In 1804, at the close of the year, an unsuccessful attack was made on Curaçao. Surinam was occupied in April and May.
In 1806 the Cape was reoccupied.
In 1807 Curaçao was taken at a rush by Captain Brisbane.
In 1808 Marigalante fell into our hands, but an attempt to seize St. Martin ended in the death or capture of all the men landed.
In 1809 Senegal was taken for the express purpose of rooting out the privateers who made it their headquarters. In the West Indies a powerful expedition, carrying 10,000 troops under General Beckwith, escorted by Admiral Cochrane, took Martinique. Cayenne was occupied by a naval brigade, and our old enemy, Victor Hugues, the Governor, became our prisoner.
In 1810 Cochrane and Beckwith took Guadaloupe. In the East, Mauritius was taken, and Amboyna and the Moluccas fell into our hands.
In 1811 the work was completed by the occupation of Java by a large army from India.
These expeditions, which sailed to occupy islands from which attacks could be made on our trade, were not the only tasks imposed on the navy in the interest of commerce. As Napoleon fixed his yoke on Europe, and endeavoured to compel all its peoples to join him in excluding English trade, it became necessary to force an entry to new markets, and to find the means of getting access to the old. It was in order to obtain fresh markets that the expeditions to the river Plate were undertaken in 1806 and 1807. Few passages in history are better fitted to show what is the rigid limit of the power of a fleet than these adventures. The first was promoted by the admiral on the Cape Station, Sir Home Popham. He saw that new markets were becoming necessary, and he knew that the Spanish colonists were discontented. From these sound premises he drew the illegitimate deduction that the people of Buenos Ayres would welcome English rule. He persuaded the authorities at the Cape to despatch troops to Buenos Ayres. The navy carried them there, but it could not save General Beresford and his men from being compelled to capitulate when the townsmen rose on them. The commercial classes in England forced the Government to continue the enterprise begun by Sir Home. Monte Video was occupied, and Buenos Ayres was again attacked in 1807. But our troops, ill-commanded by General Whitelocke, were again forced to surrender. England was on the verge of finding herself committed to a war of conquest in South America, which would have employed her whole disposable army, when the rising of Spain against Napoleon in 1808 gave her an honourable excuse for withdrawing from a compromising adventure.
The eager disposition of the trading classes in England to follow the lead given by Sir Home Popham, was immediately stimulated by Napoleon’s Berlin decree of the 27th October 1806. It was the beginning of a furious rivalry between himself and the British Government, in which each endeavoured to prevent the other from obtaining any benefit from neutral trade. The emperor strove to exclude our commerce, and we to prevent any goods from reaching Europe except through English ports. The neutral was ground between the upper and the nether millstone. The navy was employed in covering a vast contraband trade, which arose inevitably from the natural desire of the inhabitants of Europe to obtain goods they needed, and England’s equally natural desire to sell. There was an element of hypocrisy on both sides, and in practice each undid much of its public policy by an underhand use of a licensed trade. Napoleon undoubtedly employed this device to obtain the very things he pretended to exclude. But he attempted to confine the right to disregard his decrees to himself. Therefore the smuggling trade could not be dispensed with, and it became one of the duties of the navy to shepherd the smugglers. The great field of this peculiar commerce was the Baltic. The Peace of Tilsit, between France and Russia in July 1807, threatened England with a renewal of the Northern Coalition. Her Government, whether informed of the secret articles of the treaty directed against it, or acting, as it was entitled to act, on the certainty that the Emperor of the French would lay hands on any weapon he could reach to be used against England, took prompt measures to diminish the danger. In September it despatched a powerful combined expedition to occupy Copenhagen and seize the Danish fleet. If this vigorous measure requires any justification, one can be found in the paroxysm of rage which it provoked in Napoleon.
The seizure of the Danish fleet entailed a war with Denmark, and during the ensuing years the navy had to fight many sharp actions in order to cover the merchant vessels on their way into and out of the Baltic. When in that sea the trading vessels were frequently compelled to cruise to and fro till they could co-operate with the smugglers on shore, or till the Governments found a way of admitting their goods out of sight of Napoleon’s agents. As Russia was compelled to make believe to go to war with England, and was very seriously engaged in depriving the Swedes of Finland, a brush took place in August 1808. The English fleet co-operated with the inefficient fleet of the Swedes, and escorted the 200 transports carrying English troops, under Sir John Moore, to their assistance. The Russian fleet would not be drawn into a battle, but one of their liners, the Sewolod, 74, was cut off and taken. The Russian crew showed solid courage, but their gunnery was not above the Spanish level. The British fleets remained in the Baltic till the downfall of Napoleon began. The service was trying, and the loss from shipwreck was at times severe. But the work was mainly political, apart from the obligation to protect the traders from privateers sailing from ports under French control. Among the political duties discharged was one which demonstrated the scope of the navy’s power. Napoleon had compelled the Spanish Government to supply him with a body of troops for use in Germany—for he was as hard put to it to find men for the vast armies his victories compelled him to maintain, as the British Government was to keep up the establishment of its navy. He had stationed the Spaniards in Denmark, and they were there when their country rose against the French in 1808. The British Government found means to inform the Spanish general, Romana, of what had taken place. He concentrated the greater part of his men, by forced marches in August, at Nyborg in Fünen, and embarked them on board an English squadron commanded by Sir R. Keats. They were sent on to Spain.