CHAPTER II.

THE ARMED NEUTRALITY.

Sect. I

THE BALTIC POWERS (1780-1801)

On November 17, 1796, Catharine II died. Paul Petrovitch was proclaimed as Tsar of the Russias. During the long and momentous reign of his mother, Paul had been rigidly excluded from all government affairs. A man of forty-two at the time of Catharine’s death, he had been kept for years in a condition of tutelage. While princes, archbishops, and foreign ambassadors were crowding to the toilet-chamber of a Potemkin or a Platon Zuboff, the heir to the throne was devoid of all political influence. His very children were removed from his control on their birth, and educated without reference to his wishes. Exposed at the Winter Palace or at Tsarskoie Selo to the humiliation of the presence of the successive favourites of Catharine and covertly jibed at in the circle surrounding the Empress, Paul avoided the Court. Living during the summer at his country-house, Pavlovsk, during the autumn at another country place, Gatchina, he amused himself after the fashion of his father. Just as Peter III had had his Holstein guard drilled after the pattern of Frederick the Great, so Paul, indulged by Catharine with the title of Grand Admiral and with permission to retain in service some battalions of marines, had set up a small army which he clothed and drilled on the Prussian model.

It would have been a powerful or singularly sweet nature which should have endured unsoured the position of the Grand Duke Paul. Paul’s nature was not of the equable, forgiving type. It was marked by many of the worst peculiarities of the murdered Peter III and of Peter the Great. He was morose, fitful, narrow-minded, and given to sudden fierce gusts of wild, unreasoning passion. He was capricious, erratic, unstable, veering from point to point with each changing mood and influence. Not perhaps naturally cruel, and capable at times of thoughts and deeds of generous chivalry, he was a bitter and vindictive enemy. Evil spirits there had been, ready to suggest to Paul that the sceptre swayed by his mother was rightly his own; but the Grand Duke had been possessed of sufficient wisdom to refrain from any overt attempt against Catharine’s rule. The poison had, nevertheless, not been without its effect. Mother and son were divided; and, in the later years of Catharine, the estrangement became ever more acute. It was universally believed at St Petersburg that, at the time of her sudden decease, she was on the point of promulgating an ukase nominating her grandson Alexander as her successor, to the exclusion of Paul.

Thus an explanation is found for the first internal legislative act of Paul’s reign, and for the trend of his earliest proceedings. Immediately after his coronation, an Imperial edict declared the order of succession to the Russian throne to be that of primogeniture from male to male in the direct line. A deep-seated hostility against the confidants and conceptions of his mother constitutes the first key to his initial policy. “Never was there any change of scene at a theatre so sudden and so complete as the change of affairs at the accession of Paul I. In less than a day costumes, manners, occupations, all were changed.” So writes the future minister of Alexander, the great Pole, Adam George Czartoryski. The army of Gatchina made its ceremonious entry into St Petersburg; its rank and file were distributed among the existing Imperial Guards, in which corps its officers received high promotion. The aristocratic guardsmen, who had made merry with the Gatchina force, found themselves suddenly under its heel. The military profession became a real thing. Favoured courtiers who had attended drill once a year, and old officers who had never smelt powder, whilst yet imagining that Russian troops could march anywhere, were called out for daily military parades under a martinet discipline. The dress and accoutrements of the Prus­sian army superseded the old Russian equipments.

The Court was revolutionised. Platon Zuboff was permitted to retire to his Lithuanian estates; his brother Nicholas was actually promoted; but the dramatic incident of the exhuming of the coffin of Peter III at the Alexander Nevski Convent, and its conveyance to the Winter Palace to lie by that of Catharine, when Prince Bariatinskii and Alexis Orloff were compelled to watch by its side, and to walk behind it till both Imperial corpses were laid in the same vault, struck the note of the new reign. Count Bezborodko, alone amongst the trusted ministers of Catharine, was singled out for continued confidence; and Bezborodko was believed to have earned the title of Prince and the immense gifts which the Emperor showered upon him, by handing over to Paul no less a document than the decree whereby Catharine had proposed, on her next birthday, to declare his exclusion from the throne. Bezborodko was entrusted with the conduct of foreign affairs. Rostopchin, who had been crafty enough to solicit from the Grand Duke in former days the privilege of wearing the Gatchina uniform, became Minister of War. Arakchéieff, a poor artillery captain of 27 years of age, who had earned Paul’s gratitude by organising his tiny Gatchina battery, took charge of the police as Commandant of the capital. Familiarity with Gatchina and fidelity to Peter III were the first passports to distinction.

Nor was it the Court only that felt the change. Russia in general speedily realised the worst that had been prophesied of Paul. That he should attempt to introduce order into Russian finance, and that corrupt officialdom, alike in St Petersburg and in the provinces, should learn to tremble at his name, was only too desirable; but in other directions his domestic changes were less satisfactory. Paul was a born despot, and had the old Russian sense of his own dignity. Not only was a stilted court ceremonial introduced and enforced with a rigour which made each day's attendance a dangerous ordeal for the trembling courtiers, but in the streets of the capital the signs of the humblest submission were exacted by the new Tsar. Princes and ladies were compelled to descend from their vehicles into the snow to salute the passing Imperial carriage. At the coronation at Moscow, the Poles saw their King relegated to a side gallery: and, when the unhappy Stanislas, ill and wearied by the inordinate length of the ceremonial, ventured to sit down, a messenger sent directly by Paul compelled him to stand during the remainder of the service. The atmosphere of dignified yet easy and kindly familiarity, which had surrounded Catharine, was exchanged for a reign of terror.

In his earl dealings with foreign Powers, Paul’s proceedings were not unmarked by wisdom. He recalled the Russian forces from Persia and Georgia. He released Potocki and other distinguished Polish prisoners. He invited Stanislas to St Petersburg and received him with royal honours. He even went so far as to express to Kosciuszko his personal disapproval of the partition of Poland. He instructed Osterman to announce by circular to foreign Courts a policy of peace. Russia, and Russia alone, he said, had been engaged since 1756 in wars. The nation was exhausted: he could not refuse to his subjects the repose for which they sighed. He would remain faithful to Russia’s alliances, and oppose by all possible means the purposes of the mad French Republic; but he could not in the first days of his reign send a Russian army beyond his borders. Kolychéff, despatched to Berlin, was commissioned to declare that the new Emperor sought neither conquests nor aggrandisements; he was even permitted to inform Caillard, the French envoy at the Prussian Court, that the Tsar did not consider himself at war with France, that he was disposed to live on friendly terms with her, that he would engage his allies to hasten to conclude the war, and would offer Russian mediation for the purpose. The Baltic policy of Catharine was continued. The close relations of friendship with neutral Denmark, which had been reknit by Catharine, were naturally continued. Count Grigorii Golovkin was sent to Stockholm to announce the accession of Paul; and advantage was taken of the occasion to reopen the negotiations for the match between the Swedish King and the Grand Duchess Alexandra. In these proceedings, the Tsaritsa Maria and the talented favourite, Mademoiselle Nelidoff, who combined to exercise a consistently restraining influence on the mind of Paul, lent their aid.

Paul was as good as his word. The Russian squadron, which had been cooperating with the British in the North Sea and the Channel, was recalled. The design of despatching a Russian army of 60,000 men to the Rhine, which Catharine had been nursing, was dropped. The oppressive system of recruiting which she had enforced was given up. But there was no slackening of vigilance against the progress of French republican principles. Hostility to the French Revolution was, indeed, a religion with Paul; it has been rightly recognised as the dominant principle of his reign. When, in his later days, he leant towards Bonaparte, it was because he recognised in him the most powerful foe of Jacobinism. Russian subjects were recalled forthwith by Paul from western travel. A strict censorship, directed against revolutionary principles, was imposed upon the theatre and the press. Frenchmen entering Russia were re­quired to present passports attested by a Bourbon Prince. In certain directions Paul’s virulence against Parisian manners under the new régime was bizarre and even sank to the level of comedy. Frockcoats, waistcoats, and high collars were denounced as symbols of liberalism. The unhappy wearer of a round hat was chased by the police in the streets of the capital and castigated at the nearest guard-house. Even the ambassador Whitworth found it necessary to change his headgear.

It was impossible that a ruler with Paul’s want of mental balance should succeed in avoiding for any long period serious commotion, international or domestic. His first diplomatic failure was with Sweden.

Gustavus III and Catharine II had made peace at Werelät in August, 1790. Gustavus, in his eagerness to engage in active opposition against revolutionary France, had shown a desire to compose his differences with his ancient foe. The outcome was the defensive Treaty of Drottningholm, October 19, 1791. Gustavus required money for his proposed campaign. He had irretrievably lost the subsidies formerly contributed from Versailles to impoverished Sweden; he obtained by the treaty the financial aid of Russia. In the course of the negotiation, Gustavus formulated the suggestion of a marriage between his heir and the Grand Duchess Alexandra, the daughter of Paul and the favourite grand-daughter of Catharine. The dowry of a Russian Grand Duchess was a matter of serious consideration for Sweden.

The assassination of Gustavus (March, 1792) shook the Swedish monarchy, whose power had recently been on the increase, and put an end to the anti-French projects of Sweden. The Regent, Charles of Sudermania, took a different line from his predecessor in international politics. Baron Reuterholm, who was recalled to Court as the Regent’s confidential adviser, was a fanatical Lutheran purist, who, having been in Paris during the revolutionary ferment, had, seemingly without much warrant, earned the reputation of a Jacobin. Returning to Stockholm, he played with France and intrigued with the Porte against Russia. Catharine II was speedily made aware of Sweden’s return to her old paths; but Count Stackelberg, the Russian Minister at Stockholm, was instructed to keep on foot the negotiations for the proposed marriage. Stackelberg remonstrated somewhat strongly against the dealings of the Regent with Constantinople, and his recall was demanded (May, 1793); while Catharine on her side stopped the Swedish subsidy. Though the marriage treaty continued to be mooted, various circumstances combined to widen the breach between Catharine and the Swedish Government. Baron Armfeldt, a personal enemy of Reuterholm and a Russian sympathiser, headed a plot against the Regent. The conspiracy was discovered. Armfeldt escaped, and ultimately took refuge in the dominions of Catharine, who haughtily refused his extradition. The Regent retaliated by publicly announcing in Stockholm a match between Gustavus Adolphus and a Princess of Mecklenburg -Schwerin. The French party was again in the ascendant in the Swedish capital.

Catharine II exerted herself to stave off this diplomatic defeat. It was at length announced that Gustavus IV Adolphus would, in company with his uncle, visit St Petersburg. The Regent and Reuterholm sud­denly displayed seeming eagerness for the Russian marriage. The visit was duly paid. The preliminaries were apparently arranged to mutual satisfaction; the day of the formal betrothal was fixed, and the company actually assembled for the ceremony. But the bridegroom came not. He had refused to sign the document dictated by Catharine and presented to him at the last moment, whereby the future Russian Queen of Sweden was to be permitted the free exercise of the Orthodox faith. The Regent and Reuterholm had only too surely gauged the character of the young Swedish King. Reputed a prodigy of learning, he was gauche, narrow-minded, irreclaimably obstinate, and a fanatic in religion. Moreover he was as little ready as was his father to stomach the attitude of superiority which was assumed by Catharine towards decaying Sweden. The marriage negotiations were abruptly broken off. The excitement caused by this incident was the immediate cause of the apoplectic seizure which carried off Catharine.

That Paul should have suffered the pourparlers to be resumed affords strong testimony of his desire to be on good terms with his Swedish neighbour. Golovkin, despatched to Stockholm in the first instance to announce the accession of the new Tsar, exerted himself to reopen the marriage treaty. He met with an absolute rebuff. The position of neither party had in fact changed in the least since the contretemps of October—November, 1796. Gustavus Adolphus endeavoured to atone for his treatment of Golovkin by a civil communication to Paul; but the Tsar's patience was at an end. Golovkin was recalled; the Swedish agent, Klingsporre, was ordered to leave St Petersburg; and the match was finally at an end (March, 1797). Gustavus IV Adolphus married Frederica Dorothea of Baden (October 31, 1797), whilst the Grand Duchess Alexandra found a husband in Austria.

The attitude of Paul towards France did not remain long unchanged. His initial bias was against the republican government. On their side, the Directory displayed no consistent aptitude for cultivating the friendship of the eccentric and capricious Tsar. The magnificent career of Bonaparte in Italy, closing with the Peace of Campo Formio (October 17, 1797), made them less careful of Russian susceptibilities. The possession by the French of the Ionian Islands conflicted with Russian schemes of future Mediterranean aggrandisement. On the other hand, Austria was little content either with the peace or with the action of the French negotiators at Rastatt; whilst England, whose peace negotiations at Lille (June—September, 1797) had failed, was willing enough to acquire a powerful, active ally. Already on February 21, 1797, the signature of a treaty of commerce marked the progress made at St Petersburg by British diplomacy. Whitworth endeavoured deftly to involve Paul in German politics as guarantor of the Peace of Teschen; the Tsar took the bait; and the refusal of the French to admit his representative, Rasurnovski, to the deliberations at Rastatt was a severe blow to the Imperial amour-propre.

In January, 1797, Paid embarked upon that patronage of the Knights of St John which lent a singular colour to his whole remaining career. Years later, Alexander I affected to have discovered in this proceeding on the part of his father a vast design to knit together all the nobility of Europe in an alliance of loyalty and honour against the invasion of those equalising ideas which were attacking and undermining all ranks of society. Paul was, in a word, an eighteenth century Crusader. While not sharing Catharine’s pseudo-liberalism, Paul had all her willingness to shine in European politics, a willingness which, in her case, had produced the mediation of Teschen and the First Armed Neutrality. At one period in her career, Catharine, in pursuance of her anti-Turkish designs, had endeavoured to establish useful relations with Malta; and her heir had been roused to enthusiasm for the Knights of St John by the perusal of Vertot’s history.

Shortly after Paul’s accession, the Bailli of the Order, Count Giulio Litta, appeared at St Petersburg with a petition for the reestablishment of a Grand Priory of the Knights which had formerly been founded without much success in Volynia. On January 15, 1797, Paul entered into a convention with Litta; he re-established the Order in his dominions, and endowed it with large revenues. Cardinal Litta, Papal Nuncio in St Petersburg, worked hand in hand with his brother in pursuance of a Latin Church intrigue.

The Grand Master, the Prince de Rohan, and the Jesuit Fathers were alike looking to find their account in St Petersburg. Rohan nominated Count Litta as ambassador of the Knights to the Russian Court, offered Paul the title of Protector of the Order, and sent him La Valetta’s cross. Paul accepted the offer with enthusiasm (November—December, 1797). Already in February, 1797, Bonaparte had captured at Ancona despatches of Paul which revealed a design on the part of the Tsar to secure Malta. When the news arrived of the surrender of Malta to the French in June, 1798, the Russian Knights met, declared the deposition of the treacherous successor of Rohan, the Rhinelander Baron Hompesch, and threw themselves upon the grace of Paul. By an act signed on September 10, 1798, Paul proclaimed his determination to take the Order under his supreme direction, promising not only to maintain its privileges but to re-establish it in its ancient splendour.

On October 27, 1798, the Knights pushed their cause by electing Paul to the Grand Mastership. The little, ungainly Tsar of Orthodox Moscow assumed the insignia of the headship of the great medieval Latin Crusading Order, created a second Grand Priory for Russia, inaugurated a pompous ceremonial of initiation, and decorated his favourites with knightly uniforms and crosses. Any diplomacy would be unfortunate which should come athwart such a craze. The Elector of Bavaria having declined to recognise the new Grand Master, his representative at St Petersburg was forthwith arrested and conducted to the frontier by Cossacks. Meantime the French Directors had been adding further fuel to the fire of Paul’s resentment. They authorised the exiled Dombrovski to collect Polish legions in Italy. Nikita Petrovitch Panin, the Russian representative at Berlin, intercepted (January, 1798) a French despatch wherein there was talk of the revival of an independent Poland. Paul, on his part, had furnished cause of offence to France. He had taken into his pay (December, 1797) Conde’s corps of émigrés, which had been discharged from the Austrian establishment after the signature of the Peace of Campo Formio, and had established Louis XVIII in the palace of the old Dukes of Courland at Mittau with a pension of 200,000 roubles (February, 1798). On the part of Paul, these were mere acts of chivalry; but for the French they wore nevertheless a look of hostility. A Russian squadron joined the fleet under Lord Duncan in July. When word reached St Petersburg that a French expedition was fitting out at Toulon, Paul, suspecting that he might be the object of attack, caused the Russian Black Sea coast to be put in a state of defence. Negotiations were opened with Vienna for a new coalition against France.

A palace revolution at St Petersburg quickened the course of events. Kutaisoff, Paul’s Turkish valet, had obtained over his master’s mind an influence well-nigh magnetic. Without troubling himself to embark upon the uncertain tide of political affairs, Kutaisoff was open to traffic with candidates for place. Mademoiselle Nelidoff, in an evil hour, induced Paul to dismiss Rostopchin, the ablest of the new ministers, from the charge of the War Department, and to substitute in his room her own nephew. Rostopchin, banished to Moscow, found means to ally himself with Kutaisoff, who looked askance at the rival influence of Mademoiselle Nelidoff. A deft suggestion that the world regarded Paul as in feminine leading-strings excited the ire of the Tsar. The introduction to Court of a young beauty, Mademoiselle Lopukhin, did the rest. The star of the Empress and her confidante paled. Rostopchin came back to St Petersburg to take charge of foreign affairs. It was Rostopchin who was the soul of the Russian alliance with Pitt.

The campaigns of the Second Coalition and the sources of the estrangement of Paul from Austria have been described in a previous volume. When Suvóroff led back the remains of his gallant army into Bavaria in the autumn of 1799, all Russia accused the Austrians of treachery. To Paul’s anger at political betrayal was added the fury of personal resentment. His favourite daughter, the Grand Duchess Alexandra, had, after the failure of the Swedish match, married the Archduke Joseph, Prince Palatine of Hungary. The jealousy of the Empress drove the beautiful Russian from the Austrian Court. When Paul heard of this, his rage was boundless. For a time British diplomacy prevented a violent explosion; but, long before the insult offered to the Russian flag on the capitulation of Ancona (November 29, 1798) had become known in St Petersburg, Cobenzl, challenged by Paul to answer, “without if or but” whether Austria would restore the Pope and the King of Sardinia to their dominions and sovereignty, had failed to give a satisfactory reply and been forbidden the Court; and the troops of Suvóroff had begun their homeward march through Bohemia and Moravia. The sole result for Russia of the campaign of 1799 was the conquest of the Ionian Islands in alliance with the Turks. Paul longed to avenge himself upon Austria. He was still willing to act against France, but it must be with other allies. He proposed a new coalition formed of the northern Powers, to the exclusion of Austria. But for such a league neither Prussia nor England was prepared.

Meanwhile causes of difference between England herself and Russia were not wanting. The combined Anglo-Russian expedition in Holland was a total failure. The Russians had suffered heavily; and the Duke of York capitulated at Alkmaar (October 18). On October 9, 1799, Bonaparte landed at Fréjus. On November 9 (18 Brumaire, year VIII) the Directory was overthrown; and on the next day the Consulate was established. The eagle eye of Bonaparte took in at a glance the political situation. His first thought was to entice Prussia from her attitude of neutrality; his next to draw off Paul from the Coalition. The first approaches to Paul were made through Hamburg; but negotiations soon centred in Berlin, whither Paul had sent Krudener as agent to restore friendly relations with Frederick William. In Malta, then close pressed by a British squadron, Bonaparte recognised the inevitable apple of discord between England and Russia. He offered, should the garrison be compelled by famine to evacuate the place, to hand over the island to the Tsar as Grand Master of the Knights of St John. No suggestion could have been better fitted for its purpose. The victory of Marengo (June 14, 1800) had fixed the admiration of Paul upon Bonaparte. Shortly afterwards the wily First Consul baited yet another hook. The British Government had declined to receive in exchange for French prisoners Russians who had been captured in Holland and elsewhere. Bonaparte offered to restore without ransom the Russian prisoners, some 6000 in number, as a particular mark of his esteem for the brave Russian troops, and of In’s desire to please the Tsar. He made known his recognition of the interest taken by Paul in Sardinia, Naples, and Rome. Paul was ensnared alike through his chivalry arid his inordinate pride. General Sprengporten was despatched (October 10) to Paris Io open, under cover of receiving the Russian prisoners, direct negotiations with the First Consul. He was received by Bonaparte on December 20.

Meanwhile, on September 5, 1800, Malta capitulated; but the British Government showed no disposition to surrender the island to the Tsar. Paul’s anger found vent in the Second Armed Neutrality.

For the initial conception of this league it is necessary to go back twenty years. In 1780 Great Britain was at war with her revolted American colonies, with France, and with Spain. The commerce of neutral Powers must always suffer more or less at the hands of powerful naval belligerents. Such belligerents had always claimed tin right to capture at sea, not only the public property of a hostile State, but the private property of hostile owners found on the high seas under a hostile flag. They had assumed, in the exercise of the right of blockade;, authority to cut off all approach by sea to certain ports and coast-lines; and they had seized, as contraband, goods of certain kinds when carried on the high seas to a hostile destination, even when under n neutral flag. Until the close of the first half of the eighteenth century, they had claimed and exercised, without general protest, the power to capture on the high seas hostile property, though laden on hoard neutral merchant­men. Finally, in order to secure their rights in these and other particulars, they had exercised a right of visit and search over all merchantmen encountered on the high seas.

The interests of belligerent and neutral in respect, of these practices were obviously divergent. It was to the interest of the belligerent to spread the net wide; it was to the interest rtf the trader to secure the utmost freedom of traffic. So early as the seventeenth century the Dutch, as great carriers, made it a point of diplomacy to secure by special treaties with various Powers the recognition of the principle “free ships, free goods”, i.e. that the neutral flag exempts from seizure ordinary belligerent property laden thereunder. Frederick the Great had endeavoured, with indifferent success, to erect the principle into an universal rule. In a spirit dictated by less purely selfish considerations, various treaties had been contracted for the definition of contraband, and for the determination of the rights and ditties of the neutral merchant in general. The shippers of the Baltic dealt mainly in articles which were of direct belligerent. utility—timber, tar, hemp, cordage, and provisions. The leading exports of Russia included corn, leather, iron, hemp, sail-cloth, pitch and tar; Sweden and Germany traded in similar products: and Denmark exported provisions. It was natural that these Powers should feel with particular severity the restrictions imposed alike by Great Britain and by her opponents in the naval contest arising out of the American struggle for independence. The practice of Great Britain was based upon the medieval Consolato del Mare and the precedents of several centuries: the practice of France and Spain, embodied in various royal instructions and in particular in a French ordinance of 16S1, was even more severe.

Out of these circumstances the jealousy of two rivals for Catharine II’s favour created the First Armed Neutrality. Sir James Harris was seeking to draw Catharine more closely into a British alliance; and Potemkin was apparently supporting him. They sought to make capital of some Spanish mishandling of Russian commerce in the Mediterranean. Nikita Ivanovitch Panin, whose star was paling before that of Potemkin, replied with a scheme which, while it offered to Catharine the proud position of the protectress of the north, struck hard, under cover of rules of general application, at the naval power of Great Britain. On February 28, 1780, a circular declaration was forwarded to foreign Courts, wherein Catharine announced certain principles founded on the primitive law of peoples which she proposed in future to defend by calling out if necessary, her maritime forces. These principles were, in brief: (1) that, neutral vessels may navigate freely from port to port, and on the coasts of nations at war; (2) that, belligerent merchandise, with the exception of contraband, is protected by the neutral flag; (3) that the character of a blockaded port, belongs only to that before which there is a force of vessels, anchored and sufficiently near to make the attempt to enter manifestly dangerous; (4) that the nature of contraband is strictly defined. Each of these principles pointed to a possible real abuse of belligerent power. They were designed to reflect upon, and could in fact be turned against certain features of the British maritime practice which, however, admitted of serious defence; namely, the legal principle known as “the Rule of 1756”, the doctrine of Occasional Contraband, and the contention that a notice sent by a Government to neutral Powers that a blockading squadron is on any coast, constitutes a sufficient, warning of the existence of a blockade. Gustavus III of Sweden personally piqued against George III and ready to revive his waning popularity with his Swedish subjects by becoming the champion of greater neutral trading freedom quickly ranged himself with Catharine. Denmark was yet more prompt; Bernstorff, in a state-paper of May. 1780, declared the Baltic dosed to the armed vessels of belligerent Powers. By a series of conventions signed at Copenhagen and St Petersburg, a league was established between the three Powers for the common support of the cause. Thus the First Armed Neutrality came into being (1780). France and Spain hailed Catharine’s programme with more enthusiasm than regard for con­sistency. Holland, Prussia, Austria, Portugal, and the Two Sicilies, in the course of three years, successively acceded to the league. Great Britain acquitted herself with consummate skill. She replied in studied terms of courtesy to the communication of the Northern Powers; she anticipated the accession of the States General to the Armed Neutrality by a declaration of war; and the Dutch, receiving no succour from Catharine, were severely punished.

The First Armed Neutrality, as an onslaught upon British naval power, was a failure. The long-standing commercial ties which bound the two countries were too close to admit of Catharine embroiling herself with England in pursuit of what for her was little more than a crusade of empty glory. The efforts of Gustavus III to bring about the meeting of an international congress, by which the principles of the Neutral League should be embodied as a maritime code, were fruitless. When the revolutionary war broke out, the Powers of the Armed Neutrality, as they became involved in the struggle, threw their principles to the winds. Catharine herself united with England in the endeavour to prevent other “ Powers not implicated in this war from giving, on this occasion of common concern to every civilised State, any protection whatever, directly or indirectly, in consequence of their neutrality, to the commerce or property of the French on the seas or in the ports of France (Convention of March 25, 1793). Spain, Prussia, and Portugal entered into similar undertakings. A Russian fleet cruising in the Baltic and the North Sea arrested all neutral vessels bound for French ports, and compelled them either to return or make for a neutral harbour. Ground between the upper millstone of the allied Powers and the nether of French retaliatory measures, the neutral States suffered severely; and in March, 1794, Denmark and Sweden were constrained to form an alliance for the common defence of their trade.

But the lesson of the First Armed Neutrality had not been entirely lost. Various treaties adopting its principles had been made between 1781 and 1789; and, down to and throughout the dark days of the revolutionary struggle, one Power remained true to its allegiance. Denmark, under the guidance of Andrew Peter, Count Bernstorff, an honest, painstaking patriot, remained consistently neutral, and a bold and firm supporter of the claims of neutral nations. A new item was now added to the programme of the neutral States. In 1781 an old dispute was revived between England and the Scandinavian Powers. Queen Christina, the daughter of the great Gustavus, had in 1653 advanced the pretension that the declaration of a neutral convoying officer as to the character of the cargoes of the vessels under his convoy should invalidate the right of search; and the Dutch had occasionally ventured to advocate this innovation. By Great Britain, as by other strong naval Powers, the contention was always repelled. When, in 1781, the suggestion was again brought forward by Gustavus III, Catharine declared that the principle contended for was implied in her programme; and she included it in her treaties.

In 1798 the convoys of the Danes and Swedes were largely increased, in consequence of renewed activity on the part of the French Directory; and this particular question rapidly assumed importance. In January, 1798, a large company of Swedish merchantmen bound for the Mediterranean, under the convoy of a Swedish frigate, was stopped in the Channel by a British squadron under Commodore Lawford; and, on offering a show of forcible opposition to search, the merchantmen were brought in for adjudication. In June, 1799, in the case of the Maria, one of the captured vessels, Sir William Scott, the famous admiralty judge, after the production of the Swedish official instructions which expressly prohibited submission to search, pronounced sentence of condemnation on the broad general ground of resistance to the exercise of “an incontestable right of the lawfully commissioned cruisers of a belligerent nation.” With Denmark the question was debated in a yet more striking fashion. In December, 1799, the commander of a Danish convoying frigate fired upon British boats which were endeavouring to search vessels under his charge off Gibraltar. Merry, the British chargé d'affaires at Copenhagen, demanded an explanation. Count Bernstorff, far from disavowing the proceedings of the officer, defended his conduct and called upon the British Government for reparation. This affair was still under discussion, when in July, 1800, in similar circumstances, the Freya, a Danish frigate, was captured with the six vessels under her convoy, after a smart action with a British squadron in the English Channel. The Danish Government demanded the immediate restitution of the vessels and prompt satisfaction for what they deemed a signal insult to the honour of their flag. The reply of Great Britain was the immediate despatch of Lord Whitworth to Copenhagen, while a British fleet under Admiral Dixon entered the Sound. A lively and peremptory interchange of state papers ensued. Neither party would abate its pretensions; but at length mild counsels prevailed, and on August 29,1800, a convention was arrived at whereby Great Britain restored the Freya and the other captured ships, and on her side Denmark agreed to suspend for the present the grant of convoy.

Denmark, as was natural, had communicated early with Russia. Paul’s indignation against Great Britain was already rising fast. Earlier in the year he had dreamed of a Northern League against France: he now fell back upon his mother’s diplomacy and launched his bolt at his late ally. On August 27, 1800, he issued a declaration wherein, after referring to the Freya incident, he invited the monarchs of Prussia, Denmark, and Sweden to unite with him in the reestablishment of the principles of the Armed Neutrality in their full force, and announced his determination to place his subjects and those of his allies out of the reach of a similar infraction of the right respected by every people. When news arrived that a British squadron had passed the Sound, Paul ordered the sequestration of all British property found within his dominions (August 29). The signature of the Anglo-Danish convention temporarily disconcerted his plans; then Malta fell, and Paul was thoroughly aroused. On November 7, 1800, the Court Gazette of St Petersburg announced the imposition of an embargo on British vessels in Russian ports, to be maintained until such time as the island of Malta should be surrendered to the Order of St John. The crews of two British vessels having successfully resisted the execution of this decree and made their escape from the port of Narva, the Tsar ordered the burning of a third vessel which had remained in the harbour. Many British seamen were marched as prisoners into the interior of Russia, and were exposed to terrible hardships.

Other Powers contributed to inflame the fury of Paul to the point of madness. On September 4, a British squadron cut out two Spanish frigates from the port of Barcelona. The Spaniards declared that in this action use had been made of a neutral Swedish galliot, and preferred a wholly unjustifiable demand that the captured ships should be re­stored by Sweden. Prussia supported the Spaniards in their claim. On November 23, the Prussian Government took possession of Cuxhaven, on the pretext that a British cruiser, driven with its Prussian prize into that neutral port by stress of weather, had thereby violated the neutrality of northern Germany, of which neutrality Frederick William openly claimed for himself the role of protector. The Tsar’s brain was whirling. With one hand he drew together his Baltic neighbours; the other he held out to Bonaparte.

Gustavus IV Adolphus, who on attaining his majority had recalled the Russophil Armfeldt, hurried in person to St Petersburg, where he arrived on November 29. Within a few days’ time (December 16-18, 1800) a series of treaties knit together Russia, Sweden, Denmark, and Prussia in the Second Armed Neutrality. Rostopchin was the Russian negotiator. The articles agreed on were, in effect, as follows.

(1) Every neutral vessel may navigate freely from port to port and on the coasts of nations at war.

(2) Goods belonging to subjects of the belligerent Powers, with the exception of contraband, are free on neutral vessels.

(3) In order to determine what characterises a blockaded port, this denomination shall be given only to one where there exists, owing to the blockade being maintained by vessels anchored and sufficiently near, an evident danger in entering; and no vessel navigating towards a blockaded port shall be regarded as having contravened the present convention, unless she shall, after having been warned by the commander of the blockading squadron, attempt to enter by force or stratagem.

(4) Neutral vessels can be arrested only for just cause and in view of evident facts; they shall be adjudicated upon without delay; the procedure followed shall be uniform, prompt and legal; and on each occasion, over and above the compensation accorded to those who have suffered loss without having been in fault, there shall be granted complete satisfaction for the insult done to the neutral flag.

(5) The declaration of the officer, commanding the vessel or vessels of the Royal or Imperial Marine, accompanying the convoy of one or more merchant vessels, that his convoy has not on board any contraband merchandise, shall suffice to prevent any visit on board his vessel or any vessel of his convoy.

These principles of 1800 differed from those proclaimed in 1780 in (1) the addition of the article touching convoy; (2) the greater stringency with respect to what constitutes a valid blockade; (3) the provision as to the necessity for formal apology to the neutral flag.

Bonaparte was eagerly watching the course of events in the north. On December 7, 1800, he instructed Talleyrand to announce to neutral and allied Powers “that the French Government, having principally at heart to oppose the invasion of the seas and to concur with neutral Powers in causing their flags to be respected, and appreciating the truly patriotic zeal of the Emperor of Russia for the common cause of all Continental Powers, will not treat for peace with England until, these sacred principles having been recognised, the Russian, Danish, Swedish, American, and Prussian flags shall be respected on the sea as the armies of these Powers are on land, and until England shall have acknowledged that the sea belongs to all nations”. On January 20, 1801, on hearing of the British embargo on Russian vessels, the First Consul forbade forthwith any captures of Russian ships, declared that he regarded the Republic as already at peace with the Tsar, and attributed only to the great distance which separated the two countries the delay in the formal signature of a treaty.

On January 15, Paul despatched Kolychéff to Paris to treat definitely for peace. Great was Bonaparte’s excitement when he heard of this: “Peace with the Emperor is nothing in comparison with an alliance which will overcome England and preserve to us Egypt.” Paul wrote to Bonaparte (January 27) suggesting a French diversion on the coasts of England, a proposition to which the First Consul readily agreed. He requested Bonaparte (February 16) to concert with Spain to obtain the accession of Portugal and of the United States to the maritime programme of the north. He proposed a vast scheme for the invasion of India. A Russian army under Knorring was to march from Orenburg by way of Bokhara and Khiva; a French army under Massena was to pass down the Danube to Taganrog, thence by the Don and the Volga to Astrakhan, whence, combined with a Russian force, it was to proceed by way of Herat and Kandahar. The difficulties of the long journey through wild and hostile lands, difficulties which Bonaparte clearly recognised, sank into insignificance in the eyes of the excited Tsar. The recent peaceful annexation (January, 1801) of the territories of the Georgian prince, George the son of Heraclius, seemed to pave the way for this eastern campaign. The Hetman of the Don Cossacks actually set out on the march.

Bonaparte, on his side, was looking forward to and actively furthering the establishment of a system which aimed at the commercial exclusion of Great Britain from the Continent. The British Government, informed of what was passing, demanded an explanation from Denmark. Count Bemstorff frankly admitted that the negotiations in which the Northern Powers were engaged had for their object the renewing of the engagements of 1780, but maintained that the views of Denmark were absolutely defensive, pacific, and incapable of giving any offence, and that her accession to the Northern Alliance was in no way incompatible with the convention of August 29, 1800. The mental powers of the peace-loving Christian VII were failing, but the Prince Royal supported Bernstorff in a determined stand. The British Government was not prepared to accept the Danish contentions, however courteously urged. On January 14, 1801, an embargo was placed on all Russian, Danish, and Swedish vessels in British ports; and a British fleet under Parker and Nelson was fitted out for the Baltic. The threatened Powers prepared energetically for resistance. Denmark had not hitherto ratified unconditionally the con­vention of December 18: she now gave in her formal adhesion (February 27, 1801). On March 29,1801, an embargo was placed on British vessels in Danish ports; and on the same day Danish forces entered Hamburg and declared the Elbe closed to the English. A few days later Danish troops took possession of Lubeck. On March 13 Gustavus IV Adolphus tightened his relations with St Petersburg by a new treaty of commerce, in which Paul suffered himself to depart from the arrogant position of superiority which Sweden had found so obnoxious in Catharine. The vacillating Government of Prussia at length abandoned its neutral attitude; Prussian troops occupied Hanover and Bremen; the Weser and the Ems were shut to British trade. The voice was the voice of the Northern League; but the hands were the hands of Bonaparte. “Every sea”, he wrote in his message to the Senate, February 13, 1801, “must needs be subject to the exclusive sovereignty of England! She arms against Russia, Sweden, and Denmark, because Russia, Sweden, and Denmark have ensured, by treaties of guarantee, their sovereignty and the independence of their flag. The Powers of the North, unjustly attacked, may rightly count on France. The French Government will avenge with them an injury common to all nations, without losing sight of the fact that it fights only for peace and the welfare of the world”.

The vengeance of England fell, not on the arch-instigator, Russian or Corsican, but on the Danes. On March 30 Parker and Nelson forced the passage of the Sound, the task being materially facilitated by the supineness of the Swedes; and on April 2 was fought the battle of Copenhagen. But one arch-instigator had already met his doom.

For months past the madness of Paul had been becoming more and more apparent. His wild fits of ungovernable and unreasoning rage wrought havoc around him. Imperial in moments of generosity, he was terrible in his anger. There was no consistency in his favour. Undeserved degradation followed with alarming closeness promotion equally unmerited. Men of all ranks were persecuted on the shadow of suspicion. Officers of the guard were kicked and cuffed or confined in casemates for the most trivial offences. Ministers were exiled to their estates for a chance word. Scores of unfortunates were despatched to Siberia. One by one, Paul drove from him his most faithful servants. Suvóroff, returning from his glorious efforts in Italy, was hotly reprimanded upon a formal punctilio, and sank under the blow. Rostopchin was again exiled. The inflexible Arakchéieff was disgraced. In the provinces Paul was not unpopular. He was known to nurse schemes for ameliorating the lot of the serfs; and the country landowner, who was not brought into contact with his momentary resentment, was by no means dissatisfied with a monarch who was the terror of officialdom. The soldiery looked with no disfavour upon the tyrant who maltreated their superiors. But in the Court, in official circles, and in the capital in general the atmosphere of suspense became unbearable. The universal fear found vent in a conspiracy.

It was not the conspiracy of a populace demanding liberty, or of politicians desiring to form new connexions. The merchants were indeed suffering in consequence of the cutting off of British trade; but that alone would have been of small avail to raise a Russian revolt. It was the combination of men within the Imperial circle who trembled each moment for their property and lives. Count Nikita Petrovitch Panin, formerly Minister at Berlin and now a member of the Council for Foreign Affairs, led the way. He enlisted Count Pahlen, who, in addition to other high appointments, held the post of Commandant of the capital, which gave him control over the police. Pahlen, a man of iron nerve, the trusted agent of Paul, became the protector and central figure of the plot. A skilful intrigue brought about the recall of the two Zuboffs, Platon and Nicholas. General Bennigsen and other great officers were brought in. But without the sanction of the Grand Duke Alexander the conspirators dared not proceed. Alexander was approached. The dangers of the situation were pointed out to him. It was proposed to him that Paul should be deposed. Alexander stipulated that no bodily ill should befall his father. He forgot that in a land like Russia there can be but a step for a deposed sovereign between a prison and a grave. Still, Alexander hesitated to give the signal even for deposition. The crisis came when it transpired through Pahlen that the Tsar was meditating the imprisonment of the Empress and her sons, and the adoption as his successor of the young Prince Eugene of Wurtemberg. At any moment the blow might be struck by the Tsar: at any moment Arakchéieff might be recalled, when Pahlen’s ability to protect the plotters would be at an end. At two o’clock in the morning of March 23, 1801, after supping and drinking freely, two parties of officers, led by Pahlen, Bennigsen, and the Zuboffs, entered the Mikhailovskii Palace; Paul I was brutally strangled; and Nicholas Zuboff reported to the horrified Alexander his accession to the throne.

The Second Armed Neutrality had received its death-blow. The spirit of the North was not crushed by the battle of Copenhagen; Sweden maintained a bold front; and Bonaparte filled the air with indignant, encouraging cries. But no glamour of Maltese dreams blinded the eyes of Alexander. He made known forthwith his willingness to negotiate with England. Duroc, despatched to St Petersburg on April 26, had soon to report that France had nothing to hope or to fear from Alexander. Under a maritime convention negotiated by Lord St Helens with Panin, and signed on June 19, 1801, amicable relations were restored between Russia and Great Britain. The latter accepted verbally certain of the principles of the Armed Neutrality ; namely, that neutral vessels might navigate freely to the ports and on the coasts of nations at war; that such vessels should only be stopped for just cause and in respect of evident fact; that they should be adjudicated upon without delay; and that the procedure followed should always be uniform, prompt and legal. She agreed that the right to visit merchantmen under neutral convoy should not be exercised by a privateer. But she obtained the recognition of the general right of her belligerent vessels of war to visit and search neutral convoys, of her belligerent right to capture hostile property under the neutral flag on the high seas, and of the validity of a blockade maintained by cruising ships. The convention was drafted in terms which were calculated to satisfy the amour-propre of Alexander; but the substantial fruits of victory in the maritime discussion were practically left in the hands of England. Already an end had been put to the war of hostile embargoes between Great Britain and the Baltic Powers; and Alexander had mediated the withdrawal of the Danish forces from Hamburg (May 23). The retirement of the Prussians from Hanover and Bremen was delayed some time longer; the Swedes and the Danes for some months stood out for better terms; but on October 23, 1801, Copenhagen unwillingly adopted the convention of St Petersburg; and on March 30, 1802, Gustavus IV Adolphus sullenly handed in his adhesion.

Sect. II

NAVAL OPERATIONS (1800-1).

When Napoleon set sail for Egypt in 1798, the Directory’s plan of invading England was abandoned. But one of the first consequences of the renewed French successes on the Continent in 1800 was that the First Consul revived the project; and in 1801 he decided to construct a flotilla of gunboats and small craft on the coast of the Channel. So little, however, was actually done that he probably only intended to use this flotilla as a means of obtaining a satisfactory peace by playing upon British fears. It was not till the summer of 1801 that the flotilla began to take serious shape. Meantime the attention of the British navy was attracted to another quarter, viz. to the Baltic. The Armed Neutrality of the Northern Powers, described above, threatened not only the commercial but the political interests of Great Britain. As these Powers possessed forty-one sail of the line in condition for service, the British Government at once determined to strike a vigorous blow against them, so as to render them innocuous in the war with France.

A fleet of eighteen sail of the line and a number of smaller craft was hastily assembled at Yarmouth, under the orders of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, with Nelson, now a Vice-Admiral, as second in command. Undoubtedly the Admiralty looked askance at Nelson, after his supposed disobedience to Keith in the Mediterranean in 1799. But this appointment of a superior officer who lacked decision and energy was a grave mistake, and came near causing a failure. Owing to Parker’s delays, the expedition was slow in starting; Nelson was not admitted to his chief’s confidence; and, when the Sound was reached, Parker preferred to negotiate, instead of striking, and did not listen to Nelson’s sagacious and bold advice to aim the intended blow at Russia, disregarding Denmark. Compelled to act as his superior decided, Nelson was finally entrusted with an attack on Copenhagen, where the Danes had collected a formidable flotilla to cooperate with the fixed defences. Their forts and ships together mounted some 700 guns.

Nelson’s plan was to pass to the south of Copenhagen before a north wind, sailing through the Outer Deep, which joins the King’s Channel a little to the south of Copenhagen. The King’s Channel runs under the forts of the city; and he intended to move northwards up it, as soon as the wind shifted to the south. The British ships would thus have their retreat assured in the event of the attack miscarrying. Nelson was personally charged with the conduct of the action, which involved great hazard both from the Danish guns and from the shallow water. He asked for ten sail of the line and was given twelve, while Parker remained in reserve with eight ships, including six of light draught, a very injudicious disposition, since the first principle in war is to employ all possible force at the point, of contact. For this, however, the commander-in-chief must be held responsible; he had shown so much timidity and hesitation that. Nelson probably feared to alarm him by asking for every serviceable ship. It is also true that. Nelson underestimated the strength of the Danish defences.

Battle of Copenhagen. 2 April 1801

On April 1, 1801, Nelson's division sailed southward before a north wind to the point where the channels join below the city, and there, anchored, waiting for the wind to shift. On the 2nd the change came and about 9 a.m. the division weighed and stood up the King’s Channel to attack the Danes. There were many misadventures; one ship could not weather the shoal which parted the two channels; two others ran aground through errors of the pilots. But, with the rest. Nelson anchored in line parallel to the Danes, making no attempt, to concentrate on a part, of their force, and fought a fierce and protracted battle, in which the greater capacity to take and give hard knocks carried the day. To Barker’s eye, mat lei's seemed to be going so badly that in the midst of the battle he made signal No. 39, “Discontinue the action”; and the signal was reluctantly acted upon by Captain Riou with the smaller craft. Nelson, however, was equal to the emergency. He turned his blind eye to his telescope when the signal was reported to him; and gave orders that, it should not be repeated by his ships, and that his own battle-signal. No. 16, “Engage more closely”, should be kept flying, his independence was triumphantly justified. The other ships in the line did not flinch or obey the order to withdraw; and Parker’s signal had no influence on the engagement. If executed, it must have resulted in a British defeat, and in the loss of the ships which were aground. At no point in his career did Nelson give evidence of greater judgment, and tenacity.

The crisis passed with the signal; the Danish fire began to slacken; and flames showed in several of the Danish ships. Unwilling to destroy the disabled vessels of the enemy’s flotilla, tilled as they were with wounded, anxious to avoid inflicting further injury upon a nation which he would have spared had his own policy been adopted, and, it may also be, feeling some concern for the safety of his injured or grounded vessels, he proposed to the Danes that firing should cease and that he should take possession of the prizes, threatening that if the action continued he would blow them into the air, ships and crews. A truce was arranged; Nelson took possession of the Danish fleet; and after some days of negotiating, his mingled boldness, tact, and firmness brought the Danes to consent, on April 9, to a suspension of hostilities.

The news of Parker’s dilatory proceedings and of his signal reached the Admiralty at home, and led to his supersession. Nelson thenceforward directed the movements of the fleet. There is no documentary foundation for the story that the signal of recall was merely permissive, and had been arranged for beforehand. On the contrary, the evidence of journals and logs is decidedly against such a view; and Graves, the junior admiral under Nelson, thought that, if the signal had been obeyed, the fleet would have been destroyed. His judgment as to the brilliancy of Nelson’s conduct will be endorsed by posterity. “Considering” he said “the disadvantages of navigation, the approach to the enemy, their vast number of guns and mortars on both land and sea, I do not think there was ever a bolder attack”. The British loss was 943 killed and severely wounded; the Danes lost between 1600 and 1800.

There was no further fighting in the Baltic, as the death of the Tsar Paul was followed by a change in Russian policy. Nelson returned to England, and, much against his own wishes, was placed in charge of the flotilla watching the French in the Channel. It was a service in which his life was unnecessarily risked, while his talents for grand strategy found in it no scope. Nor was his presence really required, for it does not appear that the Admiralty took the French preparations at all seriously. On August 15, 1801, anxious to force a decisive action, he delivered a desperate attack on the French craft at Boulogne, but was repulsed with heavy loss. In October an armistice was concluded between the two Powers, and fighting ceased.

In the Mediterranean, great efforts were made by the French to send reinforcements to Egypt and to prevent Lord Keith, the British commander-in-chief on the station, from disembarking an expeditionary force there. Rear-Admiral Ganteaume, with seven battleships of the fleet which Bruix had brought to Brest in the previous year, put to sea in January, 1801, evading the British fleet, passed the Straits of Gibraltar without misadventure, and might have stood away for Egypt, to land his 5000 troops under General Sahuguet. But his heart appears to have failed him. He steered for Toulon, fully believing that powerful British forces were pursuing him, and that Keith was in front of him. He also alleged as an excuse the many mishaps that occurred on board his ships. Jerome Bonaparte, who was on board the flagship, has given a vivid picture of the alarms of the Admiral and the panic which seized him at the mere report that twelve sail had been sighted in the night. He was ordered once more to put to sea and carry out his mission, making an attempt on Porto Ferraio on the way. The attempt failed; but in June he came within 200 miles of Alexandria, and only retired when he found that the British were there in some force. He failed to land his men on the coast of Tripoli, as he had intended, since British vessels were sighted just as the disembarkation was about to begin; and in July he returned to Toulon, having captured a British line of battleship on the run westward.

In June Rear-Admiral Linois was ordered to sail from Toulon with three ships of the line and proceed to Cadiz, there to take under his command six Spanish ships of the line, which had been given to France by the Spanish Government, and manned with French crews. Lemming, however, that the British Admiral Saumarez was off Cadiz with six ships of the line, Linois put into Algeciras and anchored there. As soon as Saumarez knew of the arrival of the French, on July 5, he sailed for Algeciras, and on July 6 stood into Algeciras Bay and attacked Linois, who was anchored close inshore, under the protection of powerful batteries and supported by a large number of Spanish gun­boats. The failure of the wind hampered the attack; mid a British ship of the line, the Hannibal, ran aground and was captured by the French. Saumarez sustained a distinct repulse, though he inflicted a heavier loss in men upon the French than he himself suffered. He took the battered remainder of his fleet to Gibraltar, and there refitted his ships with the utmost energy; while Linois appealed to the French Rear-Admiral Dumanoir le Policy and the Spaniards at Cadiz, to come at once to his help before the British should again attack him.

On July 9, a Franco-Spanish squadron of six sail, under Vice-Admiral Moreno, joined Linois at Algeciras; and on the 19th the allies sailed for Cadiz, leaving behind the prize taken from the British. The allied admirals were together in a frigate; no signals for the two fleets had been issued. Saumarez, with his five serviceable ships, followed them at once, and began a running action with them in the late hours of the night. A Spanish three-decker was the first ship brought, to action; she speedily caught fire, and dropped astern, when she fell in with two of her consorts, which opened fire on her, mistaking her for a British vessel. As the final result of this tragic error, two great Spanish three-deckers destroyed one another, both being burnt with the greater part of their crews. A third vessel surrendered to the British after a short engagement at close quarters. The rest of the allied fleet reached Cadiz after sustaining the British attack, and on this ground claimed a victory. It was a strange claim, for the allies lost three ships and 9500 killed, wounded, and prisoners to a far inferior force, while inflicting on the British but insignificant loss. But, though Linois’ fleet had not obtained any success of importance, it fought better than any French fleet in this first period of the war; and it deserved every credit for the action at Algeciras, which illustrated anew the risk of attacking even an inferior enemy when covered by forts and gunboats.

CHAPTER III

THE PACIFICATION OF EUROPE

(1799-1802).