Meantime, while the British fleet had been dallying in the approaches to the Baltic, important events had occurred, furthering the projects of Bonaparte in the North and seriously complicating the position of Great Britain. No formal declaration of war was at any time issued by the latter country; but its government had not unjustly regarded as an act of direct hostility the combination of Denmark, Sweden, and Prussia, to support the czar in a course first undertaken to assure his claim upon Malta, and in furtherance of which he had seized as pledges three hundred British merchant vessels with their crews. [31] As an offset to the British interests thus foreclosed upon by Russia, and to negotiate upon somewhat equal terms, the government, on the 14th of January, 1801, ordered an embargo laid upon Russian, Danish, and Swedish vessels in British ports, and the seizure of merchant ships of these powers at sea. Of four hundred and fifty Swedish vessels then abroad, two hundred were detained or brought into British harbors. They were not, however, condemned as prizes, but held inviolable to await the issue of the existing difficulties. To the remonstrances of Sweden and Denmark, supported by Prussia, the British ministry replied definitely, on the 7th of March, that the embargo would not be revoked so long as the Powers affected "continued to form part of a confederacy which had for its object to impose by force on his Majesty a new system of maritime law, inconsistent with the dignity and independence of his crown, and the rights and interests of his people." [32] In consequence of this and of the entrance of the Sound by Parker's fleet, Prussia, on the 30th of March, and as a measure of retaliation, closed the mouths of the Elbe, the Weser, and the Ems—in other words, the ports of North Germany—against British commerce, and took possession of the German states belonging to the king of Great Britain. On the same day a corps of Danish troops occupied Hamburg, more certainly to stop British trade therewith.
Thus Bonaparte's conception was completely realized. There was not only a naval combination against Great Britain, but also an exclusion of her trade from one of its chief markets. The danger, however, was much less than it seemed. On the one hand, while the annoyances to neutral navigation were indisputable, the advantages it drew from the war were far greater; its interests really demanded peace, even at the price set by Great Britain. On the other hand, the more important claims of the great Sea Power, however judged by standards of natural right, had prescription on their side; and in the case of contraband, whatever may be thought of classifying naval stores as such, there was for it a colorable pretext in the fact that France then had no merchant shipping, except coasters; that naval stores entering her ports were almost certainly for ships of war; and that it was in part to the exclusion of such articles that Great Britain owed the maritime supremacy, which alone among armed forces had successfully defied Bonaparte. In short, the interest of the Northern states was to yield the points in dispute, while that of Great Britain was not to yield; a truth not only asserted by the ministry but conceded in the main by the opposition. There needed therefore only to throw a little weight into one scale, or to take a little from the other, to turn the balance; while the coalition would dissolve entirely either upon decisive naval operations by Great Britain, or upon the death of Paul I. The czar was the only person embarked heart and soul in the Northern quarrel, because the only one deaf to the call of clear interest. Herein is apparent the crying mistake of intrusting the conduct of the naval campaign to another than Nelson. The time placidly consumed by Parker in deliberations and talking would have sufficed his lieutenant to scour the Baltic, to destroy the Russians at Revel as he did the Danish line at Copenhagen, and to convince the neutral states of the hopelessness of the struggle. Fortunately for Great Britain, the interests of Russian proprietors, which were bound up with British commerce, and hardly yielded eight years later to restrictions imposed by the popular Alexander I., rebelled against the measures of a ruler whose insanity was no longer doubtful. The murder of Paul opened the way for peace.
Among the first measures of the new czar was the release of the British seamen imprisoned by his father. This order was dated April 7. On the 12th the British ships entered the Baltic,—much to the surprise of the Northern Powers, who thought their heavy draught would prevent. The three-deckers had to remove their guns to pass some shoal ground ten miles above Copenhagen. After an excursion to intercept a Swedish fleet said to be at sea, Parker anchored his ships in Kioge Bay,—off the coast of Zealand just within the entrance to the Baltic,—and there awaited further instructions from home; the Russian minister at Copenhagen having informed him that the new czar would not go to war. [33] Nelson entirely disapproved of this inactive attitude. Russia might yield the conditions of Great Britain, but she would be more likely to do so if the British fleet lay off the harbor of Revel. This seems also to have been the view of the ministry. It received news of the battle of Copenhagen on April 15, and at about the same date learned the death of Paul I. Advantage was very properly taken of the latter to adopt a policy of conciliation. On the 17th orders were issued to Parker modifying his first instructions. If Alexander removed the embargo and released the seamen, all hostile movements were to be suspended. If not, a cessation of hostilities was to be offered, if Russia were willing to treat; but upon condition that, until these ships and men were released, the Revel division should not join that in Cronstadt, nor vice versâ. [34] This presumed a position of the British fleet very different from Kioge Bay, over four hundred miles from Revel.
Four days later, orders were issued relieving Parker and leaving Nelson in command. Taken as this step was, only a week after the news of a victory, it can scarcely be construed otherwise than as an implied censure. To this view an expression of Nelson's lends color. "They are not Sir Hyde Parker's real friends who wish for an inquiry," he wrote to a confidential correspondent. "His friends in the fleet wish everything of this fleet to be forgot, for we all respect and love Sir Hyde; but the dearer his friends, the more uneasy they have been at his idleness, for that is the truth—no criminality." [35] The orders were received on May 5. Nelson's first signal was to hoist the boats aboard and prepare to weigh. "If Sir Hyde were gone," he wrote the same afternoon, "I would now be under sail." On the 7th the fleet left Kioge Bay and on the 12th appeared off Revel. The Russian division had sailed three days before and was now safe under the guns of Cronstadt. From Revel Nelson dispatched very complimentary letters to the Russian minister of foreign affairs, but received in reply the message that "the only proof of the loyalty of his intentions that the czar could accept was the prompt withdrawal of his fleet; and that until then no negotiation could proceed." "I do not believe he would have written such a letter," said Nelson, "if the Russian fleet had been in Revel;" [36] but the bird was flown, and with a civil explanation he withdrew from the port. He still remained in the Baltic, awaiting the issue of the negotiations; but Russia meant peace, and on the 17th of May the czar ordered the release of the embargoed British ships. On the 4th of June Great Britain also released the Danes and Swedes detained in her ports. Russia and Prussia had already agreed, on the 27th of April, that hostile measures against England should cease, Hamburg and Hanover be evacuated, and the free navigation of the rivers restored.
On the 17th of June was signed at St. Petersburg a convention between Russia and Great Britain, settling the points that had been in dispute. The question of Malta was tacitly dropped. As regards neutral claims Russia conceded that the neutral flag should not cover enemy's goods; and while she obtained the formal admission that articles of hostile origin which had become bonâ fide neutral property were exempt from seizure, she yielded the very important exception of colonial produce. This, no matter who the owner, could not by a neutral be carried direct from the colony to the mother country of a nation at war. [37] Great Britain, on the other hand, conceded the right of neutrals to carry on the coasting trade of a belligerent; and that naval stores should not be classed as contraband of war. The latter was an important concession, the former probably not, coasting trade being ordinarily done by small craft especially adapted to the local conditions. As regards searching merchant vessels under convoy of a ship of war, Russia yielded the principle and Great Britain accepted methods which would make the process less offensive. Privateers in such case could not search. The question was unimportant; for neutral merchant ships will not lightly submit to the restraint and delays of convoy, and so lose the chief advantage, that of speed, which they have over belligerents. When a neutral sees necessary to convoy her merchantmen, the very fact shows relations already strained.
Sweden and Denmark necessarily followed the course of Russia and acceded to all the terms of the convention between that court and Great Britain; Sweden on the 23d of October, 1801, and Denmark on the 30th of the following March. The claim to carry colonial produce to Europe, thus abandoned, was of importance to them, though not to Russia. At the same time the Baltic states renewed among themselves the engagements, which they had relinquished in their convention with Great Britain, that the neutral flag should cover enemy's property on board and that the convoy of a ship of war should exempt merchant vessels from search. These principles were in point of fact modifications sought to be introduced into international law, and not prescriptive rights, as commonly implied by French historians [38] dealing with this question. For this reason both the United States and the Baltic powers, while favoring the new rule, were little disposed to attempt by arms to compel the surrender by Great Britain of a claim sanctioned by long custom.
Thus had fallen resultless, as far as the objects of the first consul were concerned, the vast combination against Great Britain which he had fostered in the North. During its short existence he had actively pursued in the south of Europe, against Naples and Portugal, other measures intended further to embarrass, isolate, and cripple the great Sea Power, and to facilitate throwing much needed supplies and re-enforcements into Egypt. "The ambassador of the republic," he wrote in February, 1801, "will make the Spanish ministry understand that we must at whatsoever cost become masters of the Mediterranean.... France will have fifteen ships-of-the-line in the Mediterranean before the equinox; and, if Spain will join to them fifteen others, the English, who are about to have the ports of Lisbon, Sicily, and Naples closed to them, will not be able to keep thirty ships in the Mediterranean. That being so, I doubt not they will evacuate Mahon, being unable to remain in that sea." [39]
For the closure of the ports Bonaparte relied with good reason upon his armies; but in the concurrent expectation of uniting thirty French and Spanish ships he reckoned without his host, as he did also upon the Russian Black Sea fleet, and the numbers the British must keep in the Baltic and off Brest. After the armistice with Austria in Italy, a corps under Murat was pushed toward Naples; and on the same day that the treaty of Lunéville was concluded, February 9, a truce for thirty days was signed with the Two Sicilies. This was followed on the 28th of March by a definitive treaty of peace. Naples engaged to exclude from all her ports, including those of Sicily, the ships both of war and commerce belonging to Great Britain and Turkey; while those of France and her allies, as well as of the Northern powers, should have free access. She also suffered some slight territorial loss; but the most significant article was kept secret. The boot of Italy was to be occupied by a division of twelve or fifteen thousand French, whom Naples was to pay and support, and to whom were to be delivered all the maritime fortresses south of the river Ofanto and east of the Bradano, including the ports of Taranto and Brindisi. "This occupation," wrote Bonaparte to his war-minister, "is only in order to facilitate the communications of the army of Egypt with France." [40] The Neapolitan ports became a refuge for French squadrons; while the army of occupation stood ready to embark, if any body of ships found their way to those shores. Unfortunately, the combined British and Turkish armies had already landed in Egypt, and had won the battle of Alexandria a week before the treaty with Naples was signed. As a speedy result the French in Egypt were divided; part being forced back upon Cairo and part shut up in Alexandria,—while the fleet of Admiral Keith cruised off the coast.
No French squadron succeeded in carrying to Egypt the desired re-enforcements, notwithstanding the numerous efforts made by the first consul. The failure arose from two causes: the penury of the French arsenals, and the difficulty of a large body of ships escaping together, or of several small bodies effecting a combination, in face of the watchfulness of the British. Both troubles were due mainly to the rigid and methodical system introduced by Earl St. Vincent; who, fortunately for Great Britain, assumed command of the Channel fleet at the same time that Bonaparte sought to impress upon the French navy a more sagacious direction and greater energy of action. His instructions to Admiral Bruix in February, 1800, [41] were to sail from Brest with over thirty French and Spanish sail-of-the-line, to drive the British blockaders from before the port, to relieve Malta, send a light squadron to Egypt, and then bring his fleet to Toulon, where it would be favorably placed to control the Mediterranean. Delay ensuing, owing to lack of supplies and the unwillingness of the Spaniards, he wrote again at the end of March, "If the equinox passes without the British fleet dispersing, then, great as is our interest in raising the blockade of Malta and carrying help to Egypt, they must be abandoned;" [42] and throughout the summer months he confined his action to the unremitting efforts, already noticed, to keep a stream of small vessels constantly moving towards Egypt.
After the autumn equinox Bonaparte again prepared for a grand naval operation. Admiral Ganteaume was detailed to sail from Brest with seven ships-of-the-line, carrying besides their crews four thousand troops and an immense amount of material. "Admiral Ganteaume," wrote he to Menou, commander-in-chief in Egypt, "brings to your army the succor we have not before been able to send. He will hand you this letter." The letter was dated October 29, 1800, but it never reached its destination. Ganteaume could not get out from Brest till nearly three months later, when, on January 23d, 1801, a terrible north-east gale drove off the British squadron and enabled him to put to sea. "A great imprudence," says Thiers, "but what could be done in presence of an enemy's fleet which incessantly blockaded Brest in all weathers, and only retired when cruising became impossible. It was necessary either never to go out, or to do so in a tempest which should remove the British squadron." The incident of the sortie, as well as Ganteaume's subsequent experiences, illustrates precisely the deterrent effect exercised by St. Vincent's blockades. [43] They could not prevent occasional escapes, but they did throw obstacles nearly insuperable in the way of combining and executing any of the major operations of war. Owing to the weather which had to be chosen for starting, the squadron was at once dispersed and underwent considerable damage. [44] It was not all reunited till a week later. On the 9th of February it passed Gibraltar; but news of its escape had already reached the British admiral Warren cruising off Cadiz, who followed quickly, entering Gibraltar only twenty-hours after the French went by. On the 13th of January Ganteaume captured a British frigate, from which he learned that the Mediterranean fleet under Lord Keith was then convoying an army of fifteen thousand British troops against Egypt. He expected that Warren also would soon be after him, and the injuries received in the gale weighed upon his mind. Considering all the circumstances, he decided to abandon Egypt and go to Toulon. Warren remained cruising in the Mediterranean watching for the French admiral, who twice again started for his destination. The first time he was obliged to return by a collision between two ships. The second, an outbreak of disease compelled him to send back three of the squadron. The other four reached the African coast some distance west of Alexandria, where they undertook to land the troops; but Keith's fleet appeared on the horizon, and, cutting their cables, they made a hasty retreat, without having effected their object.