There were several serious uncertainties in the scheme. What retaliation would England make? Could Napoleon and Alexander agree long enough to succeed in dividing the valuable portions of the continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa? Would the nations cheerfully give up the English cottons and tweeds they had been buying, the boots they had been wearing, the cutlery and dishes they had been using? Would they cheerfully see their own products lie uncalled for in their warehouses, for the sake of aiding a foreign monarch—although the most brilliant and powerful on earth—to carry out a vast plan for crushing an enemy who was not their enemy? It remained to be seen.
In the meantime there was the small part of the coast line remaining independent to be joined to the portion already blockaded to the English. There was no delay in Napoleon’s action. Denmark was ordered to choose between war with England and war with France. Portugal was notified that if her ports were not closed in forty days the French and Spanish armies would invade her. England gave a drastic reply to Napoleon’s measures. In August she appeared before Copenhagen, seized the Danish fleet, and for three days bombarded the town. This unjustifiable attack on a nation with which she was at peace horrified Europe, and it supported the emperor in pushing to the uttermost the Berlin Decree. He made no secret of his determination. In a diplomatic audience at Fontainebleau, October 14, 1807, he declared:
“Great Britain shall be destroyed. I have the means of doing it, and they shall be employed. I have three hundred thousand men devoted to this object, and an ally who has three hundred thousand to support them. I will permit no nation to receive a minister from Great Britain until she shall have renounced her maritime usages and tyranny; and I desire you, gentlemen, to convey this determination to your respective sovereigns.”
Such an alarming extent did the blockade threaten to take, that even our minister to France, Mr. Armstrong, began to be nervous. His diplomatic acquaintances told him cynically, “You are much favored, but it won’t last;” and, in fact, it was not long before it was evident that the United States was not to be allowed to remain neutral. Napoleon’s notice to Mr. Armstrong was clear and decisive:
“Since America suffers her vessels to be searched, she adopts the principle that the flag does not cover the goods. Since she recognizes the absurd blockades laid by England, consents to having her vessels incessantly stopped, sent to England, and so turned aside from their course, why should the Americans not suffer the blockade laid by France? Certainly France is no more blockaded by England than England by France. Why should Americans not equally suffer their vessels to be searched by French ships? Certainly France recognizes that these measures are unjust, illegal, and subversive of national sovereignty; but it is the duty of nations to resort to force, and to declare themselves against things which dishonor them and disgrace their independence.”
The attempt to force Portugal to close her ports caused war. In all but one particular she had obeyed Napoleon’s orders: she had closed her ports, detained all Englishmen in her borders, declared war; but her king refused to confiscate the property of British subjects in Portugal. This evasion furnished Napoleon an excuse for refusing to believe in the sincerity of her pretensions. “Continue your march,” he wrote to Junot, who had been ordered into the country a few days before (October 12, 1807). “I have reason to believe that there is an understanding with England, so as to give the British troops time to arrive from Copenhagen.”
Without waiting for the results of the invasion, he and the King of Spain divided up Portugal between them. If their action was premature, Portugal did nothing to gainsay them; for when Junot arrived at Lisbon in December, he found the country without a government, the royal family having fled in fright to Brazil. There was only one thing now to be done; Junot must so establish himself as to hold the country against the English, who naturally would resent the injury done their ally. From St. Petersburg to Trieste, Napoleon now held the seaboard.
But he was not satisfied. Spain was between him and Portugal. If he was going to rule Western Europe he ought to possess her. There is no space here to trace the intrigues with the weak and vicious factions of the Spanish court, which ended in Napoleon’s persuading Charles IV. to cede his rights to the Spanish throne and to become his pensioner, and Ferdinand, the heir apparent, to abdicate; and which placed Joseph Bonaparte, King of Naples, on the Spanish throne, and put Murat, Charlotte Bonaparte’s husband, in Joseph’s place.
From beginning to end the transfer of the Spanish crown from Bourbon to Bonaparte was dishonorable and unjustifiable. It is true that the government of Spain was corrupt. No greater mismanagement could be conceived, no more scandalous court. Unquestionably the country would have been far better off under Napoleonic institutions. But to despoil Spain was to be false to an ally which had served him for years with fidelity, and at an awful cost to herself. It is true that her service had been through fear, not love. It is true that at one critical moment (when Napoleon was in Poland, in 1807) she had tried to escape; but, nevertheless, it remained a fact that for France Spain had lost colonies, sacrificed men and money, and had seen her fleet go down at Trafalgar. In taking her throne, Napoleon had none of the excuses which had justified him in interfering in Italy, in Germany, in Holland, in Switzerland. This was not a conquest of war, not confiscation on account of the perfidy of an ally, not an attempt to answer the prayers of a people for a more liberal government.
If Spain had submitted to the change, she would have been purchasing good government at the price of national honor. But Spain did not submit. She, as well as all disinterested lookers-on in Europe, was revolted by the baseness of the deed. No one has ever explained better the feeling which the intrigues over the Spanish throne caused than Napoleon himself: