While Bonaparte was drilling his army for rapid embarkation, and multiplying his gunboats, he utilized the time to stir up trouble for England in all parts of the world. He gave his approval to a wild scheme for an Irish rebellion, headed by the rash young revolutionary, Robert Emmet, whose only achievement was to cause a riot in Dublin, murder Lord Kilwarden, the Chief Justice of Ireland, and get himself promptly hung. A more dangerous blow was aimed at our empire in India. French military adventurers had been many and prosperous in the native courts of that country ever since the days of Dupleix, and the First Consul hoped by their aid to stir up the Nizam and the Mahratta powers against England. But he had to deal with the able and vigorous Lord Wellesley, the greatest Governor-General that India has known since Warren Hastings. Wellesley forced the Nizam to dismiss his French officers, and allied himself with the Peishwah, the nominal head of the Mahratta confederacy, against the other chiefs of that nation. In 1803 Lord Lake conquered Delhi and the Doab from the French mercenaries of Scindiah, the most powerful of these rulers, while Arthur Wellesley, the Governor-General's brother, was fighting further to the south against Scindiah himself and the Rajah of Berar. In the brilliant battles of Assaye and Argaum this young general beat the Mahratta hosts, though they were nine to one against him. The two hostile princes were forced to make peace, and cede to the East India Company their outlying dominions, Scindiah's fortresses in the north, which became the nucleus of our "North-Western Provinces," and the Rajah of Berar's province of Orissa, which was added to Bengal (1804).
Bonaparte assumes the title of Emperor.
In the winter of 1803-4, Bonaparte began to doubt the wisdom of attacking England with his flotilla of gunboats and transports only, and resolved to wait till he could concentrate in the Straits a fleet of line-of-battle ships, capable of beating off the English Channel squadron. While this plan was being worked out, he brought the internal affairs of France to a crisis. In the spring of 1804, an abortive royalist conspiracy against him was detected, and he took advantage of it to assume a higher and firmer position in the state than that of First Consul. Accordingly, his servile senate requested him to accept the title of Emperor. In May, 1804, he forced the Pope, who stood in mortal dread of annexation, to come up to Paris and preside at his coronation, a great and costly pageant, which marked the end of even the shadow of liberty in France. Bonaparte assumed the title of Napoleon I., thus making his own strange Christian name notable for the first time since history begins.
He determines to employ the Spanish fleet.
When his coronation festivities were over, Napoleon set his mind seriously to the task of concentrating a great fleet in the Channel, to cover the crossing of his army. In the autumn of 1804, the days of the old naval leagues against England in 1782 and 1797 were renewed, when the Emperor forced Spain to join him, demanding either a money contribution or an auxiliary fleet. The feeble Charles IV. chose to give the money, but the vessels which bore the treasure were seized by an English squadron, and Pitt promptly declared war on Spain. By utilizing the large Spanish fleet, Napoleon thought that he could gather together an armament strong enough to keep the Channel open for the crossing of the legions which lay at Boulogne. But, meanwhile, English blockading vessels were already watching Cartagena, Cadiz, and Ferrol, as well as Toulon and Brest, and a hard task lay before the Emperor, when he determined to concentrate the scattered naval forces of France and Spain.
While Napoleon was busy with this scheme, Pitt had been returning to his old policy of finding continental allies for England, and stirring them up against France. Austria and Russia had been greatly displeased by the same reckless annexations in 1803 which had driven England into war; but their grudges might not have grown into an anti-French coalition, if it had not been for the energy of Pitt's diplomacy and the large subsidies which he offered.
Napoleon's naval scheme.
In the spring of 1805, things came to a head. On the one hand, the French Emperor's scheme for the invasion of England was ready; on the other, Pitt's continental allies were secretly arming. Napoleon's plan was complicated but ingenious; its strength lay in the fact that it was not easy for the English to judge what exactly would be his method, or to provide against it. He ordered the French Mediterranean fleet at Toulon to take advantage of the first rough weather, and to escape from its harbour, whenever the English blockading squadron, now headed by the ever-active and vigilant Nelson, should be blown out to sea. Then his chief admiral, Villeneuve, was to slip past Gibraltar, and to join the Spanish fleet at Cadiz, driving off the English ships which were watching that port. The united Franco-Spanish armament was then to sail right across the Atlantic, to the West Indies, as if to attack our colonies there. But the real object of this demonstration was to entice Nelson, who was certain to chase them when he found their route, far away from Europe. For when they had reached the West Indies, the allied fleet were to turn sharply back again, and steer across the Atlantic for Brest, where they would find another large French fleet, blockaded by Admiral Cornwallis and the English Channel squadron. Villeneuve, as the Emperor calculated, would be able to deliver the Brest fleet some weeks before Nelson could appear in Europe. He would then have seventy ships to oppose the thirty-five with which England guarded the Channel, and with such overwhelming superiority would be able to clear the Dover Straits, and convoy across the army which had been waiting so long at Boulogne.
Villeneuve escapes to the West Indies.
In the first part of this great naval campaign, the Emperor's elaborate scheme worked well. Villeneuve slipped out of Toulon while Nelson's fleet was blown away by rough weather. He hurried away to Cadiz, liberated the Spaniards there, and was off to the West Indies before Nelson could find out what had become of him. Very tardily the great English admiral discovered his route, and hurried across the Atlantic in pursuit. In due pursuance of the scheme of Napoleon, Villeneuve turned back and steered for Brest, while his pursuer was seeking him off Barbados.