon, baggage-waggons, store-chariots, succeeding each other in endless array ; it seemed as June 19. if the East was swallowing up the warlike brood which had so long contended with the west for the mastery 168*170' °^ Europe. Still, though a hundred thousand men, Dum. xix. flushed with victory, were hardly a day's march in the 35,40. Bign. J i _ vi. 508, 509. rear, no attempt was made by Napoleon to molest their passage. 1 A few cannon-shots alone were exchanged Russians and Prussians wounded, and all the military stores which England had sent out; among the rest, 160,000 muskets, still on shipboard." This fabrica- tion was made at Wehlau on the 17th, which is thirty miles from Konigsberg, before it was possible that anything further than the bare capture of the city could have been heard of by the French Emperor. The falsehood in the first bulletin, which corresponded to his wishes rather than the reality, was so gross that it could not be repeated in the succeeding one, dated Tilsit, 19th June, which, after recapitulating the successes of Soult and the fall of Konigsberg, said : — " In fine, the result of all these affairs has been, that four or five thousand prisoners, and fifteen pieces of cannon, have fallen into our hands. Two hun- dred Russian vessels; and great stores of subsistence, wine, and spirits, have been found in Konigsberg." Yet so little do the French writers attend to accuracy in their detail, that the enormous falsehood in the first bulletin, even when abandoned in the second, has been adopted by all their historians, even Jomini and Dumas, whose accuracy is in general so praiseworthy. — See Dumas, xiv. 33 ; and Jomini, ii. 422 ; and 79th and 80th Bullet Camp, de Saxe, iv. 338, 342 ; andBiGNON, vi. 308; and Nobvins, hi. 27. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 547 between the Cossacks and the horse -artillery of Mural chap. which, on the morning of the 20th, approached the 1 town of Tilsit, which was shortly after evacuated by 7 ' Bacrathion with the Russian rearguard, who withdrew without molestation across the river and burned the bridge. In truth, hostilities were no longer either required or expedient. Disheartened by the defeat which he had The Em- experienced ; chagrined at the refusal of succours either ander pro- in men or money from England ; irritated at the timid ££t£. policy of Austria, when the fairest opportunity that ever yet had occurred was presented for her decisive interpo- sition ; foiled in the objects for which he had originally begun the war, and deserted by those for whose advan- tage, more than his own, it had been undertaken, the Emperor Alexander had taken his resolution. He deemed it unnecessary and improper to risk the inde- pendence of Russia in a quarrel not directly affecting its interests, and from which the parties immediately con- cerned had withdrawn. On the 18th, therefore, General Benningsen wrote a letter to Prince Bagrathion, desiring him to make known to the French generals the Empe- ror's desire for an armistice. This was accordingly communicated to Murat on the forenoon of the following June 19. day, and orders were transmitted for hostilities to cease at „ WUsors all points. Thus was this mighty conflagration, which JJJjWJ; originally commenced on the banks of the Danube, finally 42,44. stifled on the shores of the Niemen. 1 * These proposals on the part of the Russian Emperor gave the highest satisfaction to Napoleon. It had ever been his policy to offer peace to his enemies during the * During this desperate struggle on the Passarge, a conflict of some impor- tance, but overlooked amidst the shock of such mighty hosts, took place on the banks of the Narew. Tolstoy had there gained some successes over Mas- sena, and, in particular, made himself master of the intrenched camp of Borken; but the French having attacked it some days after with increased forces, it again June 11. fell into their hands, and the Russians, following the retreat of their principal June 15. army, had retired from Ostrolenka towards Ticoizin, when the armistice of Tilsit put a period to their operations. — Dumas, six. 41, 43. 548 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, first tumult and consternation of defeat ; and more than XLV ' once, by such well-timed advances, lie had extricated I807. himself from situations of the utmost peril. To be anti- Reasons cipatecl in this manner in his desires, and have the public Ntpoie™n le demonstration afforded of the reality of his victory by the thifsTe at enemy proposing an armistice, was a circumstance of all others the most gratifying, which raised him at once to the highest point of glory. He was not ignorant that here, as at Leoben and Austerlitz, a further continuance of the contest might be attended with very serious dangers. England, it is true, had hitherto, in an unaccountable manner, kept herself aloof from the struggle ; but a change had taken place in her councils : a close alliance had been contracted with Prussia ; powerful succours in arms and ammunition were on their way, and the greatest military expedition she had ever sent forth was preparing to hoist the flag of a national war on the banks of the Elbe. The dubious policy of Austria rendered it more than pro- bable that, in such an event, she would throw off the mask ; and that eighty thousand armed mediators might suddenly make their appearance under the walls of Dresden, and totally intercept the communications of the Grand Army with France. Russia, it was true, was defeated — the army of Bennino-sen was little more than half its former amount ; but thirty thousand men were advancing, under Prince Labanoff, to repair its losses ; and if its frontiers were invaded, and a national resistance aroused, there were four hundred thousand militia enrolled, who would speedily fill the ranks of the regular army. Napoleon indeed could collect, notwithstanding the losses of the short campaign, a hundred and fifty thousand men on the Niemen ; but even this mighty host appeared hardly adequate to the task of subduing an empire whose dominions on this side of the Ural Mountains equalled all the rest of Europe put together. How were the conquered provinces to be kept in subjection ; the taken fortresses to be garrisoned ; the immense lines of communication to be kept up, when the war HISTORY OF EUROPE. 549 was to commence at the distance of nearly a thousand chap. miles from the Rhine, and the Scythian monarch, if reso- J !_ lute on preserving his independence, might retreat a T 1!l07 ; thousand miles further without coming to the verge of 426. ' ' his European dominions \ 1 *■ Nor were the considerations less powerful which induced Alexander to desire an accommodation. By engaging in Considera- ble war on this desperate principle, indeed, and drawing rendered [he the enemy into the heart of his dominions, he had every akodeSrouH chance of defeating the invasion of this second Darius into nSLfa™' the deserts of Scythia ; but this could only be done by great sacrifices, and at the hazard of throwing back for a long period the internal improvement of his rising domi- nions. For what object were these sacrifices to be made 1 For the preservation of Prussia 1 She was already crushed, and a few inconsiderable forts, with the town of Graudenz, were all that remained to Frederick-William of the dominions of his illustrious ancestors. For the safety of England 1 She was'sufficiently protected by her invincible fleets ; and the interest she had evinced in the struggle had not been such as to render it imperative on the Czar, either in honour or policy, to continue the con- test on her account. f For the sake of the balance of * The following regular forces, exclusive of 400,000 militia, were still at the command of the Russian government : — Remains of the army which fought at Friedland, . . 28,000 Kamenskoi's corps, . . . . • • • • 9,000 Reinforcements which joined at Tilsit, or on the march, . 9,000 Half of Labanoff's corps, at Olita, 15,000 Prussians retired with Lestocq, 18,000 Tolstoy's corps on the Narew, 18,000 On march from Wilna, 15,000 Total regulars, . 112,000 —Wilson, 176. f The secret motives which induced the Emperor Alexander to conclude the treaty of Tilsit, were the refusal by Lord Howick (afterwards Earl Grey) to guarantee the Russian subsidies, and that too in a manner peculiarly painful to the feelings of the Emperor— a refusal the more inexplicable, as that minister was the very person who had, after the catastrophe of Jena, warmly solicited the Czar to fly to the succour of Prussia ; the delay in the arrival of the troops promised by England in the island of Rugen ; the tardiness of the new admin- istration in furnishing the promised supplies in money, arms, and ammunition 550 HISTORY OF EUKOPE. CHAP. XLVI. 1807. 1 Boutour- lin, Camp, de 1812, i. 21, 22. Hard. i.v. Lucches. i. 322, 323. 67., Conclusion of an armis- tice. 2 Bign. vi. 308, 312. Dura. xix. 44,50. power ? That was an object, however important, which could not be brought about by the unaided efforts of a single empire ; and if Austria, whose interests were more immediately concerned in its preservation, was not inclined to draw the sword in the conflict, it did not appear that Russia, whose independence had never yet been seriously threatened, was called upon to continue it unaided, for its restoration. Now was an opportunity when the war might be terminated, if not with advantage, at least with- out dishonour. In the fields of Pultusk, Eylau, and Heilsberg, the Russians had sufficiently vindicated their title to military glory ; and objects of immediate impor- tance were to be gained nearer home, both on the Danube and the Neva, amply sufficient to indemnify the empire for a temporary withdrawal from the general theatre of European strife. 1 When such were the dispositions on both sides, there was little difficulty in coming to an understanding. France had nothing to demand of Russia except that she should close her ports against England ; Russia nothing to ask of France but that she would withdraw her armies from Poland, and permit the Emperor to pursue his long-cherished projects of conquest in Turkey. The map of Europe lay before them, out of which these two mighty potentates might carve at pleasure ample indemnities for themselves, or acquisitions for their allies. No difficulty, in consequence, was experienced in settling the terms of the armistice. The Niemen separated the two armies ; the headquarters of Napoleon were fixed at Tilsit, on the left bank of the river ; those of Alexander at Piktupohen, a mile distant on the right bank. 2 A friendly intercourse was immediately established between — circumstances which had strongly irritated him against the English govern- ment ; the refusal of Austria to accede to the convention of Bartenstein, or take any part in the contest ; as well as the exhaustion of his own finances, the penury of arms and ammunition, the famishing state of the troops, and the risk of total overthrow to which they were exposed. — Hardenberg, ix. 425 • and Lucchesixi, i. 322, 323. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 551 the officers and men of the two armies — they had felt chap. each other's valour too strongly not to be inspired with sentiments of mutual respect ; while Napoleon, in eloquent 3 ™' terms, addressed his soldiers on this glorious termination of their labours in one of those proclamations which made Europe thrill from side to side.* An armistice having been thus concluded, it was agreed that the two Emperors should meet to arrange, in a interview private conference, the destinies of the Continent. It took atTMt. place, accordingly, on the 25th, under circumstances eminently calculated to impress the imagination of man- kind. By the direction of the French general of engi- neers, Lariboissiere, a raft of great dimensions was con- structed on the river Niemen — the raft of Tilsit, which June 25. will be recollected as long as the cage of Bajazet or the phalanx of Alexander. It was moored in the centre of the stream, and on its surface stood a wooden apartment, surmounted by the eagles of France and Russia, framed with all the possible magnificence which the time and circumstances would admit. This was destined for the reception of the Emperors alone ; at a little distance was stationed another raft, richly but less sumptuously adorned, for their respective suites. The shore on either side was covered with the Imperial Guard of the two monarchs, drawn up in triple lines, in the same firm and imposing array in which they had stood on the fields of Eylau and Friedland. At one o'clock precisely, amidst the thunder of artillery, each Emperor stept into a boat on his own side of the river, accompanied by a few of his !.f ava ^"; I ' "■ principal officers : Napoleon was attended by Murat, jj-i 15 -. Berthier, Bessieres, Duroc, and Caulaincourt ; Alexander 53,54. by the Grand-duke Constantino, General Benningsen, 1 * " Soldiers ! — On the 5th June we were attacked in our cantonments by the Russian army ; the enemy misunderstood the cause of our inactivity. He has Napoleon's learned, when it was too late, that our slumber was that of the lion ; he now fi^recm" o°" repents having forgotten it. In the days of Guttstadt, of Heilsberg, in the ever his troops, memorable field of Friedland, in a ten days' campaign in short, we have taken 120 pieces of cannon, 7 standards, killed or wounded 60,000 Russians, wrested 1807. 552 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. Prince Labanoff, General Ouvaroff, and Count Lieven. The numerous and splendid suite of each monarch fol- lowed in another boat immediately after. The bark of Napoleon, rowed by the marines of his First words Guard, advanced with greater rapidity than that of Alex- La Aiex- 011 ander. He arrived first at the raft, entered the apart- ment, and himself opened the door on the opposite side to receive the Czar, while the shouts of the soldiers on either shore drowned even the roar of the artillery. In a few seconds Alexander arrived, and was received by the conqueror at the door on his own side. Their meeting was friendly, and the very first words which the Russian Emperor uttered revealed both the lacerated feelings occa- sioned by the conduct of the government of Great Britain during the war, his deep penetration, and clear conception of the ruling passion of Napoleon — " I hate the English," said he, " as much as you do, and am ready to second you in all your enterprises against them." " In that case," replied Napoleon, "everything will be easily arranged, and peace is already made." The interview lasted two hours, during which Napoleon exercised all the ascendant which his extraordinary talents and fortune, as well as 1 Savary, .Hi. singular powers of fascination gave him; while the Russian vi.'3i5,si6! Emperor gave proof of the tact and finesse, as well as 53™5. XJX diplomatic ability, with which his nation is gifted beyond any other in Europe. 1 Before they parted, the out- froni the enemy's army all its magazines and hospitals, the fortress of Konigs- berg, with three hundred vessels which it contained, loaded with munitions of war of all sorts, and especially 160,000 muskets sent by England to arm our enemies. From the shores of the Vistula we have arrived on those of the Niemen with the rapidity of the eagle. You celebrated at Austerlitz the anniversary of my coronation; you have this year worthily commemorated that of Marengo, which terminated the war of the second coalition. French- men, you are worthy of yourselves, and of me. You will return to your country covered with laurels, after having gained a peace which will be its own guarantee. It is time that our country should live in repose, sheltered from the malignant influence of England. My recompenses to you shall testify the large measure of my gratitude, and the whole extent of the love which I bear you." Already was to be seen, not merely in Napoleon's thoughts, but in his words, a return to the celebrated maxim of Louis XIV., "L'etat — c'est moi." — Bignoh, vi. 311, 312. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 553 lines of the treaty were arranged between them: it was chap. not difficult to come to an understanding — the world JL L afforded ample room for the aggrandisement of both.* 1807 - On the day following, a second interview took place at the same town, at which the King of Prussia was pre- Comm«Jnce- sent : the first had been arranged, and the preliminary negotiation terms agreed to, without any concert with that unhappy j unc ! fi prince. He was no longer in a situation to stipulate any conditions. Bereft of his dominions, driven up into a corner of his territories, destitute of everything, he had no alternative but submission to the stern law of the conqueror.f As it was now evident that an accommoda- tion was about to take place, arrangements were made for conducting it with more convenience to the exalted personages concerned. Part of the town of Tilsit was declared neutral, and allotted to the accommodation of the Emperor of Russia and his suite; thither he repaired on the afternoon of the same day, and was received with all imaginable courtesy by Napoleon himself, upon land- ing on the left bank of the river from his boat. Amidst discharges of artillery, and the acclamations of a vast multitude of spectators, whom the extraordinary spectacle had collected together, did these two sovereigns, whose hostility had so lately dyed the fields of Poland with blood, ride side by side to the quarters prepared for the Czar, through a triple line of the French Imperial Guard. * Savary, who had been nominated governor of Konigsberg, received orders, when the French army first approached the Niemen, to get a pontoon train, which had been left in the arsenal of that city, ready for immediate opera- tion. Next day, however, he received the following significant note from Talleyrand : — "Be in no hurry with your pontoons : what would we, gain by passing the Niemen ') what is thei'0 to be accpiired beyond that river '.' The Emperor must abandon his ideas in regard to Poland; that nation is fit for nothing ; disorder alone is to be organised among its inhabitants. We have another far more important matter to settle ; here is a fair opportunity of termi- nating the present dispute ; we must not let it escape." Already the Spanish invasion had entered into the calculations of the rulers of Europe on the Niemen. — Savary, iii. 76. f At this period he wrote to the King of Sweden — " Immediately after the armistice, my imperial ally concluded peace on his own account alone. Abandoned in this manner, and left without support on 554 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. The attention of Napoleon descended to the most minute particulars. The furniture in the Emperor of Russia's 180 '' rooms was all sent from the French headquarters; a sumptuous train of cooks and other attendants was in readiness to make him forget the luxuries of St Peters- burg; even his couch was prepared in a camp-bed of the French Emperor's, which he had made use of in his cam- paigns. The King of Prussia also arrived, two days after, in Tilsit, with his beautiful and unfortunate queen, and the ministers on both sides — Talleyrand on the part of France, Prince Kourakin on that of Russia, and Marshal Kalkreuth on that of Prussia. But they were of little service, for such was the extraordinary length to which the intimacy of the two Emperors had gone, that ^avarjvii, no ^ on iy ^id ^hey invariably dine and pass the evening vi.'3i6,3i7. together, but almost all the morning- conferences, during 55. which the destinies of the world were arranged, were con- ducted by themselves in person. 1 "Had the Queen of Prussia arrived earlier at our Napokon's conferences," says Napoleon, " it might have had much with the influence on the result of the negotiations ; but happily p^sla! she did not make her appearance till all was settled, and I was in a situation to decide everything in twenty-four hours. As soon as she arrived I went to pay her a visit ; she was very beautiful, but somewhat past the first flower of youth. She received me in despair, exclaiming, ' Justice ! Justice !' and throwing herself back with loud lamentations. I at length prevailed on her to take a seat, but she continued, nevertheless, her pathetic entreaties. ' Prussia,' said she, ' was blinded in regard to her power ; she ventured to enter the lists with a hero, oppose herself to the destinies of France, neglect its fortunate friendship ! she has been well punished for her folly. The glory of the the great theatre of war, I found myself forced, how painful soever to my feelings, to do the same, and to sign a peace, though its conditions were to the last degree hard and overwhelming." — Schoell, viii. 410; and Lucchesini, i. 328. 1807. HISTORY OF EUROTE. 555 Great Frederick, the halo his name spread round our chap. arms, had inflated the heart of Prussia — they have caused her ruin.' " Magdeburg, in an especial manner, was the object of her entreaties; and when Napoleon, before dinner, presented her with a beautiful rose, she at first refused it, but immediately after took it with a smile, adding at the same time, "Yes! but at least with Magde- burg." — "I must observe to your majesty/' replied the Emperor, " that it is I who give, and you only who must receive." Napoleon had the talents of Csesar, but not the chivalry of Henry IV. " After all," said he, " a fine woman and gallantry are not to be weighed against affairs of state." He had frequently, during the repast, found himself hard pressed by the talent and grace of the Queen, and he resolved to cut the matter short. When she had retired, he sent for Talleyrand and Prince Kourakin, arranged the few remaining points of difference, and signed the treaty. Tne Queen was violently affected next day, when she learned that all was concluded; she refused to see the Emperor, and loudly protested she had been deceived by him — an assertion which he positively denies, and which his intellectual character, inaccessible to gallantry or female influence, though very warm so far as sense was concerned, rendered highly improbable. At length she was prevailed on by Alexander to be again present at dinner ; and when Napoleon conducted her down stairs, after it was over, she stopped in the middle, pressed his hand as he bade her farewell, and said, " Is it possible that, after having had the good fortune to be so near to the Hero of the Age, he has not left me the satisfaction of being able to assure him that he has attached me to him for life \ " " Madame," replied the Emperor, " I lament if it is so ; it is the effect of my evil ] Lasc as . destiny." They separated, never again to meet in this 228." world. 1 " The Queen of Prussia," said Napoleon, " unquestion- ably possessed talents, great information, and singular 556 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, acquaintance with affairs ; she was the real sovereign for fifteen years. In truth, in spite of my address and utmost 1 ® 07 - efforts, she constantly led the conversation, returned at Napoleon's pleasure to her subject, and directed it as she chose ; but t,t ai Queen° f still with so much tact and delicacy that it was impossible f Prussia. j. Q ^ G ff eucei ^ n( j i n truth it must be confessed, that the objects at stake were of infinite importance ; the time short and precious. One of the high contracting parties frequently repeated to me, that I should forgive everything or nothing at all ; but I answered that I had done everything in my power to put things in such a train. The King of Prussia requested an interview that very day to take leave ; I put it off for twenty-four hours, at the secret solicitation of Alexander : he never forgave me that postponement. I discovered in all our conversa- tions that the violation of the territory of Anspach, during the advance to Ulm, had been the original cause of his irritation. In all our subsequent interviews, how great soever may have been the interests of the moment, he abandoned them without hesitation, to prove to me i Las cas. that I had really broken in upon his dominions, on that 230."" ' occasion. He was wrong ; but still I must allow his indignation was that of an honest man." 1 """ The Russians at Tilsit did not consider themselves as ConvSaii- vanquished ; on the contrary, they felt, after all their !heRusTan n misfortunes, much of the exultation of victory. Proud and French f ] iav ing s0 long arrested the progress of the conqueror officers. o O i o x of the world, glorying even in the amount of their losses and the chasms in the ranks, which told the desperate * " Almost every day at Tilsit the two Emperors and the King of Prussia rode out together ; but this mark of confidence led to no good result. The Prussians could not conceal how much they suffered at seeing it ; Napoleon rode in the middle between the two sovereigns, but the King could hardly keep pace with the two Emperors, or deemed himself cle trop in their tete-a-tete, and generally fell behind. When we returned, the two Emperors dismounted in a moment ; but they had generally to wait till the King came up, which caused them to be frequently wet, to the great annoyance of the spectators, as the weather was rainy at the time. That incident was the more annoying, as Alexanders man- ners are full of grace, and fully on a level with the highest elegance which the HISTORY OF EUROPE. 557 strife in which they had been engaged, they mingled with chap. their recent enemies with feelings unlacerated by the _— humiliations of defeat. It was obvious that peace was equally necessary to both Emperors; it was soon whispered that it was to be concluded on terms eminently favourable to the Russian empire. The utmost cordiality, in consequence, soon prevailed between the officers and soldiers of the two armies ; fetes and repasts were inter- changed in rapid succession, given by the warriors so recently hostile to each other. In these entertainments the officers of the two Imperial Guards, and in particular Prince Murat and the Grand-duke Constantine, were peculiarly cordial and complimentary to each other. On one of these occasions, to such a length did the effusions of mutual respect and regard proceed, that the officers of the two Guards, amidst the fumes of wine and the enthusiasm of the moment, mutually exchanged their uniforms ; French hearts beat under the decorations won amidst the snows of Eylau, and Russian bosoms warmed beneath the orders bestowed on the field of Austerlitz. Last and most singular effect of civilised life and military discipline, to strengthen at once the fierceness of national passions and the bonds by which they are to be restrained, and join in fraternal brotherhood one day those hands 1Wg ^ yL which, on another, had been dyed by mutual slaughter, M7,bhl or lifted up in relentless hostility against each other ! x In the course of their rides together, the two Emperors had frequent opportunities of observing the flower of their respective armies. Napoleon afterwards acknowledged that he had never seen anything which impressed him so saloons of Paris can exhibit. He was sometimes fatigued with Ms companion, whose chagrin was so evident that it damped our satisfaction. W e broke up m consequence our dinner parties at an early hour, under pretence of business at home ; but Alexander and I remained behind to take tea together, and gene- rally prolonged the conversation till past midnight."- Las Cases, iv 228, 260. Everything conspires to indicate, that at this period the Emperor Alexander was completely dazzled by the grandeur and fascination of Napoleon, and that, under the influence of these feelings, he entirely forgot the interests and mis- fortunes of his ally— Savart, iv. 92, note. 558 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLVI. 1807. 74. Napoleon's admiration of the Rus- sian Impe- rial Guard. 1 Jom. ii. 423, 424. 75. Treaty of Tilsit. Its leading provisions. Creation of the Grand- duchy of Warsaw, and king- dom of Westpha- lia. July 7 and" 9. Art. 5. much as the appearance of one of the regiments of the Russian Guard. Albeit noways an admirer of the rigid formality of German tactics, and trusting rather to the effect of proclamations on the spirits of his troops than the influence of discipline on their movements, he was inexpressibly struck with the military aspect of its soldiers, and could not avoid the conclusion, that an army thus constituted would be the first in the world, if, to the firmness and precision which it had already attained, it should come to unite the fire and enthusiasm of the French. The docility with which they submitted to the orders they received, whatever they were, struck him as particularly admirable. " My soldiers," said he, " are as brave as it is possible to be, but they are too much addicted to reasoning on their position. If they had the impassible firmness and docility of the Russians, the world would be too small for their exploits. The French soldiers are too much attached to their country to play the part of the Macedonians." 1 After a fortnight of conference, the treaty of Tilsit, which had been agreed on as to its leading articles in the first four days after the armistice, was formally signed and published to the world. The first treaty between France and Russia was signed on the 7th ; the second between France and Prussia, on the 9th of July. By the first, the Emperor Napoleon, as a mark of his regard for the Emperor of Russia, agreed to restore to the King of Prussia, Silesia and nearly all his German dominions on the right bank of the Elbe, with the fortresses on the Oder and in Pomerania. The provinces which, prior to the first partition in 1772, formed part of the kingdom of Poland, and had since been annexed to Prussia, were detached from that monarchy and erected into a separate principality, to be called the Grand-duchy of Warsaw, and bestowed on the King of Saxony, with the exception of the province of Bialystock, containing two hundred thousand souls, which was ceded to Russia, which thus HISTORY OF EUROFE. 559 participated, in the hour of misfortune, in a share, small chap. indeed, but still a share, of the spoils of its ally. Dantzic, J 1 with a limited portion of territory around it, was declared J ® 07, a free and independent city, under the protection of the Art. 6. Kings of Prussia and Saxony, which was in effect declar- ing it, what it immediately after became, a frontier town of France. A right to a free military road was granted Ait. 7. to the King of Saxony across the Prussian states, to con- nect his German with his Polish dominions ; the naviga- tion of the Vistula was declared free to Prussia, Saxony, Art. 8. and Dantzic ; the Dukes of Oldenburg and Mecklenburg were reinstated in their dominions, but under the condi- tion that their harbours should all be occupied by French troops, so as to prevent the introduction of English merchandise : the mediation of the Emperor of Russia Art. 12. was accepted with a view to the arrangement of a general Art. 13. peace ; the Kings of Naples and Flolland, with the Confederation of the Rhine, were recognised by the Emperor of Russia : a new kingdom, to be called the Kingdom of Westphalia, was erected in favour of Jerome Buonaparte, the Emperor's brother, composed of Art. 19. the whole provinces ceded by Prussia on the left bank of the Elbe, which was also recognised by the Emperor. Hostilities were to cease between Russia and the Ottoman Art. 20. Porte, and the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia to be evacuated by the Russian troops, but not occupied Art. 21. by those of the Sultaun till the ratification of a general peace ; the Emperor of Russia accepted the mediation of Art. 22. Napoleon for the conclusion of his differences with Tur- Art. 23. key ; the Emperors of Russia and France mutually Art 95 guaranteed their respective dominions, and agreed to J..^ art - viii - establish commercial relations with each other on the xix. 58, c/. footing allowed the most favoured nations. 1 By the second treaty, concluded two days after, between France and Prussia, the King of Prussia recognised the Treaty with Kings of Naples, Holland, Westphalia, and the Con- Pmssia - federation of the Rhine, and concluded peace with the 5G0 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, sovereigns of those several states, as well as with the XLVL Emperor of France. He ceded to the kings or princes A J™ 7 - who should be designated by the Emperor Napoleon all audio. the dominions which at the commencement of the war lie possessed between the Rhine and the Elbe, and engaged to offer no opposition to any arrangement in regard to them which his Imperial Majesty might choose to adopt. The King of Prussia ceded, in addition, to the King of Art. 12. Saxony, the circle of Gotha in Lower Lusatia : he Art. 13. renounced all right to his acquisitions made in Poland subsequent to 1st January 1772, and to the city and A.t. 14. surrounding territory of Dantzic ; and consented to their erection into a separate duchy in favour of the King of Saxony, as well as to the military road through his Art. is. dominions to connect the Polish with the German posses- sions of that sovereign. He agreed to the extension of the frontiers of Russian Poland, by the cession of the province of Bialystock ; consented, till the conclusion of a general maritime peace, to close his harbours without exception to the ships and commerce of Great Britain ; Art. 18. and concurred in a separate convention, having for its iMart.'viii. object the restoration of the strongholds of Prussia at xix. C4, U 7L certain fixed periods, and the sums to be paid for their civil and military evacuation. 1 The losses of Prussia by this treaty were enormous, immlnse Between the states forming part of her possessions coded PrTssifby to the Grand-duchy of Warsaw, and those acquired by this treaty. t ] ie ti n g C l onl f Westphalia, she lost 4,236,048 inhabi- tants, or nearly half of her dominions, for those retained contained only 5,034,504 souls. But, overwhelming as the losses were, they constituted but a small part of the calamities which fell on the ill-fated monarchy by this disastrous peace. The fortresses left her, whether in Silesia or on the Oder, remained in the hands of France, nominally as a security for payment of the war contribu- tions which were to be levied on the impoverished inhabitants, but really to overawe its government, and HISTORY OF EUROPE. 561 paralyse its military resources/" A garrison of twenty thousand French soldiers was cantoned in Dantzic — a frontier station of immense importance, alike as hermeti- cally closing the mouths of the Vistula, giving the French authorities the entire command of the commerce of Poland, and affording an advanced post which, in the event of future hostilities, would be highly serviceable in a war with Russia. The newly established kingdoms of Westphalia and Saxony, with the military road through Prussia, terminating in the grand-duchy of Warsaw, gave the French Emperor the undisputed control of northern Germany; in effect, brought up the French frontier to the Niemen, and enabled him to commence any future war with the same advantage from that distant river as he had done the present from the banks of the Rhine. At the same time enormous contributions, amount- ing to the stupendous, and, if not proved by authentic documents, incredible sum of six hundred millions of francs, or twenty-four millions sterling, were imposed on the countries which had been the seat of war between the Rhine and the Niemen ; a sum equal to at least fifty millions sterling in Great Britain, when the difference in CHAr. XLVI. 1807. * Losses of Prussia in territory and population. On the east of the Elbe : — Circle of Cotbus, . Of Western Prussia, Southern Prussia, Old Poland, New Eastern Prussia, Souls. 33,500 Over, 262,286 Halberstadt, . Hildesheim, 1,282,189 Ecclesfeld and Erfurth, . 904,518 Maiden and Revensberg, . Paderbom, Munster, Leugen. 2,482,493 and Tecklemberg, La Marche, Essen, Elten, On the west of the Elbe :— and Wreden, Circle of Old Munich and East Friesland, Prignitz, . . . 112,000 Baireutk, Duchy of Magdeburg, . 250,039 1 West of Elbe, 362,039 East of Elbe, —See Bignon, vi. 335 ; and Hardenberg, ix. 487 VOL. VII. Total, Souls. 362,039 148,230 130,069 164,690 159,776 268,542 162,101 119,803 238,305 1,753,555 2,482,493 4,236,048 2 N 562 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, the value of money at that time, and the wealth of the XLVL two states, is taken into consideration. This grievous 18 ° 7 ' exaction completely paralysed the strength of Prussia, and rendered her for the next five years totally incapable of extricating herself from that iron net in which she was 49M91*" enveloped by the continued occupation of her fortresses by the French troops. 1 % Important as the changes introduced by these public Secreu'reaty treaties of Tilsit were to the political interests of Europe, tiLtT r " they were far inferior in daring and magnitude to the Turkey. provisions of the secret conventions concluded at the same place between the French Emperor and the Russian Autocrat. These two mighty potentates, who so lately had been actuated by the strongest hostility to each other, deeming themselves invincible when they had united their arms together, had conceived, beyond all question, the project of dividing the world between them. * This war contribution on the north of Germany was so prodigious a burden, and in its first effects was so instrumental in increasing the power of France, and in its ultimate results in occasioning its overthrow, that the particulars of it are here given, taken from the authentic records of Count Daru, the chief commissioner intrusted by Napoleon with its collection, as one of the most instructive and curious monuments of the Revolutionary wars. War contributions imposed since the 15th October 1806, and levied before the 1st Jan. 1808, . 474,352,650 francs, or £19,000,000 Remaining still to recover, . 39,391,759 ... 1,600,000 Contributions levied in kind, . 90,483,511 ... 3,600,000 604,227,920 ... £24,200,000 —See Daru's Report to Napoleon, 1st Jan. 1808 : Dum. xix. 462, 465, Pieces Just. In the Prussian estimate, the amount is stated considerably higher— even in so far as it was levied on the Prussian states alone. It stands thus : — War contributions in specie, . 220,000,000 francs, or £8,800,000 Maintenance of the fortresses, . 40,000,000 ... 1,600,000 Contributions in kind, without counting the billeting of soldiers, 346,800,000 ... 13,870,000 Miscellaneous losses, . . 8,000,000 ... 320,000 Losses sustained in the local taxes, 75,000,000 ... 3,000,000 Ditto in the general revenue, . 50,000,000 ... 2,000,000 739,800,000 ... £29,590,000 — See Schoell, vi. 518. When it is recollected that the whole revenues of Prussia were only about HISTORY OF EUROPE. 563 To Russia was assigned, with hardly any limitations, the chap. empire of the East; France acquired absolute sway m all __—- the kingdoms of the West : both united in cordial hosti- lity against the maritime power of Great Britain. Turkey, in consequence, was abandoned almost without reserve to the Russian autocrat. To the cession of Constantinople alone Napoleon never would agree; and rivalry for the possession of that matchless capital, itself worth an empire, was one of the principal causes which afterwards led him into the desperate chances of the Moscow cam- paign. The clause on this subject was in the following terms :— " In like manner, if, in consequence of the Art.* changes which have recently taken place in the govern- treaty. ment°of Constantinople, the Porte shall decline the inter- vention of France ; or in case, having accepted it, the negotiations shall not have led to a satisfactory adjust- ment in the space of three months, France will make common cause with Russia- against the Ottoman Porte, 1Thiers>viii . and the two high contracting parties will unite their «M«£ efforts to wrest from the vexatious and oppressive govern- g9,m ment of the Turks all its provinces in Europe— Roumelia 430. and Constantinople alone excepted." 1 * £6 000,000; that money at that period was at least of twice the value there that it was in England; and that the monarchy was already exhausted by the mmense efforts made for the campaign of 1806, either of these estimates must appear amongst the most enormous instances of military exaction on record in Kory It is the same thing as if three hundred millions sterhng were at this moment to be levied, by the terrors of military execution, in a year and a half '^n'lddftionto all this, Napoleon and his generals, with disgraceful rapacity, carried off from the different palaces in Prussia no less than 127 paintings, most o them by first-rate masters, and 238 marbles or statues besides all the manu- scripts, curiosities, and antiquities they could lay their hands on. The mov- ables hus carried away, contrary to the laws of war, were worth above ?300,000 They were all reclaimed and got back by the ?™™**™ the c ^ ture of Paris in 1815.— See the Official List in Schoell, vi. 261 289. *'lZ Lit convenu a Tilsit que la puissance Ottomane devaU etre rejetee en Asie, ne conservant en Europe que la mile de Constantinople et la ^^^ LVnenW alors tire cette consequence, que ^ 1' Albanie, la Moree, et Pile de Candie. L'on avait des lors adjugela 1 kM Moldavie, a la Russie, donnant a cet empire le Danube pour limite, ce qm com- prend la Bessarabie, qui en effet est une lisiere au bord de la mer, et que com Lnement on considere comme faisant partie de la Moldavie ; si 1 on ajoute a cette 5G4 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLVI. 1807. Art. 4. Art. 7. Art. 5. 1 Bign. vi. 33t>. Hard, ix. 431. •Tom. ii. 434, 43.5. The abandonment of all Turkey, with the exception of its capital and the small adjacent provinces, to the ambi- tion of its hereditary and inveterate enemies, called for a similar concession to the leading objects of French ambi- tion. This was provided for in the articles regarding the prosecution of the war against England, and the cession of the Spanish peninsula to the French Emperor. In regard to the first object, it was stipulated, that in case the proiFcred mediation of France to adjust the differ- ences with the cabinet of St James's should not be accepted, Russia should make common cause with France against England, with all its forces, by sea and land ; or, " if, having accepted it, peace was not concluded by the 1st November, on terms stipulating that the flags of every power should enjoy a perfect and entire equality on every sea, and that all the conquests made of French possessions since 1805 should be restored — in that case also, Russia shall demand a categorical answer by the 1st December, and the Russian ambassador shall receive a conditional order to quit London." In the event of the English government not having made a satisfactory answer to the Russian requisition, " France and Russia shall jointly summon the three courts of Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Lisbon, to close their harbours against English vessels, recall their ambassadors from London, and declare war against Great Britain." Hanover was to be restored to England in exchange for the whole colonies she had conquered during the war ; Spain was to be compelled to remain in the alliance against Great Britain ; and the Emperor of France engaged to do nothing tending to augment the power of the grand- 1 duchy of Warsaw, or which might lead to the re-estab- lishment of the Polish monarchy. 1 * part la Bulgarie, l'Empereur est pret a concourir a l'expedition de l'Inde.— Note, M. Romanzoff a Napoleon, approuvee de vive voix par l'Empereur Alexandre a M. de Caulaincourt, Tambassadeur Francais a St Petersburg. Fevrier 1808." — Thiers, Constdat et VEmpnre, viii. 449, 450. * These secret articles of the treaty of Tilsit, which are of such moment, HISTORY OF EUROPE. 565 This was the whole extent to which the formal secret chap. treaty of Tilsit went ; but, extensive as the changes XLVL which it contemplated "were, they yet yielded in magni- 1807- tude to those which were also agreed on, in a convention Secret ' still more secret, between the two Emperors. " A Ee™n nt thunderbolt from heaven," said Napoleon to Alexander, f e e ro f™' e . " has just disengaged me from the Porte. My ally and ^J-jf^ friend Sultaun Selim, has been cast down from his Ital J- throne, and is in irons. I thought we could have made something of the Turks, but I see I was mistaken. We must be done with their empire, and take care that its spoils do not go to augment the power of England. Portugal and Sweden may perhaps hold out ; let us understand each other in regard to them, as well as Turkey. Take you Finland as a compensation for the expense of the war. The King of Sweden is no doubt your brother-in-law and ally, but that is only an addi- tional reason why he should conform to your policy. Sweden may be an ally, or connected by marriage at the moment, but it is geographically your enemy. Peters- burg is too near Finland. It won't do to let your Rus- sian beauties hear the sound of Swedish cannon. If the Turks resist, we must divide their dominions — and how ? You may keep, besides Bessarabia, Moldavia, Wallachia and Bulgaria, to the foot of the Balkan. France should have the maritime provinces, such as Albania, Thessaly, the Morea, and Canclia. The consent of Austria will easily be obtained, by giving her Bosnia and Servia." These ambitious projects ere long were reduced into secret, but formal articles. By this treaty, which may literally be called a spoliating agreement, the shares which the two imperial robbers were to have respectively in the parti- tion of Europe were chalked out. The mouths of the both as illustrating the general character of Napoleon's policy, and as affording an unanswerable vindication of the Copenhagen expedition, have been literally transcribed from Bignon's work. As that author was not only for long the French ambassador at Berlin, but was also nominated by Napoleon in his tes- tament as the author to whom was committed, with a legacy of 100,000 francs, 566 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. Cattaro, which had been ostensibly at least the original _ '— cause of the rupture, were ceded by Russia to France, . . , as well as the seven Ionian Islands. Joseph Buona- Art. 1. I Arts. 2 parte was to be secured in the possession of Sicily, as Art. 4. M '°H as °f Naples ; Ferdinand IV., the reigning King Art. 5. of Sicily, was to receive an indemnity in the isle of Candia, or some other part of the Turkish empire : the dominions of the Pope were to be ceded to France, as well as Malta and Egypt ; the sovereigns of the houses of Bourbon and Braganza, in the Spanish peninsula, tuere to be replaced by princes of the family of Napoleon ; and when the final partition of the Ottoman empire took place, Wallachia, Moldavia, Servia, and Bulgaria, were to be allotted to Russia ; while Greece, Macedonia, Dal- matia, and all the sea-coasts of the A driatic, were to be enjoyed by France, which engaged in return to throw no obstacles in the way of the acquisition of Finland by the Russian Emperor.""" And the consent of Austria was the task of writing a history of his diplomacy, which he has executed with great ability, it is impossible to quote them from a more unexceptionable authority ; and he himself says he has given them " textuellemeiit." They are not yet to be found in any diplomatic collection, but their authenticity is fully established by \I. Thiers.— See Htatovre du Consulat et de V Empire, viii. 450. * As the secret articles of the treaty of Tilsit are given on the authority of Decisive evi- M. Bignon and M. Thiers, as chosen partisans of Napoleon, and therefore valu- d ro' C ett3 of* 6 a ^ e umv il m vg witnesses, it is proper to mention that Bignon does not admit spoliation the express signature of a convention regarding the dethroning of the Spanish which exists ant i Portuguese sovereigns, and the partition of the Turkish empire, but says testimony of that " these projects were merely sketched out in the private conferences of the French the two Emperors, but without being actually reduced to writing," — while the and Russian . c _. . JL , , . , , „ Emperors. author ot -Prince rlardenberg s Memoirs, whose accuracy and extent of secret information are in general equally remarkable, asserts that they were embodied in an express treaty. — See Bign. vi. 345, and Hard. ix. 433. It is of little importance whether they were or were not embodied in a formal convention, since there was no doubt that they were verbally agreed on between the two Emperors. We have the authority of the Emperor Alexander that Napoleon said to him at Tilsit — " I lay no stress on the evacuation of Wallachia and Moldavia by your troops ; you may protect them if you desire. It is impossible any longer to endure the presence of the Turks in Europe ; you are at liberty to chase them into Asia ; but observe only, I rely upon it that Constantinople is not to fall into the hands of any European power." — Hard. ix. 432. Napo- leon, in conversation with Escoiquiz at Bayonne, in the following year, said, " The Emperor Alexander, to whom I revealed at Tilsit my designs against Spain, which were formed at that period, approved of them, and gave me his word of honour he would throw no obstacle in the way." — Escoiq. This coincides with HISTORY OF EUROPE. 567 to be purchased by the cession of Servia and Bosnia, as chap. her share of the plunder. Alexander wished to go further, and repeatedly "pressed on Napoleon the accep- 1807, tance by Napoleon of the whole maritime provinces of Turkey, including Egypt and Candia, provided Roumelia i Thiers vii and Constantinople were ceded to Russia ; but the 5S 6 ' 4 T f.' 653. B un. French Emperor never could be brought to yield the v - ^7, ms. Queen of the East to his new apparently beloved, but 431,432." secretly dreaded ally. 1 Napoleon was not long of taking steps to pave the way for the acquisition of his share of the Ottoman Measures of dominions. On the day after the secret treaty with Sfts* Russia was signed, he despatched a letter to the King of KSS?* Naples, informing him of the cession of Corfu to France, t£ si ~ and directing him to assemble, in the most secret manner, „ Nap to four thousand men at Otranto and Tarentum, to take Munit, possession of that island, and of the mouths of the Cat- July!' 8th taro. 2 On the same day he enjoined Eugene, Viceroy of what Savary affirms, who says, — " The Emperor Alexander frequently repeated to me, when I was afterwards ambassador at St' Petersburg, that Napoleon had said to him that he was under no engagements with the new Sultaun, and that the changes which had supervened in the world inevitably changed the rela- tions of states to each other. I saw at once that this point had formed the subject of their secret conference at Tilsit; and I could not avoid the convic- tion that a mutual communication of their projects had taken place, because I could not believe that we would have abandoned the Turks without receiving some compensation in some other quarter. I have strong reasons for believing that the Spanish question was brought under discussion at Tilsit. The Emperor Napoleon had that affair strongly at heart, and nothing could be more natural than that he should frankly communicate it to the Czar — the more especially as he had on his side a project of aggrandisement, in the way of which, without previous concert, France might be disposed to throw obstacles. I was the more confirmed in this opinion by observing the conduct and language of the Emperor Alexander when the Spanish war broke out." — Savary, iii. 98, 99. And Napoleon said at St Helena — " All the Emperor Alexander's thoughts are directed to the conquest of Turkey. We have had many discussions about it, and at first I was -pleased with his -proposals, because I thought it would benefit the world to drive those brutes the Turks out of Europe. But when I reflected upon the consequences of this step, and saw what a tremendous weight of power it would give to Russia, on account of the number of Greeks in the Turkish dominions who would naturally join the Russians, I refused to con- sent to it, especially as Alexander wanted to get Constantinople, which I would not allow, as it would have destroyed the equilibrium of power in Europe. I reflected that France would gain Egypt, Syria, and the islands, which would have been nothing iu comparison with what Russia would have obtained.'' — 568 HISTORY OF EUROPE. (ii\p. Italy, to send a force of six thousand men into Dal- matia, while Marshal Marmout, who commanded in i Na to * na ^ province, was directed, instead of attacking the Eugene, Montenegrins, as he was preparing to do, to do everv- Jith Julv. . ° , ii • . thing in his power to make these mountaineers receive willingly the French government, beneath which they would soon be placed; and at the same time to trans- mit minute information as to the resources, population, and revenue of Bosnia, Thrace, Albania. Macedonia, and Greece, and what direction two European armies should follow — entering that country, one by the Cattaro, the other from Corfu." At the same time Count Guilleminot July o. was despatched from Tilsit on a double mission ; the first, open and ostensible, to General Michelson's army on the Danube — the other, secret, to General Sebastiani at Constantinople ; in the course of which he was to acquire all the information he could on the subject of the population, riches, and geographical position of the » Nap. to country through, which, lie passed. 2 Finally, to General lemSfot, Sebastiani himself he fully explained the whole design, 9th July. w hich was, as stated in his letters, that as no European power would be permitted to possess Constantinople and the Hellespont, the first thing to be done was " to draw a line from Burgas, on the Black Sea, to the Gulf of Enos in the Archipelago — and all to the eastward of that line, including Adrianoplc, was to remain to Turkey ; Russia was to obtain Moldavia, Wallachia, and all Bul- O'Meara, i. 382. " Was there," says Bignon, " any express treaty assigning to each Emperor his share of the Turkish dominions ? No; that there wow an agreement on that subject between the two Emperors is beyond a doubt; but no formal treaty." We shall find numberless proofs of this in the sequel of this work in the language used by the Emperor Alexander, and the actions of Napoleon. They had even gone so far as to assign a portion also to the Empe- ror Francis, — "Something," in Alexander's words, "to Austria, to soothe her vanity rather than satisfy her ambition." — Bignox, vi. 343. * To Marmout, Napoleon wrote, on July 8, from Tilsit : — " Set to work as vigorously as possible to obtain, by officers whom you shall send forward with that view, or in any other way, and address directly to the Emperor, in order that he may know by confidential officers, both geographically and civilly, all the information you can acquire regarding Bosnia, Macedonia, Thrace, Albania, &c. : — what is the amount of their population, what resources in clothing, pro- HISTORY OF EUROPE. 569 garia, as far as the left bank of the Hebrus ; Servia was chap. to be allotted to Austria ; and Bosnia, Albania, Epirus, - — — the Peloponnesus, Attica, and Thessaly, to France/' ^ 18 7 ' Sebastiani at the same time received orders to prepare, JJJjgiJ- and transmit without delay to the French Emperor, a »-- ^im- memorial, containing exact details, to define the geogra- ]£f "J^ phical boundaries of the acquisitions of the three powers Just, interested in the partition. 1 While Napoleon and Alexander were thus adjusting &g their differences at Tilsit, by the spoliation of all the Convention . . r m 1 1 regarding weaker powers in Europe, partitioning lurkey, ana pro- the payment Tiding for the dethronement of the sovereigns in the p^ch Spanish peninsula, the chains were drawn yet more gjfjj- closely round unhappy Prussia. In the treaty with that **"■&■ power, it had been provided that a subsidiary military convention should be concluded regarding the time of the evacuation of the fortresses by the French troops, and the sums of money to be paid for their ransom. Nominally, it was arranged that they should be evacu- Art. a ated by the 1st October, with the exception of Stettin, a ' which was still to be garrisoned by French troops. But as it was expressly declared, as a sine qud non, that the whole contributions imposed should be paid up before the evacuation commenced, that the King of Prussia should Art. 4. levy no revenue in his dominions till these exactions were fully satisfied, and that the Prussians, meanwhile, should feed, clothe, and lodge all the French troops Art. 5. visions, or money those provinces would furnish to any European power which might 'possess them; in fine, what revenue could be drawn from them at the moment of their occupation, for the principles of their occupation are at pre- sent without any proper settlement. In a second memoir, state, in a military point of view, if two European armies should enter these provinces at once, the one by Cattaro and Dalmatia into Bosnia, the other by Corfu, what force would be required for each to insure success ; what species of arms would be most advantageous ; how could the artillery be transported ; could horses for its transport be found in the country ; could recruits be raised there ; what would be the most favourable times for military operations. All these reports should be transmitted by confidential persons on whom you have perfect reli- ance. Keep on good terms with the Pasha of Bosnia ; but, nevertheless, gradu- ally let your relations with him become more cold and reserved than formerly." Napoleon to Marmont: Tilsit, July 8, 1807— Dumas, xix. 341, 342. 570 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. within their bounds, the French Emperor had in reality _ L the means of retaining possession of them as long as he 8 ° 7 ' chose, which he accordingly did. In addition to the Note, chap, enormous war contributions already mentioned, of which xlvi " §77 ' 513,744,000 francs, or £20,500,000, fell on Prussia alone, further and most burdensome commissions were forced on the same unhappy state in the end of the Nov. 10, and year, in virtue of which Count Daru, the French col- Dec 10 J lcctor-generahdcmandcd 1 54,000,000francs, or £6,1 60,000 more from its now wasted and wretched provinces — an exaction so monstrous, and so utterly disproportioncd to its scanty revenue, which did not, after its grievous ! Daru , s losses, exceed £3,000,000 sterling, that it never was or D eP i rt xix cou ld De fully discharged. And this gave the French 8.5, ana a pretence for continuing the occupation of the fortresses, 453,454. and wringing contributions from the country till five j'ears afterwards, when the Moscow campaign commenced. 1 Bereft by this disastrous treaty of half his dominions, Noble pro- nothing remained to the King of Prussia but submission; fteKingo/ an d he won the hearts of all the really generous in hisTo^tpro- Europe by the resignation and heroism with which he vinces. ^ 0YQ s0 extraordinary a reverse of fortune. In a dignified proclamation, which he addressed to the inhabitants of his lost provinces upon liberating them from their alle- giance to the Prussian throne, he observed — " Dear inha- bitants of faithful provinces, districts, and towns ! My arms have been unfortunate. The efforts of the relics of my forces have been of no avail. Driven to the extreme boundary of my empire, and having seen my powerful ally conclude an armistice and sign a peace, no choice remained to me but to follow his example. That peace imposed on me the most painful sacrifices. The bonds of treaties, the reciprocal ties of love and duty, the fruit of ages of labour, have been broken asunder. All my 2 Scott's efforts, and they have been most strenuous, have proved 4n%i*2. i n Ya i n - Fate ordains it. A father is compelled to depart from his children. 2 I hereby release you from your alle- HISTORY OF EUROPE. 571 giance to me and my house. My most ardent prayers for chap. your welfare will always- attend you in your relations to 1 your new sovereigns. Be to them what you have ever 18 ° 7, been to me. Neither force nor fate shall ever sever the remembrance of you from my heart." Vast as had been the conquests, unbounded the tri- g4 umphs of France, during the campaign, the consumption Enormous of life to the victors had been, if possible, more than propor- tainedbythe tionate ; and it was already apparent that war, conducted on in r g en the this gigantic scale, was attended with such a sacrifice of cara P ai s n - human beings as, for any lengthened time, would be insup- portable. The fearful and ominous call of eighty thou- sand conscripts, thrice repeated during the short period of eight months, had already told the French people at what cost of their best and bravest they followed the car of victory ; and the official details which have since come to light, show that even the enormous levy of two hundred and forty thousand men, in that short period, was not disproportioned to the expenditure of the cam- paign. Authentic documents prove that the number of sick and wounded who were received into the French hospitals during the campaign,* from the banks of the Saale to those of the Niemen, amounted to the stupendous * The following are the details of this enormous catalogue of human suffer- ing : — In hospital of the army on 1st October 1806, . . 403 Admitted till 30th June 1807, .... 421,416 Total treated in the hospital, 421,819 Of whom died there, . . • 31,916 Dismissed cured, .... 370,473 Sent back to France, . . . 11,455 Remained in hospital on 17th October 1808, 7,957 421,819 The average stay of each patient in the hospital was 29 days. The propor- tions of maladies out of 200 was as follows : — Fevers, . . . . 105 Wounded, . . . . 47 Venereal, .... 31 Various, . . . . 17 200 This is a striking proof how much greater the mortality occasioned by fever 572 HISTORY OF EUBOPE. ciiAP. number of Foub Hundred and Twenty Thousand ; of XLX L whom, at an average, not more than a ninth were pri- 18 ° 7 - soners taken from the Allies! If such were the lossea to the victors, it may readily be believed that those of the vanquished were still greater ; and putting both together, it may fairly be concluded that, from the 1st October 1806 to the 30th June 1807 — that is, during a period of nine months — a million of human beings were consigned to military hospitals, of whom at least a hun- dred thousand perished, independent of those slain in battle, who were nearly as many more ! The mind finds it impossible to apprehend such enormous calamities ; like the calculated distances of the sun or the fixed stars, they i d ' elude the grasp of the most vivid imagination ; but even Report to \ n the bewildering impression which they produce, they inTum"' tend to show how boundless was the Buffering then occa- lWsJust. sioned by human ambition ; how awful the judgment of the Almighty then executed upon the earth ! } Nor is it difficult to discern what were the national sins which were thus visited with so terrible a punishment. Fourteen years before, Austria, Russia, and Prussia had and the other diseases incident to a campaign is, than the actual number killed or wounded in the field. Applying these proportions to the total number of 420,000, we shall have the whole numbers nearly as follows : — Fevers, . . . 210,000 Wounded, . . • 100,000 Venereal, . . . 62,000 Miscellaneous, . . . 48,000 420,000 The immense number of wounded being at least Jive times what the bulletins admitted, demonstrates, if an additional proof were wanting, the total falsehood in the estimate of losses by which these reports were invariably distinguished. The great number of venereal patients is very curious, and highly characteristic of the French soldiers. — Dams Beport to Napoleon : Dcmas, xix. 486, 487. It appears from Savary's report of the number of sick and wounded in the great hospital at Konigsberg, of which city he received the command after the battle of Friedland, that at the end of June 1807 they amounted to the immense number of 27,376. Preparations were made for the reception of 57,000; but the sudden conclusion of the peace at Tilsit rendered them in a great degree unnecessary. Nevertheless, the whole hospitals of the army were again over- flowing in spring 1808, in 'every part of the north of Germany. — Savary, iii. 66, 69. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 573 united their armies to partition Poland, and Suwarroff chap. had entered Warsaw while yet reeking with patriot blood. J 1 In the prosecution of this guilty object, they neglected 1 ^ 7> the volcano which was bursting forth in the west of Memorable Europe ; they starved the war on the Rhine to feed that L'the P ar- on the Vistula, and opened the gates of Germany to pSSdcm French ambition, in order to master the bulwarks of ££ and Sarmatia for themselves. Prussia, in particular, first drew off from the European alliance ; and after the great barrier of frontier fortresses had been broken through in 1793, and revolutionary France stood, as Napoleon admits, " on the verge of ruin," allowed her to restore her tottering fortunes, and for ten long years stood by in dubious and selfish neutrality, anxious only to secure or increase her ill-gotten gains. And what was the result % Poland became the great theatre of punishment to the partitioning powers ; her blood-stained fields beheld the writhing and the anguish of Tier spoilers. Pierced to the heart by hostile armies, driven up to a comer of her terri- tory, within sight almost of the Sarmatian wilds, Austria saw her expiring efforts for independence overthrown on the field of Austerlitz. Reft of her dominions, bound in chains for the insult of the conqueror, with the iron driven into her soul, Prussia beheld her last hopes expire on the shores of the Vistula. Banished almost from Europe, conquered in war, sullied in fame, Russia was compelled to sue for peace on And on the banks of the Niemen, the frontier of her Lithuanian spoils. The measure of her retribution was not yet com- plete ; the grand-duchy of Warsaw was to become the outwork of France against Muscovy ; the tide of war was to roll on to Red Russia ; the sacred towers of Smolensko were to be shaken by Polish battalions ; the sack of Praga was to be expiated by the flames of Moscow. That Providence superintends the progress of human affairs ; that the retributions of justice apply to political societies as well as to single men ; and that 574 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, nations, which have no immortality, arc destined to XLV1, undergo the punishment of their flagrant iniquities in 1807 - this world, was long ago announced in thunders from Mount Sinai, and may be read on every subsequent page of civilised history. But it is often in the third and fourth generation that the retribution descends ; and in the complicated thread of intervening events, it is some- times difficult to trace the connexion which we know exists between the guilty deeds and the deserved suffer- ing. In the present instance, however, the connexion was immediate and palpable ; the actors in the iniquitous spoliation were themselves the sufferers by its effects : it was the partition of Poland which opened the gates of Europe to France ; it was the partitioning powers that sank beneath the car of Napoleon's ambition. And was France, then, the instrument of these terrible TerrfJ; dispensations, herself to escape the punishment of her tfiSTp- sins 1 Was she, stained with the blood of the righteous, preaching to wrapt i n t ] ie flames of the church, marked with the sign r ranee. r . . of the miscreant, to be the besom of destruction to others, and to bask only in the sunshine of glory herself \ No ! the dread hour of her retribution was steadily approach- ing ; swift as was the march of her triumphant host, swifter still was the advance of the calamities which were to presage her fall. Already to the discerning eye was visible the handwriting on the wall which foretold her doom. At Tilsit she reached the highest point of her ascendant ; every subsequent change was a step nearer to her ruin. True, the Continent had sunk beneath her arms ; true, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, had successively fallen in the conflict ; true, she had advanced her eagles to the Niemen, and from the rock of Gibraltar to the Baltic Sea, no voice dared to breathe a whisper against her authority : still the seeds of destruction were implanted in her bosom. Her feet were of base and perishable clay. The resources of the empire were wasting away in the pursuit of the lurid phantoms which its people wor- HISTORY OF EUROPE. 575 shipped ; its strength was melting under the incessant chap. drains which the career of victory demanded ; a hundred L and fifty thousand men were annually sacrificed to the 1807 ' Moloch of its ambition. They saw it not — they felt it not : joyfully its youth " descended to the harvest of death." " They repented not of their sins, to give glory to the Lord/' 1 But the effect was not the less i Rev. xvi. 8 9 certain, that the operation of the circumstances producing ! it was not perceived ; and among the many concurring causes which at this period were preparing the fall of the French empire, a prominent place must be assigned to that very treaty of Tilsit, which apparently carried its fortunes to their highest elevation. In this treaty were to be discerned no marks of great political capacity on the part of the conqueror ; in the Evil conse- harshness and perfidy with which it was accompanied, thetreaty the foundation was laid for the most powerful future theendto" allies to the vanquished. The formation of the kingdom Na P oleon - of Westphalia, and the grand-duchy of Warsaw, with three or four millions of souls, each connected only by a military road across the impoverished and indignant remaining dominions of Frederick -William, could not be supposed to add, in any considerable degree, to the strength of the French empire. The indignities offered to Prussia, the slights shown to her beautiful and high- spirited queen, the enormous contributions imposed on her inhabitants, the relentless rigour with which they were levied, the forcible retention of her fortresses, the tearing away of half her dominions, were injuries that could never be forgiven. Her people, in consequence, imbibed the most unbounded horror at French oppres- sion; and though the fire did not burst forth for some years Jn open conflagration, it smouldered incessantly in all ranks, from the throne to the cottage, till at length its force became irresistible. This entire alienation of Prussia was one of the greatest errors ever committed by Napoleon in the course of his eventful career, and this is 576 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, admitted even by his warmest panegyrists. " Frederick* William," says Thiers, " who had a horror of war, and 18 ° 7 - was dragged with so much reluctance into the coalition of 1813, when Napoleon, half conquered, appeared an easy prey, would never have deserted France but for this severity ; and Napoleon, having only Russia and Austria to combat, would not have been overwhelmed."""" And what allies did Napoleon rear up on the Vistula Useless' by the arrangement of Tilsit, to prove a counterpoise to Napokon the deadly hostility of Prussia thus gathering strength in hinSifby his rear \ None equal to the enemies whom lie created. this treaty. g^Qj^ indeed, was made a faithful friend, and proved herself such in the hour of disaster, as well as the day of triumph. But the hopes of the Poles were cruelly blighted, and that confidence in the restoration of their empire by his assistance, which might have rendered their warlike bands so powerful an ally on the shores of the Vistula, for ever destroyed.! Instead of seeing their nationality revive, the ancient line of their princes restored, and their lost provinces again reunited under one sceptre, they beheld only a fragment of their former empire wrested from Prussia, and handed over, too weak to defend itself, to the foreign government of the house of Saxony. The close alliance of Russia, and still more, the extraordinary intimacy which had sprung up between the two Emperors, precluded all hope that the vast pro- vinces of Lithuania would ever again be restored to the domination of the Jagellons or the Sobieskis. The restoration of Poland thus seemed further removed than ever, in consequence of the successful efforts which a * Thiers, Consulat et T Empire, vii. 638. f " The treaty of Tilsit," says Oginski, " spread consternation through all the Polish provinces. Numbers in Lithuania and Volhynia had left their homes to join the army raised under the auspices of Napoleon, and knew that their safety was compromised Those who waited only for his passage of the Niemen to declare themselves, were disappointed. Universally, the treaty was regarded as the tomb of all the hopes which had been entertained of the resto- ration of the ancient monarchy; and from that moment, the confidence of all - the Poles in the good intentions of the Emperor Napoleon was irrevocably weakened." — Ogixski, Mem. sur la Pologne, ii. 345. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 577 portion of its inhabitants had made for their liberation : chap. they appeared to have now as much to fear from the XLVI ' triumphs of the Frencli as of the Russian arms. Thus 1807 ' the treaty of Tilsit irrevocably alienated Prussia, and at the same time extinguished the rising ardour of Poland ; and while it broke down the strength of all the inter- vening states, and presaged a future desperate strife between the despots of the East and West on the banks of the Niemen, it laid no foundation in the affections of mankind for the moral support by which its dangers were to be encountered. But if the treaty of Tilsit involved serious errors in policy, so far as Poland and Prussia were concerned, Disgraceful much more was it worthy of reprehension when the pro- ^poL°n visions for the immediate partition of Turkey are taken ^Zkt th ° into consideration. Six months had not elapsed since he had written to Marmont " to spare no protestations or Jan. 2. assistance to Turkey, since "she was the faithful ally of the French empire." Seven months had not elapsed since he had publicly declared at Posen, " that the full and complete independence of the Ottoman empire will ever be the object most at heart with the Emperor, as it is indispensable to the security of France and Italy : he would esteem the successes of the present war of little value, if they did not give him the means of reinstating the Sublime Porte in complete independence:" 1 one 1 Ante, c , month had not elapsed since he had said to the Turkish xhv ' § 14 ' ambassador, in a public audience at Finkenstein, " that on 28th his right hand ivas not more inseparable from his left May ' than the Sultaun Selim should ever be to him." 2 In * Ante, c . consequence of these protestations, Turkey had thrown xlvu § 10 ' itself into the breach ; she had braved the whole hostility of Russia, and defied the thunders of England when her fleets were anchored off the Seraglio Point. And what return did Napoleon make to these faithful allies for the exemplary fidelity with which they had stood by his fortunes when they were shaking in every quarter, and VOL. VII. 2 578 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. Europe, after the battle of Eylau, was ready to start up XLVI in fearful hostility in his rear? 1807. The return he made was to sign a convention with 91 . . , . whom he Alexander for the partition of all their European tothTspdia- dominions; and, not content with assuring the Czar that RuLi ne was at perfect liberty to chase the Ottomans into Asia, provided only he did not lay violent hands on Constan- tinople, he stipulated for the largest share of the spoils, including Thrace, Albania, Dalmatia, Epirus, and Greece, for himself; while the consent of Austria was to be pur- chased by the acquisition of Servia ! A more iniquitous and shameless instance of treachery is not to be found even in the dark annals of Italian perfidy: and it is sufficient to demonstrate, what so many other circum- stances conspire to indicate, that this great man was as regardless of the sanctity of treaties as he was of the duty of veracity ; that vows were made by him only to be broken, and oaths intended to be kept only till it was expedient to violate them; and that in prosperous, equally as adverse fortune, no reliance could be placed upon his feelings of gratitude or sense of obligation, if a present interest was to be served by forgetting them. The excuse set up for this monstrous tergiversation by No defence the French writers, viz. that a few weeks before the battle forViT e of Friedland an insurrection of the janizaries had taken ofX q rev£ e place at Constantinople, and the ruling powers there had constanti- k een overturned by open violence, is totally insufficient, nopie. The deposition of one sultaun — no unusual occurrence in oriental dynasties — had made no change whatever in the amicable disposition of the Divan towards France, or their inveterate hostility to the ancient and hereditary rivals of the Mahommedan faith: on the contrary, the party of the janizaries which had now gained the ascendant, was precisely the one which had ever been inclined to prosecute hostilities with Russia with the most fanatical fervour. It ill became France to hold out a revolution in the Seraglio as a ground for considering HISTORY OF EUROPE. 579 all the existing obligations with Turkey as annulled, chap. XLVI when her own changes of government since the Revolu- 1 1 SHT7 tion had been so frequent, that Talleyrand had already sworn allegiance to ten in succession. And, in truth, this violation of public faith was as short-sighted as it was dishonourable. The secret articles soon came to the knowledge of the British government — they were com- municated by their ambassador to the Divan, and pro- duced an impression which was never forgotten. Honest and sincere, without foresight as without deceit, the Turks are as incapable of betraying an ally as they are of forgetting an act of treachery committed against them- selves. The time will come in this history, when the moment of retribution arrives, when Napoleon, hard pressed by the storms of winter and the arms of Russia, is to feel the bitterness of an ally's desertion, and when the perfidy of Tilsit is to be awfully avenged on the shores of the Beresina. % Towards the other powers of Europe the conduct of 93 the two imperial despots was alike at variance with every Mutuai'pro- principle of fidelity to their allies, or moderation towards jEmpe^ 6 their weaker neighbours. France abandoned Finland to Spoliation Russia, and Alexander felt no scruples at accepting the ^ e pe °^ er project of rounding his territories in the neighbourhood p° wers - of St Petersburg by wresting that important province * The perfidious conduct of Napoleon towards Turkey has been almost over- looked by the liberal writers of Europe, in the vehemence of their indignation at him for not re-establishing the kingdom of Poland. Without doubt, if that great act of injustice coidd have been repaired by his victorious arm, and a compact, powerful empire of sixteen millions of souls re-established on the banks of the Vistula, it would have been alike grateful to every lover of free- dom, and important as forming a barrier against Muscovite aggrandisement in Europe. But was it possible to construct such an empire, to form such a bar- rier, out of the disjointed elements of Polish anarchy 3 That is the point for consideration; and if it was not, then the French Emperor would have thrown away all the advantages of victory, if, for a visionary and impracticable scheme of this description, he had incurred the lasting and indelible animosity of the partitioning powers. With the aid of two hundred thousand brave men, indeed, which Poland could with ease have sent into the field, he might, for a season, have withstood the united armies of Russia, Austria, and Prussia; but could he rely on their tumultuary assemblies sustaining the steady and durable 580 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, from his faithful ally the King of Sweden, and even went XLVL the length of advancing his western frontier, by sharing 1807, in the spoils of his unhappy brother-in-arms the King of Prussia ; while Russia surrendered Italy to France, and engaged to wink at the appropriation of the Papal States by Napoleon, who had resolved upon seizing them, in return for the condescension of the head of the church in recently travelling to Paris to place the imperial crown on his head. The rulers of the Continent drew an imaginary line across Europe, and mutually gave each other carte blanche in regard to spoliations, however unjustifiable, committed on their own side of the division. Napoleon surrendered half the European territories of Turkey to Alexander, and appropriated the other half to himself; while Alexander engaged to throw no obstacles in the way of the dethronement of the sovereigns of the Spanish peninsula, to make way for the elevation of princes of the Buonaparte family. Both appear to have conceived that, in thus suddenly closing their deadly strife, and turning their irresistible arms against the secondary states in their vicinity, they would gain impor- tant present objects, and mutually find room for the exercise of their future ambition, without encroaching on each other: forgetting that the desires of the human heart are insatiable; that, the more powerful empires efforts requisite for permanent success?- What made Poland originally fall a victim to the coalesced powers, once little more than provinces of its mighty dominion ] " The insane ambition," as John Sobieski said, " of a plebeian noblesse;" the jealousy of a hundred thousand electors incapable alike of governing themselves or of permitting the steady national government of others. Was this fatal element of discord eradicated from the Polish heart ? Is it yet eradicated] Was it possible, by re-establishing Poland in 1807, to have done anything but, as Talleyrand well expressed it, " organised anarchy?" These are the considerations which then presented, and still present, an invincible obstacle to a measure in other points of view recommended by so many considerations of justice and expedience. It is evident that the passions of the people, their insane desire for democratic equality, were so powerful, that, if re-established in its full original extent, Poland would speedily have again fallen under the dominion of its former conquerors : the same causes which formerly proved fatal to its independence would, without doubt, again have had the same effect. HISTORY OP EUROPE. 581 become, the more ardently do they pant after universal chap. dominion; and that the same causes which arrayed L Rome against Carthage in ancient, and brought Tamer- 1807- lane and Bajazet into fierce collision in modern times, could not fail to become more powerful in their operation from the mutual aggrandisement which their gigantic empires received. " Nee inuudus," said Alexander the JQ™t.^ Great, " duobus solibus regi potest, nee duo summa iv.c.ii.' regna, salvo statu terrarum, potest habere." 14 " The great and ruling principle which actuated Napoleon g4 in the negotiations at Tilsit, was the desire to combine all Napoleon's • ■ • t» • ' T"i j.!,* lading ob- Europe into a cordial union against Bntam.f t or this ject in the 11. n i l • • 1 'il treaty was end he was willing to forego, or postpone, Ins rivalry witn th? hum- Russia ; to permit her to emerge, apparently crowned Jgj^ with the laurels of victory, from defeat, and derive Britain - greater advantages from the rout of Friedland than she had reaped even from the triumph of Pultowa or the sack of Ismael. All these sources of aggrandisement to his great Continental rival were to Napoleon as nothing, provided only they led to the overthrow of the maritime power of England. That accomplished, he anticipated little * comparative difficulty even with the colossal strength of the Scythian monarch. In yield- ing to his seductions, Alexander appears to have been impressed with a belief that he was the man of destiny, * " Neither can the world," said Alexander the Great, " be ruled by two suns, nor contain two empires of the greatest magnitude, without destroying the peace of nations."— Quintus Cubtius, iv. c. 11. f " It cannot admit of a doubt," says Bignon, " that in the treaty of Tilsit, as in all the actions of his life, it was the desire to force England to conclude peace, that was the sole, the only principle of Napoleon's actions. A pro- longed state of war with Russia, or even the conclusion of a treaty which would only have put a period to the bloodshed, would not have satisfied him. It was necessary, not merely that he should have an enemy the less— he required an ally the more. Russia, it is true, had ceased to combat his army, but he required that she should enlist herself on Ins side ; that she should enter into the strife with England, if not with arms, at least by joining in the Continental blockade, which was to aim a deadly thrust at her power. All his lures held out to Alexander were calculated for that end : it is as referring to that object that all the minor arrangements to which he consented are to be regarded." — Bignon, vi. 351, 352. 582 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, and that, in continuing the combat, he was striving against rate." J807. N or ] iac j E n gl anc | anv great cause of complaint against England him for violating his engagements to her, whatever Sweden compiSn or Turkey might have for the ambitious projects enter- ditlons. 011 tained at their expense. The cabinet of St James's had themselves receded from the spirit as well as the letter of the confederacy ; the subsidies promised by Mr Pitt had disappeared ; the cabinet of St Petersburg had been drawn into the contest for the interest of Germany and England, and both had withdrawn or been overthrown, leaving Russia alone to maintain it. So circumstanced, Great Britain had no reason to be surprised if Alex- ander took the first opportunity to extricate himself from a struggle in which the parties chiefly interested no longer appeared to take any share ; nor could she complain if she was left alone to continue a contest which she seemed desirous of reducing to a mere maritime quarrel. Deeply did England and Austria subsequently suffer from this infatuated and ill-timed desertion of the confederacy at the very moment when the scales hung nearly even, and their aid might have been thrown in with decisive effect upon the balance. They might have stood in firm and impregnable array beside the veterans of Russia on the Vistula or the Elbe ; they were left to maintain singly the contest on the Danube and the Tagus. They might have shared in the glories of Pultusk and Eylau, and converted the rout of Friedland into the triumph of Leipsic ; and they expiated their neglect in the carnage of Wagram and the blood of Talavera. But though the timidity of Austria, when her forces were capable of interfering with decisive effect on the theatre of European contest, and the supineness of Eng- land, when she had only to appear in adequate force to * " Sire," said one of the Russian counsellors to Alexander at Tilsit, " I take the liberty of reminding you of the fate of your father, as the consequence of French alliance." — "Oh God !" replied the Emperor, " I know it; I see it; but how can I withstand the destiny which directs me ?" — Savary, iii. 92. HISTORY OP EUROPE. 583 conquer, were the causes to which alone we are to ascribe chap. the long subsequent continuance, multiplied disasters, and _ unbounded ultimate bloodshed of the war ; yet for the 18 ®J' development of the great moral lesson to France and itwasuiti- mankind, and the illustration of the glories of patriotic SJ f T resistance, it was fortunate that, by protracting it, oppor- £™a™ tunity was afforded for the memorable occurrences of its ponged. later years. But for that circumstance, the annals of the world would have lost the strife in the Tyrol, the patri- otism of Aspern, the siege of Saragossa, the battle-fields of Spain. Peace would have been concluded with France as an ordinary power ; she would have retained the Rhine for her boundary, and Paris would have remained the depository of revolutionary plunder : the Moscow campaign would not have avenged the blood of the inno- cent, nor the capture of their capital entered like iron into the soul of the vanquished. The last act of the mighty drama had not yet arrived : it was the design of Pro- vidence that it should terminate in yet deeper tragedy, and present a more awful spectacle of the Divine judg- ments to mankind. England would have saved three hundred millions of her debt, but she would have lost Vitoria and Waterloo : her standards would not have waved in the Pass of Roncesvalles, nor her soldiers entered in triumph the gates of Paris : she would have shared with Russia, in a very unequal proportion, the lustre of the contest ; and to barbaric force, not freeborn bravery, future ages would have awarded the glory of having struck down the Conqueror of the World. 584 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAPTER XLVII. GENERAL SKETCH OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE IX INDIA. Vast and interesting as arc the events which have chap, now been traced, springing ont of the wars of the French ■y I V I T J L G O Revolution, they arc yet outdone by the spectacle which i. at the same period, the oriental world exhibited. The (.f'thl'Ro- 11 British Empire in India forms, beyond all question, "i. : East. To it, probably, more than any other cause, the preservation of its population and industry, amidst the endless devastations of wars, is to be ascribed. Each village forms a little community or republic in itself, possessing a certain district of surrounding territory, and paying a certain fixed rent for the whole to government. As long as this is regularly paid, the public authorities have no title to interfere in the internal concerns of the community : they elect their own mocuddims, or head men, who levy the proportions of the quit-rent from each individual, settle disputes, and allocate to each profession or individual the share of the general produce of the public territory which is to belong to it or him. As the 004 HISTORY OF EUROTE. chap, community is justly desirous of avoiding any pretext for '- the interference of the state collectors in its internal concerns, they make good the quota of every defaulter from the funds of his neighbours, so as to exhibit no defalcation in the general return to government. The only point in which the interference of the national authorities is required, is in fixing the limits of the village territories in a question with each other, which is done with great care by surveyors, in presence of the competing parties and their witnesses, and a great concourse of the neighbouring inhabitants. In times of trouble they arm and fortify themselves, drive their cattle within their walls, and often contrive, by the payment of a certain contribution, to avoid the evils of actual pillage, even by the most considerable armies. These villages are, indeed, frequently burned or destroyed by hostile forces, the little community dispersed, and its lands thrown back to a state of nature ; but when better times return, and the means of peaceable occupation are again recovered, the remnant reassemble with their children in their paternal inheritance. A generation may pass away, but the succeeding genera- tion returns : the sons take the place of their fathers ; the same trades and occupations are filled by the descendants i Commons' f those who formerly filled them : the same division of Committee, J 1832 p 29. lands takes place : the very houses are rebuilt on the site Lords 398, r J 399, 40.5, of those which had been destroyed ; and, emerging from ix. i?o,i2i. the storm, the community revives, " another and the same." * It is in these village municipalities that the real secret Admirable of the durability of society in the East is to be found. vukgesys- If we contemplate the desolating invasions to which, from tem m an ^ ear ii es t times, the Asiatic monarchies have been exposed from their proximity to the regions of central Asia ; if we reflect on the wide-spread devastation conse- quent on the twelve dreadful irruptions of the Tartars into Hindostan ; and recollect that society, in the inter- vals of these terrific scourges, has invariably been sub- HISTORY OF EUROPE. 605 jected to tlie varied but never-ending oppression of different chap. rulers, who seemed to have no other idea of government 1 but to extract as large contributions as possible from the people — it seems surprising how the human race did not become extinct under such a succession of calamities. But amidst those multiplied evils, the village system has provided an unheeded, but enduring and effectual refuge for mankind. Invasion may succeed invasion, horde after horde may sweep over the country — dynasty may over- turn dynasty, revolution be followed by revolution ; but the wide-spread foundations of rural society are unchanged. The social families bend, but break not, beneath the storm ; industry revives in its ancient seats, and in its pristine form, under whatever government ultimately pre- vails ; and the dominant power, intent only on fresh objects of plunder or aggrandisement, rolls past these unheeded fountains of industry and population. The Hindoos, the Patans, the Moguls, the Mahrattas, the Sikhs, and the English, have all been masters in turn ; but the village communities remain the same. Abuses and oppression, without doubt, may prevail in this as in all other human institutions ; but its extensive establish- ment and long duration in the East, prove that it has been found capable by experience of affording tolerable security to the labouring classes ; and perhaps by no other means, in the absence of those effective bulwarks of freedom which the intelligence, hereditary succession, and . free spirit of Europe create, is the inestimable blessing of protection to humble industry to be so generally and effectually obtained. The whole upper and western provinces of Bengal, the greater part of the Bombay J^suT territories, the ceded districts on the Nerbuddah, and the 3123! 312.0' 3130 Mart province of Tanjore, comprising about 260,000 square i x . 12V, 122. miles, are assessed according to this system. 1 The concentration in the hands of government of so large a proportion of the surplus produce of the earth, as is effected by the great land-tax of India, is undoubtedly GOG HISTORY OF EUROPI'. chap, prejudicial to society, in so far as it prevents the growth of that important class, so well known in European 20. civilisation — a body of hereditary independent landed Effects of . : r . i j i .1. • • i this large proprietors. But it is attended by this important advan- a n the g e e n U e - tage, that it renders the other imposts of the state extremely of Son. trifling. Of the total revenue of £19,500,000, more than a half is derived from the land revenue ; and of the indirect taxes, nearly two-thirds are laid on the single articles of salt and opium.""' When we reflect on the numerous taxes which are levied on almost every article of consumption in Great Britain, this must appear no small recommendation of the eastern system, in which so large a portion of the public revenue is derived from what is in reality the rent of land. It is obviously the same advantage to a nation to have a considerable portion of its revenue derived from crown-lands, as it is to have its ecclesiastical or charitable institutions supported by separate property of their own. In either case, the cost of these expensive establishments, essential to the pro- tection, religious instruction, or relief of the people, is laid upon their own funds, instead of being imposed as a burden upon the earnings of the other classes of the com- munity. It is, perhaps, the most remarkable instance of political blindness on record, that the republican party, both in France and England, should so long have endea- voured, and in the former country successfully, to destroy the property both of the church and the corporations holding funds devoted to the purposes of charity and education ; that is, to terminate the payment of these necessary establishments by their own funds, and throw their maintenance as a tax on the wages of labour. And, without going the length of the opinion, that the oriental system is preferable to that of the landed proprietors of modern Europe, with the stability which they confer upon society, it may safely be asserted, that the receipt of a considerable portion of the public revenue from landed * See Appendix, Xote F. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 607 property, vested in government or public bodies, is an chap. invaluable feature in political institutions, and the very 1 last which a real patriot would seek to subvert. Religious difference, and the exclusive possession of power by persons of one ecclesiastical establishment, CompiJte political party, or dominant race, have been found to be SEXon the great obstacles to the pacification of the kingdoms of Jf^^* 4 modern Europe ; and in the centre of her power, England has found it impossible to conciliate the affections or over- come the antipathy of the Roman Catholic inhabitants of Ireland. But, in her eastern empire, political exclu- sion far more rigid, religious distinctions far more irrecon- cilable, have, under the able and judicious management of the Company, proved no obstacle to the consolidation of a vast and peaceable dominion. In India, notwith- standing the long period that some districts have been in British possession, and the universal peace which has so long reigned, save on the frontier, from Cape Comorin to the Himalaya mountains, the uatives are still ineligible to offices of trust, both in the civil and military depart- ments. In religion, the principle of separation is still more rigid. Hindostan has, in different ages, been overrun, not merely by conquerors of different races, agreeing only in their ferocity to the vanquished, but by hosts of totally distinct and irreconcilable religious creeds. The mild and pacific followers of Bramah have in different ages been obliged to bow the neck to the fierce idolators of Cabul, the rigid followers of Siva, the savage pagans of Tartary, the impetuous fire-worshippers of Persia, the triumphant followers of Mahomet, the dis- ciplined battalions of Christ. These different and hostile religions have imprinted their traces deeply and indelibly on the Hindoo population ; and of the hundred and forty millions who now inhabit the vast peninsula to the south of the Himalaya mountains, a considerable proportion still follow the faith of the dominant races from which they severally sprang. G08 HISTORY OF EUROTE. chap. Fifteen millions of Mussulmans, haughty in manners, XL>n - indolent in character, voluptuous in disposition, even now vastfarie- recall the era when the followers of Mahomet issued from ties of ten- tlieir* burning deserts, with the sword in one hand and found in the Koran in the other, to win, through the blood of con- quest, a path to the houris of paradise. Sixty millions of pacific Hindoos on the banks of the Ganges still continue the worship of Bramah and Vishnu, which has endured unchanged for four thousand years. Fifteen millions of hardy freebooters, in the upper provinces, follow a mixed creed, in which the tenets of Islamism and the doctrines of the Hindoo faith arc strangely com- pounded together. Heathens and cannibals are found in great numbers in the hilly regions of the north-eastern frontier ; a numerous fragment of Parsees or fire-wor- shippers, scattered through various parts of India, still preserve, untainted by foreign usage, the pure tenets, charitable practices, and elevating worship of Zoroaster. Jews are to be seen in many places, whose Old Testa- ment, coming down no further than the Babylonian captivity, indicates that they had strayed to the East after that memorable event ; while a small number of Christians have preserved inviolate, through eighteen 207,233." hundred years, the fundamental principles of the Gospel, 4!™4!)! r ' ' and traces are to be found, in some remote quarters, of the lost tribes of the children of Israel. 1 At first sight it would be natural to conclude, that this Effect^ extraordinary combination of different religions in one diSion'i°n US community would produce an insurmountable difficulty facilitating [ n conducting the government, and that the strength of a the govern- » ° ' ° mentofthe united empire could never be obtained with such various and discordant materials. The reverse, however, is so much the case, that it is owing to this, more perhaps than any other cause, that the subjection of so great a body of natives to the government of a handful of Europeans is to be ascribed. The Indian population is divided into so great a number of different faiths, that no one is predo- HTSTOEY OP EUROPE. 609 rninant, or can claim an undisputed pre-eminence over chap. the others ; and political power has so long been dissevered XLVIL from religious belief, that it no longer constitutes a bond of union by which any formidable coalition can be held together. Not only are there to be found Hindoos of every province, tribe, and dialect, in the ranks of the British native army, but the worshippers of Siva, the adorers of Vishnu, a multitude of Mahommedans, both of the Soonee and Shiah sects, Protestant and Catholic half-castes, and even Jews and Ghebirs. By this inter- mixture, unparalleled in history, the chances of any considerable combination, either for the purposes of military revolt or political hostility, have been consider- ably reduced. Although all classes live together on terms of mutual forbearance, this amazing diversity of religious sentiment in no way interferes with military subordination. No sooner are their professional duties at an end, than the distinctions of religion and caste return with undi- minished influence. When the regimental parade is dismissed, the soldiers break into separate knots ; the gradation of caste is restored, the distinctions of faith return. The Sudra sergeant makes his salaam to the Brahmin or the Rajpoot private ; the Mussulman avoids the Christian, the Shiah the Soonee, the Hindoo all ; and an almost impassable barrier of mutual distrust and jealousy obstructs all amalgamation of opinion, or unity of action, even upon those national objects which separately interest the whole body. Thus the heterogeneous and discordant mass is kept in a state of complete subordina- tion by the only power among them which possesses the inestimable advantage of unity of action ; and the British government, strong in its established probity, and the good faith with which it observes its engagements both 1 Sinclair, towards its subjects and its enemies, is enabled to main- coL/cen-" tain an undisputed dominion over its innumerable and i. 42,47?' diversified subjects. 1 It is a common opinion in Great Britain — where the VOL. VII. 2 Q 610 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, real nature of our Eastern dominions is unknown to an XLVIL extent which, a priori, would appear incredible — that the 24. whole of India is inhabited by a race of meek and inof- of a nLlonaJ y fensive Hindoos, who willingly bow the neck to every character in ^^j. w ] 10 c h oses to oppress them, and are incapable, alike from their character, climate, and ignorance, of opposing any effectual resistance to a European invader. The slightest acquaintance, not merely with Indian but with Asiatic history, must be sufficient to demonstrate the unfounded nature of this opinion. In no part of the world, perhaps, has foreign conquest implanted its traces in more indelible features on the original population ; in none is variety of present character and qualities so con- spicuous. So far from the inhabitants of India being all of one description, alike timid and inoffensive, there is within its limits to be found a greater intermixture of races than in any part of the world, and as large a pro- portion of hardy valour aud desperate daring as in any people recorded in history. Bishop Heber justly observes, that there is as great a disparity between the inhabitants of Guzerat, Bengal, the Doab, and the Deccan, as between any four nations of Europe ; and that the inhabitants of the presidencies of Madras and Bombay, and of the Deccan, are as different from each other as the French and Por- tuguese from the Greeks, Germans, or Poles. Independent of the varieties of the proper Indian race, which are innu- merable, there are to be found in the peninsula of Hindostan at least thirty distinct nations, speaking different languages, and almost entirely unknown to each other. The Mahrattas are as much strangers to the people of Bengal as to the Europeans ; the inhabitants of the Carnatic are foreign to both ; the Sikhs have scarcely indffTn. an y resemblance to the Mahrattas ; and even the fifteen •262 craw- millions of Mahommedans have no common bond but ford s Eas- tern Archi- their religion, and exhibit the descendants of adventurers pelago, i. \-' 47, 54.' ' from all the nations of Asia, who crowded to the stan- dards of the Prophet. 1 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 611 If we penetrate into more distant possessions, the chap. varieties of human character are still more remarkable. _ The inhabitants of the swamps of Arracan, or the And 2 v 5 a ;. ous meadows of the Irrawaddy, are as distinct from the military . £ ,i f~\ qualities ot Highlanders of Nepaul as the rice-growers ol the Ganges the inha bi. are from the horsemen of Mysore, or the Pindarees of tants> Malwa. It was in the plains of Bengal alone that the British force met with the genuine Hindoo race, and there victory was of comparatively easy acquisition. But as foreign aggression, or the necessities of their situation, forced them into more distant warfare, they were brought into collision with nations as fierce, and forces as formidable, as any that are arrayed under the banners of Western Europe. The desperate defence of Saragossa, the obstinate valour of Aspern, the enthu- siastic gallantry of the Tyrol, have all their parallels in the annals of Indian warfare ; and the heroism with which Napoleon and his redoubtable followers resisted and overcame these varied forms of hostility, was not greater than that with which the British soldiers, and their worthy native allies, have combated on the plateau of Mysore, the hills of Nepaul, the plains of Hindostan, the mountains of AfFghanistan, or the intricacies of the Punjaub. The harassing hostility and terrible sweep of the Cossacks were fully equalled by the squadrons of Hyder and the Pindaree hordes ; the free-born valour of the Tyrolese was rivalled by the heroic resistance of the Goorkhas ; the storm of Badajos, the devotion of Saragossa, have their parallels in the defence of Bhurt- pore and the conquest of Seringapatam ; the decision and skill which converted the perils of Assaye into a yjtat j*. decisive victory, were not outdone by the most illustrious Heber'sin- deeds of the immortal Napoleon. And the conqueror of gjS?" the French legions at Albuera had yet a ruder conflict g^™ la . to sustain on the banks of the Sutlej, with the desperate go,i. 47,54. valour of the Sikhs. 1 Climate and physical circumstances, in addition to G12 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLVII. 26. Difference of character owing to physical causes. 1 Malte Bran, iii. 280, 299. Mart. ix. 278, 279. . 21 - Origin and composition of the sepoy force. original difference of race, have exercised their wonted influence on the character of the Indian population. In the flat hot regions of Bengal, on the shores of the Ganges, and amidst the meanderings of its tributary streams, is to be found a timid, gentle, pacific race: educated, but prone to superstition ; servile to their superiors, but tyrannical to their inferiors ; obsequious, yet treacherous ; skilled in the arts of Eastern adulation, but mild and inoffensive in their intercourse with each other. In the elevated regions of the peninsula, on the other hand,— on the high table-land of Mysore, in the wild hills of Almorah, on the lofty mountains of Ncpaul, the inhabitants are brave, daring, and impetuous ; glowing with ardour, chivalrous to women, courteous to strangers, glorying in deeds of heroism, faithful in friendship, vehe- ment in hatred. With these elevated qualities are mingled, however, others which belong to the same national character: a fierce and revengeful temper, a disposition uncultivated and impatient of discipline ; habits prone to violence, and nursed in crime by ages of uncontrolled licentiousness. It is in these nations — among the proud Rajpoots, the roving Mahrattas, the daring Affghans, the heroic Sikhs — that the restraints of regular government arc with most difficulty intro- duced, and its blessings most sensibly felt by the inha- bitants : but it is amongst them also that the military spirit is most prevalent, and the British government has found at once its most faithful and intrepid native defen- ders, and most desperate and formidable foreign enemies. 1 Among all the prodigies attending the British domi- nion in India, none, perhaps, is so extraordinary as the rise, progress, and fidelity of the Sepoy Force. It was in Bombay that these invaluable auxiliaries were origin- ally organised, and the first mention of them in history is when a corps of one hundred natives from Bombay, and four hundred from Tellicherry, assisted the army at Madras in 1747. From these humble beginnings has HISTORY OF EUROPE. 613 arisen the present magnificent native army of India, chap. which at one period embraced nearly three hundred 1 1 thousand men, and even now, on a reduced peace establishment, numbers a hundred and seventy thousand. Their ranks have from the first been filled indiscrimi- nately with recruits of all nations and religious persua- sions ; and Mahommedans, Hindoos, Parsees, Jews, and Christians, are to be found blended among them, without the distinction of race having ever interfered with the unity of action, or the difference of religion ever shaken fidelity to duty. The whole have throughout been raised entirely by voluntary enrolment, without a conscription or forced levy having ever been found necessary ; and great as the present army is, it could be quadrupled in a few months, if the circumstances of the Indian government required such an augmentation of force. The facility with which vast armies can be raised in the East, when compared -to the violent measures by which it has been found necessary in Europe to accom- plish the same object, appears at first sight surprising. But it ceases to be so, when the effects of the distinction Jg™*^ of castes, and the relative situation of the sepoy soldiers L7^ v* and the other classes of the community, are taken into 65.' consideration. 1 The military form a distinct caste in all the Hindoo 28 communities ; and from father to son deeds of arms are g-jj^ handed down, as the only object of honourable ambition, with which the true incitement to glorious exploit. The Rajpoot l raise i. of Bengal is born a soldier. The mother recounts acts of heroism to her infant ; from earliest youth he is habituated to the use and exercise of arms. Even when still a child, the future warrior is accustomed to handle the spear and dagger, and to look without fear on the implements of death. If his father tills the ground, the sword and shield are placed near the furrow, and moved as his labour advances, The frame of youth is constantly strengthened by martial exercises ; he is habitually tern- 614 HISTORY OF EUROrE. chap, peratc in his diet ; of a generous though warm disposi- XLVIL tion ; and, if well treated, zealous, faithful, and obedient. It was from this military caste that the chief Indian armies were first recruited, and they still form the strength of the native infantry. In process of time, i sir John however, as our empire has extended into more distant Quarfite^ regions, the military qualities of its varied inhabitants ™ ;i - 414 \ have been called into action ; and the desultory activity 415. Orme s ... Hindostan, f the Mahratta horse, not less than the firm intrepidity Mart, ix.' of the Mysore cavalry, and the chivalrous valour of the ciair,°46. in " AfFgliaun gunners, have contributed to the formation of our mighty dominions. 1 Unlike the soldiers of Europe, the sepoy is an object Elevated of envy to his less fortunate compatriots. His profes- sion of sion gives him the precedency, not less in general esti- t™opT y mation than in that of his caste, over persons engaged in civil occupations ; and his pay is so considerable as to raise him, both in station and enjoyments, far above his brethren whom he has left behind in his native village. Each private sepoy is attended by two servants : in the field there arc, at an average, nine followers to every two fighting men — a system which gives to a hundred thou- sand men, in a campaign, nearly five hundred thousand attendants, and goes far to explain both the prodigious hosts recorded in history, as commanded by Xerxes and Darius, and the facility with which they were routed by a comparatively small body of Greeks, all real soldiers. Such a mode of carrying on war augments enormously the difficulty of providing subsistence for so prodigious a multitude as attends every considerable army,* and obstructs to a most distressing degree the difficulty of * When General Harris advanced against Seringapatam in 1799, his army was composed of 35,000 fighting men and 120,000 attendants ; and when Marquis Hastings took the field, in 1817, against the Mahrattas, his whole regular forces, amounting to 110,000 men, where swelled by above 500,000 camp-followers ; among whom, chiefly of the lower grades hi society, and per- sons habituated to the humblest fare, the cholera made the most fearful ravages. — Malte Brun, hi. 328. HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 615 rapid movements in the field. The Romans understood chap. • • XT VTT war well, when they named baggage "impedimenta." But it renders it comparatively an easy matter to raise a military force. When the pay given to a private soldier is so considerable as to admit of his keeping two servants in the camp, and a still greater number in the field, no want of recruits will ever be experienced. The real difficulty is to find resources adequate to the support of x a large army at that elevated standard. When Croni- Bmn, m. ii i ip i i i n 328. Martin, well gave hali-a-crown a-day to every dragoon, he readily ix.79,80. got recruits for the Parliamentarian armies. 1 The Indian infantry can hardly be said to be equal, even when led by British officers, to that of England ; and, General when left to the direction of their own leaders, they evince f the in- the general inferiority of the Asiatic race to the European. ian anny ' In ordinary engagements, too, they are not to be relied on, if they are not either led or supported by native English battalions, and have an adequate proportion of English officers. But it is only in trying situations that this difference is conspicuous, and, for the ordinary duties of a campaign, no troops in the world are superior to the sepoys. In many of the most essential duties of a soldier — sobriety during duty, patience under privation, docility in learning, hardihood in undergoing fatigue, steady enduring valour, and fidelity to their colours under every temptation to swerve from them — the Indian auxi- liaries might serve as a model to every service in Europe. Nay, examples are numerous, in which, emulous of the fame of their British comrades, they have performed deeds of daring worthy of being placed beside the most exalted of European glory ; and instances are not want- ing where they have unhesitatingly faced dangers before which even English troops had recoiled.""" The native * At the first siege of Bhurtpore, in 1805, the 12th regiment of native Bengal infantry was associated with the 75th and 76th British infantry, whose deeds of valour they had emulated in the battle of Laswaree. The British were first led to the assault, and gallantly mounted the breach ; but they were driven back with dreadful slaughter ; and such was the panic inspired 616 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, cavalry is of more recent introduction than the infantry, '- but it is not less admirable in many of the most valuable qualities. The men are fearless riders, indefatigable in the service of light troops, sober and vigilant ; they take exemplary care of their horses, many of which are of the best Persian and Arabian breeds, and in the sword-exer- cise or single combat are superior to almost any of the cavaliers of Europe. Nor is the artillery inferior to any in the world, cither in the perfection of the material, the condition of the horses, or the coolness, precision, and bravery of the gunners. The immense host is entirely i Martin, ix. under the direction of British officers, nearly five thousand liams'sin- of whom are employed in this important service ; but the 32 i 6 a my ' non-commissioned officers and subalterns always were Q""****- natives, and the avenue to more elevated promotion is xvm. 414, i 415. now opened to the most deserving of their number. 1 "" In the shock of a regular charge alone, the native horse is by the disaster, that, when they were ordered a second time to advance, the soldiers refused to follow their officers or leave the trenches. The second battalion of the 12th native regiment was then ordered to advance ; they did so with resolute steps, though well aware of the desperate nature of the service on which they were sent, and cheered as they passed the English troops, who lay sheltered in the trenches. Such was the heroic valour of their onset, that they overcame all opposition, and planted their colours, in sight of the whole army, on the summit of the breach. This work, unfortunately, was cut off by a deep ditch from the body of the fortress, and, finding it impos- sible to pass that barrier, Lord Lake was reluctantly obliged to order a retreat. It was with great difficulty, however, that the brave sepoys could he prevailed on to retire from the perilous post of honour which they had won, and not till they had sustained a loss of three hundred and sixty men, being half their total number when they went into action. The British regiment, stung with shame, now implored to be allowed to return to the assault, which was granted; but, notwithstanding their desperate valour, it was stall unsuc- cessful.— See Martin, viii. 30-31, and ix. 69-70. The author has frequently beard this anecdote from his late lamented brother-in-law, Colonel Gerard, adjutant-general of the Bengal army, who was present on the occasion— an officer to whose talents, zeal, and bravery, the wonders of Lord Lake's cam- paign are, in a considerable degree, to be ascribed. * The British officers in the Indian army amount to 4487 ; the Indian to 3416; but the latter cannot rise to a higher rank than that of ensign or cornet. The total British troops in India amount at present to 30,915 sabres and bayonets, of whom 19,540 are composed of the Queen's regiments, the remainder being English hi the service of the East India Company; but the expense of the whole is defrayed by the Indian government. — Martin, ix. 73, 79-81. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 617 still inferior to the British— a peculiarity which has chap. distinguished the cavalry of the Eastern and Western _ 1 Worlds in every age, from the clays of Cyrus to those of the Crusades. Volumes might be filled with the anecdotes which have 3J occurred within the last eighty years, illustrative of the Jjgjg^ steadv courage and incorruptible fidelity of the sepoy the fidelity "^ V C3 *■ . • ,i c T 1 of the sepoy troops. They first rose to eminence in the wars ot Lora troops. Clive, Lawrence, Smith, and Coote, in the middle of the last century ; and the number of Europeans who were then engaged in Indian warfare was so inconsiderable, that almost the whole glory of their marvellous victories is in reality due to the sepoys. The hardships which were undergone, at this period, by all the soldiers, both native and European, from the defective state, or rather total want of a commissariat, were excessive ; but although the British power was then only in its infancy, and little promised future stability to its empire, nothing could shake the fidelity of the Indian troops. On one occasion, when the provisions of Clive's garrison of Arcot were very low, and a surrender, in consequence, appeared unavoid- able, the Hindoo. soldiers entreated their commander to allow them to boil their rice, the only food left for the whole garrison. " Your English soldiers," said they, "can eat from our hands, though we cannot from theirs : we will allow them as their share every grain of the rice, and subsist ourselves by drinking the water in which it has been boiled." In the year 1780, 1781, and 1782, the whole army suffered hardships almost unparalleled ; there was hardly a corps whose pay was not twenty mOnths in arrear, and their families, under the pressure of a dreadful famine, were expiring on all sides : nevertheless their fidelity never gave way under this extreme trial, and they repaid with gratitude and attachment, the consideration, to them JgrW^ unwonted, with which they were treated by their Euro- *g^- pean officers. 1 The campaigns of Sir Eyre Coote and 396." Lord Clive, in which they bore so prominent a part, still 618 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, form an object of well-founded pride to the sepoys of XLVIL Madras ; and when a regiment comes into garrison, they lead their children into the great room of the Exchange of that capital, to point out the portraits of the chiefs who first led their fathers to victory. Towards the close of the war with Tippoo, in 1782, Theifiieii- General Mathews, with his whole troops, almost entirely fiiVsh 5 native, were made prisoners. The Sultaun, sensible of triaL every tne advantages he might derive from the services of so large a body of disciplined men in his ranks, made every effort to induce the English sepoys to enter his army, but in vain. He then tried severity, and subjected them for long to the most rigorous confinement and unhealthy employments ; but nothing could shake their fidelity ; and at the peace of 1783, fifteen hundred of these brave men marched a distance of five hundred miles to Madras, to embark and rejoin the army to which they belonged, at Bombay. During the march, the utmost pains were taken by Tippoo's guards to keep the Hindoo privates separate from their European officers, in the hope that their fidelity might yet sink under the hardships to which they were exposed ; but in vain. Not only did they all remain true to their colours, but they swam the tanks and rivers by which they were separated from the officers during the night, bringing them all they could save from their little pittance ; " for we," they said, " can live on i Malcolm an ything, but you require beef and mutton." A battalion in Quarterly f the Bombay 12th regiment mutinied in 1764, on 38^ 405."' account of some promises made to the soldiers having, as Indian™ 88 they said, been broken. A severe example was thought Army, 27i, neceBSSir y t auc i twenty-eight of the most guilty were sentenced to be blown from the mouth of a cannon. 1 * As * " I am sure," says Captain Williams, who was an eye-witness of this remarkable scene, " there was not a dry eye among the marines who executed the sentence, though they had long been accustomed to hard service, and two of them had actually been in the execution-party which shot Admiral Byng in 1757. The corps to which they belonged subsequently distinguished itself greatly both at Laswaree and the first siege of Bhurtpore." — Williams's Indian Army, 247; and Ante, Chap, xlvii. § 30, note. HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 619 they were on the point of being executed, three grenadiers chap. who happened to be among them, stepped forward and '- claimed the honour of being blown away from the right guns : " they had always fought on the right," they said, " and they hoped they should be allowed to die at that post of honour." During the advance of Lord Lake's army to Delhi and ^ Aora in 1804, the hardships and privations which the Andadmir- troops of all sorts endured were such, as almost to break down the spirit of the British officers ; but the Hindoo privates never showed the least symptoms of faintness or despondence, saying, " Keep up your spirits, sir ; we will bring you in safety to Agra." When in square, and sus- taining charges of the enemy's horse, it more than once happened, when a musket was fired by a young soldier, that a veteran struck him with the but-end of his firelock, exclaiming : " Are you mad, to destroy our discipline, and make us like the rabble that are attacking us \ " Nor was the same steady courage and devoted fidelity wanting, on still more trying occasions, when the national or reli- gious prejudices of the native soldier were brought still more violently in collision with their military duties. At the mutiny of Vellore, which shook the Indian empire to its foundation, and was brought on by an absurd inter- ference with the religious feelings of the troops, the sabres of the native dragoons were dyed as deep as those of the British in the blood of their unhappy countrymen ; and on occasion of a recent tumult at Bareilly, the capital of Rohilcund, occasioned by the introduction of a necessary but unpopular police-tax — a revolt which commanded the sympathy of the whole neighbouring population — a bat- 1 Martin, \x. talion of the 27th native infantry, with four hundred wmkms'a Rohilla horse recently embodied, were all that could be Jjjj™ 272< brought against the insurgents, who were above twelve 30 , 4 - . Mal - 00 . . . colm, in thousand strong. The mutineers continued to resist till Quart. Rev. two thousand were slain; 1 and, although many of the 4 is.' assailants were their relations and neighbours, and the 620 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. chap, priests of the insurgents advanced and invoked them to XLVII 1 join their natural friends, only one man was found want- ing to his duty, and he was immediately put to death by his comrades, who throughout maintained the most un- shaken fidelity and courage. The secret of this extraordinary fidelity of the native Which is troops, under every temptation, to a foreign power pro- fideiityof he fessing a different religion, and known only by its suc- goverament cessive overthrow of all the native potentates, is to be to its en- f oimc l in the wise and magnanimous policy with which gagements. o a ./ the East India Company, through every vicissitude of fortune, have made good their engagements, and in the inviolable fidelity with which they have rewarded the services of the troops engaged in their ranks. From the earliest times the Indian princes have known no other way of paying their troops than by quartering them on some of the hereditary or conquered provinces of their dominions ; where, though military license was allowed every latitude in the exaction of their pay or provisions, the soldiers experienced great difficulty, and were subject to a most vexatious uncertainty, in the recovery of their dues. When, therefore, instead of this harassing and oppressive system, the Indian sepoys found that they received their daily pay as regularly as English soldiers ; that their wants were all provided for by a vigilant and honest government ; that no subaltern fraud or chicanery was permitted to intercept the just rewards of their valour; and that, after a certain number of years' service, they were permitted to retire on ample allowances, or a grant of land, which formed a little patrimony to themselves and their descendants""" — they were struck with astonishment, * " I have beheld/' says Sir John Malcolm, " with more patriotic pride than has ever been excited in my mind by any other act of British policy in India, a tract of country more than a hundred miles in length upon the banks of the Ganges— which had a few years before been a complete jungle, aban- doned for ages to tigers and robbers — covered with cultivated fields and villages, the latter of which were filled with old soldiers and their families, in a manner which showed their deep gratitude and attachment for the comfort and happiness they enjoyed. When we consider the immeasurable quantity HISTOEY OP EUROPE. 621 and conceived the most unbounded confidence in a power chap. which had thus for the first time set them the example VIL of an upright and beneficent administration. Power in India is, even more than elsewhere in the world, founded on opinion ; and the belief which gradually spread univer- sally that the East India Company would, with perfect regularity and good faith, discharge all its engagements, formed a magnet of attraction which in the end drew almost all the strength and military virtue of the penin- sula to its standards. When minutely examined, it will be found that it was neither the military discipline, nor the scientific acquisitions, nor the political talents of the British which has given them the empire of India, for all these were matched in the ranks of their enemies, recruited and directed as they were by French officers ; but, far more than all these, their honesty and good faith, which filled them with confidence in each other, and in- S*' 3 spired the same reliance in the native powers ; — qualities ^™? ar " which, though often overreached in the outset bv cunning q uoted ^ i a i n i if i Martin, be. and pern ay, generally prove more than a match tor them 35, 72, 74, in the end, and are destined ultimately to give to the 47^4 the expense of the allied or conquered states. France J^ s P anicu - vomited forth a host of ardent starving insolvents, to regenerate by plundering all mankind ; and, borrowing from her predecessors in ancient times the maxim that war should be made to maintain war, experienced not less relief to her finances than security to her institutions, by providing either by death or victory for such a mul- titude of turbulent defenders. But England had a very different task to execute when she became involved in the task of subjugating Hindostan. The centre of her strength was situated fourteen thousand miles from the banks of the Gauges ; a few thousand soldiers were all she could spare for eastern, from the pressure of European or the dangers 628 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLYII. 41. Conquest was forced on the Bii tish in the East hy necessity. of American warfare : the power which was involved in Indian hostilities was a mere company of merchants, who looked only to a profitable return for their capital, or a rise in the value of their stock, and dreaded nothing so much as the cost of unproductive warfare. For thirty years after they were involved in hostilities, so far from effecting any conquests, they were barely able to defend their own mercantile establishments from destruction ; and every foot-soldier they transported from Europe to Hindostan cost thirty, every horseman eighty, pounds sterling. In these circumstances, it requires no argument to demonstrate that foreign aggression could not, in the first instance at least, have been voluntarily entered upon by the rulers of India. The slightest acquaintance with their annals is sufficient to show, that they stood in every instance really, if not formally, on the defensive : and that it was in the overthrow of the coalitions formed for their destruction, or the necessary defence of the allies whom previous victory had brought to their side, that the real cause of all their Indian acquisitions is to be found. In truth, war has, in every instance for the last half century, been forced upon the East India Company, not only without their inclination, but in opposition to their most strenuous exertions. Nothing always appeared so terrible to the mercantile rulers of Leadenhall Street as the expenditure requisite either in preparing for, or con- ducting foreign wars in Hindostan. A good dividend upon their stock was the object they always coveted, and they anticipated nothing but ruin to that from hostilities ; they were from first to last mercantile adventurers, not territorial conquerors. More than one governor-general of the highest capacity or most far-seeing penetration has been recalled for having undertaken or prepared for contests, which the event proved were essential to the salvation of our eastern empire. The bad success which in the outset of such contests has often attended our arms, HISTORY OF EUROPE. G2D has in general arisen from the peremptory pacific orders chap. of the East India Company, and the consequent want of '. any adequate preparation for wars, which those on the spot saw evidently were approaching, and to meet which the most extensive armaments were requisite. Lord Wellesley fell a sacrifice to the moral courage which led to the overthrow of the Mahratta confederacy : Lord Ellenborough to the far-seeing sagacity which was pre- paring against the dangers of the Sikh invasion. It is the highest proof of the energy and courage inherent in the Anglo-Saxon race, that, despite such a system of government, and the numerous disasters in the commence- ment of contests which it has occasioned, they have all in the end been overcome, and an empire established in the East, second now to none in the world in rulers and power, and which rivals that formed in ancient times amidst lesser difficulties by the valour and perseverance of the Roman Legions during three centuries. 630 HISTORY OF EUEOTE. CHAPTER XLVIII. RISE OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE UNDER CLIYE AND HASTINGS. 1750—1798. CHAP. XLVIII. 1756. 1. Sketch of the princi- pal Indian powers when the British em- pire arose. Atlas, Plate 47. When the English, in the middle of the eighteenth century, quitted their commercial establishments at Cal- cutta and Madras to engage in a perilous contest with the native powers of India, the chief potentates with whom they were brought in contact, either as allies or as enemies, were the following : — In the northern parts of the peninsula, on the banks of the Jumna and the Ganges, which is properly called Hindostan, the once-dreaded empire of Timour had sunk into the dust ; and the Mogul emperors, on their throne at Delhi, could with difficulty maintain even a nominal sway over the powerful rajahs in their vast dominions. The most considerable of these was the Rajah of Bengal and Bahar, whose dominions extended over the vast and fertile plains watered by the Ganges, and who boasted of thirty millions of inhabi- tants acknowledging his authority. The next formidable potentate on the eastern coast, between Calcutta and Madras, was the Nizam, whose dominions embraced eleven millions of souls, and whose seat of government was Hyderabad. Dread of the Mahrattas, who lay con- tiguous to this state on the west, and of the Sultaun of Mysore, who adjoined it on the south, rendered the court of Hyderabad the firm and faithM ally of the East India Company. In the southern part of the peninsula, the HISTORY OF EUROPE. 631 dominions of the Rajah of Mysore lay spread over a vast chap. extent on the high table-land of Mysore, three or four ' thousand feet above the sea; and from his strong fortress 175(S - of Seringapatam he gave the law to sixteen millions of brave men. This dynasty, however, was supplanted, about the same time that the British dominion was estab- lished on the banks of the Ganges, by that of Hyder Ali, a soldier of fortune, who usurped his dominions, and added to them various lesser states in their vicinity, and soon communicated to the whole the vigour of enterprise, and the thirst for foreign dominion. With this great power, serious and bloody wars were waged by the Eng- lish for above thirty years. Farther to the north, and on the western coast, the Mahratta confederacy governed a territory of vast The Mah- extent and resources, though their predatory and rest- f e deracy. n " less habits, which engaged them in constant wars with their neighbours and each other, kept the country in great part desolate, and blighted the fairest gifts of nature. If united, the Mahratta chieftains could bring two hundred thousand horsemen, long the scourge of Northern and Central India, into the field ; but their constant feuds with each other rendered it improbable that this vast force should be concentrated against any external enemy. The most renowned of these chieftains were the Rajahs of Berar, Scindiah, and Holkar; each of whom could muster sixty thousand men, almost entirely cavalry, round his standards. They acknowledged allegiance to the Peishwa, who was at the head of their confederation, and from his seat of government at Poonah, professed to execute treaties, and issue orders, binding on the whole allied states. But his authority was little more than nominal, and each of these powerful chieftains took upon himself, without scruple, to make war and conclude alliances on his own account. A vast number of lesser chiefs occu- pied the intervening country, from the northern frontier of the Mahratta states to the Indus, which was inhabited 632 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, by different races, the Sikhs and Rajpoots, famed in 1 every period of Indian history for their martial qualities, 1756, and to whom subsequent events at Bhurtpore and in the Punjaub have given still greater celebrity. In the great Alpine ridge which separates Hindostan from Tartary, the Goorkha and Nepal tribes had found shelter, and main- tained, amidst forest steeps and narrow vales, the indomi- table valour which, in every part of the world, seems to be the peculiar attribute of the mountain race. The first charter of incorporation of the East India Origin and Company was granted by Queen Elizabeth on the last onhe East 5 day of the sixteenth century ; but it was not for a hun- llty. C c° a ™- cn ' ec l an d fifty years afterwards that they became territo- cuHa°b Cal ria ^ sovereigns. During the long period that intervened Surajee f rom their first origiii till the middle of the eighteenth Dowlah. ... ° century, they painfully and industriously pursued a pacific career, neither aspiring after foreign conquest, nor accu- mulating any force to defend even their own factories from aggression. So humble were their fortunes, even at the close of this long period, that, in 1756, when the ferocious tyrant Surajee Dowlah invested and captured Calcutta, the destined Queen of the East, and now the abode of a million of inhabitants, the whole persons made prisoners amounted only to one hundred and forty-six ! They were all confined, by his orders, in a dungeon not twenty feet square, with only one window, during an intensely hot night in June. Imagination itself can scarcely figure, subsequent genius has scarcely been able to portray, the sufferings of that dreadful night. " Nothing," says Macaulay, " in history or fiction, not even the story which Ugolino told in the sea of everlasting ice, after he had wiped his bloody lips on the scalp of his murderer, approaches the horrors which were recounted by the few- survivors of that night. They cried for mercy, they strove to burst the door. The governor, Mr Hollwell, who, even in that extremity, retained some presence of mind, offered large bribes to the gaolers ; but it was all HISTORY OF EUROPE. 633 in vain. Then the prisoners went mad with despair, chap. They trampled each other down, fought for the places at __ — 1 the window, fought for the pittance of water with which 1/56, the cruel mercy of the murderers mocked their agonies ; raved, prayed, blasphemed, implored the guards to fire among them. The gaolers, in the mean time, held lights to the bars, and shouted with laughter at the frantic struggles of the victims. At length the tumult died away in low gaspings and moanings. The day broke ; the nabob had left off his debauch, and permitted the doors to be opened ; but it was some time before the soldiers could make a lane for the survivors, by piling up on each side the heaps of corpses on which the burning climate had already begun to do its loathsome change. When at length a passage was made, twenty-three ghastly figures, such as their own mothers would not have known, came forth alive. A pit was instantly dug ; the dead bodies, one hundred and twenty-three in number, were flung into it promiscuously, and covered up." Among those saved was Mr Hollwell, the governor ; but the indignation excited throughout England by that inhuman cruelty was i n dL, e [.53, unexampled. All classes were animated by a generous Jj; J5* rtin ' desire to avenge the sufferings of their countrymen ; and °/™ e 6 'JJi ac _ from the horrors of the Black Hole of Calcutta the glories ^f s , Essays, m. of our Indian empire may be said to have taken their 144, 146. rise. 1 The East India Company, at that period, possessed an inconsiderable settlement at Madras, on the eastern coast Calcutta of India, protected by a fort called Fort George, and to Esand it the distressed merchants at Calcutta despatched a depu- fi s 6 * f " tation, earnestly soliciting succour. Fortunately, at that Clive - period, the hostilities which were hourly expected with France had caused a considerable body of British troops to be assembled in that city, which, from its comparative vicinity to Pondichery, the principal seat of French power in the East, was most exposed to danger ; and a detachment of nine hundred Europeans, and fifteen G34 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLVIII. 1757. 1 Orme, ii. 127, 137. Auber, i. 60, 61. 5. Dethrone- ment of Surajee Dowlah by Clive. hundred sepoys, was forthwith despatched to restore the British fortunes at the mouth of the Ganges. This incon- siderable band seemed little qualified to combat the vast armies of the Mogul Nabob on the plains of Bengal; but it was under the direction of one of those heroes who appear at distant intervals in history, whose master-minds acquire such an ascendency over mankind as almost to command fortune ; and from whose exertions, in circum- stances the most adverse, unhoped-for triumphs often proceed. In the end of December 1 756, Colonel Clive appeared at the mouth of the Ganges, defeated the Mogul detachment sent to oppose his landing, retook Calcutta, and, disregarding the timid expostulation of the council, took upon himself the supreme direction of affairs. It soon appeared how essential the guidance of a chief of such personal and moral courage was to the salvation of our Indian possessions at that critical juncture. Surajee Dowlah in a few weeks returned with increased forces ; but Clive stormed his camp, and struck such terror into his troops, that a treaty was concluded, by which Calcutta was restored to the Company, and permission granted to fortify it. From that hour the territorial empire of Eng- land in India may be said to have been established. 1 Shortly after this important event, intelligence arrived in India of the commencement of hostilities between France and England, and the government at Calcutta received advices that Surajee Dowlah was preparing to join the former with all his forces. Clive instantly took his determination ; he resolved to raise up Meer Jaffier, a renowned military leader in Bengal, to the viceroyship of that province, in the hope that, owing his elevation to the British, he would be less disposed to join their enemies than the Nabob, who was already their inveterate enemy. Such a treaty was immediately concluded with the Hindoo potentate, on terms highly favourable to the English ; and shortly afterwards hostilities commenced, by Colonel Clive marching with two thousand men against HISTORY OF EUROPE. 635 the French fort of Chandernagore, on the Hoogly, eighty chap. XLVIII miles above Calcutta. This fort was soon taken, and 1 several others reduced. At length, on the 22d June, 3 JjJ^ Clive, with his little army, then raised to nine hundred Europeans and two thousand sepoys, and six guns, came up with the vast array of Surajee, consisting of fifty thousand infantry, eight thousand cavalry, and fifty guns, under French officers, in a good position at Plessy. For the first and last time in his life, Clive called a council of war : the proverb held good, and the council declined to fight ; * but the English general consulted only his own heroic character, and led his troops against the enemy. The odds were fearful ; but valour and decision can some- times supply the want of numbers. The British were sheltered, in the early part of the day, by a high bank from the cannon-shot of the enemy : treachery and dis- affection reigned in the Asiatic ranks ; and before Clive led his troops in their turn to the attack, the victory w^as already gained. The Nabob fled on his swiftest elephant ; , 0nne ^ n Clive remained master of the Indian camp, artillery, and Jgj ijj- baggage ; and the fate of a kingdom as great as France, I65,'i69. && o ' . ° , ° - ... Martin, vin. containing thirty' millions of inhabitants, was determined 17. with the loss of seventy men. x The British ascendency on the Ganges was now secured. Meer Jaffier, as the reward of his treachery, was saluted by the conqueror as Nabob of Bengal and Bahar. Surajee was soon made prisoner and slain ; and his successor * Clive stated in his evidence before the House of Commons — " This was the only council of war I ever called, and if I had abided by its decision, it would have been the ruin of the East India Company." The same truth may be observed in all ages, and in all transactions civil and militaiy, where vigour and decision are requisite to success. The shelter of numbers is never sought but by those who have not the moral courage to act on their own conviction ; true intrepidity of mind never seeks to divide responsibility. In the multitude of counsellors there may be safety ; but it is in general safety to the counsellors, not to the counselled. — See Clive's Evidence before the House of Commons, given in Mill's A-pp. No. vi., and iii. 166. He assigned the followiug reasons for his treaty with Meer Jaffier to dethrone Surajee Dowlah. " That after Chandernagore was attacked, he saw clearly that they could not stop there, but must (jo on; that having established them- G36 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLVIII. 1705. 6. Acquisition of territory by the Com- pany, and defeat of the Mogul Emperor. 22d Feb. 1760. 1 5th June, 1761. 23d Oct. 1764. 1 Orme, ii. 347, 865. Auber, i. 90, 94. Cession of all Bengal and Bahar to the Eng- lish. purchased the foreign aid which had gained him the throne by the grant of an ample territory around Calcutta, and the immediate payment of £800,000 as an indemnity for the expenses of the war. The Mogul Emperor, alarmed at this formidable irruption of strangers into one of the provinces of his mighty dominions, made an attempt to expel the intruders, and reinstate the former dynasty on the throne ; but he was defeated by Meer Jaffier, aided by the Company's forces. Jaffier was soon after deposed in consequence of his weak and tyrannical disposition, and succeeded by his natural son, Meer Cossim : the Moguls were finally routed by Major Carnac, and the French auxiliaries made prisoners. After this, the British proceeded from one acquisition to another, till, after several intrigues and revolutions in the native governments of Bengal, sometimes effected by their influence, some- times forced upon them by the inconstancy of the Mahom- medan princes, a great battle was fought at Buxar, in which the Moguls were totally defeated, with the loss of six thousand men, and one hundred and fifty guns. 1 This important victory decided the fate of Bengal. Lord Clive, who had returned to Europe in 1760, soon after was sent out again to Hindostan ; and, foreseeing the necessity of the East India Company assuming the government of the whole of that province, if they would preserve their footing on the banks of the Ganges, insisted as an indispensable preliminary that its sove- reignty should be ceded to the English power. The selves by force, and not by the consent of the Nabob, he would endeavour to drive them out again ; that they had numberless proofs of his intentions, and some upon record ; that he suggested, in consequence, the necessity of a revo- lution, and Meer Jaffier was pitched upon to be Nabob instead of Surajee Dowlah." This is precisely the language and principles of Napoleon ; this necessity of advancing to avoid being destroyed, is the accompaniment of power founded on force in all ages. The British power in India was driven on to greatness by the same necessity which impelled the European conqueror to Moscow and the Kremlin : it is the prodigious difference in the use the former made of their power, even when acquired by violence, which, hitherto at least, has saved them from the fate which so soon overtook him. — Olive's Evidence, ut supra , and Mill, iii. 162. HISTORY OF EUROTE. 637 court of Delhi was too much humbled to be able to char resist ; aud after a short negotiatiou, the Mogul emperor ___ signed a treaty, by which he resigned all sovereign claims uu ' m over Bengal, and part of Bahar and Orissa, in consider- ation of an annuity of £325,000 a-year ; Surajee 24th June, Dowlah, son of the former tyrant of that name, the Vizier of Oude, was restored to all his dominions, on condition of being taken under British protection, and paying a tribute for the support of the subsidiary force stationed in his capital ; while the claims of the family of Meer Jaffier were adjusted by the settlement of a pension of £660,000 on his natural son. Thus, in the short space of ten years, was the English power on the Ganges raised from the lowest point of depression to an unexampled height of prosperity and glory ; the refugees from an insignificant mud fort at Calcutta were invested with the sovereignty over a hundred and fifty thousand square miles, and thirty millions of men ; the frightful dungeon of the Black Hole was exchanged for the domi- , Auber> ; nion of the richest part of India ; and, in the extremity J^ 94 ^; of human suffering, the foundations were laid of an empire gW, m. destined in half .a century to overshadow the throne of 22. Baber and Aurengzebe. 1 While the genius of Clive, supported by the command- ing spirit of Chatham and the resolution of the local origin and Oi • •«-»•• -i j • ■ progress of government, was thus spreading the British dominion on the Madras the bauks of the Ganges, the English had to sustain a Presi still more obstinate contest in the southern part of India. Madras, on the coast of Coromandel, was, so early as the year 1653, invested with the dignity of a presidency, though at that period its garrison was limited, by an express resolution of the court of directors, to ten men. This insignificant town was the object of fierce contests between the English and French in the middle of the eighteenth century ; the war which broke out in Europe in 1744, was as warmly contested in the East as the West; and a strong French military and naval force 638 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, besieged and took it in 1746, its weak garrison of hvo " hundred soldiers being allowed to retire by capitulation. „ . I 746 ' Olive, then a clerk in a mercantile house at Madras, first 7th Sept. 1 , embraced the profession of arms at this siege, and, after 8th Nov. the capture of the town, escaped in the disguise of a Moor to Fort St David, a fortress sixteen miles distant, where the remnant of the British successfully made a stand ; and the talents of the young soldier materially contri- buted to the defeat, which followed, of the French, seven- teen hundred strong, by two hundred British soldiers. Madras continued in possession of the French till the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1749, when it was restored to the English dominion. Although, however, the direct war between England and France was terminated by this treaty, yet the mutual jealousy of these powers led to the continuance of a smothered and ill-disguised hostility in the East. The rival potentates struggled for the ascen- dency in the councils of the Carnatic — a vast district, five hundred miles in length and a hundred in breadth, stretching along the coast of Coromandel, comprising the dominions and dependencies of the Nabob of Arcot. For several years the skill and address of M. Dupleix, the French commander, prevailed ; but at length the daring courage of Colonel Clive, and the diplomatic ability of Major Lawrence, formed a counterpoise to his influence. This, however, was more than counterbalanced in the l Martin viii. 42, 43. Deccan, where M. de Bussy had gained firm possession 36™420, of an extensive district, six hundred miles in length, and ts^k 1 ' yielding a million sterling of revenue to the French crown. 1 No sooner had hostilities broken out a second time in sieges of Europe, between France and England, in 1756, than the Kfchery cabinet of Versailles made a strenuous effort to root out French and tne British settlements on the coast of Coromandel. The English, expedition fitted out for Pondichery, the chief Frencli stronghold, for this purpose, consisted of eight thousand men, of whom more than half were Europeans, under HISTORY OF EUROPE. 639 Lally ; and after capturing Fort St David, to which the chap. British had retired in the former war, they besieged Madras in form. The" garrison, consisting of eighteen 174C - hundred European and two thousand sepoy troops, had to sustain a variety of desperate assaults, almost without intermission, for two months. At length the siege was raised, when the brave besieged were nearly reduced to extremities, by the arrival of the English fleet with six isth Aug. hundred fresh troops. Lally retired precipitately, and the British immediately carried the war into the enemy's territories. Colonel, afterwards Sir Eyre Coote, invested and took the important fortress of Wandimash in the Carnatic ; and Lally having collected all his forces to regain that stronghold, was met and totally defeated by Jan. 12th. Coote, with six thousand men, who made General de Bussy and several of the ablest French officers prisoners, and took twenty pieces of cannon. This great victory proved decisive of the fate of the French power in India. Lally April, 1760. was soon after shut up in his capital, after losing all the detached forts which he held in the province ; he was closely blockaded by sea and land by the victorious armies and fleets of England ; and at length, after a protracted siege of eight months, in which the gallant Frenchman x 0rme ;i exerted all the expedients of courage and skill to avert £?°> ?' 24 -... L ~ Martin, vm. his fate, his resources were exhausted, he was compelled A 44. to capitulate, and in the middle of January the British 102, 104. standards were hoisted on the towers of Pondichery. 1 Robert Clive, afterwards Lord Clive, the founder of the British empire in India, to whom these triumphs Early his- were mainly owing, was born at the ancient seat of his cuvef ancestors, near Market-Drayton, in Shropshire, on the 29th September 1725. His family had been settled there since the twelfth century ; but, like many others of old extraction in that country, had never risen to eminence either for good or for evil. Traces of the character of the future hero are to be found even in the earliest anec- dotes of the child. The letters, still existing, of his rela- G40 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLVIII. 1746. tions prove, tliat when yet only seven years of age, his determination of purpose, vehement passions, and unflinch- ing intrepidity, were conspicuous. " Fighting," says one of his uncles, " to which he is beyond all measure addicted, gives his temper such a fierceness and imperiousness, that he flies out on every trifling occasion." At the age of twelve he terrified all the people of Market-Drayton by climbing to the top of the lofty steeple of the village, where he was seen for some time calmly seated on a stone spout near the summit. Soon after, he formed the boys of the place into a sort of predatory band, who levied contributions of apples and halfpence on the shopkeepers. In the vain hope of quelling his turbulent disposition, he was sent from school to school, in all of which he learned little, and gained the reputation of being exceedingly unmanageable, though one old master, more sagacious than the rest, prophesied that the wild boy would make a great man. At length his relations, anxious to get quit i Malcolm's of him, were glad to accept the offer of a writership, or cifvefi.43. civil appointment in India; and he set sail for Madras at the age of eighteen, in the year 1743. 1 Young Give had not been long in India before his 11 His first in- peculiar character made itself conspicuous. At first he in°to U acth n e was melancholy and reserved : he had no friends, the life - warm climate affected his health, solitude oppressed his spirits ; and in his letters he speaks of his " dear native England, and Manchester the centre of all my wishes," with an affection which could hardly have been antici- pated from his previous temper. This solitude, however, was the making of his character : he took with vehement ardour to reading, and compensated in a few years for the previous idleness of his youth. The uncontrollable fury of his passions, however, still continued : his violent temper frequently put him in danger of losing his situa- tion ; he fought a desperate duel with a noted bully who had long been the terror of Fort St David ; and twice, in fits of despair, attempted to shoot himself. On both HISTORY OF EUEOPE. G41 occasions the pistol, though well loaded and primed, chap. missed fire ; an occurrence with which Clive was so much _ _ — 1 struck, that on laying down the weapon he exclaimed, /4 ' that "surely he was destined for something great !" An opportunity soon occurred for showing his real character. War having broken out in India in 1746, between the English and French, he entered the army as an ensign at the age of twenty-one, and soon distinguished himself highly in several operations against Dupleix. Peace having soon after been concluded, he again returned for a season to pacific pursuits, and was appointed commis- sary, with the rank of captain. But in 1749 his career of greatness began by the master-stroke which he sug- gested to the government, and in person delivered against Arcot, the capital of the rajah of the same name, and Life^T"' 3 the heroic valour with which, at the head of a hundred Ss^'mS' and twenty English and two hundred sepoys, he success- ES u n rgh fully defended that fortress," when afterwards besieged, Review, for two months against ten thousand of the bravest an. soldiers in India. 1 Lord Clive was one of the greatest generals and bravest men, and second in civil government to none whom Hischarac- England, so fertile in able statesmen, has produced. It and a states- is hard to say whether he appears with most lustre as the man- hero whose single exploits laid the foundation of a mighty empire, or as the governor whose resolution and integrity stamped the characters which have given stability and permanence to its power. With his defence of Arcot commenced that long series of triumphs which was des- tined to carry the British standards beyond the Himalaya snows and the Indian Archipelago, to Ghuznee and Nan- kin ; with his civil administration, the power which has equalled in extent, and exceeded in duration, the empire of Aurengzebe. His genius for war was intuitive ; he had little instruction, no counsellors; he was born a general. Compelled to form himself, his officers, and his army, he did the whole, amid the deepest adversity, in a few years. VOL. vii. 2 s XLVIII 1749 G42 history of Europe. chap. Like all great men, lie took counsel only of himself; saw- by intuition the whole art of war; communicated his own ardent spirit to a noble band of followers, and awakened among his gallant sepoys a devotion rivalling even that of the tenth legion of Ca?sar, or the Old Guard of Napo- leon. " Such an extent of cultivated territory," it has been eloquently said, " such an amount of revenue, such a multitude of subjects, was never added to the dominion of Rome by the most successful proconsul ; nor were such wealthy spoils ever borne under arches of triumph along the Sacred Way to the threshold of Tarpeian Jove. The fame of those who subdued Antiochus and Tigranes grows dim, compared with the splendour of the exploits which the young Englishman achieved at the head of an army not equal in numbers to half a Roman legion. As a statesman, he first made dauntless and unsparing war on the gigantic system of oppression, extortion, and corrup- tion, which previously existed. In that war he put to hazard his case, his fame, his splendid fortune. If the reproach of the Company and its servants has been nobly taken away; if in India the yoke of foreign masters has been found lighter than that of any native dynasty ; if a body of public servants has been reared, unequalled for their ability, integrity, and public spirit, the praise is in no small degree due to Give. His name stands high on the roll of conquerors ; but it is found in a better list — among those who have done and suffered much for the happiness of mankind.""" He died by his own hand, at the age of forty-nine, in a fit of insanity, produced by the ingratitude and persecution of his country. As a warrior, history must assign him a place in the same rank with Lucullus and Trajan; as a proconsul, the veneration due to Antoninus and Turgot; as a victim of national ingrati- * See Mr Macaulay's noble biography of Clive in the Edinburgh Review — an author upon whom alone the mantle of Hume since his time is worthy to descend. — Edinburgh Review, lxx. 309-312 ; and Miscellaneous Essays, iii. 205. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 643 tude, a place in the narrower but more glorious fane of chap. _. ' . y - i o • • XLVIII. llieinistocles and bcipio. . — The downfall of the French power in India first n ™' brought the English into contact with a still more for- Rise and midable enemy than the ambitious rivals who had so f Hydn long disputed with them the palm of European ascend- Alu ency. On the high table-land of Mysore, elevated three thousand feet above the level of Madras, is to be found a race of men, very different from the inhabitants of the lower plains of India, breathing a purer air, hardened by a cooler temperature, inured to more manly occupations. The inhabitants of Mysore are bold, restless, and impetu- ous ; roving in disposition, predatory in habit, warlike in character ; whose fierce poverty had for ages " insulted the plenty of the vales beneath." Htder Ali was originally a private soldier in the army of the rajah of this district, and he received the command of three hun- dred men, in consequence of* his gallantry at the siege of one of the hill-forts of a neighbouring rajah. He was one of those domineering characters whom nature appears to have formed to command, and who, in troubled times, so often make their way, despite every obstacle, to the head of affairs. So illiterate as to be unable either to read or write, he was yet possessed of the ambition to desire, the daring to seize, and the capacity to wield supreme power ; and the natural sagacity of his mind more than supplied what, in others, is the fruit of length- ened study, or the dear-bought result of experience in the world."" Active, indefatigable, and intrepid, he fear- lessly incurred danger and underwent fatigue in the pur- suit of ambition : liberal of money, affable in maimer, discerning in character, he soon won the affections of his followers, and attracted to his standards that host of * He was entirely ignorant of the processes of arithmetic ; but such was the power he possessed of mental calculation, that he could outstrip, in arriving at a result even of complicated figures, the most skilful arithmeticians; and none of his followers could deceive him in his estimate of the amount of the plunder which should be brought into his treasury. — Mill, iii. 407. 644 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, adventurers who in the East are ever ready to swell the 1 train of conquest. Faithless in disposition, regardless of 1/6b ' oaths, unscrupulous in action, he was distinguished by that singular mixture of great and wicked qualities which, in every age, from the days of Caesar to those of Napoleon, has marked the character of those who raise themselves amidst blood and tumult from a private sta- tion to the command of their country. He appeared at that era, ever so favourable to usurpers, when the esta- blished government is falling to pieces from the weakness and vices of its possessors, and the experienced evils of anarchy at once prepare the throne for an audacious soldier, and induce men to range themselves in willing multitudes under his banners. His career began as a subaltern at the head of two hundred foot and fifty horse ; but he was soon vested with the command of the impor- tant fortress of Dindigul, and rapidly attracted numbers to his standard by the success of his operations, and the boundless license which he permitted to his followers in plundering the adjacent territories. He experienced i wiiks' many reverses ; but rose superior to them all, and went IkScS 1 on fr° m 0De acquisition to another, till he had entirely 2*°' 4 , 4 . 9 ,', subverted the former government, seized the great com- 472. Mill, ° ' ° . iii.404,417, niercial city of Bednore, with its treasures, estimated at Martin, viii. J i-ii-ir 11 c 46,47. Au- twelve millions sterling, placed himself on the throne ot 11s. 1 ' "' Seringapatam, and established his authority over almost the whole southern parts of the Indian peninsula. 1 Hyder had established amicable relations with the Hostilities French in the Carnatic, during the period of their Se^oW influence in India ; but the early destruction of their kcl? alltho- power after he began to rise into importance, prevented rules, but f or a nmn ber of years any rupture between him and the disapproved •> 1 by the Com- British. At length, however, the growing consequence of the Mysore usurper on the one hand, and the rising strength of the Company on the other, neces- sarily brought these two great powers into collision. Hostilities with Hyder were resolved on by the local HISTORY OF EUROPE. 645 authorities in India ; and as a precautionary measure, a chap. XLVIII treaty offensive and defensive was concluded with the Nizam, a rajah whose dominions were more immediately 12 thNov. exposed to his incursions, by which Lord Clive engaged to support him, if attacked, with a considerable body of European and sepoy troops. The Directors at home, less impressed than the authorities on the spot with the indispensable necessity of advancing in power, if they would avoid destruction, evinced the utmost repugnance at this treaty, and distinctly foretold, that if offensive wars were once engaged in, the British would be drawn on from one conquest to another, till they could find no security but in the subjection of the whole, and would be involved in destruction by the very magnitude of their fJShJiaf- acquisitions. 1 * But ere their pacific instructions could 414 470. reach their destination, the die was already cast, and the 249. dreadful war with Hyder Ali had commenced. Within a few weeks after its opening, the British were rewarded for their aggression by the defection of First cam- their faithless ally, the Nizam, who deserted to the Mysore gainst him, chief with all his forces ; and at the same time intelli- gLtS gence was received that the latter had accommodated all his differences with the Mahrattas in the north, so that the confederacy which the Euglish had projected against Hyder was now turned against themselves. The united Aug. 1767. forces of Hyder and the Nizam, forty thousand strong, approached Madras, and ravaged the country up to the very gates of the fortress ; and though Colonel Smith, J b \ , - .-, "oth Sept. with the British and sepoy troops, defeated them with 1767. " " If once we pass the bounds of defensive warfare, we shall be led from one acquisition to another, till we shall find no security but in the subjection of the whole, which, by dividing your force, would lose you the whole, and end in our extirpation from Hindostan." And again, in another despatch, "We utterly disapprove and condemn offensive wars." The same principles were constantly followed by the Court of Directors, both during the administration of Warren Hastings and Marquis Wellesley ; but these great statesmen early perceived that it was impossible for a handful of foreigners to stop short in the career of conquest, and that, like Napoleon, they were constantly placed in the alternative of universal dominion or total ruin. Directors Despatch, 22d April 1768 ; Auber, i. 223-226. G46 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, the loss of sixty pieces of cannon, want of cavalry pre- 1 vented him from obtaining any decisive success in the 1767 ' face of the numerous squadrons of the Mysore horse. 17C8. The hostile incursion was repeated in the following year, when Hyder laid waste the Company's territory in so Bavage a manner, that like the countries desolated by Timour or Ghenghis Khan, nothing remained but bleached skeletons and smoking ruins to attest where the dwell- ings of man had been. In the midst of these successes, he opened a communication with the French autho- rities at Pondichcry, to whom he announced the approaching destruction of the English power in the peninsula; while the East India Directors at home, panic-struck by the magnitude of the disasters already incurred, and the interminable prospect of wars and dif- ficulties which opened before them, renewed in earnest terms their representations on the necessity of resuming the now almost hopeless attempt to effect an accommo- dation. At length Hyder struck a decisive blow. Sending all his heavy cannon and baggage home from Pondi- chcry, which during his incursions he had twice visited to confer with the French, he put himself at the head of six thousand of his swiftest horse, drew the English army by a scries of able movements to a considerable April 17C9. distance from Madras, and then, by a rapid march of a hundred and twenty miles in three days, interposed between them and that capital, and approached to Mount St Thomas, in its immediate vicinity. The Council were filled with consternation : although the fortress could have held out till the arrival of the English army, the open town and villas in its vicinity were exposed to immediate destruction ; and they gladly embraced the overtures of accommodation which, like Napoleon, he made in the moment of his greatest success, and con- 1 Mill, iii. -,,, i«i5 -r t-» i • 4u, 424. eluded peace on the invaders terms. 1 By this treaty it 24 l y 1 , e 250. was provided that both parties should make a mutual restitution of their conquests, and that in case of attack HISTOKY OP EUROPE. 647 they should afford each other mutual aid and assis- chap. tance. f™5: The principal object of Hjder in concluding thus sud- 1769. 16. denlj this important treaty, was to obtain for his Transac- usurped throne the countenance of the English power : Se, e the same motive which was Napoleon's inducement, fenlwd 5 e immediately after obtaining the consular office, to make *^ der proposals of peace to Great Britain. He soon after, "»i780. accordingly, made a requisition for the junction of a small body of English soldiers to his forces, in order to demonstrate to the native powers the reality of the alliance. The Company's affairs received so serious a shock by this inglorious treaty, that their stock fell at once sixty per cent. Hyder, some years afterwards, became involved in wars with his powerful northern neighbours, the Mahrattas, in which he was at first reduced to great straits, and he made an earnest requisi- tion for assistance to the b Company, in terms of the treaty of 1769. But the Madras council contrived, on one pretence or another, with more prudence than good faith, to elude the demand, to the inconveniences of which they were now fully awakened. These repeated refusals excited great jealousy in the breast of the July 1776. Mysore chief, the more especially as lie was well aware that the English had, in the interval since the cessation of hostilities, greatly augmented their army, especially in cavalry, in which it had formerly experienced so lamen- table a deficiency, and that they had now thirty thou- sand well-disciplined men in the presidency. Accord- ingly, in June 1780, he descended into the Carnatic, at the head of the most powerful and best-appointed army which ever had appeared in India, consisting of twenty thousand regular infantry, and seventy thousand horse, of whom nearly a half were disciplined in the Euro- pean method. So suddenly, and with such secresy, were his measures taken, that the dreadful torrent was in motion before the English were so much as aware of 648 HISTOKY OF EUROPE. chap, its existence ; and the government of Madras were XLVIII. apprised of the approach of the enemy for the first time i M ]2' by vast columns of smoke rising from burning villages vin. 47,48. m the Camatic, which, converging from different direc- Auber, i. , c ° , 540, 579. tions, threatened to wrap the capital itself in conflagra- tion. 1 Mill, iv. Mr Burke has described, with more than even his usual 17. Mr Burke's fervour of eloquence, this dreadful irruption : — " Hyder description ii-iii p • i • * o ofHyder's resolved, in the gloomy recesses ol a mind capacious of irruption. ^^ ^.j^g^ ^ ] eaye the whole Camatic an everlasting monument of vengeance, and to put perpetual desolation as a barrier between him and those against whom the faith, which holds the mortal elements of the world together, was no protection. Having terminated his dis- putes with every enemy and every rival, who buried their mutual animosities in their common detestation of the European invader, he drew from every quarter what- ever a savage ferocity could add to his new rudiments in the arts of destruction ; and, compounding all the mate- rials of fury, havoc, and desolation into one black cloud, he hung for a while on the declivities of the mountains. While the objects of these calamities were idly and stupidly gazing thunderstruck on this menacing meteor, which blackened all their horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured down the whole of its contents upon the plains of the Carnatic. Then ensued a scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart conceived, and which no tongue can adequately tell. All the horrors of war, before known or heard of, were mercy to that new havoc. A storm of universal fire blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed every temple. The miserable inhabitants, flying from their flaming villages, in part were slaughtered ; others, without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank, or sacredness of function, fathers torn from children, husbands from wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and amidst the goading spears of drivers, and the trampling of pursuing horses, were swept HISTORY OF EUROPE. 649 CHAP. XLVIII. 1780. S, IV. 161. suc- cesses of Hyder in theCarnatic. into captivity in an unknown and hostile land. Those who were able to evade this tempest fled to the walled cities; but, escaping from fire, sword, and exile, they fell into the jaws of famine. For months together these creatures of suffering, whose very excess and luxury in their most plenteous days had fallen short of the allow- ance of our austerest fasts, silent, patient, resigned, with- ^^ out sedition or disturbance, almost without complaint, e ^ h e * perished by a hundred a-day in the streets of Madras ; J-™g while every day seventy at least laid their bodies in the ^by- streets or on the glacis of Tanjore, and expired of famine -259, •: in the granary of India." 1 The'success of Hyder in this tremendous inroad was l8 almost equal to that of Surajee Dowlah, in the attack Great, upon Calcutta twenty-four years before. With a degree gg^ of daring and military skill which rivalled that of Napo- se'ptTo. Icon himself, he interposed with his whole forces between the two English armies, the. one commanded by Colonel Baillie, the other by Sir Hector Monro, who were approaching each other, and only six miles distant; over- whelmed the former, when caught in ambuscade, by the multitude and vehement charges of his horse, literally trampling the English infantry under foot with his ter- Nov. 3. rible squadrons and ponderous elephants,* and compelled the latter to retreat, and leave open the whole fortresses aM;iuiv of the Carnatic to his attacks. The Indian chief was not ^,171.... slow in following up this extraordinary tide of success. 2 48,49.^ Arcot was speedily reduced ; the whole open country 582. ravaged, and siege laid to Wandimash, Vellore, Chingle- * The valour displayed on this occasion by Colonel Baillie with his little band of followers, consisting only of four hundred Europeans and two thousand sepoys never was exceeded even in the glorious fields of Indian warfare. Surrounded on all sides by the countless squadrons of Hyder's horse, torn m pieces bv a terrible fire from sixty pieces of cannon, borne down by the weight and fury of the armed elephants, they yet long resisted with such vigour as more than once balanced the fortunes of the day, and threw Hyder into such perplexity, that but for the advice of Lally he would have drawn off in despair The accidental explosion of two ammunition waggons early deprived them of their reserve ammunition; but, nevertheless, they continued the combat with heroic resolution to the last, forming a square which repelled thirteen different G50 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, put, and all the strongholds of the Carnatic. Parties of XIAIIL the Mysorean horse approached to the gates of Madras ; im the whole villas in its vicinity were deserted, and prepa- rations were even made in the presidency for crossing the surf at the bar and abandoning the Carnatic for ever. It is invariably in a crisis of this kind that the really Thefi^n great acquire an ascendency. The timid shrink from w'aJreu ° f responsibility, the multitude clamour for submission ; SsJ?" tnc brave an< * intrepid stand forth as the deserving EyreCoote leaders of mankind. The council of Madras in the last re-estab- lishesaffairs. extremity applied to the government of Calcutta for aid ; and Wabren Hastings was at its head. Instantly sum- moning up all his resources, he rose superior to the danger ; despatched Sir Eyre Coote with five hundred Europeans, and an equal number of sepoys, to the suc- cour of Madras ; and, superseding the council, whose improvidence or incapacity had brought the public fortunes to such a pass, took upon himself the supreme direction both in his own and the sister presidency. Nothing could exceed the disastrous state of affairs when Sir Eyre Coote now took the field against Hyder. His whole force did not exceed seven thousand men, of whom onlv one thousand seven hundred were Europeans ; and he had to oppose a hundred thousand enemies, of whom eighty thousand were admirable horse, and three thousand French auxiliaries, who had recently landed from Europe in hopes, by the aid of so renowned a chieftain, of restor- ing their fallen fortunes in the East, By a conduct, however, at once prudent and intrepid, he succeeded in attacks of the Mysore horse, the wounded raising themselves in many cases from the ground to resist the enemy with their bayonets, while the officers kept them at bay with their swords. Two hundred were made prisoners, for the most part desperately wounded, including the commander himself and his principal officers. They owed then- lives to the humane interposition of Lally and the other French officers in the service of Hyder, who also did all in their power to mitigate the horrors of the captivity, more terrible far than death, which they afterwards underwent in the Mysorean dungeons.— See Narrative of the Sufferings of those who fell into Hyder s hands after the battle of Conjeveram, Sept. 10, 1780; Mem. of War in Asia, ii. 102-188; Mill, iv. 165-166. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 651 re-establishing affairs in the Carnatic. The sieges of chap. Wandimash,Vellore, and the other beleaguered fortresses, L were raised by Hjder at the approach of this new and 1781- more formidable enemy; and at length, after a variety of operations attended with various success, a decisive battle was fought between the opposing forces on the sea-coast near Porto Novo, whither the English had proceeded, in order to stop the incursions of the Mysoreans in the direction of Cuddalore. The contest lasted six hours, and success was, for a long period, so nearly balanced, that the whole reserves of the English were brought into action ; but at length, by incredible exertions, Hyder's forces were repulsed at all points, and driven off the field in such ™lb\ 781 ' /.«■,■ Mill, lv. contusion, that, if Sir Eyre Coote had possessed an 224, 22s. adequate force of cavalry, he woidcl have been involved 624, wi in total ruin. 1 Warren Hastings, to whose energy and determination this great success was mainly owing, was born of an Early his- ancient family, said to have been originally sprung from Stings, the Danish sea-kings, at Daylesford, in Worcestershire, on 6th December 1732. He was early distinguished by a studious turn, and- inspired with a strong desire to rein- state the fortunes of his family, which once had over- shadowed all the neighbouring proprietors, but had been sadly dilapidated in the lapse of centuries. At the age of seven years, as he lay on the brink of a little rivulet which flows through the old estate of his family on its way to the Isis, he first formed the resolution to regain his family possessions. This desire increased as he advanced in years : he pursued the design with that calm but indomitable spirit which distinguished his, as it does every other really great character. When, under a tropical sun, sr GIe5g , s he ruled fifty millions of Asiatics, his heart was still at HastfL Daylesford ; and after innumerable vicissitudes of fortune, 1 5 ' 15 * ' he returned there to die, and left his bones in the church- mEdin! 7 yard, where he had played in infancy with peasant ixx?iG7. children. 2 " He had regained the estate," it has been 652 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLVIII. 1783. 2). His progress as a states- man. 1 Gleig, i. 156', '621. Ma caul ay in Edin. Review, Ixx. 225, 227. finely said — "he bad restored his family ; he had done more : he had preserved an empire' — hehad restored his country." The talents of the young Hastings, both in study and sport, soon attracted the notice alike of his companions and preceptors at school, and in 1750 he sailed with a civil appointment for India. After undergoing many vicissitudes of fortune, his talents as a diplomatic agent became so conspicuous, that after the battle of Plassey, in 1757, he was appointed resident at the court of Meer Jaffier. In 1764, he returned with a limited fortune to England ; but his ardent spirit still looked to the East as the scene of greatness, and in 1769 he re-embarked for Hindostan. Such was the reputation for capacity which he had already obtained, that, in 1772, he took his seat at the head of the Council Board of Calcutta. His vigour, audacity, and determination there, enabled him to triumph over a powerful confederacy of domestic enemies which had wellnigh proved his ruin ; and the death of his prin- cipal foe, the Maharajah Nuncomar, whom he brought to the scaffold for forgery, left him without a rival in civil administration, and struck terror into the hearts of the whole native population of India. Subsequently he engaged in many deeds which will ill bear the scrutiny of European ideas, but were strictly in unison with the daring which in every age has laid the foundation of Eastern greatness. Yet even in the most exceptionable of these, and those which were afterwards made the subject of such violent declamation in England — the Rohilla war, the revolution of Benares, and the spoliation of the Prin- cesses of Oude— he acted under the pressure of state necessity, and agreeably to the maxims of oriental government and hostility. Every farthing he exacted was applied to the public service ; and, after having held the office of governor-general, and had all the wealth of the East at his command for thirteen years, he returned home with a fortune so moderate as to be evidently the saving only of his official income. 1 HISTORY OF EUROPE. G53 Hastings, in civil life, was the counterpart of Napoleon chap. . XLVIII. in war. He was an example of the class of lofty minds 1 781 who, disregarding lesser objects, and often breaking subordi- nate rules, aim only at the attainment of great and last- His chanc- ing designs. With him, as with the heroes of Corneille, errors, state necessity was the code of public morality. If he had been born in France in Napoleon's time, the Emperor would have made him his first councillor of state. Invin- cible resolution, moral courage, resolute determination, persevering efforts, unwearied public spirit, devoted patri- otism, were his great characteristics ; and it is by such qualities that empires are won and saved. Some of his actions, viewed according to European ideas, appear harsh, a few blamable ; and certainly the great qualities of Hastings cannot abrogate the sacred rule, that the end will not justify the means. Yet must some allow- ance be made for the forces by which he was assailed, and the tortuous policy with which he was constrained to contend in the East. Good faith and just-dealing have ever been unknown in Hindostan ; moderation in con- quest is there invariably set down to fear. Hastings combated the Asiatics, sometimes perhaps too rudely, but only when constrained by external danger or state neces- sity, with their own weapons. History, on this account, cannot pronounce him a faultless character ; yet must it respect the grandeur of mind which shone conspicuous even in his most questionable actions, and admire the noble spirit which disdained to bend before, and ulti- mately triumphed over, the most formidable combination ever arrayed in Great Britain against a single individual. The great success won by the aid rendered by Hastings was, however, balanced by a bloody action, fought on the Further very ground where Baillie had so recently been defeated, stemmed by in which, although neither party could boast decisive of e H\Sg S . success, the English, upon the whole, were worsted ; and ^ e3 ^ T oi H) r der, as they retreated during the night, had good ground for proclaiming it to all India as a decided C54 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, victory. The affairs of Madras were now reduced to XLVnl - extremities. Lord Macartney, who had just arrived 17fil - there as governor, in vain made proposals of peace to the victorious chief: another murderous and indecisive Sept. 28. action took place in the end of September. There was not a rupee in the treasury, nor the means of fitting out an additional soldier ; the supreme government at Calcutta was as much straitened in finances, in consequence of a burdensome war with the Mahrattas, as the Madras presidency ; and nothing but the unconquerable firmness and energy of Mr Hastings' administration preserved the affairs of the Company from total ruin. By his inde- fatigable efforts, and the aid of the funds which he had forced from the princesses of Oude, the resources of Lord Macartney were so much augmented, that his lord- No v. 12. ship was enabled, in November, to undertake the impor- tant enterprise of attacking Negapatam, a stronghold of llyder's 011 the sea-coast, which gave him an easy entry into the Carnatic ; and with such vigour were the opera- tions conducted, that in a few weeks the place was taken, and the garrison of seven thousand men made prisoners. 3d Dec The British upon this regained their superiority in the field, and Sir Eyre Coote, taking advantage of it, pushed on and relieved Ycllore, to the infinite joy of the garrison, who had been sixteen months closely blockaded, and were then reduced to the last extremity. Sir Eyre Coote, whose valour and conduct had done so much towards the re-establishment of affairs in the Carnatic, soon after reduced Chitore, and drove the enemy entirely out of the Tanjore. He afterwards fought, with check- ered success, several other actions with his old antagonist Feb. 17. Hyder. Colonel Braithwaite, with two thousand men, was totally defeated by Tippoo Saib, Hyder's son, at the head of ten thousand horse and twenty pieces of cannon, on the banks of the Cole river in the Tanjore ; and the humane interposition of Lally and the French auxiliary officers alone preserved the prisoners from destruction : from H1ST0EY OF EUROPE. 655 while, after a bloody action, Hycler in person was repulsed chap. by Sir Eyre Coote near Arnee, a few months after. This 1 was the last contest between these two redoubtable 72 " antagonists : Sir Eyre was soon after obliged by bad Dec. 3. health to return to Calcutta ; and Hyder, in the midst of the most active operations in conjunction with the French 1 . fleet of twelve sail of the line, which had arrived off. the goo, 031. 11 1 T i MM, iv. coast, was summoned to another world, and died at 210, 225. Chitore at the advanced age of eighty-two. 1 Peace had been concluded between the Bombay govern- ment and the Mahrattas in the May preceding, which War with enabled the governor-general to assist the Madras pre- mwontf sidency with large succours; and offensive operations Bombay, were commenced at all points against Tippoo, who had JJJJJjJf succeeded to his father's dominions, and all his animosity against the English government. The contest, however, was still extremely equally balanced ; and the govern- ment at Madras was far frojn exhibiting the unanimity and vigour which the importance of the occasion demanded. In vain Lord Macartney, who was aware of the slender December tie by which oriental armies are held together, urged General Stuart, who had succeeded Sir Eyre Coote in the command of the army, to take advantage of the con- sternation produced by the death of Hyder and absence of Tippoo, and instantly attack the enemy. The precious moments were lost : dissension broke out between the civil and military authorities, and Tippoo joined the army and established himself on his father's throne in the beginning of January. He was recalled, however, to the Jan. 4. centre of his dominions, obliged to evacuate all his father's conquests in the Carnatic, and abandon and blow up Arcot, in consequence of the appearance of a formi- dable enemy in the heart of his power. The Bombay government, having considerable forces at their disposal in consequence of the Mahratta peace, had detached a powerful body, under Colonel Humberstone and General Mathews, into the Mysore country. These enterprising 656 HISTORY OF EUEOPE. CHAP. XLVIII. 1783. i Mill, iv. 224, 331. Auber, iv. 624, 631. •_'.7. Final dis- asters of the expe- dition. March. April 9. 2 Mill, iv. 232, 239. Auber, i. 629, 632. officers carried Onore by storm, on the sea-coast ; mounted the great pass called the Hussaingurry Ghaut, four thou- sand feet high, surmounted by a road slowly ascending through cliffs and precipices for five miles ; drove the enemy from all the batteries and forts, hitherto deemed impregnable, by which it was defended ; and rapidly advancing along the table-land of Mysore, at the summit made themselves masters of the rich city of Bednore, with a vast treasure, by capitulation ; carried Ananpore and Bangalore by assault, and spread terror throughout the whole centre of Tippoo's dominions. 1 This formidable irruption completely relieved the Car- natic, which had hitherto been almost exclusively the seat of hostilities, from the invasion by which it had been for a series of years so cruelly ravaged, and, by depriving Tippoo of the treasure at Bednore, amounting to above a million sterling, seriously crippled his power. But it led, in the first instance, to a cruel and unexpected reverse. The magnitude of the spoil taken at Bednore threw the apple of discord among the victors. General Mathews refused to devote any portion of it to the pay of the troops, though they were above eighteen months in arrear; Colonel Humberstone and several of the leading officers were so dissatisfied with this that they threw up their commands, and returned to lay their complaints before the government at Bombay ; the army was ruinously dispersed to occupy all the towns which had been taken ; and, in the midst of this scene of cupidity and dissen- sion, Tippoo suddenly appeared amongst them at the head of fifty thousand men. Mathews, with two thousand infantry, was defeated before Bednore, and soon after forced to surrender in that town. The prisoners were put in irons, marched off like felons to a dreadful imprison- ment in the dungeons of Mysore ; the whole towns taken by the British, in the high country, were regained ; 2 and the remnant of their forces, driven down the passes, threw themselves into the important fortress of Manga- HISTORY OF EUROPE. 657 lore on the sea-coast below the Ghauts, where they were chap. immediately invested by the victorious troops of the 1 Sultaun. - 1783 - The governments of Madras and Bombay, alive to the vital importance of withdrawing Tippoo's attention from British 'in- this siege by diversions in other parts of his dominions, Mysore" put in motion two different expeditions from the Malabar to^eac? and Coromandel coasts, into the country of Coimbatore, in the centre of his dominions, and endeavoured to stir up a civil war there by supporting the cause of the deposed rajah of Mysore, whom Hyder had dispossessed. This project proved entirely successful. Colonel Fullarton, Nov. 13. who commanded the southern army, acted with great vigour and intelligence, reduced Palagatchery, one of the strongest places in India, commanding an important pass on the sea-coast, made himself master of Coimbatore on the high-road to Seringapatam, the centre of the Sultaun's power, and menaced that capital itself. At the same Nov. 2c time, the northern army made considerable progress on the other side ; and both, converging towards the capital, had the conquest of Seringapatam full in view. The superiority of the British forces in the field was now apparent ; the conclusion of a peace between France and England, of which intelligence had lately arrived in India, had deprived Tippoo of all hope of European aid, and the gallantry of the brave garrison of Mangalore had baffled the whole efforts of his vast army, and exposed them to dreadful losses by sickness during the rainy months. Discouraged by so many untoward circum- stances, the bold spirit and inveterate hostility of the Sultaun at length yielded : after several insincere attempts at an accommodation, a real negotiation was set on foot 1 Mi]1 iv in the close of 1783. Unhappily the pacification came fj^ 2 ^ too late to save Mangalore, the heroic garrison of which, late War . „ & in Asia, i. after sustaining a siege of seven mouths against sixty 286,403. thousand men, had at length been forced by famine to 631, m. capitulate, 1 on the honourable terms of marching to the VOL. VII. 2 T 658 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, nearest English territories with all their arms and accou- XLVIIL trements. But it was in the end concluded, and delivered 1784 - the English from the most formidable war they had yet March 11. sustained for the empire of the East. On the 11th of March 1784, peace was concluded on the equitable terms of a mutual restitution of conquests. It is seldom, says Gibbon, that the father and the son — change m- he who has borne the weight and lie who has been brought TTppooln 7 up in the lustre of the diadem— exhibit equal capacity for a h rmies dian the administration of affairs. Tippoo inherited from his father all his activity and vigour, all his cruelty and perfidy, and, if possible, more than his inveterate hatred against the English ; but he was by no means his rival either in military genius, or in the capacity for winning the affections and commanding the respect of mankind. Above all, he was not equally impressed as his great pre- decessor with the expedience of combating the invaders with the national arms of the East, and wearing out the disciplined and invincible battalions of Europe by those innumerable horsemen, in whom, from the earliest times, the real strength of Asia has consisted. Almost all Hyder's successes were gained by his cavalry : it was when severed from his infantry and heavy artillery, and attended only by a few flying guns, that his forces were most formidable. And it augments our admiration of the firmness and discipline with which the British and sepoy regiments under Coote withstood his assaults, when we recollect that they had to resist for days and weeks together, under the rays of a tropical sun, the incessant charges of a cavalry rivalling that of the Parthians in swiftness, equalling that of the Mamelukes in daring, approaching to that of the Tartars in numbers. But it was the very excess of the admiration which their great qualities awakened among the native powers which proved the ruin of Tippoo, and in the end gave the British the empire of the East, The officers of the Mysore court were so much struck by the extraordinary spectacle of a HISTOEY OP EUEOPE. G59 few thousand disciplined men successfully resisting the chap. thundering charges of thirty or forty thousand admirable horsemen, that they conceived that the secret lay not in 1785 - their character but their tactics ; and naturally enough imagined, that if they could give to their own numbers and daring the discipline and steadiness of European troops, they would prove irresistible. Hence the general adoption, not only in the Mysore, but the other Indian states, of the European tactics, arms, its ruinous and discipline : a change of all others the most ruinous to the md* their arms, and which, in subsequent times, has proved ff ,3^° fatal to the independence of Turkey. Every people will P owers - find safety best in their own peculiar and national forces : the adoption of the tactics and military system of another race, will generally share the fate of the transplantation of a constitution to a different people. It was neither by imitating the Roman legions that the Parthians defeated the invasions of Crassus and Julian ; nor by rivalling the heavy-armed crusaders of Europe, that Saladin baffled the heroism of Richard ; nor by vanquishing the French infantry, that Alexander forced Napoleon into the Moscow retreat. Light horse ever have been, and ever will be, the main strength of the Asiatic monarchies ; and when they rely on such defenders, and these are conducted by competent skill, they have hitherto proved in the end invincible. It is the adoption of the system of European warfare which has uniformly proved their ruin. Hyder's horse, like the Parthian or Scythian cavalry, might be repulsed, but they could not be destroyed. The European squares toiled in vain after their fugitive squadrons, and, when worn out by incessant marching, found themselves enveloped by an indefatigable and long invisible enemy. But Tippoo's battalions coidd not so easily escape. Pro- tection to their guns and ammunition waggons required that they should stand the shock of regular soldiers : Asiatic vehemence strove in vain to withstand European valour in a set field ; the strength of the East was lost G60 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, without that of the West being gained; and in the attempt YTVTTF cjo 1 to substitute the one for the other, the throne of Mysore 78-J " fell to the earth/' 5 " Soon after the Indian empire of the East India Mr Hast- Company had been engaged in these desperate contests protract" for their very existence on the plains of the Carnatic, the prosecution. statesman w hose firmness and ability had brought them through the crisis, was exposed to an unparalleled persecu- tion from the people on whom he had conferred so inesti- mable a benefit. In the confusion and vicissitudes of an empire thus suddenly elevated to greatness in a distant hemisphere, without any adequate restraint either on private cupidity or public ambition, many deeds of injustice had been committed, many private fortunes made by means which would not bear the light, many acts of oppression perpetrated in the name, and sometimes under the pres- sure, of state necessity. All these misdeeds, inseparable from an empire rising under such peculiar and unparal- leled circumstances, were visited on the head of Mr Hastings. Faction fastened on the East as the chosen field of its ambitious efforts, where the lever was to be found by which the inestimable prize of Indian opulence was to be wrested from the hands of its present possessors. The sacred names of justice and equity, of religion and humanity, were prostituted as a cloak to the selfishness of private ambition ; and the whole efforts of a powerful coalition of parties in the British islands, devoted for a * In the war with Hyder in 1768, Colonel Wood, who commanded the British forces, found it impossible to bring him to a pitched battle. In vain the Madras government tried to equip him with a light train of artillery and a body of chosen men, in hopes that by the velocity of their advance they might succeed in bringing him to action ; all their efforts were defeated by the rapidity and secrecy of his movements. At length, Wood, completely exhausted with the pursuit, hoping to rouse the Sultaun's pride, wrote him a letter, stating " that it was disgraceful for a great prince, at the head of a large army, to fly before a detachment of infantry and a few pieces of cannon, unsupported by cavalry." Hyder, however, returned the following characteristic answer : — " I have received your letter, in which you invite me to an action with your army. Give me the same sort of troops that you command, and your wishes shall be accomplished. You will in time come to understand my mode of warfare. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 661 long course of years to the persecution of the statesman chap. who had saved our empire in the East from destruction. XLVIIL 1785. Early in 1782, the House of Commons, on the motion 30. of Mr Dundas, and under the influence of the Rocking- Proceedings ham administration, adopted a resolution condemnatory menum the of Mr Hastings' administration, which led to a vote of mJjIo. recall of that governor-general by the East India Com- oTt.Vu pany. The latter resolution was, after the death of the Marquis of Rockingham, the head of the ministry, rescinded, by a large majority of the East India proprie- tors ; but the investigation resolved on by the Commons was prosecuted with increased vigour by the coalition ministry of Mr Fox and Lord North, by which the former cabinet was succeeded. Mr Hastings finally resigned his office, and returned to this country early in 1785 ; and in the Feb.i,i785. following year, the prosecution commenced under the administration of Mr Pitt, who had succeeded to the May9,i787. helm. The impeachment was solemnly voted by a large Feb. 13, majority of the Commons : proceedings soon after com- menced with extraordinary solemnity before the House of g^ ub 6 e 9 Y- Lords, and were protracted for manv vears in Westmin- mm, v. 40, 100. Pari. ster Hall, with a. degree of zeal and talent altogether Deb. i78o\ unexampled in the British senate. 1 In the earlier stages of the proceedings against Mi- Hastings in the House of Commons, Mr Pitt voted with him, and, in consequence, a considerable part of the accusations were negatived by the House of Commons. Shall I risk my cavalry, which cost a thousand rupees each horse, against your cannon-balls, which cost twopence 1 No ! I will march your troops until their legs shall become the size of their bodies — yoii shall not have a blade of grass nor a drop of water. I will hear of you every time your drum beats, but you shall not know where I am once a-month. I will give your army battle ; but it must be when I please, not when you please." Hyder was as good as his word. He laid waste the country, and, retiring before Colonel Wood, drew him on till his little army was exhausted with fatigue and privations, and in that weakened state attacked him, captured all his artillery, and reduced him to such straits that nothing but the opportune arrival of succours under Colonel Smith saved him from a total defeat. Had Tippoo's armies been formed on the same model, his descendants would, in all probability, have been still on the throne of Seringapatam. — See Martin, viii. 46, note. 662 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLVIII. 1785. 31. Proceedings and charges against Mr Hastings before the Commons. His friends looked forward with reason to a total absolution. Not only on several preliminary questions, but on the great question of the Rohilla war, he had the support of government, and these charges were negatived in the House of Commons by a majority of 119 to 67. But, in regard to the charge of extortion from the Rajah of Benares, the prime minister suddenly took part with the Whig prosecutors, stigmatising the fine levied on that potentate (£500,000) as enormous and oppressive, and declaring, in regard to these transactions, " the conduct of Mr Hastings has been so cruel, unjust, and oppressive, that it was impossible that he, as a man of honour or honesty, having any regard to faith or conscience, could any longer resist; and therefore he had fully satisfied his conscience that Warren Hastings, in the case in question, had been guilty of such enormities and misdemeanours as constitute a crime sufficient to call for an impeachment." This sudden and unexpected change of measure on the part of Mr Pitt, was decisive against Mr Hastings, as it immediately brought the majority in the Lower House against him ; and it led in consequence to many vehement reflections on the conduct of the minister by the friends of the illustrious accused * There is too much reason to * Lord Campbell, in his valuable lives of the Chancellors, gives the following account of this unworthy transaction : — " Pitt having professed scruples when the King hinted a wish that Hastings, a few months after his return, should be called to the Upper House, Thurlow treated these scruples with contempt, and said, there was nothing to prevent the holder of the Great Seal from taking the royal pleasure about a patent of peerage ! — So encouraged, Hastings actually chose his barony. Having fulfilled the resolution he had formed, when an orphan boy at a village-school, to recover the estate which had been for many centuries in his family, he now took his title from it, and declared that he would be ' Lord Daylesford of Daylesford, in the county of Worcester.' But Pitt put an end to all these speculations by voting against him, on the charge respecting the treatment of Cheyte Sing, one of the most unfounded, though he had voted with him on the charges respecting the Rohilla war, one of the best established of the grounds of complaint. A circular had been sent round by the treasury to all the ministerial members to attend and vote against : great was the astonishment of the friends of Mr Hastings and of the whole house ; but it is said that, a few hours before the debate, Pitt received intelligence of the intrigue respecting the peerage, and of Thurlow's declara- tion that, under the King's authority, he would piit the Great Seal to the patent without consulting any other minister. The turn was so sudden, that HISTORY OF EUROPE. 663 believe that Mr Pitt's sudden change on this question, chap. inexplicable on the face of the transaction, was really 1 1 owing to a jealousy of Thurlow or Hastings, altoge- 1785, ther unworthy of his character. And, without disputing that the fine was excessive, it must be allowed that it was imposed on a refractory delinquent, whe had failed in the duty which his allegiance required ; that it was determined on under the overbearing pressure of state necessity ; that the exhaustion of the treasury, and the pressing dangers in the Carnatic, imperatively required an immediate supply of money, which could be obtained in no other way ; that the funds thus acquired proved the salvation of India, by enabling Sir Eyre Coote to make head against Hyder, and were all applied by Mr Hastings to public purposes ; and that, if justice and not persecution had been the object of the House of Commons, it would H ist 1786, have been better obtained by a vote of restitution or h^mm, reparation from the English legislature to the injured ^|Vr«- rajah, than by the adoption of vindictive proceedings jj^g""- against a statesman who, in this matter, did evil that good 261. misht come of it. 1 Never before had such an assemblage of talent, eloquence, and influence been exerted in any judicial even the attorney-general voted against the prime minister : but the impeach- ment was carried by a majority of 119 to 79."— Campbell's Lives of the Chan- cellors, v. 574. If this account is correct, and it tallies too much with the known facts of the case to leave much doubt on the subject, Hastings was sacrificed to the jealousy of Pitt and Thurlow, which had long been known to exist, and at last broke out with such violence, on occasion of the debate in the House of Lords on the sinking-fund, on May 15, 1792, that it led to Mr Pitt's insisting that Thurlow should be removed from office, which was accord- ingly done.— See Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, v. 604. It was certainly imprudent in Thurlow to encourage the King in his design of conferring a peerage on Hastings, pending an accusation, on whatever grounds, in the House of Commons, and irregular to do so without the concurrence of the prime minister; but it was base in Pitt to avenge himself on the chancellor for this imprudence, by voting, contrary to his previous determination, the impeach- ment of Hastings. So true it is that the greatest men are often subject to the meanest jealousies as well as the least. In reality, the merits of Hastings' case had nothing to do with the final determination regarding it : it turned into a mere personal contest between Mr Pitt and Lord Thurlow, as to which should have the government of the cabinet. 664 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLVIII. 1785. 32. His trial before the House of Lords. proceeding as in the impeachment of this great man before the House of Lords. The powerful declamation and impassioned oratory of Mr Fox ; the burning thoughts and thrilling words of Mr Burke ; the playful wit and fervent declamation of Mr Sheridan, gave lustre to the progress of the prosecution. " The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the great hall of William Rufus, which had resounded with acclamations at the inaugura- tion of thirty kings, which had witnessed the just sentence of Bacon and the unjust condemnation of Strafford, and where Charles had confronted his accusers with the calm courage which, amidst many misdeeds, has redeemed his fame. The Peers, robed in gold and ermine, were marshalled by the heralds — a hundred and seventy of them walked in solemn procession to the august tribunal. Lord Heathfield, recently ennobled for his defence of Gibraltar, led the way ; the Prince of Wales, conspicuous for his fine person and noble bearing, closed the proces- sion. The gray old walls were hung with scarlet ; the galleries exhibited a matchless array of talent, grace, and beauty ; the ambassadors of kings and commonwealths gazed on a spectacle which no other country could present. There Siddons, in the prime of her majestic beauty, looked with emotion on a scene surpassing all the imita- tions of the stage. There the historian of the Roman empire thought of the days when Cicero pleaded the cause of Sicily against Verres. There sat side by side the greatest painter and the greatest scholar of the age. The spectacle had allured Reynolds from the easel which has perpetuated so many noble foreheads ; it had induced Parr to suspend his labours in that dark and profound mine from which he had extracted so vast a treasure of erudition.'"" Yet amidst all this stately presence was the eye riveted by the dauntless accused, who, with a figure * The reader will recognise in this splendid passage the gifted hand of Mr Macaulay, worthy, indeed, to paint such a scene. See Edinburgh Review, lxx. 241, 242 ; and Macaclay's Essays, art. Hastings, hi. 446, 447. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 665 worn with care, but a brow of intellectual dignity and a chap. lip of inflexible decision, calmly awaited his fate from the 1 . , . r i • , » 1785. justice or envy of his country. During one hundred and thirty days that the trial 33 lasted, diffused over seven years, the public interest was And his tt ii i i -1 n ii acquittal. unabated : Westminster Hall was thronged with ail the April 23, rank, wit, and beauty of the realm ; and though it ter- minated in the acquittal of the accused by a majority of eicht to one on all the charges, yet the national mind was seriously impressed by the numerous accusations enforced with so much eloquence. His private fortune was almost ruined in the contest ; and nothing but the liberality of the East India Company, who nobly supported him with unshaken firmness, against such a torrent of obloquy, pre- served the otherwise unbefricnded statesman from total ruin.* The Sovereign of Hindostan, the man who might have placed himself on the throne of Aurengzebe, and severed the empire of the Past from the British crown during the perils of the American war, was bowed to the earth by the stroke ; he remained for twenty years in retirement in the country, and sank at last unennobled into the grave. But truth is great, and will prevail. Time rolled on, and brought its wonted changes on its wings. The pas- ultimate sionate declamations of Mr Burke were forgotten ; the p U a b "f c e ° thrilling words of Mr Fox had passed away ; the moral tKbjed courage of Mr Pitt had become doubted in the transac- tion ; but the great achievements, the far-seeing wisdom, the patriotic disinterestedness of Mr Hastings, had slowly regained their ascendency over general thought. Many of the deeds proved against him, it was seen, had been imposed on him by secret instructions, others originated in overbearing necessity. The poverty of the illustrious * The East India Company lent Mr Hastings £50,000 for eighteen years without interest, to meet the expenses of his trial, and settled on him a pension of £4000 for twenty-eight years, from June 24, 1785, being till the expiration of their charter ; and it was continued on its renewal in 1813. — Debates of Lords on Mr Hastings Trial, 495 : Mill, v. 230. 666 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, statesman pleaded eloquently in his favour ; the magni- XLVIIL tude of his services rose in irresistible force to recollection ; 1785 - and a few years before his death he was made a privy councillor, from a growing sense of the injustice he had experienced. George IV., with manly generosity, soon afterwards expressed a desire to make him a peer; an intention which was only prevented from being carried into effect by the dread of appearing to slight a decision, however unjust, of the House of Commons. But even that body in the end became sensible it had been mis- led, and had the magnanimity to make public amends. Aug.4,i8i3. When Mr Hastings appeared in 1813 at the bar of the Lower House, to give evidence on the renewal of the Company's charter, the whole members spontaneously rose up in token of respect to the victim of its former , Auber . persecution ; and when he was called from this check- ed, 687. ered scene, his statue was, with general consent, placed Mill iv 40. . 256.' Pari, by his unshaken friends, the East India Directors, among Hist. 1788, t k ogc f t | ie ii ms trious men who had founded and enlarged the empire of the East. 1 " ;: " Bright, indeed, is the memory of a statesman who has statues erected to his memory forty years after his power has terminated, and thirty after all the vehemence of a * A few hours before Mr Hastings' death, he wrote to the East India Direc- tors—" I have called you by the only appellation that language can afford me, ' Var Wooffadar,' my profitable friend ; for such, with every other quality of friendship, I have ever experienced yours in all our mutual intercourse, and my heart has returned it, unprofitably I own, but with equal sentiments of the purest affection. My own conscience assuredly attests me that I myself have not been wanting in my duty to my respectable employers. I quit the world and their service, to which I shall conceive myself, to the latest moment that I still draw my breath, still devotedly attached, and in the firm belief that, in the efficient body of directors, I have not one individual ill-affected towards me. I do not express my full feelings— I believe them all to be kindly, generously disposed towards me ; and to the larger constituent body I can only express a hope that, if there be any of a different sentiment, the number is but few ; for they have supported me when I thought myself abandoned by all other powers, from whom I ever thought myself entitled to any benefit. My latest prayers shall be offered for their service, for that of my beloved country, and for that also whose interests have so long been committed to my partial guardianship, and for which I feel a sentiment, in my departing hour's, not alien from that which is due from every subject to his own." In January 1820, a proposition was submitted to the East India Directors, HISTORY OF EUROPE. 667 powerful faction, and all the fury of popular outcry had chap. xlviii. 1785. been raised to consign him to destruction. To how many men, once the idol of the people during the plenitude of their power, will similar monuments, after the lapse of Reflections such a period, be raised 1 Persecution of its most illus- ^justice™ trious citizens, of the greatest benefactors of their country, t t J 1 ou J )rosecu " has ever been the disgrace of free states. The sacrifice of Sir Robert Calder, who saved England from Napoleon's invasion ; of Lord Melville, who prepared for it the triumph of Trafalgar ; of the Duke of York, who laid the foundation of Wellington's victories ; the impeachment of Clive, who founded, by heroic deeds, the British empire in the East ; of Warren Hastings, who preserved it by moral determination — prove that the people of this country are sometimes governed by the same principles which caused Miltiades to die in the prison of the country he had saved, consigned Themistocles to Asiatic exile, banished Aristides because it was tiresome to hear him called the Just, and doomed Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Carthage, to an unhonoured sepulchre in a foreign land. Envy is the real cause of all these hideous acts of national injustice : the people would rather persecute the innocent than bear their greatness,""" or feel apprehension from their by their chairman, Campbell Marjoribank, Esq. After enumerating the great services of Mr Hastings, he asked, " How were these great services rewarded ! He was not allowed even to repose in dignified retirement ; he was dragged forward to contend with public accusations, and rewarded with two-and-twenty articles of impeachment. He (Mr M.) would not enter on the proceedings which distressed and harassed the feelings of that great man ; they were at an end, and the feelings which excited them and that great man himself were now no more; but this he thought himself allowed to say, that those proceedings were contrary to the practice and spirit of the laws of this happy nation." It was unanimously resolved, " That as the last testimony of approbation of the long, zealous, and successful services of the late Right Hon. Warren Hastings, in maintaining without diminution the British possessions in India, against the combined efforts of European, Mahommedan, and Mahratta enemies, the statue of that distinguished servant of the East India Company be placed among those of the statesmen and heroes who have contributed in their several stations to the recovery, preservation, and security of the British power and authority in India."— See Auber, i. 695, 696. * " In Miltiade erat magna auctoritas apud omnes civitates, nobile nomen, laus rei civilis maxima. Hsec populus respiciens, maluit eum innoxium phcti, quam se diutius esse in timore." — Corn. Nepos, Miltiades. 668 HISTOEY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLVIII. 1783. 36. Mr Fox's India Bill. Its prema- ture fate. ambition. But the friends of freedom may console themselves with the reflection, that, if popular institutions sometimes expose their best citizens to the effects of these occasional fits of national injustice, they furnish the only sure security for the ultimate triumph of equitable prin- ciples. If despotic power discerns more correctly the real character of its servants, it is liable to no external correc- tion from the growing influence of honourable feelings after the wearing out of transitory passions. And if the historian of England, under other direction, would not have had to record the impeachment of the statesman who had saved its Eastern dominions from destruction, there would not have been permitted to him the grateful duty of contributing, against the united efforts of Whigs and Tories, against all the acrimony of selfish ambition, and all the fury of public passion, to rescue the memory of a great Eastern statesman from unmerited obloquy. These frequent and interesting discussions on Indian affairs, however characteristic of the grievous injustice which the efforts of party frequently inflict on individuals in all popular communities, were, however, attended with one important and salutary consequence, that they drew the attention both of government and the nation to the administration of our Indian dominions, and the absolute necessity of assuming a more direct control than could be maintained by a mere body of directors of a trading com- pany, over the numerous servants, civil and military, of their vast and growing possessions. This opinion, which had been strongly impressed upon the public mind by the serious and protracted disasters in the campaigns with Hyder in 1780 and 1781, was already general in the country before the fall of Lord North's ministry ; and when Mr Fox succeeded to the head of affairs in 1783,'"" all parties were already prepared for a great and inipor- * Mr Pitt, in November 1783, when the coalition ministry were still in power, called on Mr Fox " to bring forward a plan, not of temporary palliation or timorous expedient, but vigorous and effectual, suited to the magnitude, the importance, and the alarming exigence of the case." — Pari. Hist. xxiv. 129. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 669 tant change in the government of our Eastern empire, chap. But the scheme of that able aud ambitious statesman far ^_ — 1 outstripped either the reason or necessity of the case. He m proposed, — in his famous India Bill, which convulsed the Nov. 1783. nation from end to end, and in its ultimate results occa- sioned the downfall of his administration, — to vest the exclusive right of governing India in seven directors, to be named in the act, that is, appointed by the legislature under the direction of the ministry for the time. The vacancies in these commissioners were to be filled up by the House of Commons under the same direction. The ferment raised by this prodigious proposed change in the country was unprecedented in the eighteenth century. Mr Pitt from the first denounced it as tyrannical, uncon- stitutional, and subversive of the public liberties : the sagacious mind of George III. at once perceived that it would render the present ministers, to whom he was secretly hostile, irremovable from their places, and put Mr Fox at the head of a powerful empire, an imperium in imperio, which might soon overshadow the British diadem. By the combined exertions of the crown and the Tory party, -this important innovation was defeated, Dec. is. after it had passed the Lower House, by a small majority of nineteen in the House of Peers, and this defeat was » Pari. Deb. -» it -n i i • XX1V - 1-2, immediately followed by the dismissal of Mr Fox and his 195. whole administration. 1 The ground taken by the King and the Tory party against this celebrated bill, was its unconstitutional ten- objections dency, by vesting the patronage of so large a portion of mii was the empire in directors appointed, not by the executive, haje ' but by the House of Commons ; and it was this consider- ation which gave them the decisive majority which they obtained upon the dissolution of parliament in the April April 1784. following. Nevertheless it is now apparent that, though at that period unperceived or unnoticed, the greatest danger of the proposed change would have arisen, not from this cause, but from the direct control over our 1784. 670 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap. Indian empire thereby conferred on the British legislature. If the vacillating and improvident policy, on many occa- sions forced even upon the resolute and clear-sighted mind of Mr Pitt by the unreflecting habits, and, on material questions, popular control of the House of Commons — and still more the total want of foresight in all financial measures since the peace of Paris in 1814, on the part both of government and the legislature — be compared with the steady rule, invincible firmness, and wise antici- pations of our Indian government during the same period, no doubt can remain that the interests of the East would inevitably have been sacrificed by the change; that the ministerial directors, acting under the guidance of the House of Commons, could never have carried into execu- tion those prompt and vigorous resolutions indispensable for the preservation of dominions so critically situated as those in Hindostan, and so far removed from the resources of the ruling state. In fact, no government under the direct control of a popular assembly would have been permitted to engage in those vast undertakings, or incur the expense of those gigantic establishments, which were necessary to ward off future danger, or obtain present success, over the immense extent of our Indian domi- nions, originally founded and necessarily supported by military power. "* Although, however, Mr Fox's India bill was rejected, yet the numerous abuses of our Indian dominions, as well as the imminent hazard which they had run during the war with Hyder Ali, from the want of a firmly constituted * This is not the place to discuss the details of Mr Fox's bill ; but it does not appear to have been calculated to afford any practical remedy for most of the evils under which the administration of Indian affairs at that period laboured ; and accordingly it is observed with great candour by Mr Mill, whose leaning to the popular side is well known, — " The bills of Mr Fox, many and celebrated as were the men who united their wisdom to compose them, manifest a feeble effort in legislation. They demonstrate that the authors of them, however celebrated for their skill in speaking, were not remarkable for then- powers of thought. For the right exercise of the powers of government in India, not one new security was provided, and it would not be very easy to prove that any strength was added to the old." — Mill's British India, iv. 480. HISTORY OF EUROTE. 671 central government, were too fresh in the public recollec- chap. XT VTT1 tion to permit the existing state of matters to continue. Mr Pitt, accordingly, was no sooner installed in power, 1784, than he brought forward an India bill of his own, which, Mr put's it was hoped, would prove exempt from the objections to which L- which its predecessor had been liable, and, at the same comes law- time, remedy the serious evils to which the administration of affairs in India had hitherto been exposed. This bill passed both Houses, and formed the basis of the system Aug. 13. under which, with some subsequent but inconsiderable amendments, the affairs of the East have been adminis- tered from that period down to the present time. By it the court of directors appointed by the East India Com- pany remained as before, and to them the general adminis- tration of Indian affairs was still intrusted. The great change introduced, was the institution of the board of control, a body composed of six members of the privy council, chosen by the king— the chancellor of the exche- quer and one of the secretaries of state being two — in whom the power of directing and controlling the proceed- ings of the Indian empire was vested. The duties of this board were very loosely denned, and have all ultimately centred in the president, an officer who has become a fourth secretary of state for the Indian empire. They were described as being " from time to time to check, superintend, and control all acts, operations, and concerns which in anywise relate to the civil or military govern- ment or revenues of the territories and possessions of the East India Company." These powers were ample enough ; but in practice they have led to little more than a control of the Company in the more important political or military concerns of the East, leaving the directors in possession of the practical direction of affairs in ordinary cases. All vacancies in official situations, with the exception of the offices of governor-general of India, governors of Madras and Bombay, and commanders-in- chief, which were to be filled up by the British govern- 672 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, nient, were left at the disposal of the East India direc- J tors. A most important provision was made in the insti- i oif 84 ' tution of a secret committee, who were to send to India in hi. c. 24, duplicate such despatches as they might receive from the ni. c. 16! board of control, and in the establishment of the supreme Auber, ii. 1, If ■ Deb 1,16. Wri. government of Calcutta, with a controlling power over the 10851215. other presidencies — a change which at once introduced unity of action into all parts of the peninsula. 1 It cannot be affirmed that this anomalous constitution Reflections will stand the test of theoretical examination, or is con- stitution for firmed by history as regards other states. Still less could it be presumed that a distribution of supreme power between a governor-general and two subordinate gover- nors in the East, and a board of control and body of directors in the British islands, gave any fair prospect either of unity of purpose or efficiency of action. Never- theless, if experience, the great test of truth, be consulted, and the splendid progress of the Indian empire of Great Britain since it was directed in this manner be alone con- sidered, there is reason to hold this system of government one of the most perfect that ever was devised by human wisdom for the advancement and confirmation of political greatness. The secret of this apparent anomaly is to be found in the fact, that this division of power has existed in theory only; that from the great distance of India from the home government, and the pressing interests which so frequently called for immediate decision, the supreme direction of affairs has practically come to be vested in the governors-general; and that in them have been found a succession of great men, second to none who ever appeared in the world for vigour and capacity, and who have vindicated the truth of the saying of Sal- lust, that it is in the strenuous virtue of a few that the real cause of national greatness is in general to be found. It is a curious speculation, the justice of which time will ere long determine, whether the direct and immediate administration of affairs in India by the board of direc- XLvm. 1787. HISTORY OF EUROTE. 673 tors and control, which has lately taken place, instead of chap the governor-general, will not reveal the latent weakness of the system, which has so long been concealed by the great distance of the shores of Hindostan ; and whether steam navigation, and the re-opening the communication with the East by the Red Sea, has not, by bringing the intercourse with Bombay to a fourth of its former time, and thus rendering the board of directors the real rulers of Hindostan, implanted the seeds of death in the Indian empire of Great Britain. It soon appeared how much the vigour and efficiency of the Indian administration had been increased by the Arrange- important changes made in its central government. By ^British Mr Pitt's India bill, all ideas of foreign conquest in the f3? n e _ nt East had been studiously repressed— it having been %££& A declared, that " to pursue schemes of conquest or exten- ggto sion of dominion in India are measures repugnant to the wish, the honour, and the policy of the nation." But this declaration, in appearance so just and practicable, was widely at variance with the conduct which extraneous events shortly after forced upon the British government. In truth, an extended view of human affairs, as well as the past experience of our Indian possessions, might even then have shown the impracticability of following out such a course of policy, and convinced our rulers that a foreign people settled as aliens and conquerors on the soil of Hindostan, could maintain themselves only by the sword. In order, however, to carry into execution the pacific views of ministers at home, a nobleman of high rank and character, Lord Cornwallis, was sent out by Mr Pitt, who united in his person the two offices of governor-general and commander-in-chief, so as to give the greatest possible unity to the action of government. No sooner, however, had he arrived there, than he dis- covered that Tippoo was intriguing with the other native 1787. powers for the subversion of our Indian dominion ; and, as a rupture with France was apprehended at that junc- vol. vii. 2 u 674 HISTORY OF EUKOPE. chap, ture, four strong regiments were despatched to India. 1 1 As the Company complained of the expense which this 1790 ' additional force entailed upon their finances, a bill was brought into parliament by Mr Pitt, which fixed the number of king's troops who might be ordered to India by the board of control, at the expense of the Company, 45,65.' ' at eight thousand, besides twelve thousand European forces in the Company's service. 1 The wisdom of this great addition to the native Euro- Fresh war pean force in India, as well as the increased vigour and Saib. ,ppo ° efficiency of the supreme government, speedily appeared in the next war that broke out. Tippoo, whose hos- tility to the English was well known to be inveterate, and who had long been watched with jealous eyes by the Madras presidency, at length commenced an attack upon Jan. 1730. the Rajah of Travail core — a prince in alliance with the British, and actually supported by a subsidiary force of their troops. At first, from the total want of prepara- tion which had arisen from the pacific policy so strongly inculcated upon the Indian authorities by the govern- ment at home, he obtained very great success, and totally subdued the chief against whom he had commenced hos- tilities. Perceiving that the British character was now at stake in the peninsula, and being well aware that a power founded on opinion must instantly sink into in- significance, if the idea gets abroad that its allies may be insulted with impunity, Lord Cornwallis immediately took the most energetic measures to reassert the honour of the British name. Fifteen thousand men were col- lected in the Carnatic under General Meadows, while eight thousand more were to ascend the Ghauts from the side of Bombay, under General Abercromby. So obvious was the necessity of this war, and so flagrant the aggressive acts which Tippoo had committed, that, not- withstanding their general aversion to hostile measures, from the expense with which they were attended, and their recent declaration of pacific intentions — on this HISTORY OF EUROPE. G75 occasion, botli the English parliament and the court of chap. directors passed resolutions cordially approving of the — . — 1 conduct of Lord Cornwallis in the transaction.* Treaties Aprim, of alliance were at the same time entered into with the 1 ' 91 - Feishwa and the Nizam, native powers, whose jealousy of the Mysore chief had been of long standing ; and hos- tilities commenced, which were at first attended with i Aube'r,ii. checkered success — General Meadows having taken S ^ Caroor and other towns, and Tippoo having surprised ™ ^ Colonel Floyd, and burst into the Carnatic, where he v. 257,314: committed the most dreadful ravages. 1 The energies of government, however, were now 42 thoroughly aroused. In December 1791, Lord Corn- Lord pom- - -»-. « "WtllilS III tit wallis embarked in person for Madras : the Bengal campaign sepoys were with extreme difficulty reconciled to a sea ^00. voyage ; and great reinforcements, with the commander-in- chief, were safely landed in the southern presidency. It was resolved to commence operations with the siege of Bangalore, one of the strongest fortresses in Mysore, and commanding the most eligible pass from the coast to the centre of Tippoo's dominions. In the end of January the grand army moved forward ; the impor- Jan. 29, tant pass of Coorg, leading up the Ghauts, was occupied within a month after ; Bangalore was invested in the Feb. 27. beginning of March, and carried by assault on the 21st of that month. Encouraged by this great success, Lord Cornwallis pushed on direct to Seringapatam, although the advanced period of the season, and scanty supplies of the army, rendered it a service of consider- * It is remarkable that the most violent declaimer against this war in the House of Peers, as uncalled-for, inexpedient, and unjust, was Lord Rawdon, afterwards Marquis of Hastings, who himself, in 1817, with much less provo- cation, was drawn into the great contest with the Mahrattas, which he termi- nated so gloriously for the British arms. So dangerous is it to judge of distant transactions from party prejudice or preconceived European ideas. — See Pari. Hist. 1791, xxix. 119-159. On this occasion Lord Porchester, the nobleman who opened the debate against the war, said — " I have proved that it has been the uniform policy of the directors and of the legislature, to avoid ivars of con- quest in India, and to confine the Company to the limits of their present 676 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, able peril, which was increased rather than diminished XL ^ IIL bj the junction, shortly after, of ten thousand of the 179L Nizam's horse, who, without rendering any service to the army, consumed every particle of grass and forage within its reach. Still the English general continued to press forward, and at length reached the fortified position of the enemy, on strong ground, about six May is. miles in front of Seringapatam. An attack was imme- diately resolved on ; but Tippoo, who conducted his defence with great skill, did not await the formidable onset of the assaulting columns, and after inflicting a severe loss on the assailants by the fire of his artillery, withdrew all his forces within the works of the fortress. The English were now within sight of the capital of Mysore, and decisive success seemed almost within their reach. They were in no condition, however, to under- take the siege. The supplies of the army were exhausted; the promised co-operation of the Mahrattas had failed ; May 26. of General Abercromby, who was to advance from the side of Bombay, no advices had been received ; and the famished state of the bullock-train precluded the possi- bility of getting up the heavy artillery or siege equipage. Orders were therefore given to retreat, and the army retired with heavy hearts and considerable loss of stores and men. But the opportune arrival of the advanced guard of the Mahratta contingent, on the second day 1 Mill. V. ~ 3i*4, 325. of the march, which at first caused great alarm, sus- i iVi"n!' pended the retrograde movement, and the army encamped u^t^ for the rainy season in the neighbourhood of Seringa- patani. 1 territories, and the management of their commercial interests." — Ibid. 133. In 1815, Lord Hastings, then governor-general of India, observed, in a very valuable minute on Indian finance — " It was by preponderance of power that those mines of wealth were acquired by the Company, and by preponderance of power alone could they be 1'etained. The supposition that the British power could discard the means of strength, and yet enjoy the fruits of it, was one that would speedily and certainly be dissipated ; in the state of India, were we to be feeble, our rule would be contemptible, and a very short one." — Lord Hastings' Minute on Revenue, 15th Sept. 1815; Auber, ii. 352. 1791. 43. HISTORY OF EUROPE. 677 The attack on the capital of Mysore, however, was chap. only suspended by this untoward event. In the autumn following, Lord Cornwallis was again in motion, having in the preceding months, after the termination of the Vastpre- rains, made himself master of several important forts, f or the siege which commanded or threatened his communications jLam! nsa with the Carnatic. A most important blow was struck 0ct - 3L by a detachment of the British against a general of Nov. 20. Tippoo's, who had taken post in the woods near Simoga, in Dec. 22. order to disturb the siege of that place, which was com- mencing. He was defeated with the loss of ten thou- sand men ; a disaster which led to the surrender of that fortress shortly after. Meanwhile Abercromby, with a Jan.5,1792. powerful force, amply provided with all the muniments of war, broke up from Bombay, surmounted with incred- ible labour the ascent of the Poodicherrum Ghaut, and was in readiness to take his part in the combined enter- prise. In the end of January, Lord Cornwall] s's army Jan. 30. moved forward towards Seringapatam, no longer depend- ing on the doubtful aid of the Mahratta chiefs, but presenting a vast array of British and sepoy troops, such as had never before been exhibited on the plains of India. Eleven thousand native English, thirty thousand regular sepoys, with eighty-four pieces of cannon, exhibited an army worthy of contending for the empire of the East. Nor was this force, considerable as it was, dispropor- tioned to the magnitude and hazard of the enterprise in which the empire was engaged ; for not only were the ramparts of Seringapatam of surpassing strength, 3^3^; but Tippoo lay in front of them at the head of fifty JJ'^bU* thousand regular infantry and five thousand horse, in a j^ig 123. strong position, defended by numerous fortifications, and 162, ifo. one hundred and fifty pieces of heavy artillery. 1 No sooner had Lord Cornwallis reconnoitred the enemy's position than he resolved to commence an attack, and the assault was fixed for that very night. The army was formed in three divisions ; his lordship in 678 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, person commanded the centre, General Meadows the XIAIIL right, Colonel Maxwell the left. Seringapatam is 1792 - situated on an island, formed by two branches of the Prepara- river Cavery, which enclose between them a space four de°cisi?e r bat- miles in length and a mile and a half in breadth. On the wS of tne eastern portion of the island, Tippoo had constructed Seringa- without the walls, but within reach of them, in case of patam. , Feb - 6 - disaster, a strongly fortified camp, supported by numerous tieldworks and batteries, and without this stronghold beyond the river, the bulk of the Sultaun's army was encamped on elevated ground, covered on one side by a large tank, on the other by a small river which falls into the Cavery, and supported on the side next the enemy by six large redoubts. Three hundred pieces of cannon were mounted on the interior fortifications and the walls of the fortress, besides one hundred and fifty on the exterior line ; and a thick hedge, formed of bamboos and prickly shrubs, connecting the works, formed a most serious obstacle to the attacking columns, from present- ing no resistance to cannon-shot, yet being altogether impervious to foot-soldiers. To attack such a force so posted, in the dark and amid the chances and confusion 360, 36i! of a nocturnal assault, must be considered one of the 172,180.' most daring deeds, even in the annals of Indian heroism. 1 At eight o'clock the order was given to march. The Commence- evening was calm and serene, the moon shone bright, and J the troops advanced swiftly and steadily, but in perfect silence; while the reserve, with the whole artillery and ammunition train, struck their tents, and stood to their guns in breathless anxiety. The surprise was complete : so admirably was silence preserved, that the centre came upon the enemy wholly unawares, forced their way through the stiff hedge, and carrying everything before them, pushed through the camp, passed the ford of the Cavery, crossed over to the opposite side, and, taking in the rear the batteries, which had opened their fire upon action. 11IST011Y OF Europe; 679 the other division, drove the gunners from their pieces, chap. The right wing, under General Meadows, also cut through _ _L the bound hedge about" half-past eleven, while the left with ease carried the Carighaut hill : the roar of artillery was heard on all sides, while the flash of musketry now illuminated the whole extent of the horizon. Panic-struck at the celerity and vigour of the attack, which had pene- trated their works in so many different quarters at once, the enemy gave way on all sides, when fortune was nearly restored b/one of those accidents to which all nocturnal attacks are subject, and the centre, with its noble com- mander, almost cut off. The right wing, under Meadows, had been grievously impeded in its march after passing the bound° hedge, by several rice enclosures and water courses, which could not be crossed without great difficulty ; and, in consequence, for two hours he was unable to reach the 'advanced point to which Cornwallis had arrived in the island in the early part of the night. Meanwhile, Tippoo's troops began to recover from their consternation, ^ and as day dawned, and they perceived that the body w Sd™- which had penetrated into the centre of their intrench- g**-^ ments did not exceed five thousand men, they closed in J™**^ on all sides, and commenced with overwhelming numbers Mm, v. 372. an attack upon this band of heroes. 1 The British troops, however, animated by the presence ^ of their commander-in-chief, made a gallant defence. The g^ffj^ reDeated and furious onsets of the enemy were repulsed an a his uiti- r , , i 1 , mate sue- by a rolling fire, enforced when necessary by the bayonet, cess . and at length, when daylight dawned and the guns of the fortress began to be turned upon them, they retired towards Carighaut hill in perfect order, and took post beyond their destructive range. Meanwhile, the troops of Meadows having by a mistake of their guides been brought close to the Mosque redoubt, which was meant to have been passed without molestation, transported by the ardour of the moment, commenced an assault, which at first was repulsed with heavy loss. The assailants, how- 680 HISTORY OF EUROPE. chap, ever, returned to the charge, and that formidable work XLVIII . . 1 was at length carried amidst cheers which were heard 1792, over the whole camp. Animated by the joyful sound, Cornwallis's men stood their ground with invincible firmness ; while Meadows was no sooner disengaged from the perilous contest into which he had been unwillingly drawn, than he pressed on with renewed alacrity to the relief of the main body, which he was well aware, from the weight of the firing in that direction, must be engaged in a very serious contest. As morning broke, the two divisions met and mutually saluted each other as victors.'" The triumph was complete. Out of six of the enemy's redoubts, four were in the hands of the victors ; Tippoo i Lord Com- m an ear ty P ai 't °f the night had taken refuge in his waiiis' Des- capital ; the intrenched camp, with above a hundred March 4, pieces of cannon, was abandoned ; four thousand soldiers Mmjv.372, had falleu, and nearly twenty thousand more disbanded ii! i-2o, u i24.' and left their colours — while the loss of the victors did not amount to six hundred men. 1 On the following morning Tippoo made a desperate Concluding attempt to regain the Sultaun redoubt, which was so o? the war. near the capital as to be commanded in rear by its guns; and a body of two thousand chosen horse came on with appalling cries to storm the gorge, before the slender garrison, consisting only of a hundred and fifty men, could barricade it. But they were repulsed by the steady gal- lantry and ceaseless fire of this heroic band. Upon this Feb. 16. the enemy retreated entirely within the town ; and, soon after, the army obtained an important accession of strength by the arrival of Abercromby with two thousand Europeans and four thousand sepoy troops. Operations * When the enemy had surrounded Lord Comwallis, in the middle of the night, and a heavy fire had set in on all sides, he said to those around him, — " If General Meadows is above ground, this will bring him." Nor was he mistaken. True as the magnet to the pole, his gallant lieutenant pressed to the scene of danger, and, attracted by the sound, reached in time the theatre of that desperate conflict. — The unanimity and heartfelt mutual admiration of these two great men is, as Mill has justly obsei"vcd, one of the finest features of this cam- paign ; and is particularly worthy of admiration on the part of Meadows, con- HISTORY OF EUROPE. G81 -were now commenced in form against the fortress : the chap. first parallel was begun and completed on the night of the I 1 18th; the splendid gardens and shady walks of the l79a country palace, in which the Sultaun so much delighted, were, perhaps with needless violence, destroyed, and the palace itself converted into a great hospital. At length, when the breaching batteries were in readiness and armed with fifty pieces of heavy cannon, the Sultaun concluded a treaty on such terms as Lord Cornwallis chose to pre- Feb. 24. scribe, and hostilities terminated. Such, however, was the ardour of the troops, especially the sepoys, who were engaged in the trenches, that it was with the greatest difficulty they could be prevailed on to cease firing, and when the European troops enforced the command, they retired sullen and dejected to their tents; while Tippoo's men by a vain bravado continued discharging cannon for J^g^ some time after the British lines were silent — as if to gjj^g^ demonstrate that they had not been the first to give up hl 225,235. the contest. 1 By the treaty of peace which followed, Tippoo was 48 compelled to submit to the cession of half his dominions Treaty with to the British, the Nizam, and the Mahrattas ; to pay BiLhi9. £3,500,000 as the expenses of the war; to deliver up all the prisoners made in Hyder's time, some of whom still lingered in a miserable captivity; and to surrender his two sons as hostages. The young princes were imme- diately after courteously received, and splendidly treated, by the British government. Lord Cornwallis, whose s Marti ^ health had for some time been declining, and who had gjiijii. postponed his departure for England only on account of 125. the contest in the Mysore, 2 soon after returned to his sidering that Cornwallis, by assuming the direction in person, deprived him of the honour of a separate command in so momentous a service. What a striking circumstance, that he so soon after should have the means of rescuing his noble and respected commander-in-chief from destruction ! But India is the theatre of romantic adventure, as well as of heroic and disinterested exploits ; and a most inadequate conception will be formed of British character or glory, till the memorable history of its empire in the East is given by a historian worthy of so magnificent a theme. — See Mill, v. 367, note. 682 HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAP. XLVIII. 1794. 49. Experi- enced neces- sity of fur- ther con- quests in India. 50. Pacific ad- ministration and princi- ples of Sir John Shore. native country, having, during his short government, added twenty-four thousand square miles to its Eastern dominions. Human affairs are everywhere governed at bottom by the same principles : the varieties of colour, language, and civilisation, are but the different hues which conceal the operation of passions and interests which are for ever identical among mankind. Differing widely in its origin and its effects upon social happiness, the British empire in India bears, in many respects, a very close analogy to the Roman republic in ancient times, and the contemporaneous French domination in Europe; and in none more than in the experienced necessity of advancing, in order to avoid destruction, which was felt equally strongly by the Roman consuls, the Emperor Napoleon, and the English governors-general of India. The reason in all the three cases was the same — viz. that a power had got a footing in the midst of other states, so formidable in its character, and so much at variance in its principles with the policy of the powers by which it was surrounded, that of necessity it was engaged in con- stant hostilities, and had no security for existence but in the continual extension of its dominions, or terrors of its name. The East India Company had fondly flattered themselves that Tippoo, being thus humbled, would lay aside his hereditary hostility to the English power — just as the Roman senate believed, after the first Punic war, that the jealousy of the Carthaginians was allayed ; or as Napoleon imagined that, after the spoliation of Tilsit, he might rely upon the forced submission or cured inveteracy of Prussia; — and the result in all the instances was the same. Sir John Shore, a most respectable civil servant of the Company, who was appointed governor-general after the retirement of Lord Cornwallis, was strongly imbued with those maxims of the necessity of pursuing a pacific policy in India, and avoiding all causes of collision with the HISTORY OF EUEOTE. 683 native powers, which were so general both with the chap. government, the directors, and the people at home, and XLVI1L which had been so strongly enforced upon the local autho- l794- rities by the board of control. Ample opportunities soon occurred for putting the expedience of their apparently reasonable and just principles to the test. Shortly after the conclusion of the peace with Tippoo, differences broke it.-u. out between the Mahrattas and the Nizam ; and the English government, as the old ally of the latter prince, were strongly urged by his partisans to support him, as they had done the Rajah of Travancore, in the contest. This, however, Sir John Shore, acting on the pacific system, , refused, and even declined to permit the Nizam to emplov 13,; < 1S4 - ' *^ Auber, ii. in his warfare with the Mahrattas the battalions which 137, 142.' were placed as a protecting force in his territories. T The consequences of this temporising conduct might easily have been foreseen. The Nizam, after a short con- its (fas- test, was overthrown by the. superior force of the Mah- rattas, (who could bring twenty thousand cavalry, forty thousand infantry, and two hundred guns, into the field,) and compelled to make peace on very disadvantageous terms. Such was the dissatisfaction produced very natu- rally at the court of that chieftain, by this desertion of March 1795. their ally by the English government, at the most perilous crisis, that he soon after signified a wish to be relieved of the presence of the British subsidiary force, which was complied with ; and the Nizam immediately threw him- self without reserve into the arms of the French resident, M. Raymond. By his advice he augmented the organised force in his dominions, under the direction of European officers under his orders, to twenty-three battalions and twelve pieces of artillery. These troops carried the colours of the French republic, and the cap of liberty was engraven on their buttons. Thus, by the timid policy of the British government at that crisis, not only was the power and i«V A / ' A '' / '/&