After the dissolution in the preceding year, the ministry made an appeal to the electors, and were beaten. They were dismissed and replaced by the Tories, who in their turn again appealed to the country. The new Parliament, ardently conservative, united itself with the friends and disciples of Mr. Pitt. Mr. Canning was placed at the head of Foreign Affairs, Lord Castlereagh became Minister of War, and the Duke of Portland First Lord of the Treasury. Lord Eldon was Chancellor, and Lord Hawkesbury was made Minister of the Interior.
Moderate in its political principles, and more pronounced in its ecclesiastical and protestant convictions, the new cabinet was in sympathy with the sovereign, and from the first Lord Harrowby indicated to Parliament the confidence the king felt in the counsellors that he had chosen. The maritime expeditions planned by the Grenville ministry had not succeeded either in South America or against Turkey. The victories of Eylan, of Dantzic, and of Friedland, had just terminated in the peace of Tilsit, concluded on the 7th and 9th of July, 1807, between France, Russia and Prussia. England remained alone, delivered from the prospect of invasion, but virtually isolated in consequence of the continental blockade, confirmed by the articles sighed at Tilset. The Emperor Alexander, young, ardent, and credulous, allowed himself to be seduced by the flattering advances and apparent generosity of Napoleon. He engaged to serve as mediator between France and England, and in case the latter refused to accept the conditions offered by the French Emperor, Russia was to join her forces to those of France, and immediately declare war against Great Britain. Louis Bonaparte was recognized as king of Holland. The kingdom of Westphalia, detached from the Prussian provinces, became the appenage of Prince Jerome.
England meanwhile did not remain idle, but prepared herself to strike an effective blow. Denmark had remained neutral, but was believed, in London, to be hostile to British interests; her feebleness, likewise, placed her at the mercy of her powerful neighbors, Holland, France or Russia. Lord Cathcart and Sir Arthur Wellesley were charged to prepare an expedition against Copenhagen. Some negotiations preceded the armed demonstration. The Crown Prince smiled bitterly at the offers of assistance from Mr. Jackson, the English envoy: "You offer us your alliance," said he; "we know what it is worth. A year ago, when your allies waited in vain for your assistance, we learned to estimate at its just value the friendship of England."
The British fleet appeared before Copenhagen on the 17th of August, 1807. A proclamation invited the Danes to place themselves under the protection of England. Neutrality was no longer possible, and their arms were in danger of being turned against their natural allies. The Danish government responded by seizing the merchant vessels belonging to the English.
The bombardment of the capital began on the 2nd of September, 1807. All the advanced positions were occupied by the English troops, and on the 7th a capitulation was signed. The entire Danish navy fell into the hands of the English. It was the purpose of one of the secret articles of the treaty of Tilsit to place it at the service of Napoleon. The anger of the French was great, and the news of commercial reprisals, decreed at London, by order of the Council (November 11th, 1807), increased it. France, and the countries subject to her, were declared in a state of blockade, and all ships engaged in commerce with them, were subject to the right of seizure. A new decree of Napoleon, dated at Milan, the 17th of December, 1807, extended this imprudent and violent measure to all the English possessions upon the surface of the globe. The United States of America, the only maritime power remaining neutral, had the embargo also laid on her, and henceforward the commerce of the world was suddenly destroyed or condemned to the perilous condition of piracy. All rights and all interests were for a time disregarded.
It is sometimes the glory of a feeble and courageous people, to accept tyranny for a time. Charles IV., King of Spain, had bowed to the yoke of revolutionary and absolute France. The Spanish nation, however, was weary of bearing the burdens and fighting the battles of a foreign master, under the name of its legitimate sovereign. On the 17th of March, 1808, a popular insurrection dethroned the feeble monarch and his servile favorite, Godoy, as they were preparing to flee to America. Prince Ferdinand, drawn to the opposition by his hatred of the Prince of Peace (Godoy), was proclaimed king, after the abdication of his father. The army of General Junot already occupied Portugal, and Murat had established himself at Burgos, as lieutenant of the emperor; he marched upon Madrid, of which he soon became master, deceiving and abusing, in turn, both the father and the son, the dethroned sovereign and the new monarch. General Savary came to second Murat in his diplomatic mission. His address and his promises drew Ferdinand to Bayonne. The emperor was already there. The Prince expected to be recognized as King of Spain, but instead found himself a prisoner, carefully guarded. The demands of Napoleon were peremptory: it was necessary, he said, to be assured of the co-operation of Spain, and in consequence he had decided to place upon the throne a prince of his own blood. Ferdinand's renunciation of the throne was the price of his liberty. He resisted. The intrigues of the Prince of Peace, who had been delivered from prison by order of Napoleon, brought to Bayonne the old King Charles IV. who protested against his own abdication and the coronation of his son; at the same time he ceded the crown of Spain and the Indies to his faithful ally, the emperor of the French, to be disposed of at his convenience, with the only conditions, that the same monarch should not reign at one time at both Paris and Madrid, and also that the Catholic religion should remain sovereign and supreme in Spain. The compensations offered by Napoleon to the princes that he had betrayed, were: the estates of Navarre and Chambord, the use of the palace at Compiègne, a civil list, the preservation of their personal treasures, and the society of the Prince Talleyrand at Valencay. "That which I have done here, is not politic from a certain point of view," said Napoleon himself, "but necessity demands that I do not leave in my rear, so near Paris, a dynasty hostile to me."
Riots and bloodshed took place at Madrid. A Spanish insurrection resisted the authority of Murat, whom Charles IV. had designated as his lieutenant. The Council of Spain hesitated, troubled by the prospect of war, and ashamed to proclaim the overthrow of the House of Bourbon. On the 6th of June, nevertheless, Joseph Bonaparte was declared King of Spain, to the great discontent of Murat, who had counted upon receiving the kingdom which he had secured for Napoleon. The crown of Naples was soon to soften his regrets, without, however, removing all bitterness. On the 20th of July, the new sovereign entered Madrid.
A national Junta organized itself at Seville, renewing the oath of allegiance to Ferdinand VII. General Castanos, who commanded an army of 20,000 men in Andalusia, announced his resolution of remaining faithful to the exiled dynasty. He entered into negotiations with Sir Hugh Dalrymple, the English Governor of Gibraltar, and a subscription from English merchants furnished the first funds necessary. A tardy dispatch from Lord Castlereagh announced a succor of ten thousand English troops. Lord Collingwood took the command of the fleet that was to proceed to Cadiz. Some days after the proclamation of Joseph Bonaparte, even before he had placed a foot upon Spanish soil, the peninsula became the theatre of a war which was to become as sanguinary as desperate. Ninety-two thousand Spaniards, of whom one-third were militia, sustained the rights of the House of Bourbon, and the national independence. A French army of eighty thousand soldiers overran the kingdom. Junot occupied Portugal with thirty thousand men. At Bayonne, Druot, with a reserve of twenty thousand troops, was ready to march. On the 14th of June, 1808, the first serious engagement took place near Valladolid, between Marshal Bessières and the old General Cuesta. The Spaniards were defeated. The same day they avenged themselves at Cadiz, by seizing the French fleet in that port.