England was suffering from a scarcity of food which threatened to become a famine, constantly made worse by the hindrances put in the way of her commerce. The difficulties of the home government increased those of the diplomatic and military isolation which she underwent in Europe. At the moment of the conclusion of the Treaty of Union, Pitt had entered upon engagements with the Irish Catholics which he felt himself bound to fulfil. The conscientious but shortsighted and narrow-minded George III. opposed every act of toleration with respect to his Catholic subjects: he refused to give his assent, and Pitt by resigning his post sacrificed, at a perilous crisis for his country, foreign policy to the duties and obligations of parliamentary tactics. The reason of King George, already tottering, was unable to undergo so much agitation; he remained faithful to his convictions, but was for a short time out of his mind. When he regained his faculties, Pitt, who was moved to the heart by the trouble which he had caused to his aged king, and disturbed by the evils which threatened England under the regency of the Prince of Wales, undertook never to raise the question of the emancipation of the Catholics during the life of George III. He had no seat, however, in the new cabinet, which was obviously incapable, and unequal to the difficult task which it had undertaken, and in their earlier proceedings still influenced by Pitt's action, and following the line of policy which he had traced. Scarcely had Addington become prime minister, when an attempt which had long been projected against Denmark was put in execution. Nelson had charge of it under the superior command of Sir Hyde Parker, who was above him in the order of seniority. "This is no time to feel nervous," said Nelson to his superior as they were setting sail. "Dark nights and mountains of ice matter little; we must take courage to meet the enemy."
Having passed the Sound, the English squadron blockaded the fleet which covered Copenhagen. The Danes made an heroic defence, and the old Admiral Parker, somewhat alarmed, gave the signal for the action to cease. "I'll be d——d first!" cried Nelson in a passion: "I have the right of seeing badly"—putting his telescope to the eye which he had lost at Aboukir. "I don't see the signal. Nail mine to the mast. Let them press closer on the enemy. That's my reply to such signalling." It was Nelson, moreover, who, when the battle was gained, arranged with the Prince Royal of Denmark the terms of the armistice which separated his country from the number of the neutral states.
Almost at the same moment the coalition of maritime powers underwent a more fatal check. For several months the strange workings of the mind of the Emperor Paul I. had become more obvious. Everybody trembled before him, and even the empress, as well as her sons, had been threatened with banishment to Siberia. A caricature was published representing the Czar holding in one hand a paper on which was written the word "order;" in the other, the word "counter-order;" on his forehead was read the word "disorder." A conspiracy was formed, including the principal nobles and the most intimate members of his household. "They are conspiring against me, Pahlen," said the emperor to the Governor of St. Petersburg. "Let your Majesty's mind be easy," replied the Russian, coolly; "I am up to them." He really was so, and on the night of the 23rd March, 1801, he entered the Michael palace with the conspirators. The next in importance to him, General Benningsen, had afterwards the honor of fighting bravely against the Emperor Napoleon when subduing Poland; he was already distinguished, and had been decorated with all the orders of the empire. On making his way to the bedroom of the Czar, who was asleep, the two Hungarians who formed the only guard ran away after striking one or two blows; the palace-guard were already on an understanding with the conspirators. The unfortunate Czar, pursued by the assassins, took refuge behind a screen. Benningsen observing him held out a paper: "There is your act of abdication," said he; "sign it and I answer for your life." The emperor resisted; the conspirators crowded into the room; the lamp fell and was extinguished, and in that moment of darkness a scarf was tightened round the neck of Paul I., and he was struck on the head with the pummel of a sword. When a light was brought in he was dead.
Count Pahlen had not entered the room, being engaged in guarding the doors with a troop of soldiers: he went to call on the new emperor. Alexander was not ignorant of the plot formed to force from his father an abdication which had become necessary; but he had not considered, and did not anticipate, the fatal consequences of that enterprise. Pahlen's silence was the only reply to his questions about the Czar: the young man burst into tears, hiding his face in his hands and heaping reproaches upon the Governor of St. Petersburg, who still remained motionless before him. But by this time the empress, out of her mind from sorrow, and suddenly seized with an ill-regulated ambition, sent to announce to her son that she was resolved to take possession of the power. Count Pahlen at once threw off his apathy. "Enough of childish tears," said he to the young emperor; "now, come and reign!" He then presented him to the troops, by whom he was well received.
A few days afterwards the Emperor Alexander was crowned. "Before him marched his grandfather's murderers," wrote Madame de Bonneuil, "beside him those of his father, and behind him his own." Count Pahlen's ambition was to govern the young monarch, but he was not to reap the fruits of his crime. The empress-mother insisted upon the banishment of the murderers of Paul I. In the retirement of his country estate, where he lived a long time, the count on the 23rd of March made himself drunk from daybreak, in order to pass in oblivion the dreaded anniversary which awoke in his mind a remorse which was only slumbering. "That's the regular mode of deposition in Russia," said Talleyrand, cynically, on hearing of the emperor's assassination. The First Consul's anger overcame his judgment. "The wretches!" he exclaimed; "they failed here on the 3rd Nivôse, but they have not failed in St. Petersburg." And bent on showing his spite towards his enemies, he had the following note inserted in the Moniteur: "Paul I. died on the night of the 23rd March, and the English squadron passed the Sound on the 31st. History will inform us the relation that possibly exists between these two events."
History has done justice to those false insinuations, unworthy even of him who pronounced them. Admiral Nelson felt no joy at the death of the Emperor Paul, which finally broke the league of the neutrals, and deprived him of the easy triumph which he made sure of gaining over the Russian fleet. It was of service, however, to England, and contributed to assist the wish for peace which was beginning to be awakened in the mind of the First Consul. Scarcely was the Emperor of Russia dead, when Piedmont, long protected by his favor, was reduced to the condition of a French department: but it was in vain that Bonaparte pretended to reckon on the alliance of the young Czar, in vain that Duroc was despatched to St. Petersburg with a mission of confidence; he was not deceived as to the Emperor Alexander's leaning to ally himself with England. In fact, M. Otto, who had been sent to London to arrange the exchange of prisoners, had already several weeks previously been authorized to meet favorably the advances made by Lord Hawkesbury, then the foreign minister. On both sides they tried to gain time. The great question which then separated France and England, the possession of Egypt, remained undecided, and both sides determined that it should be settled. On the 7th of March, 1801, the English squadron of the Mediterranean, which was long stationed at Mahon, and had recently been directed towards Malta, suddenly disembarked a body of 18,000 soldiers under the orders of Sir Ralph Abercromby. Thus, with a Turkish contingent and the regiments of sepoys brought from India, there were 60,000 men united against the army of occupation, which was reduced to 15,000 or 18,000 soldiers, commanded by dissatisfied officers, and generals who could not act together. Unfortunate in his relations to his colleagues, and showing little tact in his application of European methods of organization to the native population, General Menou was unable to take the necessary precautions against the English invasion of Egypt; and in spite of his bravery, General Friant, who was in charge of 15,000 men defending Alexandria, could make only a feeble resistance to the landing of the English. Assisted by General Lanusse, he again joined battle, 13th March, on the road to Ramanièh; while General Menou—"Abdallah Menou," as his soldiers called him after he became a Mussulman—was on march with all his troops to assist Alexandria. After committing the fault of allowing the English army to land, it was necessary to make haste to fight it before it should have received the expected reinforcements. The battle of Canopa was fought on the 21st March under disadvantageous circumstances; and General Lanusse being killed in the action, General Reynier's disposition prevented his supplying his chief's incapacity. The battle, though remaining indecisive, left the English masters of the coast, and constantly revictualled by the fleet.
For more than two months, the French army hoped and waited for the assistance which had been promised them. Admiral Ganteaume, provided with the best vessels of our navy, a body of picked soldiers, and supplies and resources of every kind, had in fact set sail on the 23rd January, leaving Brest in the midst of a frightful tempest in the hopes of escaping the English cruisers. After being beaten about and somewhat damaged by the sea, the French vessels made for the Straits of Gibraltar, without any accident except a short engagement between the frigate "Bravoure" and an English one. The admiral hesitated; in spite of his personal courage, he felt loaded with too great a responsibility. Bringing back his squadron almost within view of Toulon, he thought he saw Mahon's English fleet making straight for him, and as the struggle threatened to be unequal he returned into the harbor of Toulon. Leaving it on the 19th of March, after his vessels were repaired and urgent orders were received from the First Consul, he again delayed, on account of an accident which had happened to one of his ships, and it was only on the 22nd that he finally put to sea. On the 26th he was delayed by the collision of two vessels at Cape Carbonara in Sardinia, and becoming discouraged and uneasy, the admiral again entered Toulon on the 5th of April, at the moment when the English fleet were passing Rosetta. The town was badly defended and fell into the hands of the enemies, who thus became masters of the mouth of the Nile; and sending some gun-boats up as far as Fouèh, they soon took it. Generals Lagrange and Morand held Ramanièh; and Menou delaying to lend the assistance which he promised, Lagrange fell back upon Cairo, and communication with Alexandria was interrupted. General Billiard, who commanded in the capital of Egypt, made a sally to repulse the vizier's troops; but in spite of several skirmishes he could not reach the main body of the army, and returning to the town, he offered to capitulate. The English were anxious to finish, being afraid of one of those strokes of good fortune to which the French arms had so often owed their success. The most honorable conditions were granted to the army, the troops evacuating Egypt being carried back to France at the expense of England, and in their vessels (27th June, 1801). Almost at the same moment (24th June), Admiral Ganteaume, with his squadron reduced by sickness, at last anchored before Derne, several marches from Alexandria; but as the people on the coast opposed his landing, and the undertaking was hazardous and the land route difficult, he again put to sea, thinking himself fortunate in finding in the Straits at Candia an English ship, which he captured and brought triumphantly to Toulon. General Menou, now alone, and shut up in Alexandria, obstinately and heroically resisted in vain. When at last he surrendered, he had been long forgotten in his isolation. Thus though Bonaparte's thoughts often went back to that famous and chimerical conquest of his youth, Egypt was definitively lost to France.
The negotiations with England had undergone the fluctuations inseparable from the vicissitudes of a distant war, the events of which remained still doubtful in Europe several weeks after their occurrence. The successes gained by Admiral Linois against the English before Algesiras and Cadiz, and the danger of Portugal threatened by the Spanish army, had their influence no doubt upon the English cabinet, but it was still haughty and exacting. The First Consul himself drew up a minute for the minister of foreign affairs, giving an abstract of the concessions which he was disposed to accept. "The French Government wishes to overlook nothing which may lead to a general peace, that being for the interests both of humanity and of the allies. It is for the King of England to consider if it is also for the interests of his policy, his commerce, and his nation: and if so, a distant island more or less can be no sufficient reason for prolonging the unhappiness of the world.
"The question consists of three points: the Mediterranean—the Indies—
America.
"Egypt will be restored to the Porte.