In January, 1801, the first imperial parliament of Great Britain and Ireland assembled; and, shortly afterwards, in consequence of a difference of opinion, touching the Roman Catholic Question, between George III. and Mr. Pitt, that great minister resigned his office, and a new cabinet was formed, with Mr. Addington (afterwards Viscount Sidmouth) at its head. These changes were a new source of embarrassment; yet the prosecution of the war was urged with undiminished vigour.
Early in March, Admiral Sir Hyde Parker and Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson conducted a fleet into the Baltic, with the view of attacking the northern powers in their own harbours, ere they could effect their meditated junction with the fleets of France and Holland. The English passed the Sound on the 13th of March, and reconnoitred the road of Copenhagen, where the Crown-Prince, Regent of Denmark, had made formidable preparations to receive them. It was on the 2nd of April that Nelson, who had volunteered to lead the assault, having at length obtained a favourable wind, advanced with twelve ships of the line, besides frigates and fire-ships, upon the Danish armament, which consisted of six sail of the line, eleven floating batteries, and an enormous array of small craft, all chained to each other and to the ground, and protected by the Crown-batteries, mounting eighty-eight guns, and the fortifications of the isle of Amack. The battle lasted for four hours, and ended in a signal victory. Some few schooners and bomb-vessels fled early, and escaped: the whole Danish fleet besides were sunk, burnt, or taken. The Prince Regent, to save the capital from destruction, was compelled to enter into a negotiation, which ended in the abandonment of the French alliance by Denmark. Lord Nelson then reconnoitred Stockholm; but, being unwilling to inflict unnecessary suffering, did not injure the city, on discovering that the Swedish fleet had already put to sea. Meantime, news arrived that Paul had been assassinated in his palace at St. Petersburg; and that the policy which he had adopted, to the displeasure of the Russian nobility, was likely to find no favour with his successor. The moving spirit of the northern confederacy was, in effect, no more, and a brief negotiation ended in its total disrupture.[41]
In the same month of March the British arms were crowned with a more pleasing triumph in a more distant region. From the time when Buonaparte landed in Egypt, the occupation of that country by a French army, and its possible consequences to our empire in the East, had formed a subject of anxious solicitude in the cabinet of St. James's; and the means for attacking the army which Napoleon had entrusted to Kleber, had, at length, been combined and set in motion, in opposition to the sentiments both of the King and Mr. Pitt, by the bold spirit of Lord Melville, then at the head of the Indian Board of Control. The fleet of Lord Keith, carrying Sir Ralph Abercrombie and his army, were already in possession of Malta; another army of 7000, composed partly of English troops and partly of sepoys, had been dispatched from India, and approached Egypt by the way of the Red Sea; and, lastly, the Ottoman Porte was prepared to co-operate with General Abercrombie, whenever he should effect a landing in the neighbourhood of Alexandria. That event occurred on the 13th of March, the British troops disembarking in the face of the French, who were very strongly posted; and, at length, driving them from the shore. On the 21st a general engagement took place in front of Alexandria; and Sir Ralph Abercrombie fell, mortally wounded, in the moment of victory. General Hutchinson (afterwards Earl of Donoughmore), on whom the command devolved, pursued the advantage. Kleber, who by his excellent administration had earned the title of the Just Sultan, had been assassinated by an obscure fanatic on the same day when Dessaix died gloriously at Marengo; and Menou, who succeeded to the command of the French army in Egypt, was found wholly incapable of conducting either the civil or the military business of the colony to advantage. He shut himself up in Alexandria with the relics of the army defeated on the 21st. The English, forthwith, let the sea into the lake Maréotis: the capital was thus made an island, and all communication with the country cut off. Hutchinson was now joined by the Turkish Capitan-pasha and 6000 men; and intelligence reached him that the Indian reinforcement, under General Baird, had landed at Cossire. Rosetta was soon captured; and, after various skirmishes, Cairo was invested. On the 28th of June General Belliard and a garrison of 13,000 surrendered, on condition that they should be transported in safety to France: and Menou, perceiving that defence was hopeless and famine at hand, followed, ere long, the same example. Thus, in one brief campaign, was Egypt entirely rescued from the arms of France. But even that great advantage was a trifle, when compared with the stimulus afforded to national confidence at home, by this timely re-assertion of the character of the English army. At sea we had never feared an enemy; but the victories of Abercrombie destroyed a fatal prejudice which had, of recent days, gained ground,—that the military of Great Britain were unfit to cope with those of revolutionary France. Nor should it be forgotten, that if Abercrombie had the glory of first leading English soldiers to victory over the self-styled Invincibles of Buonaparte, he owed the means of his success to the admirable exertions of the Duke of York, in reforming the discipline of the service as commander-in-chief.
On learning the fate of Egypt, Buonaparte exclaimed, "Well, there remains only the descent on Britain;" and, in the course of a few weeks, not less than 100,000 troops were assembled on the coasts of France. An immense flotilla of flat-bottomed boats was prepared to carry them across the Channel, whenever, by any favourable accident, it should be clear of the English fleets; and both the soldiery and the seamen of the invading armament were trained and practised incessantly, in every exercise and manœuvre likely to be of avail when that long-looked-for day should arrive. These preparations were met, as might have been expected, on the part of the English government and nation. Nelson was placed in command of the Channel fleet; and the regular army was reinforced on shore by a multitude of new and enthusiastic volunteers; men of all parties and ranks joining heart and hand in the great and sacred cause. Lord Nelson, more than once, reconnoitred the flotilla assembled at Boulogne, and, at length, attempted the daring movement of cutting out the vessels, in the teeth of all the batteries. The boats being chained to the shore, crowded with soldiery, and placed immediately under the fortifications, the attempt was unsuccessful; but the gallantry with which it was conducted struck new terror into the hearts of the French marine, and, Nelson continuing to watch the Channel with unsleeping vigilance, the hopes of the First Consul, ere long, sunk.
The successes of the English in the Baltic and in Egypt were well calculated to dispose Napoleon for negotiation: and the retirement of Mr. Pitt, who was considered throughout Europe as the author and very soul of the anti-revolutionary war, was not without its influence. On the other hand, Napoleon's mighty successes against the German emperor had been followed up this same year by the march of a French and Spanish army into Portugal, in consequence of which that last ally of England had been compelled to submit to the general fate of the continent. On both sides there existed the strongest motives for accommodation; and, in effect, after a tedious negotiation, the preliminaries of peace were signed, on the 10th of October, at Amiens. By this treaty England surrendered all the conquests which she had made during the war, except Ceylon and Trinidad. France, on the other hand, restored what she had taken from Portugal, and guaranteed the independence of the Ionian Islands. Malta was to be restored to the Knights of St. John, and declared a free port: neither England nor France was to have any representatives in the order; and the garrison was to consist of the troops of a neutral power. This article was that which cost the greatest difficulty—and Malta was destined to form the pretext, at least, for the re-opening of the war at no distant date.
Meantime, except by a small party, who thought that England should never make peace unless the Bourbon family were restored to the throne of France, this news was received with universal satisfaction throughout Great Britain. "It was," as Mr. Sheridan summed up the matter, "a peace which all men were glad of, and of which no man could be proud." The definitive treaty was signed on the 25th of March, 1802: and nothing could surpass the demonstrations of joy on this occasion, both in London and in Paris—or the enthusiastic display of good-will with which the populace of either capital welcomed the plenipotentiaries.