Thus again, after a brief intermission, began the strife between Great Britain and France, destined during its twelve years' course to involve successively all the powers of Europe, from Portugal to Russia, from Turkey to Sweden. On the land, state after state went down before the great soldier who wielded the armies of France and the auxiliary legions of subject countries, added to her standards by his policy. Victory after victory graced his eagles, city after city and province after province were embodied in his empire, peace after peace was wrested from the conquered; but one enemy remained ever erect, unsubdued, defiant; and on the ocean there was neither peace nor truce, until the day when he himself fell under the hosts of foes, aroused by his vain attempt to overthrow, through their sufferings, the power that rested upon the seas.
The debates in the House of Commons revealed an agreement of sentiment unparalleled in the former war. Differences of opinion there were. A very few thought that hostilities might even yet be averted, while others argued bitterly that, had Bonaparte's first encroachments been resisted, the nation might have been spared, if not war, at least humiliation. But, while both groups condemned the administration, the one for precipitation, the other for pusillanimous and protracted submission, both agreed that just occasion for war had been given. As usual, opposition took the form of an amendment to the address, which, while carefully excluding any approval of the ministry, still "assured his Majesty of our firm determination to co-operate with his Majesty in calling forth the resources of the United Kingdom for the vigorous prosecution of the war in which we are involved." The proposer, Mr. Grey—one of the most strenuous opponents of the former war—was careful to say that, though he objected to some points of the late negotiation, he acknowledged the necessity of resisting the spirit of encroachment shown by France. Even for this very qualified disapproval of a ministry in whose capacity none had confidence, there could in this grave crisis be found only 67 votes, against 398 who preferred not to weaken, by an apparent discord, the unanimous voice. Having regard to the reasons for their dissent urged by the various speakers, the result disposes forever of the vain assertion that Great Britain feared to meet France alone. The solemn decision was not taken blindfold nor in haste. The exorbitant power of Bonaparte, the impossibility of allies, the burden that must be borne, were all quoted and faced; and Mr. Pitt, who then spoke for the first time in many months, while fully supporting the war, warned the members in his stately periods of the arduous struggle before them. "In giving their assurances he trusted that other gentlemen felt impressed with the same sense which he did of the awful importance of the engagement into which they were preparing to enter; and that they considered those assurances, not as formal words of ceremony or custom, but as a solemn and deliberate pledge, on behalf of themselves and of the nation whom they represented,—knowing and feeling to their full extent the real difficulties and dangers of their situation, and being prepared to meet those difficulties and dangers with every exertion and every sacrifice which the unexampled circumstances of the times rendered indispensable for the public safety.... The scale of our exertions could not be measured by those of former times, or confined within the limits even of the great, and till then unexampled, efforts of the last war." [89]
In the same speech Pitt correctly and explicitly indicated the two methods by which France might seek to subdue Great Britain. "If they indulge themselves in any expectation of success in the present contest, it is built chiefly on the supposition (1) that they can either break the spirit and shake the determination of the country by harassing us with perpetual apprehension of descent upon our coasts, or (2) that they can impair our resources and undermine our credit, by the effects of an expensive and protracted contest." Not to one only, but to both of these means did Bonaparte resort, on a scale proportioned to his comprehensive genius and his mighty resources. For the invasion of England preparations were at once begun, so extensive and so thorough as to indicate not a mere threat, but a fixed purpose; and at the same time measures were taken to close to Great Britain the markets of the Continent, as well as to harass her commerce by the ordinary operations of maritime war. Trafalgar marked the term when all thought of invasion disappeared, and was succeeded by the vast combinations of the Continental System, itself but an expansion of the former measures of exclusion. Framed to impair the resources and sap the credit of Great Britain, this stupendous fabric, upheld, not by the cohesion of its parts, but by the dextrous balancing of an ever watchful policy, overtaxed the skill and strength of its designer, and crushed him in its fall.
CHAPTER XV.
The Trafalgar Campaign to the Spanish Declaration of War. May, 1803—December, 1804.
Preparations for the Invasion of England.—The Great Flotilla.—Napoleon's Military and Naval Combinations and British Naval Strategy.—Essential Unity of Napoleon's Purpose.—Causes of Spanish War.
ALTHOUGH Great Britain and France had each, up to the last moment, hoped to retain peace upon its own terms, preparations for war had gone on rapidly ever since the king's message of March 8. Immediately upon issuing this, couriers were dispatched to the various sea-ports, with orders to impress seamen for the numerous ships hastily ordered into commission. Some details have come down giving a vivid presentment of that lawless proceeding known as a "hot press," at this period when it was on the point of disappearing. "About 7 P. M. yesterday," says the Plymouth report of March 10, "the town was alarmed with the marching of several bodies of Royal Marines in parties of twelve or fourteen each, with their officers and a naval officer, armed. So secret were the orders kept that they did not know the nature of the service on which they were going, until they boarded the tier of colliers at the new quay, and other gangs the ships at Catwater, the Pool and the gin-shops. A great number of prime seamen were taken out and sent on board the admiral's ship. In other parts of the town, and in all the receiving and gin-shops at Dock, several hundreds of seamen and landsmen were picked up. By returns this morning it appears that upwards of four hundred useful hands were pressed last night. One gang entered the Dock theatre and cleared the whole gallery except the women." Parties of seamen and marines were placed across all roads leading out of the towns, to intercept fugitives. In Portsmouth the colliers were stripped so clean of men that they could not put to sea; while frigates and smaller vessels swept the Channel and other sea-approaches to the kingdom, stopping all merchant ships, and taking from them a part of their crews. The whole flotilla of trawl-boats fishing off the Eddystone, forty in number, were searched, and two hands taken from each. Six East India ships, wind-bound off Plymouth on their outward voyage, were boarded by armed boats and robbed of three hundred seamen, till then unaware that a rupture with France was near. [90]
Bonaparte on his side had been no less active, although he sought by the secrecy of his movements to avert alarm and postpone, if possible, the war which for his aims was premature. Orders were given that re-enforcements for the colonies should go forward rapidly, ere peace was broken. No ships-of-the-line or frigates should henceforth go with them; and those already abroad were for the most part at once recalled. Troops were concentrated on the coasts of Holland and Flanders; and the flat-boats built in the last war with a view to invading England were assembled quietly in the Scheldt and the Channel ports. Plans were studied for the harassment of British commerce. On the 9th of April was commanded the armament of the shores, from the Scheldt westward to the Somme, a distance of one hundred and twenty miles, which afterwards became, to use Marmont's vivid expression, "a coast of iron and bronze." A few days later Elba and all the coasts and islands of France were ordered fortified; and the first consul's aides-de-camp sped north and east and west, to see and report the state of preparation in all quarters.